1 John 3.10-20 (Epistle)

10In this the children of God are revealed, and the children of the devil. Whoever doesn’t do righteousness is not of God, neither is he who doesn’t love his brother. 11For this is the message which you heard from the beginning, that we should love one another— 12unlike Cain, who was of the evil one and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s righteous.

13Don’t be surprised, my brothers, if the world hates you. 14We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brothers. He who doesn’t love his brother remains in death. 15Whoever hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life remaining in him.

16By this we know love, because he laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. 17But whoever has the world’s goods and sees his brother in need, then closes his heart of compassion against him, how does God’s love remain in him?

18My little children, let’s not love in word only, or with the tongue only, but in deed and truth. 19And by this we know that we are of the truth and persuade our hearts before him, 20because if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.

Mark 14.10-42 (Gospel)

10Judas Iscariot, who was one of the twelve, went away to the chief priests, that he might deliver him to them. 11They, when they heard it, were glad, and promised to give him money. He sought how he might conveniently deliver him.

12On the first day of unleavened bread, when they sacrificed the Passover, his disciples asked him, “Where do you want us to go and prepare that you may eat the Passover?”

13He sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the city, and there a man carrying a pitcher of water will meet you. Follow him, 14and wherever he enters in, tell the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says, “Where is the guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?”’ 15He will himself show you a large upper room furnished and ready. Get ready for us there.”

16His disciples went out, and came into the city, and found things as he had said to them, and they prepared the Passover.

17When it was evening he came with the twelve. 18As they sat and were eating, Jesus said, “Most certainly I tell you, one of you will betray me—he who eats with me.”

19They began to be sorrowful, and to ask him one by one, “Surely not I?” And another said, “Surely not I?”

20He answered them, “It is one of the twelve, he who dips with me in the dish. 21For the Son of Man goes as it is written about him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would be better for that man if he had not been born.”

22As they were eating, Jesus took bread, and when he had blessed it, he broke it and gave to them, and said, “Take, eat. This is my body.”

23He took the cup, and when he had given thanks, he gave to them. They all drank of it. 24He said to them, “This is my blood of the new covenant, which is poured out for many. 25Most certainly I tell you, I will no more drink of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it anew in God’s Kingdom.” 26When they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.

27Jesus said to them, “All of you will be made to stumble because of me tonight, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’ 28However, after I am raised up, I will go before you into Galilee.”

29But Peter said to him, “Although all will be offended, yet I will not.”

30Jesus said to him, “Most certainly I tell you that you today, even this night, before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.”

31But he spoke all the more, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” They all said the same thing.

32They came to a place which was named Gethsemane. He said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33He took with him Peter, James, and John, and began to be greatly troubled and distressed. 34He said to them, “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death. Stay here and watch.”

35He went forward a little, and fell on the ground, and prayed that if it were possible, the hour might pass away from him. 36He said, “Abba, Father, all things are possible to you. Please remove this cup from me. However, not what I desire, but what you desire.”

37He came and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “Simon, are you sleeping? Couldn’t you watch one hour? 38Watch and pray, that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

39Again he went away and prayed, saying the same words. 40Again he returned and found them sleeping, for their eyes were very heavy; and they didn’t know what to answer him. 41He came the third time and said to them, “Sleep on now, and take your rest. It is enough. The hour has come. Behold, the Son of Man is betrayed into the hands of sinners. 42Arise! Let’s get going. Behold, he who betrays me is at hand.”

Apostle Onesimus of the Seventy

He was a Phrygian by birth, a slave of Philemon, to whom the Apostle Paul addressed his epistle. Onesimos escaped from Philemon and fled to Rome, where he was converted to the Faith by St Paul. St Paul sent him back to his master, who at St Paul’s urging gave him his freedom. He served the Church for many years before dying a martyr, beaten to death with clubs.

Saint Onesimos is also commemorated on November 22, with Sts Philemon, Archippus and Aphia; and on January 4 at the Synaxis of the Seventy Disciples.

Our Venerable Father Dalmatius of Siberia (1697)

Saint Dalmatius is venerated as a pioneer of the movement that took many ascetics to dwell in the wilderness of Siberia, establishing a new company of Desert Fathers and causing the Russian Far North to be called the ‘Northern Thebaid.’ He was born in Tobolsk and reared in piety by his family, recently-converted Tatars. When grown, he entered the imperial army as a Cossack and served with such distinction that the Tsar awarded him a noble title. He married and lived in Tobolsk in comfort and prosperity. One day — after the destruction of Tobolsk in a great fire in 1643 — struck by a realization of the vanity of worldly things, he left family, wealth and property and went to a monastery in the Ural Mountains, taking with him only an icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos.

He was tonsured a monk with the name of Dalmatius, and devoted himself to prayer and ascesis with such fervor that, a short time later, the brethren elected him Abbot. Fearing pride and fleeing honor, Dalmatius fled with his icon of the Theotokos to a remote cave, where he lived a life of silence and continual prayer. His presence did not long remain secret in that sparsely-settled region, and soon Christians were coming from far and wide to ask his prayer and counsel; many pagans came to him for holy Baptism. Soon his habitation became too small for those who had chosen to stay as his disciples, and the Saint received a blessing from the Bishop of Tobolsk to build a wooden chapel and some cells. This was the beginning of the great Monastery of the Dormition (also called the Monastery of St Dalmatius).

Over the years the brethren endured many tribulations. Once the Tatar Prince of the region, provoked by false rumors, planned to destroy the monastery and kill all the monks. The night before the attack, the holy Mother of God appeared to the prince in resplendent clothes, holding a flaming sword in one hand and a scourge in the other. She forbade the Prince to harm the monastery or the brethren, and commanded him to give them a permanent concession over the region. Convinced by this vision, the Prince made peace with the monks and became the Monastery’s protector, though he was a Muslim.

In the succeeding years the Monastery was repeatedly burned down by the fierce pagan tribes which inhabited the area; once all the monks except St Dalmatius himself were butchered, but always the monastery was rebuilt. The Saint reposed in peace in 1697, and was succeeded as abbot by his own son Isaac, who built a stone shrine at the Monastery to house the relics of the Saint and the icon of the Mother of God which he had kept with him throughout his monastic life.

Our Venerable Father Anthimos of Chios (1960)

He was born in 1869 to devout peasants on Chios; he left elementary school early to become a shoemender. At the age of nineteen he visited a monastery (founded by the monk Pachomios, who had been the spiritual counsellor of St Nektarios); he was so moved by the monks’ ‘angelic life’ that on returning home he built himself a small hut and dwelt in it. His only ‘help’ in his spiritual contests was an icon of the Mother of God, which soon began to work miracles, drawing many to his hermitage. After a time he retired to a monastery where he was tonsured under the name Anthimos. He fell ill there, and his abbot sent him home to his parents for the sake of his health. At home, despite the fact that he was caring for his aged parents and practicing his shoemender’s trade, he continued to live as a monk, spending nights on end in prayer and sometimes living only on bread and water for extended periods.

Increasing numbers of visitors came to his hermitage and wonder-working icon of the Theotokos, and in 1910 he received the Great Schema. The people of Chios wanted him to be ordained to the priesthood, but his bishop refused due to the Saint’s lack of education. At the prompting of Anthimos’ godfather, the Bishop of Smyrna ordained him instead. After a pilgrimage to Mt Athos, he returned to Chios, where he became chaplain to a leper hospital. Soon the hospital, which had fallen into corruption, became a spiritual center, as much like a monastery as a hospital. Saint Anthimos tended many of the sickest with his own hands, working many miracles of healing; some of his recovered patients became monks or nuns.

With the notorious ‘Exchange of Populations’ of 1922-1924, refugees poured into Chios, many of them destitute nuns and girls. In response to a vision of the Mother of God, St Anthimos built a monastery, which opened with thirty nuns and grew rapidly, despite the opposition of many who said that setting up such a community was out of date (in 1924!). The monastery soon housed eighty nuns and was known througout Greece as a model of monastic life. Father Anthimos served as priest to the nuns, and continued to receive the many faithful — often sixty or seventy per day — who came to him for prayer or counsel. He carried on this ministry for more than thirty years, working many miracles of healing. When he was too old to work with his hands, he retired to his cell and prayed that he be enabled to serve his neighbor until his last breath. He reposed in peace at the age of ninety-one, mourned and revered by the whole island of Chios.