Hebrews 3.5-11, 17-19 (Epistle)

5Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken, 6but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end. 7Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice, 8don’t harden your hearts as in the rebellion, in the day of the trial in the wilderness, 9where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years. 10Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’ 11As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’” 17With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? 18To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient? 19We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

Luke 20.27-44 (Gospel)

27Some of the Sadducees came to him, those who deny that there is a resurrection. 28They asked him, “Teacher, Moses wrote to us that if a man’s brother dies having a wife, and he is childless, his brother should take the wife and raise up children for his brother. 29There were therefore seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died childless. 30The second took her as wife, and he died childless. 31The third took her, and likewise the seven all left no children, and died. 32Afterward the woman also died. 33Therefore in the resurrection whose wife of them will she be? For the seven had her as a wife.”

34Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35But those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36For they can’t die any more, for they are like the angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed at the bush, when he called the Lord ‘The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38Now he is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for all are alive to him.”

39Some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you speak well.” 40They didn’t dare to ask him any more questions.

41He said to them, “Why do they say that the Christ is David’s son? 42David himself says in the book of Psalms, ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, 43until I make your enemies the footstool of your feet.”’

44“David therefore calls him Lord, so how is he his son?”

Ven. Patapius of Thebes

He was born at Thebes in Egypt, and at a young age left his pious parents, his inheritance and his acquaintances to dwell in the Egyptian desert, devoting himself to ceaseless prayer. After many years, he reputation spread and, despite his desire for solitude, throngs of pilgrims would seek him out for his prayers and counsel. To escape the attentions of men, he did a surprising thing: he abandoned the desert and moved to Constantinople, settling in the Blachernae district, where, amid the bustle of the city, he was able to pass unnoticed, more secure in his solitude than he had been in the caves of Egypt.

As he grew in obedience to the commandments of Christ, the grace of working miracles grew in him, and once again he gradually became known. Once a blind man cast himself before Patapius on the street, and the Saint cured him instantly by calling on the name of Christ. Once he healed a man crippled by dropsy, anointing him with the oil from a vigil lamp and signing him with the Cross.

After blessing the Church for many years with his prayers and miracles, St Patapius fell asleep in peace, and was buried in the church of the Monastery of the Egyptians near Constantinople. In 1904 his precious and incorrupt relics were uncovered in the course of some building at a small monastery near Corinth. From that time the monastery has been dedicated to St Patapius, and many miracles are worked there.

Holy Apostles Sosthenes, Apollos, Tychicus and Epaphroditus, Cephas and Caesar

All of these Apostles are mentioned in the New Testament. Sosthenes was the ruler of the Synagogue in Corinth, and was converted through the preaching of St Paul. After traveling with St Paul for years, he became Bishop of Colophon near Ephesus. Apollos was a Jew from Alexandria, well educated and with a deep knowledge of the Scriptures. He was brought to the fulness of the Christian faith by Priscilla and Aquila in Ephesus, and went out preaching the Gospel among the pagans. His eloquence was so admired that for awhile the gentile Church divided into two factions, one for Paul and one for Apollos. Saint Apollos later became Bishop of Caesarea.

(The Synaxarion lists Cephas and Caesar here; but some believe that St Paul’s reference to Cephas in 1 Cor 1:12 refers to the Apostle Peter, not to a separate companion of St Paul; and that “those of Caesar’s household” (Phil. 4:22) refers to Christians in the Emperor’s palace in Rome, not to a Christian named Caesar.)