Acts 8.26-39 (Epistle)

26Then an angel of the Lord spoke to Philip, saying, “Arise, and go toward the south to the way that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert.”

27He arose and went; and behold, there was a man of Ethiopia, a eunuch of great authority under Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was over all her treasure, who had come to Jerusalem to worship. 28He was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah.

29The Spirit said to Philip, “Go near, and join yourself to this chariot.”

30Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”

31He said, “How can I, unless someone explains it to me?” He begged Philip to come up and sit with him. 32Now the passage of the Scripture which he was reading was this, “He was led as a sheep to the slaughter. As a lamb before his shearer is silent, so he doesn’t open his mouth. 33In his humiliation, his judgment was taken away. Who will declare His generation? For his life is taken from the earth.”

34The eunuch answered Philip, “Who is the prophet talking about? About himself, or about someone else?”

35Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture, preached to him about Jesus. 36As they went on the way, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Behold, here is water. What is keeping me from being baptized?”

37 38He commanded the chariot to stand still, and they both went down into the water, both Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him.

39When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught Philip away, and the eunuch didn’t see him any more, for he went on his way rejoicing.

John 6.40-44 (Gospel)

40This is the will of the one who sent me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day.”

41The Jews therefore murmured concerning him, because he said, “I am the bread which came down out of heaven.” 42They said, “Isn’t this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How then does he say, ‘I have come down out of heaven’?”

43Therefore Jesus answered them, “Don’t murmur among yourselves. 44No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up in the last day.

Hieromartyr Simeon, Kinsman of the Lord

He was the nephew of Joseph the Betrothed, and one of the Seventy. When the Apostle James, first Bishop of Jerusalem, was martyred, St Symeon was named to replace him. As second Bishop of Jerusalem he governed the Church there to a very great age. In the time of the Emperor Trajan a persecution broke out in Palestine against both Christians and Jews; Symeon was condemned on both counts, and was privileged to die, like his Lord, by crucifixion. He was 120 years old.

Our Holy Father Stephen, Abbot of the Kiev Caves and Bishop of Vladimir (1094)

He was a disciple of St Theodosius of the Kiev Caves (commemorated May 3), and became abbot of the Monastery of the Caves. After many years of faithful service he fell victim to the intrigues of a monk against him, lost his abbacy and was even driven from the monastery. In God’s time the holy monk was vindicated and made Bishop of Vladimir. There he guided the Church for many years, reposing peacefully in old age in 1094.

Burning of the relics of St Sava I of Serbia by the Turks (1594)

At the time of the Turkish occupation, so many Serbian Christians gathered around the relics of St Sava (at Mileseva), pleading for his intercession, that the Ottoman ruler, Sinan Pasha, feared that the relics would become the focus of a popular rebellion. He therefore had the relics brought to Belgrade and burned. The Pasha is long gone; the Saint continues to intercede for his people and for the world.