The holy martyrs Galaction and Episteme were husband and wife who joined nearby monasteries immediately after their marriage. They did not see each other for many years, until the persecution of Christians which brought them both to court and saw them die on the same day in the year 253.
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.
O glorious Galaction, you and your honorable wife and fellow-sufferer, Episteme, were numbered among the martyrs of Christ because you fought the good fight in radiant ascetical struggles. Therefore, pray unceasingly to the only God for all of us.
2 Thessalonians 1:11 – 2:2
Brothers and sisters: We pray for you always that our God may make you worthy of his call, and fulfill by his power every honest intention and work of faith. In this way the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, in accord with the gracious gift of our God and of the Lord Jesus Christ.
On the question of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we beg you, brethren, not to be so easily agitated or terrified, whether by an oracular utterance, or rumor, or a letter alleged to be ours, into believing that the day of the Lord is here.
Luke 12: 42-48
The Lord said, “Who in your opinion is that faithful, farsighted steward whom the master will set over his servants to dispense their ration of grain in season? That servant is fortunate whom his master finds busy when he returns. Assuredly, his master will put him in charge of all his property. But if the servant says to himself, ‘My master is taking his time about coming,’ and begins to abuse the housemen and servant girls, to eat and drink and get drunk, that servant’s master will come back on a day when he does not expect him, at a time he does not know. The master will punish him severely and rank him among those undeserving of trust. The slave who knew his master’s wishes but did not prepare to fulfill them will get a severe beating, whereas the one who did not know them and who nonetheless deserved to be flogged will get off with fewer stripes. When much has been given a man, much will be required of him. More will be asked of a man whom more has been entrusted.”
Icon courtesy of Jack Figel, Eastern Christian Publications – ecpubs.com
Monday, November 4 –
