From the calendar, 2025.
Tuesday, December 23
Holy Ten Martyrs of Crete
Wine & oilWine and oil are allowed. No meat, dairy, eggs or fish.
Appointed to be read.
Epistle.
Hebrews 4:1–13
2 min read
1Therefore, since a promise remains of entering His rest, let us fear lest any of you seem to have come short of it.
2For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.
3For we who have believed do enter that rest, as He has said: 'So I swore in My wrath, 'They shall not enter My rest,' ' although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
4For He has spoken in a certain place of the seventh day in this way: 'And God rested on the seventh day from all His works';
5and again in this place: 'They shall not enter My rest.'
6Since therefore it remains that some must enter it, and those to whom it was first preached did not enter because of disobedience,
7again He designates a certain day, saying in David, 'Today,' after such a long time, as it has been said: 'Today, if you will hear His voice,
8For if Joshua had given them rest, then He would not afterward have spoken of another day.
9There remains therefore a rest for the people of God.
10For he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God did from His.
11Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.
12For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
13And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
Gospel.
Mark 10:2–12
1 min read
2The Pharisees came and asked Him, 'Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?' testing Him.
3And He answered and said to them, 'What did Moses command you?'
4They said, 'Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce, and to dismiss her.'
5And Jesus answered and said to them, 'Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept.
6But from the beginning of the creation, God 'made them male and female.'
7'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife,
8and the two shall become one flesh'; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh.
9Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.'
10In the house His disciples also asked Him again about the same matter.
11So He said to them, 'Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her.
12And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.'
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.