1st SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST — Tone 8. All Saints. “Seven Arrows”. Synaxis of the Holy, Glorious and All-praised Twelve Apostles
Tone 8 Troparion (Resurrection)
You descended from on high, O Merciful One! You accepted the three day burial to free us from our sufferings!// O Lord, our Life and Resurrection, glory to You!
Tone 4 Troparion (All Saints)
As with fine porphyry and royal purple, Your Church has been adorned with Your martyrs’ blood shed throughout all the world. She cries to You, O Christ God: “Send down Your bounties on Your people,//grant peace to Your habitation and great mercy to our souls!”
Tone 8 Kontakion (All Saints)
The universe offers You the God-bearing Martyrs as the first fruits of creation, O Lord and Creator. By their prayers keep Your Church, Your habitation, in abiding peace// through the Theotokos, O most Merciful One!
Tone 8 Prokeimenon (Resurrection)
Pray and make your vows / before the Lord, our God! (Ps. 75:10a)
V. In Judah God is known; His Name is great in Israel. (Ps. 75:1)
Tone 4 Prokeimenon (All Saints)
God is wonderful in His saints, / the God of Israel. (Ps. 67:35a)
Hebrews 11:33-12:2 (Epistle)
Who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. Others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection.
Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented – of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us. Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
1 Corinthians 4:9-16 (Epistle, Apostles)
For I think that God has displayed us, the apostles, last, as men condemned to death; for we have been made a spectacle to the world, both to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are distinguished, but we are dishonored! To the present hour we both hunger and thirst, and we are poorly clothed, and beaten, and homeless. And we labor, working with our own hands. Being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we endure; being defamed, we entreat. We have been made as the filth of the world, the offscouring of all things until now. I do not write these things to shame you, but as my beloved children I warn you. For though you might have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet you do not have many fathers; for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the gospel. Therefore I urge you, imitate me.
Tone 4
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!
V. The righteous cried and the Lord heard them, and delivered them out of all their troubles. (Ps. 33:17)
V. Many are the afflictions of the righteous; the Lord will deliver them out of them all. (Ps. 33:19)
Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38, 19:27-30 (Gospel)
Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. Then Peter answered and said to Him, “See, we have left all and followed You. Therefore what shall we have?” So Jesus said to them, “Assuredly I say to you, that in the regeneration, when the Son of Man sits on the throne of His glory, you who have followed Me will also sit on twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or lands, for My name’s sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.
Mark 3:13-19 (Gospel, Apostles)
And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, and to have power to heal sicknesses and to cast out demons: Simon, to whom He gave the name Peter; James the son of Zebedee and John the brother of James, to whom He gave the name Boanerges, that is, “Sons of Thunder”; Andrew, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite; and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. And they went into a house.
Synaxis of All Saints
The Sunday following Pentecost is dedicated to All Saints, both those who are known to us, and those who are known only to God. There have been saints at all times, and they have come from every corner of the earth. They were Apostles, Martyrs, Prophets, Hierarchs, Monastics, and Righteous, yet all were perfected by the same Holy Spirit.
The Descent of the Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to rise above our fallen state and to attain sainthood, thereby fulfilling God’s directive to “be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44, 1 Peter 1:16, etc.). Therefore, it is fitting to commemorate All Saints on the first Sunday after Pentecost.
This feast may have originated at an early date, perhaps as a celebration of all martyrs, then it was broadened to include all men and women who had borne witness to Christ by their virtuous lives, even if they did not shed their blood for Him.
Saint Peter of Damascus, in his “Fourth Stage of Contemplation,” mentions five categories of saints: Apostles, Martyrs, Prophets, Hierarchs, and Monastic Saints (Philokalia [in English] Vol. 3, p.131). He is actually quoting from the Octoechos, Tone 2 for Saturday Matins, kathisma after the first stichology.
Saint Νikόdēmos of the Holy Mountain (July 14) adds the Righteous to Saint Peter’s five categories. The list of Saint Νikόdēmos is found in his book The Fourteen Epistles of Saint Paul (Venice, 1819, p. 384) in his discussion of I Corinthians 12:28.
The hymnology for the feast of All Saints also lists six categories: “Rejoice, assembly of the Apostles, Prophets of the Lord, loyal choirs of the Martyrs, divine Hierarchs, Monastic Fathers, and the Righteous….”
Some of the saints are described as Confessors, a category which does not appear in the above lists. Since they are similar in spirit to the martyrs, they are regarded as belonging to the category of Martyrs. They were not put to death as the Martyrs were, but they boldly confessed Christ and came close to being executed for their faith. Saint Maximus the Confessor (January 21) is such a saint.
The order of these six types of saints seems to be based on their importance to the Church. The Apostles are listed first, because they were the first to spread the Gospel throughout the world.
The Martyrs come next because of their example of courage in professing their faith before the enemies and persecutors of the Church, which encouraged other Christians to remain faithful to Christ even unto death.
Although they come first chronologically, the Prophets are listed after the Apostles and Martyrs. This is because the Old Testament Prophets saw only the shadows of things to come, whereas the Apostles and Martyrs experienced them firsthand. The New Testament also takes precedence over the Old Testament.
The holy Hierarchs comprise the fourth category. They are the leaders of their flocks, teaching them by their word and their example.
The Monastic Saints are those who withdrew from this world to live in monasteries, or in seclusion. They did not do this out of hatred for the world, but in order to devote themselves to unceasing prayer, and to do battle against the power of the demons. Although some people erroneously believe that monks and nuns are useless and unproductive, Saint John Climacus had a high regard for them: “Angels are a light for monks, and the monastic life is a light for all men” (LADDER, Step 26:31).
The last category, the Righteous, are those who attained holiness of life while living “in the world.” Examples include Abraham and his wife Sarah, Job, Saints Joachim and Anna, Saint Joseph the Betrothed, Saint Juliana of Lazarevo, and others.
The feast of All Saints achieved great prominence in the ninth century, in the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Leo VI the Wise (886-911). His wife, the Holy Empress Theophano (December 16) lived in the world, but was not attached to worldly things. She was a great benefactor to the poor, and was generous to the monasteries. She was a true mother to her subjects, caring for widows and orphans, and consoling the sorrowful.
Even before the death of Saint Theophano in 893 or 894, her husband started to build a church, intending to dedicate it to Theophano, but she forbade him to do so. It was this emperor who decreed that the Sunday after Pentecost be dedicated to All Saints. Believing that his wife was one of the righteous, he knew that she would also be honored whenever the Feast of All Saints was celebrated.
On Holiness
But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation (I Peter 1:15). Brethren, holiness is the virtue which encompasses all other virtues. Hence, brethren, a saint is a man adorned with all the virtues. For if a man is prayerful but not compassionate, he cannot be called holy. Or if a man endures but is without faith and hope, he cannot be numbered among the saints. Or if a man is very compassionate but is without faith in God, in truth, such a man cannot be numbered among the saints.
A saint is a perfect man such as Adam was in Paradise; or even better, such as the New Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ, is. This is the Saint above the saints. This is the Sower of holiness on earth and the Nurturer of the saints in history. He has called us to the dignity of the saints. He has showed us an example of a true saint. He is the prototype of the saints, as He is also the archetype of man. A true man, my brethren, is nothing else but a saint. A saint and a man—it is one and the same. He showed us what it means to be a man and what it means to be a saint. The Apostle Peter commands us: Be ye holy in all manner of conversation! A saint is not a saint in only one aspect of his life but rather in his entire life. We must be holy in every work of our life, large and small, in order to be numbered among the saints; that is, among people whose lives were in accordance with the prototype of the saints and the archetype of man, the Lord Jesus Christ. O All-holy Lord, to Thee be glory and praise forever. Amen.
— Velimirovic, Saint Nikolai. The Prologue of Ohrid. Sebastian Press Publishing House.
Sunday Bulletin June 23, 2024