The Holy martyrs Eutropius, Cleonicus and Basiliscus suffered in the city of Pontine Amasea (Asia Minor) in about the year 308. The brothers Eutropius and Cleonicus, and Basiliscus the nephew of the Great Martyr Theodore the Recruit, were comrades. After the martyric death of St. Theodore, they wound up in prison and by their preaching brought many of the pagans in prison with them to the Christian Faith. Saints Eutropius, Cleonicus, and Basiliscus were brought before the governor Asclepiodotus, they firmly confessed their faith in Christ before him. They were mercilessly beaten, so that their bodies were entirely bruised. On the morning of March 3, Saints Eutropius and Cleonicus were crucified, but Basiliscus was left in prison. St. Basiliscus was executed on May 22 in the city of Komana. They beheaded him and threw his body into a river, but Christian followers found his relics and buried them in a plowed field. Later at Komana a church was built and dedicated to St. Basiliscus.
O Lord our God, your holy martyrs have deserved the crown of immortality on account of their good fight. Armed with your strength, they have vanquished their persecutors and crushed Satan’s dreadful might. Through their supplications, O Christ our God, save our souls.
This trinity of martyrs confessed the Holy Trinity before many nations. Undergoing their suffering of martyrdom, they have been presented to the angels. Today we are honoring them, celebrating their sacred and life-saving memory.
When Noah was five hundred years old, he begot Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
When human beings began to grow numerous on the earth and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw how beautiful the daughters of human beings were, and so they took for their wives whomever they pleased. Then the Lord said: My spirit shall not remain in human beings forever, because they are only flesh. Their days shall comprise one hundred and twenty years.
The Nephilim appeared on earth in those days, as well as later, after the sons of God had intercourse with the daughters of human beings, who bore them sons. They were the heroes of old, the men renown.
When the Lord saw how great the wickedness of human beings was on earth, and how every desire that their heart conceived was always nothing but evil, the Lord regretted making human beings on the earth, and his heart was grieved.
So the Lord said: I will wipe out from the earth the human beings I have created, and not only the human beings, but also the animals and the crawling things and the birds of the air, for I regret that I made them. But Noah found favor with the Lord.
Observe, my son, your father’s command, and do not reject your mother’s teaching;
Keep them fastened over your heart always, tie them around your neck.
When you lie down they will watch over you, when you wake, they will share your concerns; wherever you turn, they will guide you.
For the command is a lamp, and the teaching a light, and a way to life are the reproofs that discipline,
Keeping you from another’s wife, from the smooth tongue of a foreign woman.
Do not lust in your heart after her beauty, do not let her captivate you with her glance!
For the price of a harlot may be scarcely a loaf of bread, but a married woman is a trap for your precious life.
Can a man take embers into his bosom, and his garments not be burned?
Or can a man walk in live coals, and his feet not be scorched?
So with him who sleeps with another’s wife– none who touches her shall go unpunished.
Thieves are not despised if out of hunger they steak to satisfy their appetite.
Yet if caught they must pay back sevenfold, yield up all the wealth of their house.
But those who commit adultery have no sense; those who do it destroy themselves.
They will be beaten and disgraced, and their shame will not be wiped away;
For passion enraged the husband, he will have no pity on the day of vengeance;
He will not consider any restitution, nor be satisfied by your many bribes.
My son, keep my words, and treasure my commands.
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Thursday, March 2 –
