March 9, 2025

Events of the day

• First Sunday of Great Lent. Triumph of Orthodoxy

  Commemoration

  Commemorates the restoration of the veneration of icons in 843.

Fasting

Fast day · Great Lent

Great Lent, Saturday and Sunday: food with oil and wine.

• Meat: not allowed
• Dairy & eggs: not allowed
• Fish: not allowed
• Oil: allowed
• Wine: allowed

The first week of Great Lent is kept with particular strictness; agree your measure with a priest.

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

• Vespers · Martyrs

  Isaiah 43:9–14

• Vespers · Martyrs

  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9

• Vespers · Martyrs

  Wisdom of Solomon 5:15–6:3

• 4th Matins Gospel

  Luke 24:1–12

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  ¹But on the first day of the week, at early dawn, they and some others came to the tomb, bringing the spices which they had prepared.

  ²They found the stone rolled away from the tomb.

  ³They entered in, and didn’t find the Lord Jesus’ body.

  ⁴While they were greatly perplexed about this, behold, two men stood by them in dazzling clothing.

  ⁵Becoming terrified, they bowed their faces down to the earth. They said to them, “Why do you seek the living among the dead?

  ⁶He isn’t here, but is risen. Remember what he told you when he was still in Galilee,

  ⁷saying that the Son of Man must be delivered up into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again?”

  ⁸They remembered his words,

  ⁹returned from the tomb, and told all these things to the eleven and to all the rest.

  ¹⁰Now they were Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Mary the mother of James. The other women with them told these things to the apostles.

  ¹¹These words seemed to them to be nonsense, and they didn’t believe them.

  ¹²But Peter got up and ran to the tomb. Stooping and looking in, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he departed to his home, wondering what had happened.

• Epistle

  Hebrews 11:24–26, 32–12:2

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  ²⁴By faith, Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter,

  ²⁵choosing rather to share ill treatment with God’s people than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a time,

  ²⁶considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he looked to the reward.

  ³²What more shall I say? For the time would fail me if I told of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and the prophets,

  ³³who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked out righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions,

  ³⁴quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, from weakness were made strong, grew mighty in war, and caused foreign armies to flee.

  ³⁵Women received their dead by resurrection. Others were tortured, not accepting their deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.

  ³⁶Others were tried by mocking and scourging, yes, moreover by bonds and imprisonment.

  ³⁷They were stoned. They were sawn apart. They were tempted. They were slain with the sword. They went around in sheep skins and in goat skins; being destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—

  ³⁸of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth.

  ³⁹These all, having had testimony given to them through their faith, didn’t receive the promise,

  ⁴⁰God having provided some better thing concerning us, so that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

  ¹Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

  ²looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

• Epistle · Martyrs

  Hebrews 12:1–10

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  ¹Therefore let’s also, seeing we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let’s run with perseverance the race that is set before us,

  ²looking to Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

  ³For consider him who has endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, that you don’t grow weary, fainting in your souls.

  ⁴You have not yet resisted to blood, striving against sin.

  ⁵You have forgotten the exhortation which reasons with you as with children, “My son, don’t take lightly the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him;

  ⁶for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines, and chastises every son whom he receives.”

  ⁷It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with children, for what son is there whom his father doesn’t discipline?

  ⁸But if you are without discipline, of which all have been made partakers, then you are illegitimate, and not children.

  ⁹Furthermore, we had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much rather be in subjection to the Father of spirits, and live?

  ¹⁰For they indeed, for a few days, punished us as seemed good to them; but he for our profit, that we may be partakers of his holiness.

• Gospel

  John 1:43–51

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  ⁴³On the next day, he was determined to go out into Galilee, and he found Philip. Jesus said to him, “Follow me.”

  ⁴⁴Now Philip was from Bethsaida, of the city of Andrew and Peter.

  ⁴⁵Philip found Nathanael, and said to him, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.”

  ⁴⁶Nathanael said to him, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”

  ⁴⁷Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, and said about him, “Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no deceit!”

  ⁴⁸Nathanael said to him, “How do you know me?” Jesus answered him, “Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you.”

  ⁴⁹Nathanael answered him, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are King of Israel!”

  ⁵⁰Jesus answered him, “Because I told you, ‘I saw you underneath the fig tree,’ do you believe? You will see greater things than these!”

  ⁵¹He said to him, “Most certainly, I tell you all, hereafter you will see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.”

• Gospel · Martyrs

  Matthew 20:1–16

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  ¹“For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a man who was the master of a household, who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.

  ²When he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

  ³He went out about the third hour, and saw others standing idle in the marketplace.

  ⁴He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ So they went their way.

  ⁵Again he went out about the sixth and the ninth hour, and did likewise.

  ⁶About the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing idle. He said to them, ‘Why do you stand here all day idle?’

  ⁷“They said to him, ‘Because no one has hired us.’ “He said to them, ‘You also go into the vineyard, and you will receive whatever is right.’

  ⁸When evening had come, the lord of the vineyard said to his manager, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning from the last to the first.’

  ⁹“When those who were hired at about the eleventh hour came, they each received a denarius.

  ¹⁰When the first came, they supposed that they would receive more; and they likewise each received a denarius.

  ¹¹When they received it, they murmured against the master of the household,

  ¹²saying, ‘These last have spent one hour, and you have made them equal to us, who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat!’

  ¹³“But he answered one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree with me for a denarius?

  ¹⁴Take that which is yours, and go your way. It is my desire to give to this last just as much as to you.

  ¹⁵Isn’t it lawful for me to do what I want to with what I own? Or is your eye evil, because I am good?’

  ¹⁶So the last will be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few are chosen.”

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, New Calendar (OCA practice). Text: World English Bible.

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Prayer of St Ephrem the Syrian