August 8, 2025

Events of the day

• Hieromartyr Hermolaus; Monk-martyr Paraskeva

  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

  Wisdom of Solomon 5:15–6:3

• Vespers

  1 John 4:1–6

• Vespers

  1 John 4:20–5:5

• Matins Gospel

  John 10:9–16

  Show the text

  ⁹I am the door. If anyone enters in by me, he will be saved, and will go in and go out, and will find pasture.

  ¹⁰The thief only comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly.

  ¹¹I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

  ¹²He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who doesn’t own the sheep, sees the wolf coming, leaves the sheep, and flees. The wolf snatches the sheep, and scatters them.

  ¹³The hired hand flees because he is a hired hand, and doesn’t care for the sheep.

  ¹⁴I am the good shepherd. I know my own, and I’m known by my own;

  ¹⁵even as the Father knows me, and I know the Father. I lay down my life for the sheep.

  ¹⁶I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear my voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd.

• Epistle

  1 Corinthians 14:26–40

  Show the text

  ²⁶What is it then, brothers? When you come together, each one of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has another language, or has an interpretation. Let all things be done to build each other up.

  ²⁷If any man speaks in another language, let it be two, or at the most three, and in turn; and let one interpret.

  ²⁸But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in the assembly, and let him speak to himself, and to God.

  ²⁹Let the prophets speak, two or three, and let the others discern.

  ³⁰But if a revelation is made to another sitting by, let the first keep silent.

  ³¹For you all can prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be exhorted.

  ³²The spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets,

  ³³for God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the assemblies of the saints.

  ³⁴Let the wives be quiet in the assemblies, for it has not been permitted for them to be talking except in submission, as the law also says,

  ³⁵if they desire to learn anything. “Let them ask their own husbands at home, for it is shameful for a wife to be talking in the assembly.”

  ³⁶What!? Was it from you that the word of God went out? Or did it come to you alone?

  ³⁷If any man thinks himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him recognize the things which I write to you, that they are the commandment of the Lord.

  ³⁸But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant.

  ³⁹Therefore, brothers, desire earnestly to prophesy, and don’t forbid speaking with other languages.

  ⁴⁰Let all things be done decently and in order.

• Epistle · St Jacob

  Philippians 3:7–14

• Gospel

  Matthew 21:12–14, 17–20

  Show the text

  ¹²Jesus entered into the temple of God, and drove out all of those who sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the money changers’ tables and the seats of those who sold the doves.

  ¹³He said to them, “It is written, ‘My house shall be called a house of prayer,’ but you have made it a den of robbers!”

  ¹⁴The blind and the lame came to him in the temple, and he healed them.

  ¹⁷He left them, and went out of the city to Bethany, and camped there.

  ¹⁸Now in the morning, as he returned to the city, he was hungry.

  ¹⁹Seeing a fig tree by the road, he came to it, and found nothing on it but leaves. He said to it, “Let there be no fruit from you forever!” Immediately the fig tree withered away.

  ²⁰When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree immediately wither away?”

• Gospel · St Jacob

  Mark 10:29–31, 42–45

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Short penitential prayers