February 3, 2026

Events of the day

• St Maximus the Confessor; St Maximus the Greek

  Commemoration

Fasting

No fast

The week after the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is fast-free, including Wednesday and Friday.

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 Peter 2:9–22

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  ⁹the Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment,

  ¹⁰but chiefly those who walk after the flesh in the lust of defilement and despise authority. Daring, self-willed, they are not afraid to speak evil of dignitaries;

  ¹¹whereas angels, though greater in might and power, don’t bring a railing judgment against them before the Lord.

  ¹²But these, as unreasoning creatures, born natural animals to be taken and destroyed, speaking evil in matters about which they are ignorant, will in their destroying surely be destroyed,

  ¹³receiving the wages of unrighteousness; people who count it pleasure to revel in the daytime, spots and defects, reveling in their deceit while they feast with you;

  ¹⁴having eyes full of adultery, and who can’t cease from sin; enticing unsettled souls; having a heart trained in greed; children of cursing;

  ¹⁵forsaking the right way, they went astray, having followed the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of wrongdoing;

  ¹⁶but he was rebuked for his own disobedience. A mute donkey spoke with a man’s voice and stopped the madness of the prophet.

  ¹⁷These are wells without water, clouds driven by a storm; for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever.

  ¹⁸For, uttering great swelling words of emptiness, they entice in the lusts of the flesh, by licentiousness, those who are indeed escaping from those who live in error;

  ¹⁹promising them liberty, while they themselves are bondservants of corruption; for a man is brought into bondage by whoever overcomes him.

  ²⁰For if, after they have escaped the defilement of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in it and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first.

  ²¹For it would be better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than after knowing it, to turn back from the holy commandment delivered to them.

  ²²But it has happened to them according to the true proverb, “The dog turns to his own vomit again,” and “the sow that has washed to wallowing in the mire.”

• Gospel

  Mark 13:14–23

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  ¹⁴But when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not” (let the reader understand), “then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains,

  ¹⁵and let him who is on the housetop not go down, nor enter in, to take anything out of his house.

  ¹⁶Let him who is in the field not return back to take his cloak.

  ¹⁷But woe to those who are with child and to those who nurse babies in those days!

  ¹⁸Pray that your flight won’t be in the winter.

  ¹⁹For in those days there will be oppression, such as there has not been the like from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be.

  ²⁰Unless the Lord had shortened the days, no flesh would have been saved; but for the sake of the chosen ones, whom he picked out, he shortened the days.

  ²¹Then if anyone tells you, ‘Look, here is the Christ!’ or, ‘Look, there!’ don’t believe it.

  ²²For there will arise false christs and false prophets, and will show signs and wonders, that they may lead astray, if possible, even the chosen ones.

  ²³But you watch. “Behold, I have told you all things beforehand.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Jesus Prayer