1 Corinthians 5.9-6.11 (Epistle)

9I wrote to you in my letter to have no company with sexual sinners; 10yet not at all meaning with the sexual sinners of this world, or with the covetous and extortionists, or with idolaters, for then you would have to leave the world. 11But as it is, I wrote to you not to associate with anyone who is called a brother who is a sexual sinner, or covetous, or an idolater, or a slanderer, or a drunkard, or an extortionist. Don’t even eat with such a person. 12For what do I have to do with also judging those who are outside? Don’t you judge those who are within? 13But those who are outside, God judges. “Put away the wicked man from among yourselves.”

1Dare any of you, having a matter against his neighbor, go to law before the unrighteous, and not before the saints? 2Don’t you know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is judged by you, are you unworthy to judge the smallest matters? 3Don’t you know that we will judge angels? How much more, things that pertain to this life? 4If then you have to judge things pertaining to this life, do you set them to judge who are of no account in the assembly? 5I say this to move you to shame. Isn’t there even one wise man among you who would be able to decide between his brothers? 6But brother goes to law with brother, and that before unbelievers! 7Therefore it is already altogether a defect in you that you have lawsuits one with another. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be defrauded? 8No, but you yourselves do wrong and defraud, and that against your brothers.

9Or don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s Kingdom? Don’t be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, 10nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortionists, will inherit God’s Kingdom. 11Some of you were such, but you were washed. You were sanctified. You were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God.

Matthew 13.54-58 (Gospel)

54Coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? 55Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother called Mary, and his brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? 56Aren’t all of his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all of these things?”

57They were offended by him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country and in his own house.” 58He didn’t do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

St Andrew of Crete

He was born in Damascus to Christian parents. He was mute until the age of seven, when he was given the power of speech upon receiving Holy Communion. Tonsured a monk at the monastery of St Sabbas in the Holy Land, he served the Patriarch of Jerusalem, then became deacon in the Great Church in Constantinople, and finally was made Archbishop of Crete. He was present at the Sixth Ecumenical Council. Accounts of the date of his repose vary from 712 to 740.

He is best known as the composer of the Great Canon, sung during the first and fifth weeks of the Great Fast.

Holy Royal Martyrs of Russia: Tsar Nicholas II, Tsaritsa Alexandra, Crown Prince Alexei, and Grand duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia, and those martyred with them (1918).

“Tsar Nicholas II was the son of Alexander III, who had reposed in the arms of St John of Kronstadt. Having been raised in piety, Tsar Nicholas ever sought to rule in a spirit consonant with the precepts of Orthodoxy and the best traditions of his nation. Tsaritsa Alexandra, a grand-daughter of Queen Victoria of England, and a convert from Lutheranism, was noted for her piety and compassion for the poor and suffering. Their five children were beloved of all for their kindness, modesty, and guilelessness.

“Amidst the political turmoil of 1917, Tsar Nicholas selflessly abdicated the throne for what he believed was the good of his country. Although he had abdicated willingly, the revolutionaries put him and his family under house arrest, then sent them under guard to Tobolsk and finally Ekaterinburg. A letter written from Tobolsk by Grand Duchess Olga, the eldest of the children, shows their nobility of soul. She writes, ‘My father asks that I convey to all those who have remained devoted to him… that they should not take vengeance on his account, because he has forgiven everyone and prays for them all. Nor should they avenge themselves. Rather, they should bear in mind that this evil which is now present in the world will become yet stronger, but that evil will not conquer evil, but only love shall do so.’

“After enduring sixteen months of imprisonment, deprivation, and humiliation with a Christian patience which moved even their captors, they and those who were with them gained their crowns of martyrdom when they were shot and stabbed to death in the cellar of the Ipatiev house in Ekaterinburg in 1918.

“Together with them are also commemorated those who faithfully served them, and were either slain with them, or on their account…” (Great Horologion)

St Martha, mother of St Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain (551)

She was a model of the Christian married life: she rose at midnight for prayer, she gave to the needy without reserve, and she bore and raised the holy Symeon of the Wonderful Mountain (May 24). Having foreseen the hour of her death, she reposed peacefully in 551, and was buried near the pillar of her son Simeon. After her death, she appeared many times to teach and to heal the sick. The Prologue tells the following story. After her funeral, the abbot of St Simeon’s monastic community kept a lamp burning at her grave, intending that it be kept burning perpetually. But after awhile, the monks grew forgetful and allowed the lamp to go out. The abbot became ill, and St Martha appeared to him and said ‘Why are you not lighting the lamp on my grave? Know that the light of your candles is not needful to me, because God has made me worthy of His eternal, heavenly light, but it is needful for you. When you burn a light on my grave, you urge me to pray to the Lord for you.’

St Andrew (Rublev), iconographer (1430)

His “Holy Trinity” icon of the Hospitality of Abraham is sometimes called the most perfectly executed of all icons. See January 29.