8th SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST — Tone 7. Afterfeast of the Dormition. Martyrs Florus and Laurus of Illyria (2nd c.). Repose of Ven. John, Abbot of Rila (946).
Tone 7 Troparion (Resurrection)
By Your Cross You destroyed death. To the thief You opened Paradise. For the Myrrhbearers You changed weeping into joy. And You commanded Your disciples, O Christ God, to proclaim that You are risen,// granting the world great mercy.
Tone 1 Troparion (Feast)
In giving birth you preserved your virginity. In falling asleep you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos. You were translated to life O Mother of Life,// and by your prayers you deliver our souls from death.
Tone 4 Troparion (St. Nicholas)
The truth of your deeds has revealed you to your flock as a rule of faith, an image of meekness and a teacher of self-control; your humility exalted you; your poverty enriched you.// O Father Bishop Nicholas, pray to Christ God that our souls may be saved.
Tone 4 Troparion (Martyrs)
Let us praise as is meet, O faithful, the most comely, radiant and divinely wise martyrs: Most blessed Florus and all-venerable Laurus, who proclaimed to all the uncreated Trinity. Suffering unto bloodshed, they were adorned with brilliant crowns.// Entreat Christ our God to save our souls!
Tone 7 Kontakion (Resurrection)
The dominion of death can no longer hold men captive, for Christ descended, shattering and destroying its powers. Hell is bound, while the Prophets rejoice and cry: “The Savior has come to those in faith;// enter, you faithful, into the Resurrection!”
Tone 3 Kontakion (St. Nicholas)
You proved yourself to be be a holy priest, O Nicholas. You served God in Myra and lived the gospel of Christ. You offered your life for your people, And rescued the innocent from death. Therefore God has glorified you as a trustworthy guide of things divine.
Tone 2 Kontakion (Martyrs)
Neither the tomb, nor death, could hold the Theotokos, who is constant in prayer and our firm hope in her intercessions. For being the Mother of Life,// she was translated to life by the One Who dwelt in her virginal womb.
Tone 7 Prokeimenon (Resurrection)
The Lord shall give strength to His people. / The Lord shall bless His people with peace. (Ps. 28:11)
V. Offer to the Lord, O you sons of God! Offer young rams to the Lord! (Ps. 28:1a)
Tone 3 Prokeimenon (Song of the Theotokos)
My soul magnifies the Lord, / and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior. (Lk. 1:46-47)
1 Corinthians 1:10-18 (Epistle)
Now I plead with you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment. For it has been declared to me concerning you, my brethren, by those of Chloe’s household, that there are contentions among you. Now I say this, that each of you says, “I am of Paul,” or “I am of Apollos,” or “I am of Cephas,” or “I am of Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, lest anyone should say that I had baptized in my own name. Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas. Besides, I do not know whether I baptized any other. For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of no effect. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
Tone 7
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
V. It is good to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to Your Name, O Most High. (Ps. 91:1)
V. To declare Your mercy in the morning, and Your truth by night. (Ps. 91:2a)
Tone 8
V. Arise, O Lord, into Your rest, You and the Ark of Your sanctification! (Ps. 131:8)
Matthew 14:14-22 (Gospel)
And when Jesus went out He saw a great multitude; and He was moved with compassion for them, and healed their sick. When it was evening, His disciples came to Him, saying, “This is a deserted place, and the hour is already late. Send the multitudes away, that they may go into the villages and buy themselves food.” But Jesus said to them, “They do not need to go away. You give them something to eat.” And they said to Him, “We have here only five loaves and two fish.” He said, “Bring them here to Me.” Then He commanded the multitudes to sit down on the grass. And He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke and gave the loaves to the disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitudes. So they all ate and were filled, and they took up twelve baskets full of the fragments that remained. Now those who had eaten were about five thousand men, besides women and children. Immediately Jesus made His disciples get into the boat and go before Him to the other side, while He sent the multitudes away.
Martyrs Florus and Laurus of Illyria
The Martyrs Florus and Laurus were brothers by birth not only in flesh but in spirit. They lived in the second century at Byzantium, and afterwards they settled in Illyria [now Yugoslavia]. By occupation they were stone-masons (their teachers in this craft were the Christians Proclus and Maximus, from whom also the brothers learned about life pleasing to God).
The prefect of Illyria, Likaion, sent the brothers to a nearby district for work on the construction of a pagan temple. The saints toiled at the structure, distributing to the poor the money they earned, while they kept strict fast and prayed without ceasing.
Once, the son of the local pagan-priest Mamertin carelessly approached the structure, and a chip of stone hit him in the eye, severely injuring him. Saints Florus and Laurus assured the upset father, that his son would be healed.
They brought the youth to consciousness and told him to have faith in Christ. After this, as the youth confessed Jesus Christ as the true God, the brothers prayed for him, and the eye was healed. In view of such a miracle, even the father of the youth believed in Christ.
When the construction of the temple was completed, the brothers gathered the Christians together, and going through the temple, they smashed the idols. In the eastern part of the temple they set up the holy Cross. They spent all night in prayer, illumined with heavenly light. Having learned of this, the head of the district condemned to burning the former pagan priest Mamertin and his son and 300 Christians.
The martyrs Florus and Laurus, having been sent back to the prefect Likaion, were thrown down an empty well and covered over with earth. After many years, the relics of the holy martyrs were uncovered incorrupt, and transferred to Constantinople. In the year 1200 the Novgorod pilgrim Anthony saw them. Stephen of Novgorod saw the heads of the martyrs in the Pantokrator monastery around the year 1350.
On The Liturgy
Fr. Sergius Bowyer (Abbot of St. Tikhon’s)
The Liturgy informs the heart and changes us imperceptibly. St. Maximus the Confessor tells us that just being present at the Liturgy ontologically alters us for the better, from a lower to a higher state. St. John of Kronstadt even said, “If one was to put all of the world’s most precious things on one side of a scale, and the Divine Liturgy on the other, the scales would tip completely in favor of the Divine Liturgy.” He qualified this statement by explaining that the Divine Liturgy is truly a heavenly service upon earth, during which God Himself, in a particular, immediate, and most close manner, is present and dwells with men, being Himself the invisible Celebrant of the service, offering and being offered. There is nothing upon earth holier, higher, grander, more solemn, more life-giving than the Liturgy…. When the Lord descended upon Mount Sinai the Hebrew people were ordered to previously prepare and cleanse themselves. In the Divine service we have not a lesser event than God’s descent upon Mount Sinai, but a greater one: here before us is the very face of God the Lawgiver.
It is through the Liturgy that we learn how to live a spiritual life, for it shows us a pattern of how to take this world and to offer it up in an Anaphora, invoking the Holy Spirit on everyone, everything, and every situation. This in turn grants the possibility of everything in our personal world of becoming eucharistic, an encounter with God, a point of contact and not of separation. Our main task as liturgical beings is to take our world and re-connect it to God in thanksgiving (i.e., to make it eucharistic)….The saving works of the God-man Jesus Christ (e.g., the Incarnation, the Cross, the Tomb, the Resurrection, and the Ascension) have passed into, and are now manifested within, the sacramental life of the Church.
According to St. Leo the Great, this sacramental liturgical worship is the primary revelation and entrance into these saving acts for the world. It is paramount that the utmost care be taken to preserve these precious and beautiful flowers that have budded forth from the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and find their fullest manifestation within the cycle of services in the Church. It is imperative to understand that he who cares for the Liturgy and ministers unto the Lord takes care of the Lord Himself.
It must be stated and emphasized that Orthodox Christian life is, by definition, a liturgical life. To fail to recognize this is to fail to find the key to the mystery of Orthodox Christianity. Professor Constantine Scouteris explains this unbreakable connection between salvation and worship: In the Tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church, doctrine and worship are inseparable. Worship is, in a certain sense, doctrinal testimony, reference to the events of Revelation.
Thus, “dogmas are not abstract ideas in and for themselves but revealed and saving truths and realities intended to bring mankind into communion with God.” One could say without hesitation that, according to Orthodox understanding, the fullness of theological thought is found in the worship of the Church. This is why the term Orthodoxy is understood by many not as “right opinion,” but as “right doxology,” [that is,] “right worship.”
The Liturgy is meant to become our life, and the continual entry into the new life that is granted to us in Christ. The Church’s teachings are inseparable from the Liturgy, and all of her theological definitions that she proclaims (such as the Creed) are confirmed by and revealed through the Liturgy. It is primarily through this liturgical life that we begin to enter the corporate dogmatic visionary consciousness of the Church. Fr. Georges Florovsky once explained that “the Church is first of all a worshiping community. Worship comes first and then doctrine and discipline.” The Church has not grown out of dogmatic formulas, nor even Holy Scripture, but out of right worship, uniting us into one Spirit in the one Body of Christ.
— Bowyer, Sergius. Acquiring the Mind of Christ: Embracing the Vision of the Orthodox Church. St. Tikhon’s Monastery Press.
Sunday Bulletin August 11, 2024