November 5, 2031

Events of the day

• Apostle James, the Brother of the Lord

  Polyeleos rank

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

  1 Thessalonians 2:1–8

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  ¹For you yourselves know, brothers, our visit to you wasn’t in vain,

  ²but having suffered before and been shamefully treated, as you know, at Philippi, we grew bold in our God to tell you the Good News of God in much conflict.

  ³For our exhortation is not of error, nor of uncleanness, nor in deception.

  ⁴But even as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the Good News, so we speak: not as pleasing men, but God, who tests our hearts.

  ⁵For neither were we at any time found using words of flattery, as you know, nor a cloak of covetousness (God is witness),

  ⁶nor seeking glory from men (neither from you nor from others), when we might have claimed authority as apostles of Christ.

  ⁷But we were gentle among you, like a nursing mother cherishes her own children.

  ⁸Even so, affectionately longing for you, we were well pleased to impart to you, not the Good News of God only, but also our own souls, because you had become very dear to us.

• Epistle · St James

  Galatians 1:11–19

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  ¹¹But I make known to you, brothers, concerning the Good News which was preached by me, that it is not according to man.

  ¹²For I didn’t receive it from man, nor was I taught it, but it came to me through revelation of Jesus Christ.

  ¹³For you have heard of my way of living in time past in the Jews’ religion, how that beyond measure I persecuted the assembly of God and ravaged it.

  ¹⁴I advanced in the Jews’ religion beyond many of my own age among my countrymen, being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.

  ¹⁵But when it was the good pleasure of God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through his grace

  ¹⁶to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the Gentiles, I didn’t immediately confer with flesh and blood,

  ¹⁷nor did I go up to Jerusalem to those who were apostles before me, but I went away into Arabia. Then I returned to Damascus.

  ¹⁸Then after three years I went up to Jerusalem to visit Peter, and stayed with him fifteen days.

  ¹⁹But of the other apostles I saw no one except James, the Lord’s brother.

• Gospel

  Luke 11:9–13

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  ⁹“I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you.

  ¹⁰For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened.

  ¹¹“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?

  ¹²Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he?

  ¹³If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

• Gospel · St James

  Matthew 13:54–58

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  ⁵⁴Coming into his own country, he taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished, and said, “Where did this man get this wisdom, and these mighty works?

  ⁵⁵Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother called Mary, and his brothers, James, Joses, Simon, and Judas?

  ⁵⁶Aren’t all of his sisters with us? Where then did this man get all of these things?”

  ⁵⁷They were offended by him. But Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in his own country, and in his own house.”

  ⁵⁸He didn’t do many mighty works there because of their unbelief.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Trisagion