December 24, 2025

Events of the day

• St Daniel the Stylite

  Commemoration

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

  Hebrews 5:11–6:8

  Show the text

  ¹¹About him we have many words to say, and hard to interpret, seeing you have become dull of hearing.

  ¹²For although by this time you should be teachers, you again need to have someone teach you the rudiments of the first principles of the revelations of God. You have come to need milk, and not solid food.

  ¹³For everyone who lives on milk is not experienced in the word of righteousness, for he is a baby.

  ¹⁴But solid food is for those who are full grown, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil.

  ¹Therefore leaving the teaching of the first principles of Christ, let’s press on to perfection—not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works, of faith toward God,

  ²of the teaching of baptisms, of laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgment.

  ³This will we do, if God permits.

  ⁴For concerning those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit,

  ⁵and tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come,

  ⁶and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again to repentance; seeing they crucify the Son of God for themselves again, and put him to open shame.

  ⁷For the land which has drunk the rain that comes often on it and produces a crop suitable for them for whose sake it is also tilled, receives blessing from God;

  ⁸but if it bears thorns and thistles, it is rejected and near being cursed, whose end is to be burned.

• Gospel

  Mark 8:30–34

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  ³⁰He commanded them that they should tell no one about him.

  ³¹He began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again.

  ³²He spoke to them openly. Peter took him, and began to rebuke him.

  ³³But he, turning around, and seeing his disciples, rebuked Peter, and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you have in mind not the things of God, but the things of men.”

  ³⁴He called the multitude to himself with his disciples, and said to them, “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Trisagion