July 24, 2025

Events of the day

No commemorations in the content package for this day yet

Fasting

No fast

No fast today.

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

  Isaiah 43:9–14

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9

• Vespers

  Wisdom of Solomon 4:7–15

• Matins Gospel

  Luke 21:12–19

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  ¹²But before all these things, they will lay their hands on you and will persecute you, delivering you up to synagogues and prisons, bringing you before kings and governors for my name’s sake.

  ¹³It will turn out as a testimony for you.

  ¹⁴Settle it therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand how to answer,

  ¹⁵for I will give you a mouth and wisdom which all your adversaries will not be able to withstand or to contradict.

  ¹⁶You will be handed over even by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends. They will cause some of you to be put to death.

  ¹⁷You will be hated by all men for my name’s sake.

  ¹⁸And not a hair of your head will perish.

  ¹⁹“By your endurance you will win your lives.

• Epistle

  1 Corinthians 7:24–35

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  ²⁴Brothers, let each man, in whatever condition he was called, stay in that condition with God.

  ²⁵Now concerning virgins, I have no commandment from the Lord, but I give my judgment as one who has obtained mercy from the Lord to be trustworthy.

  ²⁶Therefore I think that because of the distress that is on us, that it’s good for a man to remain as he is.

  ²⁷Are you bound to a wife? Don’t seek to be freed. Are you free from a wife? Don’t seek a wife.

  ²⁸But if you marry, you have not sinned. If a virgin marries, she has not sinned. Yet such will have oppression in the flesh, and I want to spare you.

  ²⁹But I say this, brothers: the time is short, that from now on, both those who have wives may be as though they had none;

  ³⁰and those who weep, as though they didn’t weep; and those who rejoice, as though they didn’t rejoice; and those who buy, as though they didn’t possess;

  ³¹and those who use the world, as not using it to the fullest. For the mode of this world passes away.

  ³²But I desire to have you to be free from cares. He who is unmarried is concerned for the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord;

  ³³but he who is married is concerned about the things of the world, how he may please his wife.

  ³⁴There is also a difference between a wife and a virgin. The unmarried woman cares about the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and in spirit. But she who is married cares about the things of the world—how she may please her husband.

  ³⁵This I say for your own profit; not that I may ensnare you, but for that which is appropriate, and that you may attend to the Lord without distraction.

• Epistle · Boris and Gleb

  Romans 8:28–39

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  ²⁸We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose.

  ²⁹For whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

  ³⁰Whom he predestined, those he also called. Whom he called, those he also justified. Whom he justified, those he also glorified.

  ³¹What then shall we say about these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

  ³²He who didn’t spare his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how would he not also with him freely give us all things?

  ³³Who could bring a charge against God’s chosen ones? It is God who justifies.

  ³⁴Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, yes rather, who was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.

  ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Could oppression, or anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

  ³⁶Even as it is written, “For your sake we are killed all day long. We were accounted as sheep for the slaughter.”

  ³⁷No, in all these things, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

  ³⁸For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,

  ³⁹nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from God’s love which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

• Gospel

  Matthew 15:12–21

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  ¹²Then the disciples came, and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”

  ¹³But he answered, “Every plant which my heavenly Father didn’t plant will be uprooted.

  ¹⁴Leave them alone. They are blind guides of the blind. If the blind guide the blind, both will fall into a pit.”

  ¹⁵Peter answered him, “Explain the parable to us.”

  ¹⁶So Jesus said, “Do you also still not understand?

  ¹⁷Don’t you understand that whatever goes into the mouth passes into the belly, and then out of the body?

  ¹⁸But the things which proceed out of the mouth come out of the heart, and they defile the man.

  ¹⁹For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, sexual sins, thefts, false testimony, and blasphemies.

  ²⁰These are the things which defile the man; but to eat with unwashed hands doesn’t defile the man.”

  ²¹Jesus went out from there, and withdrew into the region of Tyre and Sidon.

• Gospel · Boris and Gleb

  John 15:17–16:2

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  ¹⁷“I command these things to you, that you may love one another.

  ¹⁸If the world hates you, you know that it has hated me before it hated you.

  ¹⁹If you were of the world, the world would love its own. But because you are not of the world, since I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

  ²⁰Remember the word that I said to you: ‘A servant is not greater than his lord.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours.

  ²¹But they will do all these things to you for my name’s sake, because they don’t know him who sent me.

  ²²If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not have had sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin.

  ²³He who hates me, hates my Father also.

  ²⁴If I hadn’t done among them the works which no one else did, they wouldn’t have had sin. But now they have seen and also hated both me and my Father.

  ²⁵But this happened so that the word may be fulfilled which was written in their law, ‘They hated me without a cause.’

  ²⁶“When the Counselor has come, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify about me.

  ²⁷You will also testify, because you have been with me from the beginning.

  ¹“I have said these things to you so that you wouldn’t be caused to stumble.

  ²They will put you out of the synagogues. Yes, the time comes that whoever kills you will think that he offers service to God.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Prayer to the Holy Spirit “O Heavenly King”