The holy martyr Zenobius was a priest who, in the severity of the persecution under the emperor Diocletian, urged others to martyrdom and himself was crowned with martyrdom. Zenobia, his sister, voluntarily joined Zenobius in his martyrdom in 285.
Your martyrs, O Lord our God, in their struggles received incorruptible crowns from You. With Your strength, they brought down the tyrants and broke the cowardly valor of demons. Through their prayers, O Christ our God, save our souls.
Let us honor with inspired hymns the two martyrs for truth and preachers of true devotion, Zenobius and wise Zenobia, brother and sister who lived and suffered together, and together received the incorruptible crown of martyrdom.
1 Thessalonians 2: 14-20
Brothers and sisters, you have been made like the churches of God in Judea which are in Christ Jesus. You suffered the same treatment from your fellow countrymen as they did from the Jews who killed the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and persecuted us. Displeasing to God and hostile to all mankind, they try to keep us from preaching salvation to the Gentiles. All this time they have been “filling up their quota of sins,” but the wrath has descended upon them at last.
Brethren, when we were orphaned by separation from you for a time – in sight, not in mind – we were seized with the greatest longing to see you. So we tried to come to you – I, Paul, tried more than once – but Satan blocked the way. Who, after all, if not you, will be our hope or joy, or the crown we exult in, before our Lord Jesus Christ at his coming? You are our boast and our delight.
Luke 11: 23-26
The Lord said, “He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me scatters. When an unclean spirit has gone out of a man, it wanders through arid wastes searching for a resting-place; failing to find one, it says, ‘I will go back to where I came from.’ It then returns, to find the house swept and tidied. Next it goes out and returns with seven other spirits far worse than itself, who enter in and dwell there. The result is that the last state of the man is worse than the first.”
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Thursday, October 29 –
