The Russian Church Abroad Parish meets at
9110 Devlin Road, Suite 120, Bristow, VA 20136 at 10:00 A.M. on Sundays
for Divine Liturgy.
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Feb 05/Jan 23 - Reflections for Friday:
CORRECTED
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Sunday, February 07/January 05, 10:00 A.M., Divine Liturgy - New Martyrs and Confessors of Russian Church (movable holiday on the Sunday closest to January 25th). Remembrance of all the departed who suffered in the years of persecution for faith in Christ. St. Gregory the Theologian, archbishop of Constantinople (389).
Wednesday, February 10/January 28, 10:00 A.M., Divine Liturgy - Venerable Ephraim the Syrian (373). Venerable Theodosius, abbot, of Totma (Vologda) (1568).
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Meditation
"Glory be to the Good One"
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Glory be to the Good One Who came down on account of us, became like us, and healed our wounds through His all-holy flesh and His all-holy blood.
Let everyone sing praise to Him.
Let us give thanks to the Compassionate One who always carries our burden, even though He knows our evil.
He has formed us and He feeds us, and orders His sun to illuminate us.
Let us glorify his kindness. O our Lord, open the door of compassion to me.
You who are full of mercy, extend Your hand to me, O Good and Merciful One, and restore me to Your sheepfold, so that I may praise Your loving-kindness.
My sins form a wall between me and Your goodness.
Pull it down so that I might draw close to Your compassion.
Pour out Your love on me and lift me up into Your lofty heights.
For the wall of my sins can be pulled down only through weeping and grief.
Thus permit me, every day of my life to carefully grieve over my sins and to collect the fruits which will help me on judgment day.
St. Ephraim the Syrian
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Hieromartyr Clement the Bishop of Ancyra |
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The Hieromartyr Clement was born in the Galatian city of Ancyra in the year 258, of a pagan father and a Christian mother. He lost his father when he was an infant, and his mother when he was twelve. She predicted a martyr’s death for him because of his belief in Christ.
A woman named Sophia adopted him and raised him in the fear of God. During a terrible famine in Galatia several pagans turned out their own children, not having the means to feed them. Sophia took in these unfortunates, and fed and clothed them. Saint Clement assisted her in this. He taught the children and prepared them for Baptism. Many of them died as martyrs for Christ.
Saint Clement was made a reader, and later a deacon. When he was eighteen he was ordained to the holy priesthood, and at age twenty he was consecrated Bishop of Ancyra. Soon afterwards the persecution against Christians under Diocletian (284-305) broke out.
Bishop Clement was denounced as a Christian and arrested. Dometian, the governor of Galatia, tried to make the saint worship the pagan gods, but Saint Clement firmly confessed his faith and valiantly withstood all the tortures.
They suspended him on a tree, and raked his body with sharp iron instruments so that his entrails could be seen. They smashed his mouth with stones, and they turned him on a wheel and burned him over a low fire. The Lord preserved His sufferer and healed his lacerated body.
Then Dometian sent the saint to Rome to the emperor Diocletian himself, with a report that Bishop Clement had been fiercely tortured, but had proven unyielding. Diocletian, seeing the martyr completely healthy, did not believe the report and subjected him to even crueler tortures, and then had him locked up in prison.
Many of the pagans, seeing the bravery of the saint and the miraculous healing of his wounds, believed in Christ. People flocked to Saint Clement in prison for guidance, healing and Baptism, so that the prison was literally transformed into a church. When word of this reached the emperor, many of these new Christians were executed.
Diocletian, struck by the amazing endurance of Saint Clement, sent him to Nicomedia to his co-emperor Maximian. On the ship, the saint was joined by his disciple Agathangelus, who had avoided being executed with the other confessors, and who now wanted to suffer and die for Christ with Bishop Clement.
The emperor Maximian in turn sent Saints Clement and Agathangelus to the governor Agrippina, who subjected them to such inhuman torments, that even the pagan on-lookers felt pity for the martyrs and they began to pelt the torturers with stones.
Having been set free, the saints healed an inhabitant of the city through the laying on of hands and they baptized and instructed people, thronging to them in multitudes. Arrested again on orders of Maximian, they were sent home to Ancyra, where the ruler Cyrenius had them tortured. Then they were sent to the city of Amasea to the proconsul Dometius, known for his great cruelty.
In Amasea, the martyrs were thrown into hot lime. They spent a whole day in it and remained unharmed. They flayed them, beat them with iron rods, set them on red-hot beds, and poured sulfur on their bodies. All this failed to harm the saints, and they were sent to Tarsus for new tortures. In the wilderness along the way Saint Clement had a revelation that he would suffer a total of twenty-eight years for Christ. Then having endured a multitude of tortures, the saints were locked up in prison.
Saint Agathangelus was beheaded with the sword on November 5. The Christians of Ancyra freed Saint Clement from prison and took him to a cave church. There, after celebrating Liturgy, the saint announced to the faithful the impending end of the persecution and his own martyrdom. On January 23, the holy hierarch was killed by soldiers from the city, who stormed the church. The saint was beheaded as he stood before the altar and offered the Bloodless Sacrifice. Two deacons, Christopher and Chariton, were beheaded with him, but no one else was harmed.
Troparion — Tone 4
You sprang up, most holy one, / as a branch and stem of holiness, / a most sacred flower of the contest of martyrdom / and as a most sweet fruit given by God to the faithful. / But as one who shared the struggle of the martyrs / and the throne of hierarchs, / intercede with Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Kontakion — Tone 4
You have become an honored branch of the vine of Christ, / revealed as one of many many struggles, / all-praised Clement, / with your fellow champion you cried out: / “Christ is the shining joy of martyrs.”
1/31/2017
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New Hieromartyr Seraphim (Bulashov), abbot, of Holy Transfiguration Guslitsky Monastery (Moscow) (1938).
St. Eusebius, recluse of Mt. Coryphe, near Antioch (4th c.). St. Dionysius of Olympus and Mt. Athos (1541). St. Ildephonsus (Alphonse, Alonzo), archbishop of Toledo (667).
Repose of Abbot Damascene of Valaam (1881) and Archimandrite John (Krestiankin) of the Pskov Caves Monastery (2006).
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Thoughts for Each Day of the Year
According to the Daily Church Readings from the Word of God
By St. Theophan the Recluse
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Friday. [James 2:1-13; Mark 10:23-32]
Hearing the word of the Lord about the inconvenience rich people have in entering the Kingdom of God, the disciples thought, Who then can be saved? The Lord said to this, With men it is impossible, but not with God: for with God all things are possible. It is not possible to renounce self-interest without the influence of grace on the heart; it is not possible to cope with all sorts of weaknesses for things, or with all the sin living in us and all of its consequences without God’s grace. God’s grace is given, according to faith in the Lord, in the mysteries of the holy Church. Hold tightly to the holy Church of God and to all of its institutions, and the power of God, helping to bring about every good, will always abide with you. But at the same time always remember that these illuminating and life-giving institutions are a means and not the goal; that is why you should go through them only in order to enliven and nourish the grace-filled powers hidden in you through their influence, and then take up your work as a strong man, ready for every good deed. If you keep what you have received to yourself and not release it through good deeds, you will not be right; just like one is not right who shuns everything belonging to the church. Incorrect zealots of piety make the very structure of a pious life subject to criticism; but this does not take the significance away from this structure, and does not justify philosophizers, who shun it only on these grounds.
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My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes, and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, "You sit here in a good place," and say to the poor man, "You stand there," or, "Sit here at my footstool," have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself," you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. |
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Then Jesus looked around and said to His disciples, "How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!" And the disciples were astonished at His words. But Jesus answered again and said to them, "Children, how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God. And they were greatly astonished, saying among themselves, "Who then can be saved?" But Jesus looked at them and said, "With men it is impossible, but not with God; for with God all things are possible." Then Peter began to say to Him, "See, we have left all and followed You." So Jesus answered and said, "Assuredly, I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My sake and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time-houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions-and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first. Now they were on the road, going up to Jerusalem, and Jesus was going before them; and they were amazed. And as they followed they were afraid. Then He took the twelve aside again and began to tell them the things that would happen to Him: |
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And it brings to once again to the following wise custom...
Meditation:
On A Wise Custom
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A wise custom of the ancient Holy Fathers: when greeting each other, they didn’t ask about health or anything else, but rather about prayer, saying "How is your prayer?” Prayer was considered by them to a be a sign of the spiritual life, and they called it the breath of the spirit. If the body has breath, it lives; if breathing stops, life comes to an end. So it is with the spirit. If there is prayer, the soul lives; without prayer, there is no spiritual life.“
St. Theophan the Recluse
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Supporting the Parish
The continuity of apostolic love is a way of life.
It is up to you to sustain the way of life.
Please.
If you can electronically donate, please do so, accepting our profound appreciation.
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If it is peace you are seeking . . .
Pray with us . . .
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From the litany at the beginning of Divine Liturgy |
That He may deliver His people from their enemies, visible and invisible, and may confirm in us the oneness of mind, brotherly love, and piety, let us pray to the Lord . . . |
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