Romans 7.14-8.2 (Epistle)

14For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am fleshly, sold under sin. 15For I don’t understand what I am doing. For I don’t practice what I desire to do; but what I hate, that I do. 16But if what I don’t desire, that I do, I consent to the law that it is good. 17So now it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 18For I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, dwells no good thing. For desire is present with me, but I don’t find it doing that which is good. 19For the good which I desire, I don’t do; but the evil which I don’t desire, that I practice. 20But if what I don’t desire, that I do, it is no more I that do it, but sin which dwells in me. 21I find then the law that, while I desire to do good, evil is present. 22For I delight in God’s law after the inward person, 23but I see a different law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity under the law of sin which is in my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will deliver me out of the body of this death? 25I thank God through Jesus Christ, our Lord! So then with the mind, I myself serve God’s law, but with the flesh, sin’s law.

1There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who don’t walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus made me free from the law of sin and of death.

Matthew 10.9-15 (Gospel)

9Don’t take any gold, silver, or brass in your money belts. 10Take no bag for your journey, neither two coats, nor sandals, nor staff: for the laborer is worthy of his food. 11Into whatever city or village you enter, find out who in it is worthy, and stay there until you go on. 12As you enter into the household, greet it. 13If the household is worthy, let your peace come on it, but if it isn’t worthy, let your peace return to you. 14Whoever doesn’t receive you or hear your words, as you go out of that house or that city, shake the dust off your feet. 15Most certainly I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom and Gomorrah in the day of judgment than for that city.

Hieromartyr Methodius, Bishop of Patar

Noted in his own time for his wisdom and virtue, he was called Eubolos, meaning “of good counsel.” He was among the first to oppose the heretical writings of Origen. He was bishop in Patara (according to some sources) or Olympia (according to others), then of Tyre in Phoenecia. Under the Emperor Maximinus, he was attacked by the pagans and received the crown of martyrdom in Chalkis in Greece.

St Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople (1363)

For twenty-eight years he lived the ascetical life on Mt Athos as a disciple of St Gregory of Mt Sinai. Later, he founded the monastery of St Mamas, also on Mt Athos. In 1350 he was elected Patriarch of Constantinople. After four years, he resigned the patriarchal throne to return to the Holy Mountain, but was called back to the throne, where he remained until his death in 1363. He wrote the definitive lives of St Gregory the Sinaite and St Theodosius of Trnovo. He was known to St Maximos Kapsokalyvia (the Hut-burner), who foretold his death: On his final journey to Serbia, on which he died, the Patriarch stopped on Mt Athos, where St Maximos saw him and said, “This elder will not see his flock again, because I hear behind him the hymn over the grave, ‘Blessed are those that are undefiled in the way…’”

Blessed Studios (5th c.)

He was a prominent nobleman and consul in Constantinople. In the City he founded both the Church of St John the Forerunner in 463, and the monastery thereafter called the Studion in honor of him. The Studion monastery nurtured a long line of ascetics, teachers, and martyrs; perhaps the best known is St Theodore the Studite (November 11), the great defender of the holy icons. The monastery was destroyed by the Crusaders in 1204, restored in 1293 by Emperor Andronicus II.