Friday January 9, 2026 / December 27, 2025
31st Week after Pentecost. Tone five.
Sviatki. Fast-free
Holy Protomartyr and Archdeacon Stephen (34).
Venerable Theodore Graptus (“the Branded”) of Palestine and Bithynia, confessor (840), brother of St. Theophanes the Confessor and Hymnographer (850).
New Hieromartyrs Tikhon, archbishop of Voronezh and with him 160 martyred priests (1919).
Virgin-Martyr Antonina (1937).
Venerable Boniface of Kiev (1871).
St. Theodore, archbishop of Constantinople (686).
Uncovering of Relics (1514) of Venerable Pherapont of Mozhaisk, Luzhetsk.
Venerable Luke, monk, of Tryglia.
St. Maximus, bishop of Alexandria (282).
St. Maurice and the Theban Legion. (Candidus, Innocent, Exuperius and 6,600 others) (302).
The Scripture Readings
1
My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.
2
For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes,
3
and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,”
4
have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
5
Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?
6
But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?
7
Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?
8
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well;
9
but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
11
For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
12
So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.
13
For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
1
My brethren, do not hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality.
2
For if there should come into your assembly a man with gold rings, in fine apparel, and there should also come in a poor man in filthy clothes,
3
and you pay attention to the one wearing the fine clothes and say to him, “You sit here in a good place,” and say to the poor man, “You stand there,” or, “Sit here at my footstool,”
4
have you not shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts?
5
Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him?
6
But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts?
7
Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called?
8
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well;
9
but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors.
10
For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.
11
For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,” also said, “Do not murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
12
So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty.
13
For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
Acts 6:8-15; 7:1-5, 47-60 Saint
8
And Stephen, full of faith and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.
9
Then there arose some from what is called the Synagogue of the Freedmen (Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia), disputing with Stephen.
10
And they were not able to resist the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke.
11
Then they secretly induced men to say, “We have heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.”
12
And they stirred up the people, the elders, and the scribes; and they came upon him, seized him, and brought him to the council.
13
They also set up false witnesses who said, “This man does not cease to speak blasphemous words against this holy place and the law;
14
for we have heard him say that this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to us.
15
And all who sat in the council, looking steadfastly at him, saw his face as the face of an angel.
1
Then the high priest said, “Are these things so?”
2
And he said, “Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran,
3
and said to him, ‘Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.’
4
Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell.
5
And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him.
47
But Solomon built Him a house.
48
However, the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, as the prophet says:
49
Heaven is My throne, And earth is My footstool. What house will you build for Me? says the LORD, Or what is the place of My rest?
50
Has My hand not made all these things?’
51
You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you.
52
Which of the prophets did your fathers not persecute? And they killed those who foretold the coming of the Just One, of whom you now have become the betrayers and murderers,
53
who have received the law by the direction of angels and have not kept it.
54
When they heard these things they were cut to the heart, and they gnashed at him with their teeth.
55
But he, being full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God,
56
and said, “Look! I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!”
57
Then they cried out with a loud voice, stopped their ears, and ran at him with one accord;
58
and they cast him out of the city and stoned him. And the witnesses laid down their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul.
59
And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
60
Then he knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” And when he had said this, he fell asleep.
Matthew 21:33-42 Saint
33
Hear another parable: There was a certain landowner who planted a vineyard and set a hedge around it, dug a winepress in it and built a tower. And he leased it to vinedressers and went into a far country.
34
Now when vintage-time drew near, he sent his servants to the vinedressers, that they might receive its fruit.
35
And the vinedressers took his servants, beat one, killed one, and stoned another.
36
Again he sent other servants, more than the first, and they did likewise to them.
37
Then last of all he sent his son to them, saying, ‘They will respect my son.’
38
But when the vinedressers saw the son, they said among themselves, ‘This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and seize his inheritance.’
39
So they took him and cast him out of the vineyard and killed him.
40
Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vinedressers?
41
They said to Him, “He will destroy those wicked men miserably, and lease his vineyard to other vinedressers who will render to him the fruits in their seasons.”
42
Jesus said to them, “Have you never read in the Scriptures: ‘The stone which the builders rejected Has become the chief cornerstone. This was the LORD’s doing, And it is marvelous in our eyes’?