August 22, 2025

Events of the day

• Apostle Matthias

  Polyeleos rank

• Afterfeast: Transfiguration of the Lord

Fasting

Fast day · Dormition Fast

Dormition Fast, Monday, Wednesday and Friday: xerophagy.

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

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 3:1–9

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 5:15–6:3

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 4:7–15

• Matins Gospel

  Matthew 11:27–30

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  ²⁷All things have been delivered to me by my Father. No one knows the Son, except the Father; neither does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and he to whom the Son desires to reveal him.

  ²⁸“Come to me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.

  ²⁹Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart; and you will find rest for your souls.

  ³⁰For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

• Epistle

  2 Corinthians 4:13–18

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  ¹³But having the same spirit of faith, according to that which is written, “I believed, and therefore I spoke.” We also believe, and therefore we also speak;

  ¹⁴knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will present us with you.

  ¹⁵For all things are for your sakes, that the grace, being multiplied through the many, may cause the thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God.

  ¹⁶Therefore we don’t faint, but though our outward man is decaying, yet our inward man is renewed day by day.

  ¹⁷For our light affliction, which is for the moment, works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory,

  ¹⁸while we don’t look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

• Epistle · St Herman

  Galatians 5:22–6:2

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  ²²But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith,

  ²³gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.

  ²⁴Those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and lusts.

  ²⁵If we live by the Spirit, let’s also walk by the Spirit.

  ²⁶Let’s not become conceited, provoking one another, and envying one another.

  ¹Brothers, even if a man is caught in some fault, you who are spiritual must restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to yourself so that you also aren’t tempted.

  ²Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.

• Gospel

  Matthew 24:27–33, 42–51

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  ²⁷For as the lightning flashes from the east, and is seen even to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

  ²⁸For wherever the carcass is, that is where the vultures gather together.

  ²⁹But immediately after the suffering of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give its light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken;

  ³⁰and then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky. Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of the sky with power and great glory.

  ³¹He will send out his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.

  ³²“Now from the fig tree learn this parable. When its branch has now become tender, and produces its leaves, you know that the summer is near.

  ³³Even so you also, when you see all these things, know that it is near, even at the doors.

  ⁴²Watch therefore, for you don’t know in what hour your Lord comes.

  ⁴³But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what watch of the night the thief was coming, he would have watched, and would not have allowed his house to be broken into.

  ⁴⁴Therefore also be ready, for in an hour that you don’t expect, the Son of Man will come.

  ⁴⁵“Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his lord has set over his household, to give them their food in due season?

  ⁴⁶Blessed is that servant whom his lord finds doing so when he comes.

  ⁴⁷Most certainly I tell you that he will set him over all that he has.

  ⁴⁸But if that evil servant should say in his heart, ‘My lord is delaying his coming,’

  ⁴⁹and begins to beat his fellow servants, and eat and drink with the drunkards,

  ⁵⁰the lord of that servant will come in a day when he doesn’t expect it, and in an hour when he doesn’t know it,

  ⁵¹and will cut him in pieces, and appoint his portion with the hypocrites. That is where the weeping and grinding of teeth will be.

• Gospel · St Herman

  Luke 6:17–23

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  ¹⁷He came down with them, and stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples, and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;

  ¹⁸as well as those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and they were being healed.

  ¹⁹All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out of him and healed them all.

  ²⁰He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, God’s Kingdom is yours.

  ²¹Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

  ²²Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.

  ²³Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Short penitential prayers