January 13, 2026

Events of the day

• St Melania of Rome

  Commemoration

• Leave-taking of the feast: Nativity of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ

Fasting

No fast

Christmastide (25 Dec – 4 Jan Old Style) is fast-free: no fasting.

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

  James 3:1–10

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  ¹Let not many of you be teachers, my brothers, knowing that we will receive heavier judgment.

  ²For we all stumble in many things. Anyone who doesn’t stumble in word is a perfect person, able to bridle the whole body also.

  ³Indeed, we put bits into the horses’ mouths so that they may obey us, and we guide their whole body.

  ⁴Behold, the ships also, though they are so big and are driven by fierce winds, are yet guided by a very small rudder, wherever the pilot desires.

  ⁵So the tongue is also a little member, and boasts great things. See how a small fire can spread to a large forest!

  ⁶And the tongue is a fire. The world of iniquity among our members is the tongue, which defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature, and is set on fire by Gehenna.

  ⁷For every kind of animal, bird, creeping thing, and sea creature, is tamed, and has been tamed by mankind;

  ⁸but nobody can tame the tongue. It is a restless evil, full of deadly poison.

  ⁹With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men who are made in the image of God.

  ¹⁰Out of the same mouth comes blessing and cursing. My brothers, these things ought not to be so.

• Gospel

  Mark 12:18–27

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  ¹⁸Some Sadducees, who say that there is no resurrection, came to him. They asked him, saying,

  ¹⁹“Teacher, Moses wrote to us, ‘If a man’s brother dies, and leaves a wife behind him, and leaves no children, that his brother should take his wife, and raise up offspring for his brother.’

  ²⁰There were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and dying left no offspring.

  ²¹The second took her, and died, leaving no children behind him. The third likewise;

  ²²and the seven took her and left no children. Last of all the woman also died.

  ²³In the resurrection, when they rise, whose wife will she be of them? For the seven had her as a wife.”

  ²⁴Jesus answered them, “Isn’t this because you are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God?

  ²⁵For when they will rise from the dead, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

  ²⁶But about the dead, that they are raised; haven’t you read in the book of Moses, about the Bush, how God spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’?

  ²⁷He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. You are therefore badly mistaken.”

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Jesus Prayer