The holy apostles Stachys, Amplius, and their companions were members of the Seventy Apostles. Stachys was the helper of St. Andrew the First Called, who made him bishop of Byzantium. Amplius and Urban were also fellow-workers with St. Andrew, and were made bishops of Lydda and Macedonia, respectively. Narcissus was made Bishop of Athens by the Apostle Philip, and Apelles was made Bishop of Heraklion in Trachius.
The holy martyr Epimachus of Alexandria was a native of Egypt. For a long time he lived in seclusion on Mt. Pelusium. During a persecution against Christians in Alexandria (about the year 250), St. Epimachus in his fervent zeal came into the city, destroyed pagan idols, and fearlessly confessed Christ. For this the saint was put to torture. Among the people watching the torture was a woman who was blind in one eye. A drop of blood from the martyr healed her infirmity. After fierce torture, the saint was beheaded by the sword.
The blessed martyr Theodore Romzha, Bisop of Mukachevo was born in the Subcarpathia region of what is now Ukraine on April 14, 1911. As a seminarian he was sent to Rome to study and was ordained a priest there on December 25, 1936. Completing his compulsory military service he served briefly as a pastor before being assigned as Spiritual Director and Professor at the Eparchial Seminary in Uzhorod in 1939. These were difficult years for the Church in Subcarpathia as it experienced the invasions first by Nazi Germany and then the Soviet Red Army. In 1944 at the young age of 33 he was consecrated a Bishop and appointed Apostolic Administrator of the Eparchy of Mukachevo. During this time he ministered tirelessly to the faithful of the Eparchy, defending them from the Soviet aggression and preparing them for the persecution to come. His ministry to the faithful met with many roadblocks, but he managed to find a way around them.This angered the Communist officials who now began looking for ways to kill the young, energetic and popular Bishop. Towards the end of October, 1947 an opportunity presented itself. On the way home from a parish visitation, Bishop Romzha’s horse drawn carriage was purposely rammed by a Soviet military truck and pushed off the side of the road. The soldiers (dressed as civilians) jumped from the truck and beat the Bishop and his companions. Soon after the brutal assault began a civilian truck came upon the scene and the assailants fled. Bishop Romzha and his companions were taken to Uzhorod where they were hospitalized. The Bishop was making good progress when late on the night of October 31 a new relief nurse was assigned to the Bishop. A little after midnight Bishop Romzha was found dead. The relief nurse had mysteriously disappeared. It was believed that she had administered a poison to the Bishop that caused his death.
O holy apostles, intercede with the merciful God that He may grant our souls forgiveness of sins.
O Lord our God, Your holy martyr Epimachus has deserved the crown of immortality on account of his good fight. Armed with Your strength, he has vanquished his persecutors and crushed Satan’s dreadful might. Through his supplications, O Christ our God, save our souls.
My father, my father! the chariots of Israel and its horsemen! Upon a cart as upon his throne, Theodore has been carried beyond the sanctuary vel. Let fall, O father, the mantle of prayer and beseech Christ to save our souls.
Let us properly praise the pure vessels of the All-Holy Spirit, and glorious rays of the sun, the wise apostles Amplius, Urban, Aristobulus, Apelles, Narcissus, and Stachys, who the grace of our God has joined together.
You were an inspired pillar and a witness to the truth. You conquered the bodiless foe through bodily torment and received the crown from Christ. Thus, O blessed one, we cry out to you: pray unceasingly, O glorious one, to grant us great mercy.
Though the godless poured poison into your veins, your heart still beats with love for Christ, O Bishop Theodore, martyred father, who now raise your prayer before the Throne of God.
Colossians 2: 1-7
Brothers and sisters: I want you to know how hard I am struggling for you and for the Laodiceans and the many others who have never seen me in the flesh. I wish their hearts to be strengthened and themselves to be closely united in love, enriched with full assurance by their knowledge of the mystery of God – namely Christ – in whom every treasure of wisdom and knowledge is hidden.
I tell you all this so that no one may delude you with specious arguments. I may be absent in body but I am with you in spirit, happy to see good order among you and the firmness of your faith in Christ. Continue, therefore, to live in Christ Jesus the Lord, in the spirit in which you received him. Be rooted in him and built up in him, growing ever stronger in faith, as you were taught, and overflowing with gratitude.
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 30 –
