August 6, 2025

Events of the day

• Holy Passion-bearers Boris and Gleb

  Polyeleos rank

• Martyr Christina

  Commemoration

Fasting

Fast day · Wednesday / Friday

Wednesday and Friday: fast without meat, dairy or eggs. Whether fish is allowed depends on the day's feast — check the church calendar.

• Meat: not allowed
• Dairy & eggs: not allowed
• Fish: not specified
• Oil: allowed
• Wine: allowed

Food rules are reference church information. Agree your personal measure of fasting with a priest; consult a doctor if you are ill.

Readings of the day

• Vespers

  Isaiah 43:9–14

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 4:7–15

• Matins Gospel

  Luke 21:12–19

  Show the text

  ¹²But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake.

  ¹³It will turn out as a testimony for you.

  ¹⁴Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,

  ¹⁵for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.

  ¹⁶You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.

  ¹⁷You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.

  ¹⁸And not a hair of your head will perish.

  ¹⁹“By your endurance you will win your lives.

• Epistle

  1 Corinthians 13:4–14:5

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  ⁴Love is patient and is kind. Love doesn’t envy. Love doesn’t brag, is not proud,

  ⁵doesn’t behave itself inappropriately, doesn’t seek its own way, is not provoked, takes no account of evil;

  ⁶doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;

  ⁷bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.

  ⁸Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will be done away with. Where there are various languages, they will cease. Where there is knowledge, it will be done away with.

  ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part;

  ¹⁰but when that which is complete has come, then that which is partial will be done away with.

  ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child. Now that I have become a man, I have put away childish things.

  ¹²For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, even as I was also fully known.

  ¹³But now faith, hope, and love remain—these three. The greatest of these is love.

  ¹Follow after love and earnestly desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.

  ²For he who speaks in another language speaks not to men, but to God; for no one understands; but in the Spirit he speaks mysteries.

  ³But he who prophesies speaks to men for their edification, exhortation, and consolation.

  ⁴He who speaks in another language edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the assembly.

  ⁵Now I desire to have you all speak with other languages, but rather that you would prophesy. For he is greater who prophesies than he who speaks with other languages, unless he interprets, that the assembly may be built up.

• Epistle · Boris and Gleb

  Romans 8:28–39

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  ²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.

  ²⁹For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

  ³⁰Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.

  ³¹What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

  ³²He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?

  ³³Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies.

  ³⁴Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

  ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

  ³⁶Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

  ³⁷No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

  ³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

  ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• Gospel

  Matthew 20:1–16

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  ¹“For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

  ²When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

  ³He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace.

  ⁴He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went their way.

  ⁵Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise.

  ⁶About the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’

  ⁷“They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ “He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’

  ⁸When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’

  ⁹“When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius.

  ¹⁰When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius.

  ¹¹When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household,

  ¹²saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’

  ¹³“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?

  ¹⁴Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you.

  ¹⁵Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

  ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

• Gospel · Boris and Gleb

  John 15:17–16:2

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  ¹⁷“I command these things to you, that you may love one another.

  ¹⁸If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

  ¹⁹If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

  ²⁰Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

  ²¹But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.

  ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

  ²³He who hates me, hates my Father also.

  ²⁴If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father.

  ²⁵But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’

  ²⁶“When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

  ²⁷You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

  ¹“I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble.

  ²They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, Julian calendar. Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Trisagion