From the calendar 2025

Monday, November 17

St Gregory the Wonderworker

Appointed readings

2 passages

Epistle

1 Thessalonians 2:20–3:8

Open Reader ↗

20For you are our glory and joy.

1Therefore, when we could no longer endure it, we thought it good to be left in Athens alone,

2and sent Timothy, our brother and minister of God, and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ, to establish you and encourage you concerning your faith,

3that no one should be shaken by these afflictions; for you yourselves know that we are appointed to this.

4For, in fact, we told you before when we were with you that we would suffer tribulation, just as it happened, and you know.

5For this reason, when I could no longer endure it, I sent to know your faith, lest by some means the tempter had tempted you, and our labor might be in vain.

6But now that Timothy has come to us from you, and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us, as we also to see you—

7therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress we were comforted concerning you by your faith.

8For now we live, if you stand fast in the Lord.

Gospel

Luke 14:12–15

Open Reader ↗

12Then He also said to him who invited Him, 'When you give a dinner or a supper, do not ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, nor rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back, and you be repaid.

13But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind.

14And you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you; for you shall be repaid at the resurrection of the just.'

15Now when one of those who sat at the table with Him heard these things, he said to Him, 'Blessed is he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!'

The rhythm of the day

Fasting: Strict fast
Weekly tone: Tone 6

In remembrance

The saints commemorated this day

St Gregory the WonderworkerRead the life

He was born to a prominent pagan family in Neocaesarea, where Christianity was at the time almost unknown. Nonetheless, Gregory found and embraced the faith of Christ at an early age. His parents educated him at the finest schools of the day in Athens, Alexandria, and Beirut; he and his brother spent five years studying under the great Origen, though, the Synaxarion is quick to note, “They possessed enough discernment, however, to avoid certain errors into which Origen was led by the excessive boldness of his speculations about the mysteries of God.”

Refusing many tempting offers of worldly position, Gregory withdrew to the wilderness to live in ascesis. However, the Archbishop of Amesia, familiar with his holiness and ability, consecrated him Bishop of Neocaesarea against his will, and Gregory in obedience took up his see at about the age of thirty.

Read the full life

Ven. Nikon of RadonezhRead the life

He was born in 1350 in the town of Yuriev-in-the-fields, between Rostov and Radonezh. At a very young age he sought out St Sergius of Radonezh, seeking to be his disciple; but the Saint placed him in another monastery, where he soon became known as the ‘lover of obedience’ for his humility and selflessness. At last, when he was about thirty and had been ordained to the priesthood, he was able to go to Radonezh, where St Sergius, discerning his advanced spiritual state, made Nikon his cell-attendant. At the death of St Sergius, the brethren unanimously elected Nikon as their Abbot. In 1408, St Nikon was warned in an apparition that the monastery would be sacked by Tatars, so he and his monks fled with the monastery’s books and sacred vessels. When they returned they found that the monastery had been burned to the ground.

Read the full life

Our Holy Father Longinus (4th or 5th c.)Read the life

“Our holy Father Longinus lived in the Egyptian deserts during the fourth or fifth century. Among other sayings of his, are the following: A dead man judges no one, and it is just the same with the man who is humble. To someone who wanted to go to live in exile, he replied: Unless you guard your tongue, you will not be able to live in exile wherever you go. To someone else who wanted to live in solitude, he said: If you do not exercise the virtues in the midst of men, still less will you be able to do so in solitude. By his life and his words he taught love of humility as superior to all the works of ascesis, saying: Fasting humbles the body, vigil purifies the intellect and stillness leads to the affliction that baptizes man anew and cleanses him of all sin.

We also owe to him the famous saying: Shed your blood and receive the Spirit.” (Synaxarion)

Our Holy Mother Hilda, Abbess of Whitby (680)Read the life

A noble kinswoman of St Edwin, king of Northumbria (commemorated October 12), Hilda was baptized at a young age through the preaching of St Paulinus, one of the first missionaries sent from Rome to British Isles. At the age of thirty-three she renounced the world and entered monastic life. At first, she sought to enter a monastery near Paris in Gaul, but she was called back to her homeland by St Aidan, Bishop of Lindisfarne (August 31), who, discerning her already-apparent spiritual gifts, set her as Abbess of a small monastery. As her gifts of discernment and spiritual guidance became more widely-known, she led larger monasteries, finally establishing the Monastery of Whitby in 657. The Saint spent the next thirty-three years directing the Monastery, which became a beacon of Christian life throughout the British Isles and beyond.

Read the full life

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