Ode 6. I pour out my entreaty.

Kontakion. Tone 4. Today you have appeared.

With ready gladness Julian runs by.

Having ascended to the mountain of the virtues, O Apostle, you conversed with the beloved, and like Moses you received the twin tables written by God inscribed by the finger of the Spirit, blessed Luke, teacher of the inhabited world.

You enlightened the world by your teachings, as preacher of the revered Church; for you were seen aflame with the beams of the uncreated Trinity, O God-inspired, and you became as a star, shining as a torch on the ends of the inhabited world.

Now, O inspired by God, you heal the diseases of souls as of old you did those of bodies, entrusted with the gift from heaven and enriched with grace of the Spirit. For Paul presents you as having becoming a physician among martyrs.

The Lord, as he is mighty, renewing my nature, regarded you and did great things for you, as you said, O all-blameless who gave birth to God. And he saved me from corruption through you, as he is God and loves mankind.

I pour out my entreaty before the Lord, and I tell him all my afflictions, for my soul has been filled with evils and my life has drawn near to Hades. And like Jonas I beg you: O God, bring me up from corruption.

You became a Disciple of God the Word, and with Paul you brought the whole earth to the light and dispelled the gloom by writing the divine Gospel of Christ.

As physician and beloved disciple, Luke, heal by mystical surgery the passions of my soul and body, and grant me to be in good health in every way, and to honour your all-revered festival with gladness; to drench with showers of tears instead of sweet spices your revered and all-honoured body; for as a for as a monument of life inscribed on the wondrous church of the Apostles it cries out to all, just as you did of old by writing the divine Gospel of Christ.

On the 18th day of the month, Commemoration of the holy Apostle and Evangelist Luke.

Though at Emmaus I was held from sight

Of you says Luke now, Christ, I see you plain.

On the eighteenth of the month, the Evangelist Luke reached his life’s end.

Luke, the great Evangelist, was from Antioch the Great in Syria, a doctor by profession and outstandingly skilled in the art of painting. While living and practising medicine at Thebes in Boeotia, he encountered the holy Apostle Paul; and having come to believe in Christ he abandoned his ancestral error. He then gave up the cure of bodies and took up that of souls. At the suggestion of the holy Apostle Paul he composed the Gospel according to him for one Theophilos, a Governor, who had come to believe in Christ. After Paul had departed he taught all Greece and, so they say, when he was eighty years old he went to his rest in peace at Thebes in Boeotia. His body was laid to rest there, God glorifying his own servant and worker by raining down little round loaves or capsules upon his grave as a symbol of his skill. And therefore his tomb became well known to all.

Constantius, the son of Constantine the Great, translated his remains from Thebes through the grand Duke and martyr Artemios and enshrined them in the church of the Holy Apostles under the holy table with Andrew and Timothy.

They say that he was the first to paint the icon of the holy Mother of God, carrying our Lord Jesus Christ in her arms, through the painter’s medium of wax, and two others. These the great Apostle offered to the Mother of the Lord, if it pleased her. She accepted them and said: ‘may the grace of the One who was born from me be with them through me’. Likewise he is said to have painted the holy icons of the holy Princes of the Apostles. And from him this fair and devout and all-honoured work was carried out into the whole inhabited world.

On the same day, Commemoration of the holy Martyr Marinos the elder.

Old error old Marinos now refutes,

By daring young, and meets his end by sword.

On the same day, Commemoration of our Venerable Father Julian of the Euphrates.

Now from the life which runs by like a dream

Our father among the Saints Julian abandoned the world and went away to the banks of the river Euphrates. There he found a cave in which he lived the solitary life. Many enthusiasts flocked to his tiny cave and setting up huts round about to the number of a hundred, nourished by their proximity to the teacher. This wondrous man slew a dragon and made water gush up in waterless land. He also went to mount Sinai and built a church on the rock on which Moses the lawgiver had seen God, as far it was possible to see him. This church is still standing today. But when many people were fearing the return of the impious and apostate Julian from the Persians, they asked his help, knowing him to be a true servant of God. He prolonged his holy prayer until the tenth day and then heard the words: ‘Not only for your sake, but because of the night-long entreaties and supplications of many others, the foul and impious Julian is being slain’.

After some years, when Meletios had been driven from Antioch, a number of people appealed to this blessed man for the sake of his many prayers and intercessions and entreaties. He agreed and set out, and on the way he was received by a God-loving woman. When the Saint had sat down for supper the woman’s only child, who was occupied at table, shortly disappeared from sight and as it happened fell into the well. The noble woman, though she knew this, remained absolutely unchanged, but rather covered the well over and bravely continued serving. She deceived the Saint when he asked where the child was by saying he had fallen ill. When the Saint anxiously asked that the child come to the table and enjoy a blessing, what had happened became known. He at once rose from table and tearing the cover off the well saw the child jumping in the water safe and sound, and as though in a game he ordered him to be brought up by means of something that was to hand. When this had been done the child was questioned and said he had come to no harm because he had been buoyed up and supported by the old man who had spoken with him and played with him in the waters.

When he reached Antioch he dwelt in the cave in which the holy Apostle Paul had once hidden. Once when a large crowd had flocked to the cave for the sake of the succour and blessing of the Saint, he was in the grip of a violent fever, and was lying breathing weakly and almost at his last breath. As they crowded round him, saying that there were many people waiting outside and in need of blessing, he answered ‘If health were good for us the Lord of all things would give it’; and after he had prayed he raised himself from the raging fever for the sake of helping the crowd.

Once when he was on a journey and was leaving for the royal court, some one who lying sick on coming near his cloak arose at once and followed him, as of old the lame man followed Peter and John. Not only this, but when he had established him in the orthodox faith he returned to his monastic training ground, making his way through Kyros. The people of Kyros detained the Saint for his succour, saying: ‘Servant of God, in place of our bishop we are expecting a certain Asterios, an impious and destructive man. Stay with us and help us if you are able, lest with his gossiping tongue he perverts us with his words. He stayed and when he had completed an all-night prayer, with a few who had gathered, he slew him with wrath sent by God, allowing him a life of pain of only one day. Then he returned to his disciples and having passed a good number of years with them he departed to the Lord.

Saint Mnason, bishop of Cyprus, and forty holy children met their end by the sword.

Commemoration of the newly-revealed holy Martyrs Gabriel and Kyrmidoli who contested in Egypt in 1522.

At their holy intercessions, O God, have mercy on us. Amen.