March 9, 2026

Events of the day

No commemorations in the content package for this day yet

Fasting

Fast day · Great Lent

Great Lent, 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

• Matins Gospel · Martyrs

  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.

• 6th Hour

  Isaiah 8:13–9:7

• Vespers

  Genesis 6:9–22

• Vespers

  Proverbs 8:1–21

• Vespers · Martyrs

  Isaiah 43:9–14

• Vespers · Martyrs

  Wisdom of Solomon 3:1–9

• Vespers · Martyrs

  Wisdom of Solomon 5:15–6:3

• 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 · 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