SAINTS&READING: SUNDAY, AUGUST 24, 2025
1th Sunday after Pentecost. Tone two.
Dormition (Theotokos) Fast. Food with Oil
SAINT NIPHON, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE (1515)
Saint Niphon (Nḗphon) II, the Patriarch of Constantinople, was from the Peloponnesos. His parents were named Manuel and Maria, and he was named Nicholas in Holy Baptism. Later, he was tonsured as a monk at Epidauros, receiving the new name Niphon.
After the death of his Elder Anthony, he went to Mount Athos, where he occupied himself by copying books. Afterward, he was chosen as Metropolitan of Thessaloniki. In 1486 he occupied the Patriarchal throne of Constantinople.
Banished in 1488, the Saint went to the Holy Mountain, at first to Vatopedi Monastery, and then to the monastery of Saint John the Forerunner (Dionysiou). He concealed his rank and occupied the lowliest position. By God’s providence, his rank was revealed to the brethren of the monastery. Once, when the Saint was returning from the forest where he had gone for firewood, all the brethren went out to meet him, greeting him as Patriarch. But even after this, the Saint continued to share various tasks with the brethren.
In all, he served three times as Patriarch of Constantinople: 1486-1488; 1497-1498; and 1502.
Saint Niphon reposed on September 3, 1508 at the age of 90. Immediately after his death, he was honored as a Saint in many places. On August 16, 1517, in the newly-established monastery of Curtea de Argeş, Patriarch Theoleptos of Constantinople, together with the Synod of the Romanian Lands, and the Igoumens of the Athonite monasteries, performed the solemn glorification of Saint Niphon, decreeing that his Feast Day be celebrated on August 11th.
His relics are kept in a shrine at the Monastery of Dionysiou, where there is also a chapel dedicated to him. In gratitude, the Athonite monks gave the Saint's head and hand to Nyagoe Basarab, who placed them in the Monastery he built at Curtea de Argeş in what is now Romania. In the XVIII century, these relics were placed in a silver reliquary.
At the behest of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church, they were brought to Craiova, to the church of Saint Dēmḗtrios, the Metropolitan cathedral of Oltenia on October 25, 1949.
In 2009, the relics of Saint Niphon were moved to the Cathedral of the Ascension of the Lord at Târgovişte.
St JOHN THE RECLUSE OF SVYATOGORSK MONASTERY ( 1867)
Today, August 24, is the Afterfeast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. The Orthodox Church commemorates the memory of the Venerable John of Svyatogorsk, recluse, Hieroschimonk (1867).
The Venerable John (in the world Ivan Kryukov) was born in Kursk into a family of burghers in 1795. From childhood he burned with love for monasticism and asceticism. At the age of 9, Ivan was given to a master for training to make tiles, and for a long time he suffered the monstrous cruelty of his master. Some time after the completion of his apprenticeship, he, under the pressure of his mother, married and opened his own workshop for the manufacture of tile stoves, and a little later - two guesthouses and an tavern.
After the death of his wife, at the age of 38, he entered the Glinskaya hermitage of the Kursk diocese under the leadership of the elder hegumen Philaret. For a year and a half he was a novice, after which he received the right to wear the cassock. From the moment he entered the monastery, Ivan Kryukov was characterized by simplicity and sincerity, diligence and tirelessness in prayer, which was accompanied by many earthly bows. Already during the period when he was a novice, John became famous for his ability to heal the sick. In the monastery he mastered reading and writing.
After seven years he was tonsured into the mantle with the name Ioannicius and appointed economist of the monastery. After spending eleven years in this monastery and succeeding in it spiritually, together with a part of the Glinsky brethren, headed by the treasurer Hieromonk Arseny, he received an invitation from the abbot of the ancient Dormition Svyatogorsk hermitage of the Kharkov diocese.
In the Svyatogorsky monastery he was left in the post of economist and worked hard for the improvement of the Svyatogorye. A little later Ioannicius was ordained a hieromonk and was appointed confessor to the monks. In this position he took an active part in the restoration of underground passages. Working in the caves to clear them, he fell in love with one of the chalk cells, in which he shut himself up in 1850, and two years later he took the schema with the name John.
А. F. Kovalevsky, an eyewitness of the hermit's exploits, wrote about him:
“The rule of prayer, according to the commandment of Father Arseny, he did the following: per day he made 700 earthly bows, 100 lumbar bows, said the prayers of Jesus 5000, to the Theotokos 1000, read the akathistos to the Most Sweet Jesus, the Mother of God and the Passion of Christ, the Pomiannik.... took of the Holy Communion of Christ... in the neighboring cave church of St. John the Baptist, where the Liturgy was served on every Tuesday...”
The humidity in his cell was such that his clothes did not last long, apparently decaying and disintegrating. Many insects swarmed in the cell, in the coffin and clothes of the ascetic, bruised to blood his body and broke his peace, if only you can call peace bed in the coffin in such an environment. But the fortitude of the spirit of the ascetic of God was truly amazing: he endured everything courageously for the sake of the Lord and the salvation of his soul; the suffering of the Lord always represented him in the eyes of his soul and, contrasting them with his feat, considered it insignificant from a sincere heart.
n such labors the ascetic lived in the enclosure for seventeen years, and for the first five years - without stove heating. Once a month the saint left the hermitage to receive Holy Communion in the monastery church. The brethren of the monastery accused the ascetic of pride and mocked him, but John gained many admirers among the laity.
From the mid-1850s John took communion once a week, after the service blessed the people crowding into the church, and opened the door of his cell for the sake of conversations with visitors.
For his ascetic, self-sacrificing love for God and neighbors, the Lord granted him the gracious gifts of unceasing prayer, the gift of reasoning, clairvoyance, healing and miracles during his earthly life.
The ascetic became blind from his constant stay in darkness, and in the last years of his life he could do only continuous Jesus prayer.
A week before his death, keeping obedience to the will of the abbot, the seriously ill elder was transported to the hospital monastery farm, where he died peacefully on August 11, 1867. He was buried near the altar of the hospital church.
In 1995, in the year of the 200th anniversary of his birth, the ascetic John, the hermit of Sviatogorsk, was glorified for local veneration in the countenance of the Venerables by the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. On November 30, 2017, the Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church made a decision on the Church-wide glorification of the Monk John of Sviatogorsk with the establishment of the date of commemoration on August 24.
Source: Reddit @sophiawisdom of God
Today, the Vyatogorsk (Dormition) monastery is literally under attack. Last week bombings damage the buildings. Meanwhile, since the beginning of the hostility the monastery is sheltering widows, orphans, disable and elderly. Its Abbot Matropolitan Arseny is in jail without motive for almost two years. Here is an interview of him from June 2022. https://orthochristian.com/146879.html
2 If I am not an apostle to others, yet doubtless I am to you. For you are the seal of my apostleship in the Lord. 3 My defense to those who examine me is this: 4 Do we have no right to eat and drink?5 Do we have no right to take along a believing wife, as do also the other apostles, the brothers of the Lord, and Cephas? 6 Or is it only Barnabas and I who have no right to refrain from working? 7 Who ever goes to war at his own expense? Who plants a vineyard and does not eat of its fruit? Or who tends a flock and does not drink of the milk of the flock? 8 Do I say these things as a mere man? Or does not the law say the same also? 9 For it is written in the law of Moses, "You shall not muzzle an ox while it treads out the grain." Is it oxen God is concerned about? 10 Or does He say it altogether for our sakes? For our sakes, no doubt, this is written, that he who plows should plow in hope, and he who threshes in hope should be partaker of his hope. 11 If we have sown spiritual things for you, is it a great thing if we reap your material things? 12 If others are partakers of this right over you, are we not even more? Nevertheless we have not used this right, but endure all things lest we hinder the gospel of Christ.
23 Therefore the kingdom of heaven is like a certain king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24 And when he had begun to settle accounts, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. 25 But as he was not able to pay, his master commanded that he be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and that payment be made. 26 The servant therefore fell down before him, saying, 'Master, have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' 27 Then the master of that servant was moved with compassion, released him, and forgave him the debt. 28 But that servant went out and found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii; and he laid hands on him and took him by the throat, saying, 'Pay me what you owe!' 29 So his fellow servant fell down at his feet and begged him, saying, 'Have patience with me, and I will pay you all.' 30 And he would not, but went and threw him into prison till he should pay the debt. 31 So when his fellow servants saw what had been done, they were very grieved, and came and told their master all that had been done. 32 Then his master, after he had called him, said to him, 'You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you begged me. 33 'Should you not also have had compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?' 34 And his master was angry, and delivered him to the torturers until he should pay all that was due to him. 35 So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.
