December 21, 2027

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), Tuesday and Thursday: cooked food without oil.

• Meat: not allowed
• Dairy & eggs: not allowed
• Fish: not allowed
• Oil: not allowed
• Wine: not 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 Timothy 5:11–21

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  ¹¹But refuse younger widows, for when they have grown wanton against Christ, they desire to marry,

  ¹²having condemnation, because they have rejected their first pledge.

  ¹³Besides, they also learn to be idle, going about from house to house. Not only idle, but also gossips and busybodies, saying things which they ought not.

  ¹⁴I desire therefore that the younger widows marry, bear children, rule the household, and give no occasion to the adversary for insulting.

  ¹⁵For already some have turned away after Satan.

  ¹⁶If any man or woman who believes has widows, let them relieve them, and don’t let the assembly be burdened, that it might relieve those who are widows indeed.

  ¹⁷Let the elders who rule well be counted worthy of double honor, especially those who labor in the word and in teaching.

  ¹⁸For the Scripture says, “You shall not muzzle the ox when it treads out the grain.” And, “The laborer is worthy of his wages.”

  ¹⁹Don’t receive an accusation against an elder, except at the word of two or three witnesses.

  ²⁰Those who sin, reprove in the sight of all, that the rest also may be in fear.

  ²¹I command you in the sight of God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the chosen angels, that you observe these things without prejudice, doing nothing by partiality.

• Gospel

  Mark 10:2–12

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  ²Pharisees came to him testing him, and asked him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?”

  ³He answered, “What did Moses command you?”

  ⁴They said, “Moses allowed a certificate of divorce to be written, and to divorce her.”

  ⁵But Jesus said to them, “For your hardness of heart, he wrote you this commandment.

  ⁶But from the beginning of the creation, God made them male and female.

  ⁷For this cause a man will leave his father and mother, and will join to his wife,

  ⁸and the two will become one flesh, so that they are no longer two, but one flesh.

  ⁹What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

  ¹⁰In the house, his disciples asked him again about the same matter.

  ¹¹He said to them, “Whoever divorces his wife, and marries another, commits adultery against her.

  ¹²If a woman herself divorces her husband, and marries another, she commits adultery.”

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: The Jesus Prayer