Ode 6. I will sacrifice to you.

Kontakion. Tone 4.

Your unbelief, blessed Thomas, heals the soul-destroying unbelief of all; for you indisputably investigated the holes of the nails and the lance.

Like a sharpened arrow, O Christ, as a man of power, you loosed the Apostle into the hearts of the foe, O Giver of life, and he brought you the plunder of their spoils.

Lord of mercy, you destroyed idolatrous sacrifices by your being slaughtered on a tree and by the holy slaughter of your inspired Apostles, as they imitated your sufferings.

O marvel, newer than all marvels! For a Virgin conceives in her womb without knowing man him who cherishes the universe and she is not straitened.

I will sacrifice to you with a voice of praise, O Lord, the Church cries to you, cleansed from the gore of demons by the Blood which flowed through pity from your side.

Today you have appeared.

Filled with God’s grace, Christ’s Apostle and true servant cried in repentance, ‘You are my God and Lord!’

When Peter said to the inspired Thomas, Christ’s Disciple and great speaker of mysteries, ‘We have seen the Lord’, he said, ,If I do not see in his hands the mark of the nails, and handle his side, I will not believe’. But the Creator and Master of all things came as a slave, wishing to save all, and said to Thomas, ‘Handle the marks in my hands and side, and do not be unbelieving; for I am the Lord your God’. But he cried in repentance, ‘You are my God and Lord’.

On the 6th of the same month, commemoration of the holy Apostle Thomas.

Thomas once sought to thrust his hand, O Word,

Into your side: for you his side is pierced.

Thomas with spears from afar was stabbed on the sixth of October.

He preached the word of God to Medes and Parthians, Persians and Indians; he was imprisoned by King Smidaios, because through him his son Azanes, his wife Tertia and his daughters Migdonia and Narka had believed and been baptised. And so he was handed over to five soldiers, who took him up a mountain and ran him through with lances; and so he departed to the Lord.

From his journeys .

On the same day, commemoration of the holy Martyr, Eroiïs.

Virgin Erotiïs they burn with fire

Who was on fire with the love of Christ.

The holy new Monk Martyr Makarios, from Kios in Bithynia, was martyred at Prousi. He was stoned and finally slain with the sword in 1590.

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