December 22, 2025

Events of the day

No commemorations in the content package for this day yet

• Forefeast: Nativity of our Lord, God and Saviour Jesus Christ

Fasting

Fast day · Nativity Fast

Nativity Fast (from 20 Dec Old Style), Monday, Wednesday and Friday: xerophagy.

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

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

  Hebrews 3:5–11, 17–19

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  ⁵Moses indeed was faithful in all his house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were afterward to be spoken,

  ⁶but Christ is faithful as a Son over his house. We are his house, if we hold fast our confidence and the glorying of our hope firm to the end.

  ⁷Therefore, even as the Holy Spirit says, “Today if you will hear his voice,

  ⁸don’t harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, like as in the day of the trial in the wilderness,

  ⁹where your fathers tested me and tried me, and saw my deeds for forty years.

  ¹⁰Therefore I was displeased with that generation, and said, ‘They always err in their heart, but they didn’t know my ways.’

  ¹¹As I swore in my wrath, ‘They will not enter into my rest.’ ”

  ¹⁷With whom was he displeased forty years? Wasn’t it with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness?

  ¹⁸To whom did he swear that they wouldn’t enter into his rest, but to those who were disobedient?

  ¹⁹We see that they weren’t able to enter in because of unbelief.

• Gospel

  Mark 9:42–10:1

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  ⁴²Whoever will cause one of these little ones who believe in me to stumble, it would be better for him if he were thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around his neck.

  ⁴³If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having your two hands to go into Gehenna, into the unquenchable fire,

  ⁴⁴‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’

  ⁴⁵If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter into life lame, rather than having your two feet to be cast into Gehenna, into the fire that will never be quenched—

  ⁴⁶‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’

  ⁴⁷If your eye causes you to stumble, cast it out. It is better for you to enter into God’s Kingdom with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the Gehenna of fire,

  ⁴⁸‘where their worm doesn’t die, and the fire is not quenched.’

  ⁴⁹For everyone will be salted with fire, and every sacrifice will be seasoned with salt.

  ⁵⁰Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its saltiness, with what will you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.”

  ¹He arose from there and came into the borders of Judea and beyond the Jordan. Multitudes came together to him again. As he usually did, he was again teaching them.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Morning prayer of St Macarius the Great