October 17, 2025

Events of the day

• Hieromartyr Hierotheus of Athens; Finding of the relics of Sts Gurias of Kazan and Barsanuphius of Tver

  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

• Epistle

  Philippians 1:27–2:4

  Show the text

  ²⁷Only let your way of life be worthy of the Good News of Christ, that whether I come and see you or am absent, I may hear of your state, that you stand firm in one spirit, with one soul striving for the faith of the Good News;

  ²⁸and in nothing frightened by the adversaries, which is for them a proof of destruction, but to you of salvation, and that from God.

  ²⁹Because it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ, not only to believe in him, but also to suffer on his behalf,

  ³⁰having the same conflict which you saw in me and now hear is in me.

  ¹If therefore there is any exhortation in Christ, if any consolation of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any tender mercies and compassion,

  ²make my joy full by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind;

  ³doing nothing through rivalry or through conceit, but in humility, each counting others better than himself;

  ⁴each of you not just looking to his own things, but each of you also to the things of others.

• Gospel

  Luke 7:31–35

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  ³¹“To what then should I compare the people of this generation? What are they like?

  ³²They are like children who sit in the marketplace, and call to one another, saying, ‘We piped to you, and you didn’t dance. We mourned, and you didn’t weep.’

  ³³For John the Baptizer came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’

  ³⁴The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man, and a drunkard; a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’

  ³⁵Wisdom is justified by all her children.”

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Short penitential prayers