November 28, 2025

Events of the day

• Martyrs and Confessors Gurias, Samonas and Abibus

  Commemoration

• Nativity (St Philip's) Fast begins

  Informational

Fasting

Fast day · Nativity Fast

Nativity Fast, 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

• Epistle

  2 Thessalonians 3:6–18

  Show the text

  ⁶Now we command you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you withdraw yourselves from every brother who walks in rebellion, and not after the tradition which they received from us.

  ⁷For you know how you ought to imitate us. For we didn’t behave ourselves rebelliously among you,

  ⁸neither did we eat bread from anyone’s hand without paying for it, but in labor and travail worked night and day, that we might not burden any of you,

  ⁹not because we don’t have the right, but to make ourselves an example to you, that you should imitate us.

  ¹⁰For even when we were with you, we commanded you this: “If anyone is not willing to work, don’t let him eat.”

  ¹¹For we hear of some who walk among you in rebellion, who don’t work at all, but are busybodies.

  ¹²Now those who are that way, we command and exhort in the Lord Jesus Christ, that they work with quietness and eat their own bread.

  ¹³But you, brothers, don’t be weary in doing what is right.

  ¹⁴If any man doesn’t obey our word in this letter, note that man, that you have no company with him, to the end that he may be ashamed.

  ¹⁵Don’t count him as an enemy, but admonish him as a brother.

  ¹⁶Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times in all ways. The Lord be with you all.

  ¹⁷The greeting of me, Paul, with my own hand, which is the sign in every letter: this is how I write.

  ¹⁸The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.

• Gospel

  Luke 16:15–18, 17:1–4

  Show the text

  ¹⁵He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves in the sight of men, but God knows your hearts. For that which is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

  ¹⁶The law and the prophets were until John. From that time the Good News of God’s Kingdom is preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.

  ¹⁷But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass away, than for one tiny stroke of a pen in the law to fall.

  ¹⁸Everyone who divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery. He who marries one who is divorced from a husband commits adultery.

  ¹He said to the disciples, “It is impossible that no occasions of stumbling should come, but woe to him through whom they come!

  ²It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were thrown into the sea, rather than that he should cause one of these little ones to stumble.

  ³Be careful. If your brother sins against you, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him.

  ⁴If he sins against you seven times in the day, and seven times returns, saying, ‘I repent,’ you shall forgive him.”

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Short penitential prayers