1Now, brothers, concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him, we ask you
2not to be quickly shaken in your mind or troubled, either by spirit or by word or by letter as if from us, saying that the day of Christ has already come.
3Let no one deceive you in any way. For it will not be unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of sin is revealed, the son of destruction.
4He opposes and exalts himself against all that is called God or that is worshiped, so that he sits as God in the temple of God, setting himself up as God.
5Don’t you remember that when I was still with you, I told you these things?
6Now you know what is restraining him, to the end that he may be revealed in his own season.
7For the mystery of lawlessness already works. Only there is one who restrains now, until he is taken out of the way.
8Then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord will kill with the breath of his mouth and destroy by the manifestation of his coming;
9even he whose coming is according to the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10and with all deception of wickedness for those who are being lost, because they didn’t receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11Because of this, God sends them a powerful delusion, that they should believe a lie,
12that they all might be judged who didn’t believe the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.
Luke 11.42-46 (Gospel)
42But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, but you bypass justice and God’s love. You ought to have done these, and not to have left the other undone.
43Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and the greetings in the marketplaces.
44Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like hidden graves, and the men who walk over them don’t know it.”
45One of the lawyers answered him, “Teacher, in saying this you insult us also.”
46He said, “Woe to you lawyers also! For you load men with burdens that are difficult to carry, and you yourselves won’t even lift one finger to help carry those burdens.
Commemorations
Hieromartyr Zenobius and His Sister Zenobia
These two holy ones were brother and sister, living the city of Aegea in Cilicia. When their parents died, they gave all their possessions to the poor. Zenobius, a physician, gave his healing services for free to all who came to him, often relying more upon the holy Name of Jesus than upon medicines. In time, he became Bishop of Aegea. During the persecutions under the Emperor Diocletian, Zenobius was arrested and brought before the governor Lysias, who demanded that he deny Christ and worship the idols. When Zenobius refused, he was subjected to torture. Zenobia, hearing of this, rushed to be with him and openly rebuked the governor. The two were then tortured together and finally beheaded, faithful to their Lord to the end.
Holy Apostle Cleopas
He is numbered among the Seventy. On the day of the Resurrection, Cleopas and St Luke were walking on the road from Jerusalem to Emmaus when the Risen Christ appeared to them, as recounted in the twenty-fourth chapter of St Luke’s Gospel.
The Gospel account does not name St Cleopas’ companion, but the holy tradition of the Church tells us that it was St Luke himself, and thus that the story is a first-hand account.
St Joseph I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1283)
Once a married priest, he entered monastic life when his wife died, and became the spiritual father of the Emperor Michael VIII Paleologus, during whose reign he was elevated to the Patriarchate. Despite this patronage, St Joseph’s integrity was inviolable: At his first Divine Liturgy as Patriarch, he required the Emperor publicly to confess and repent of several sins before admitting him to Communion. He fiercely opposed the Emperor’s expedient policy of union with Rome, and was therefore deposed, retiring once more to monastic life. In old age, he was restored to the Patriarchal throne upon the death of Emperor Michael, but died a few months later.
Holy Martyr Hermengild, Prince of the Visigoths (486)
He was the son and appointed heir of Leuvgild, King of the Visigoths, who had embraced the Christianity of the Arian heretics. But through the teaching of Bishop Leander of Seville (February 27), Hermengild was converted to the fullness of the Orthodox faith, for which his father the King had him thrown in prison. On the day of Pascha 486, the King sent one of his priests to give his son communion. But Hermengild refused, proclaiming that to commune with heretics is to assent to their belief and to sink into their error; going further, he told the priest that the heretics’ communion was nothing but bread and wine, for the Body and Blood of Christ are found only in the Offering made by the Church. The enraged King sent soldiers, who at his orders put his own son to death. Later, the King repented of this inhuman deed and asked Bishop Leander to instruct his youngest son Recared in the Orthodox faith. Thus the Visigoth people was brought into the Faith.
Holy Hieromartyr John Kochurov, First Hieromartyr of the Russian Revolution (1917)
He was born in Russia in 1871, and as a young priest was sent to America as a missionary. There he worked zealously (he was instrumental in the building of the Orthodox cathedral in Chicago) until he was called back to Russia just before the October Revolution in 1917. Only six days after the Bolsheviks seized power, he was beaten to death in the street by a gang of Bolshevik sailors in Tsarskoye Selo near St Petersburg. Thus he became the first of countless Priest-Martyrs of Russia’s atheist yoke.