From the calendar, 2025.

Wednesday, November 19

Prophet Obadiah

Strict fastNo meat, dairy, eggs, fish, wine or oil.

Appointed to be read.

At the
1. Epistle1 Thessalonians 4:1–12
2. GospelLuke 15:1–10

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Epistle.

1 Thessalonians 4:1–12

1 min read

1Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God;

2for you know what commandments we gave you through the Lord Jesus.

3For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you should abstain from sexual immorality;

4that each of you should know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor,

5not in passion of lust, like the Gentiles who do not know God;

6that no one should take advantage of and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord is the avenger of all such, as we also forewarned you and testified.

7For God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness.

8Therefore he who rejects this does not reject man, but God, who has also given us His Holy Spirit.

9But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another;

10and indeed you do so toward all the brethren who are in all Macedonia. But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more;

11that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you,

12that you may walk properly toward those who are outside, and that you may lack nothing.

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Gospel.

Luke 15:1–10

1 min read

1Then all the tax collectors and the sinners drew near to Him to hear Him.

2And the Pharisees and scribes complained, saying, 'This Man receives sinners and eats with them.'

3So He spoke this parable to them, saying:

4'What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it?

5And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing.

6And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!'

7I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

8'Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?

9And when she has found it, she calls her friends and neighbors together, saying, 'Rejoice with me, for I have found the piece which I lost!'

10Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.'

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In remembrance.

Prophet ObadiahRead the life

Obadiah’s is the shortest prophetic book in the Old Testament. The scriptures tell us little of where or when he lived. Some believe that he is the Obadiah who served as steward of King Ahab’s household and, when Jezebel was killing the prophets, hid a hundred of them in a cave and fed them. It is said that this Obadiah later became a disciple of the Prophet Elijah (Elias). His name means “servant of God.”

Ven. Barlaam and JoasaphRead the life

“They were Indian ascetics. Joasaph was son and heir to King Abenner. By God’s providence, he was visited by the elder Barlaam, who taught him the Christian faith and baptised him. After that, the elder went off into the mountains to live in asceticism, and Joasaph remained to wrestle with many temptations in the world and to overcome them by the grace of God. Joasaph finally succeeded in bringing his father to Christ. When he had been baptised, King Abenner lived a further four years in deep repentance (for he had committed grave sins in his persecution of Christians) and then finished his earthly course and went to the better life. The young Joasaph entrusted the kingdom to his friend Barachias, and himself went off into the desert to live in asceticism for the sake of Christ. His one desire on earth was to see his spiritual father, Barlaam, once more.

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Our Holy Father Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow (1867)Read the life

Born of a priestly family near Moscow in 1782, he entered seminary at a young age and soon distinguished himself for his piety and his scholarship of ancient languages. He was tonsured a monk, but was made a professor at the seminary in Moscow, where his expositions of the Faith, spoken and written, caused him to be regarded as a Father of the Church in his own time; many called him “the new Chrysostom.”

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Holy Martyr Barlaam of Antioch (304)Read the life

Saint Barlaam was an old man, living in Antioch during the persecution of Diocletian and Maximian. When he confessed Christ before the Governor and refused to sacrifice to the idols, he was tortured for days: his flesh was torn by iron claws and he was stretched on the rack. When these conventional tortures failed, the Governor invented a new torment: Barlaam’s hand was stretched over an altar to the idols, and a burning coal with incense was put in his palm. The torturers reasoned that when pain forced him to drop the coal, they would be able to say that he had offered sacrifice to the gods. But the holy Barlaam held his hand steady and watched calmly as his hand was burnt up by the coal. At last his hand fell to the ground and the Martyr gave up his soul to God.

Read the full life

Further.

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What this is.

The Scripture the Orthodox Church reads each day, the saints it remembers, and a study aid that answers from Scripture and the Fathers and shows its sources.

Divine Liturgy. The Church's main service, at which Holy Communion is given. Its Epistle and Gospel are what most people mean by the day's readings.

Matins. The morning service of praise. On Sundays and feasts it has a Gospel of its own.

Vespers. The evening service. The Church's day begins at sunset, so a feast's Vespers is served the evening before.

Hours. Short services of psalms and prayer at set times of the day: the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours.

Tone. The hymns of the week are sung in one of eight tones, or melodies, which follow each other week by week.

New Calendar. Fixed feasts are kept on the civil date, as in the OCA and the Antiochian Archdiocese. Churches on the Old Calendar keep them 13 days later. Pascha is the same for both.