1 John 4.20-5.21 (Epistle)

20If a man says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who doesn’t love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? 21This commandment we have from him, that he who loves God should also love his brother.

1Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Whoever loves the Father also loves the child who is born of him. 2By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep his commandments. 3For this is loving God, that we keep his commandments. His commandments are not grievous. 4For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world: your faith. 5Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?

6This is he who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and the blood. It is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. 7For there are three who testify: 8the Spirit, the water, and the blood; and the three agree as one. 9If we receive the witness of men, the witness of God is greater; for this is God’s testimony which he has testified concerning his Son. 10He who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. He who doesn’t believe God has made him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given concerning his Son. 11The testimony is this: that God gave to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. 12He who has the Son has the life. He who doesn’t have God’s Son doesn’t have the life.

13These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.

14This is the boldness which we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he listens to us. 15And if we know that he listens to us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of him.

16If anyone sees his brother sinning a sin not leading to death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for those who sin not leading to death. There is sin leading to death. I don’t say that he should make a request concerning this. 17All unrighteousness is sin, and there is sin not leading to death.

18We know that whoever is born of God doesn’t sin, but he who was born of God keeps himself, and the evil one doesn’t touch him. 19We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies in the power of the evil one. 20We know that the Son of God has come and has given us an understanding, that we know him who is true; and we are in him who is true, in his Son Jesus Christ. This is the true God and eternal life.

21Little children, keep yourselves from idols.

Mark 15.1-15 (Gospel)

1Immediately in the morning the chief priests, with the elders, scribes, and the whole council, held a consultation, bound Jesus, carried him away, and delivered him up to Pilate.

2Pilate asked him, “Are you the King of the Jews?” He answered, “So you say.”

3The chief priests accused him of many things. 4Pilate again asked him, “Have you no answer? See how many things they testify against you!”

5But Jesus made no further answer, so that Pilate marveled.

6Now at the feast he used to release to them one prisoner, whomever they asked of him. 7There was one called Barabbas, bound with his fellow insurgents, men who in the insurrection had committed murder. 8The multitude, crying aloud, began to ask him to do as he always did for them. 9Pilate answered them, saying, “Do you want me to release to you the King of the Jews?” 10For he perceived that for envy the chief priests had delivered him up. 11But the chief priests stirred up the multitude, that he should release Barabbas to them instead. 12Pilate again asked them, “What then should I do to him whom you call the King of the Jews?”

13They cried out again, “Crucify him!”

14Pilate said to them, “Why, what evil has he done?” But they cried out exceedingly, “Crucify him!”

15Pilate, wishing to please the multitude, released Barabbas to them, and handed over Jesus, when he had flogged him, to be crucified.

Righteous Simeon the Godbearer and Anna the Prophetess

“There is an ancient tradition that the holy, righteous elder Symeon, who came from Egypt, was one of the Seventy learned Jews chosen in the days of the Pharoah Ptolemy Philadelphus (285-246 BC) for the task of rendering the Hebrew Bible into Greek, and that to Symeon was assigned the translation of the book of the Prophet Isaiah. When he reached the famous passage where the Prophet foretells the virgin birth of Christ, saying: Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel (Is. 7:14), he was so perplexed that he took a penknife to erase the word ‘virgin’ in order to replace it by ‘young woman’. At that moment, an angel of God appeared and prevented him from altering the sacred text, explaining that what seemed impossible to him was, in fact, a prophecy of the coming into this world of the Son of God. To confirm the truth of this, he promised that Symeon would not see death until he had seen and touched the Messiah born of the Virgin. When, after many long years, Christ was brought into the Temple at Jerusalem by the All-Holy Mother of God, the Holy Spirit revealed to the Elder Symeon that the time of fulfilment of the promise had come. He hurried to the Temple and, taking the Child in his arms, he was able to say wholeheartedly to God: Lord, now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation (Luke 2:29). For indeed, the Elder Symeon was the living image of the ancient Israel of the Old Testament, which having awaited the coming of the Messiah was ready to fade away and give place to the light and truth of the Gospel. The relics of the holy and righteous Symeon were venerated at Constantinople in the church of St James, built at the time of the Emperor Justin.

“The prophetess Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, was eighty-four years old. Since the early death of her husband, she had spent her whole life in the Temple in hope of the coming of the Saviour. She is the pattern for holy widows, virgins and monks, who have freed themselves of worldly cares in order to dwell always in the Temple, offering their fasts, hymns and prayers in eager expectation of the Lord’s coming. And when, like Anna and Symeon, they have seen the indwelling Christ with the eyes of their heart and touched Him through their spiritual senses, they proclaim with joy and assurance to all mankind that the Saviour is still coming into the world: A light to lighten the Gentiles and the glory of His people Israel (Luke 2:32).” (Synaxarion)

The Synaxarion notes that the tradition that St Symeon was one of the Seventy is by no means universal among the Fathers. According to some, Symeon was the son of Hillel and father of Gamaliel, St Paul’s teacher. According to others, he was a righteous and devout Jew aged 112, neither a priest nor a Pharisee.

Our Father among the Saints, Nikolai (Nicholas), Archbishop and Enlightener of Japan (1912)

Born in Russia in 1836, he became one of the great Orthodox missionaries of modern times. As a boy, he resolved to become a missionary in the far East. With the counsel and blessing of Bishop Innocent of Siberia and Alaska, he went to Japan in 1861 and joined a small Russian mission there. Though the mission’s official purpose was to minister to the Russian consular community, the consul-general who invited Hieromonk Nikolai hoped to bring the light of the Orthodox Faith to the Japanese people as well. Realizing that he could only hope to convert the Japanese people if they understood one another well, Fr Nikolai immersed himself in the study of Japanese thought, culture and language. Over the course of his life he translated most of the Bible and most of the Orthodox services into Japanese, and became a fluent speaker of the language. He encountered much resistance: Preaching of Christian doctrine was officially banned in Japan, and a Samurai once approached him with the words “Foreigners must die!” It was this same Samurai who later became his first Japanese priest. In 1880 he was elevated to Bishop of Japan. During the Russo-Japanese war he remained in Japan and labored successfully to overcome nationalist strife that might have harmed or destroyed the Church in Japan. He encouraged all his Japanese faithful to pray for the Japanese armed forces, though he explained that as a Russian he could not do so, and excluded himself from all public services for the duration of the war. He sent Russian-speaking Japanese priests to the prison camps to minister to Russian prisoners of war. At the time of his repose in 1912, after forty-eight years in Japan, St Nikolai left a Cathedral, eight churches, more than 400 chapels and meeting houses, 34 priests, 8 deacons, 115 lay catechists, and 34,110 Orthodox faithful. The Church of Japan is now an autonomous Orthodox Church under the care of the Moscow Patriarchate.