1And it came to pass in the days of Achaz the son of Joatham, the son of Ozias, king of Juda, there came up Rasim king of Aram, and Phakee son of Romelias, king of Israel, against Jerusalem to war against it, but they could not take it.
2And a message was brought to the house of David, saying, Aram has conspired with Ephraim. And his soul was amazed, and the soul of his people, as in a wood a tree is moved by the wind.
3And the Lord said to Esaias, Go forth to meet Achaz, you, and your son Jasub who is left, to the pool of the upper way of the fuller's field.
4And you shall say to him, Take care to be quiet, and fear not, neither let your soul be disheartened because of these two smoking firebrands: for when my fierce anger is over, I will heal again.
5And as for the son of Aram, and the son of Romelias, forasmuch as they have devised an evil counsel, saying,
6We will go up against Judea, and having conferred with them we will turn them away to our side, and we will make the son of Tabeel king of it;
7thus says the Lord of hosts, This counsel shall not abide, nor come to pass.
8But the head of Aram is Damascus, and the head of Damascus, Rasim; and yet within sixty and five years the kingdom of Ephraim shall cease from being a people.
9And the head of Ephraim is Somoron, and the head of Somoron the son of Romelias: but if you⌃ believe not, neither will you⌃ at all understand.
10And the Lord again spoke to Achaz, saying,
11Ask for yourself a sign of the Lord your God, in the depth or in the height.
12And Achaz said, I will not ask, neither will I tempt the Lord.
13And he said, Hear you⌃ now, O house of David; is it a little thing for you to contend with men? and how do you⌃ contend against the Lord?
14Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold, a virgin shall conceive in the womb, and shall bring forth a son, and you shall call his name Emmanuel.
Genesis 5.32-6.8 (Vespers)
1And Noe was five hundred years old, and he begot three sons, Sem, Cham, and Japheth. And it came to pass when men began to be numerous upon the earth, and daughters were born to them,
2that the sons of God having seen the daughters of men that they were beautiful, took to themselves wives of all whom they chose.
3And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall certainly not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh, but their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.
4Now the giants were upon the earth in those days; and after that when the sons of God were wont to go in to the daughters of men, they bore children to them, those were the giants of old, the men of renown.
5And the Lord God, having seen that the wicked actions of men were multiplied upon the earth, and that every one in his heart was intently brooding over evil continually,
6then God laid it to heart that he had made man upon the earth, and he pondered it deeply.
7And God said, I will blot out man whom I have made from the face of the earth, even man with cattle, and reptiles with flying creatures of the sky, for I am grieved that I have made them.
8But Noe found grace before the Lord God.
Proverbs 6.20-7.1 (Vespers)
20My son, keep the laws of your father, and reject not the ordinances of your mother:
21but bind them upon your soul continually, and hang them as a chain about your neck.
22Whenever you walk, lead this along and let it be with you; that it may talk with you when you wake.
23For the commandment of the law is a lamp and a light; a way of life; reproof also and correction:
24to keep you continually from a married woman, and from the calumny of a strange tongue.
25Let not the desire of beauty overcome you, neither be you caught by your eyes, neither be captivated with her eyelids.
26For the value of a harlot is as much as of one loaf; and a woman hunts for the precious souls of men.
27Shall any one bind fire in his bosom, and not burn his garments?
28or will any one walk on coals of fire, and not burn his feet?
29So is he that goes in to a married woman; he shall not be held guiltless, neither any one that touches her.
30It is not to be wondered at if one should be taken stealing, for he steals that when hungry he may satisfy his soul:
31but if he should be taken, he shall repay sevenfold, and shall deliver himself by giving all his goods.
32But the adulterer through lack of sense procures destruction to his soul.
33He endures both pain and disgrace, and his reproach shall never be wiped off.
34For the soul of her husband is full of jealousy: he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
35He will not forego his enmity for any ransom: neither will he be reconciled for many gifts.
1My son, keep my words, and hide with you my commandments. My son, honor the Lord, and you shall be strong; and fear none but him:
Commemorations
Apostle Onesimus of the Seventy
He was a Phrygian by birth, a slave of Philemon, to whom the Apostle Paul addressed his epistle. Onesimos escaped from Philemon and fled to Rome, where he was converted to the Faith by St Paul. St Paul sent him back to his master, who at St Paul’s urging gave him his freedom. He served the Church for many years before dying a martyr, beaten to death with clubs.
Saint Onesimos is also commemorated on November 22, with Sts Philemon, Archippus and Aphia; and on January 4 at the Synaxis of the Seventy Disciples.
Our Venerable Father Dalmatius of Siberia (1697)
Saint Dalmatius is venerated as a pioneer of the movement that took many ascetics to dwell in the wilderness of Siberia, establishing a new company of Desert Fathers and causing the Russian Far North to be called the ‘Northern Thebaid.’ He was born in Tobolsk and reared in piety by his family, recently-converted Tatars. When grown, he entered the imperial army as a Cossack and served with such distinction that the Tsar awarded him a noble title. He married and lived in Tobolsk in comfort and prosperity. One day — after the destruction of Tobolsk in a great fire in 1643 — struck by a realization of the vanity of worldly things, he left family, wealth and property and went to a monastery in the Ural Mountains, taking with him only an icon of the Dormition of the Theotokos.
He was tonsured a monk with the name of Dalmatius, and devoted himself to prayer and ascesis with such fervor that, a short time later, the brethren elected him Abbot. Fearing pride and fleeing honor, Dalmatius fled with his icon of the Theotokos to a remote cave, where he lived a life of silence and continual prayer. His presence did not long remain secret in that sparsely-settled region, and soon Christians were coming from far and wide to ask his prayer and counsel; many pagans came to him for holy Baptism. Soon his habitation became too small for those who had chosen to stay as his disciples, and the Saint received a blessing from the Bishop of Tobolsk to build a wooden chapel and some cells. This was the beginning of the great Monastery of the Dormition (also called the Monastery of St Dalmatius).
Over the years the brethren endured many tribulations. Once the Tatar Prince of the region, provoked by false rumors, planned to destroy the monastery and kill all the monks. The night before the attack, the holy Mother of God appeared to the prince in resplendent clothes, holding a flaming sword in one hand and a scourge in the other. She forbade the Prince to harm the monastery or the brethren, and commanded him to give them a permanent concession over the region. Convinced by this vision, the Prince made peace with the monks and became the Monastery’s protector, though he was a Muslim.
In the succeeding years the Monastery was repeatedly burned down by the fierce pagan tribes which inhabited the area; once all the monks except St Dalmatius himself were butchered, but always the monastery was rebuilt. The Saint reposed in peace in 1697, and was succeeded as abbot by his own son Isaac, who built a stone shrine at the Monastery to house the relics of the Saint and the icon of the Mother of God which he had kept with him throughout his monastic life.
Our Venerable Father Anthimos of Chios (1960)
He was born in 1869 to devout peasants on Chios; he left elementary school early to become a shoemender. At the age of nineteen he visited a monastery (founded by the monk Pachomios, who had been the spiritual counsellor of St Nektarios); he was so moved by the monks’ ‘angelic life’ that on returning home he built himself a small hut and dwelt in it. His only ‘help’ in his spiritual contests was an icon of the Mother of God, which soon began to work miracles, drawing many to his hermitage. After a time he retired to a monastery where he was tonsured under the name Anthimos. He fell ill there, and his abbot sent him home to his parents for the sake of his health. At home, despite the fact that he was caring for his aged parents and practicing his shoemender’s trade, he continued to live as a monk, spending nights on end in prayer and sometimes living only on bread and water for extended periods.
Increasing numbers of visitors came to his hermitage and wonder-working icon of the Theotokos, and in 1910 he received the Great Schema. The people of Chios wanted him to be ordained to the priesthood, but his bishop refused due to the Saint’s lack of education. At the prompting of Anthimos’ godfather, the Bishop of Smyrna ordained him instead. After a pilgrimage to Mt Athos, he returned to Chios, where he became chaplain to a leper hospital. Soon the hospital, which had fallen into corruption, became a spiritual center, as much like a monastery as a hospital. Saint Anthimos tended many of the sickest with his own hands, working many miracles of healing; some of his recovered patients became monks or nuns.
With the notorious ‘Exchange of Populations’ of 1922-1924, refugees poured into Chios, many of them destitute nuns and girls. In response to a vision of the Mother of God, St Anthimos built a monastery, which opened with thirty nuns and grew rapidly, despite the opposition of many who said that setting up such a community was out of date (in 1924!). The monastery soon housed eighty nuns and was known througout Greece as a model of monastic life. Father Anthimos served as priest to the nuns, and continued to receive the many faithful — often sixty or seventy per day — who came to him for prayer or counsel. He carried on this ministry for more than thirty years, working many miracles of healing. When he was too old to work with his hands, he retired to his cell and prayed that he be enabled to serve his neighbor until his last breath. He reposed in peace at the age of ninety-one, mourned and revered by the whole island of Chios.