Thursday
January 23
New Style February 5
2026
~ No Fasting Throughout The Week ~
Holy Martyrs Clement
and Agathángelos;
St. Dionýsios of Olympus;
St. Paulinus the Merciful,
Bishop of Nola
The Hieromartyr Clement was born in the Galatian city of Ancyra in the year 258, of a pagan father and a Christian mother. He lost his father when he was an infant, and his mother when he was twelve. She predicted a martyr’s death for him because of his belief in Christ.
A woman named Sophia adopted him and raised him in the fear of God. During a terrible famine in Galatia several pagans turned out their own children, not having the means to feed them. Sophia took in these unfortunates, and fed and clothed them. Saint Clement assisted her in this. He taught the children and prepared them for Baptism. Many of them died as martyrs for Christ.
Saint Clement was made a reader, and later a deacon. When he was eighteen he was ordained to the holy priesthood, and at age twenty he was consecrated Bishop of Ancyra. Soon afterwards the persecution against Christians under Diocletian (284-305) broke out.
Bishop Clement was denounced as a Christian and arrested. Dometian, the governor of Galatia, tried to make the saint worship the pagan gods, but Saint Clement firmly confessed his faith and valiantly withstood all the tortures.
They suspended him on a tree, and raked his body with sharp iron instruments so that his entrails could be seen. They smashed his mouth with stones, and they turned him on a wheel and burned him over a low fire. The Lord preserved His sufferer and healed his lacerated body.
Then Dometian sent the saint to Rome to the emperor Diocletian himself, with a report that Bishop Clement had been fiercely tortured, but had proven unyielding. Diocletian, seeing the martyr completely healthy, did not believe the report and subjected him to even crueler tortures, and then had him locked up in prison.
Many of the pagans, seeing the bravery of the saint and the miraculous healing of his wounds, believed in Christ. People flocked to Saint Clement in prison for guidance, healing and Baptism, so that the prison was literally transformed into a church. When word of this reached the emperor, many of these new Christians were executed.
Diocletian, struck by the amazing endurance of Saint Clement, sent him to Nicomedia to his co-emperor Maximian. On the ship, the saint was joined by his disciple Agathángelos, who had avoided being executed with the other confessors, and who now wanted to suffer and die for Christ with Bishop Clement.
The emperor Maximian in turn sent Saints Clement and Agathángelos to the governor Agrippina, who subjected them to such inhuman torments, that even the pagan on-lookers felt pity for the martyrs and they began to pelt the torturers with stones.
Having been set free, the saints healed an inhabitant of the city through the laying on of hands and they baptized and instructed people, thronging to them in multitudes. Arrested again on orders of Maximian, they were sent home to Ancyra, where the ruler Cyrenius had them tortured. Then they were sent to the city of Amasea to the proconsul Dometius, known for his great cruelty.
In Amasea, the martyrs were thrown into hot lime. They spent a whole day in it and remained unharmed. They flayed them, beat them with iron rods, set them on red-hot beds, and poured sulfur on their bodies. All this failed to harm the saints, and they were sent to Tarsus for new tortures. In the wilderness along the way Saint Clement had a revelation that he would suffer a total of twenty-eight years for Christ. Then having endured a multitude of tortures, the saints were locked up in prison.
Saint Agathángelos was beheaded with the sword on November 5. The Christians of Ancyra freed Saint Clement from prison and took him to a cave church. There, after celebrating Liturgy, the saint announced to the faithful the impending end of the persecution and his own martyrdom. On January 23, the holy hierarch was killed by soldiers from the city, who stormed the church. The saint was beheaded as he stood before the altar and offered the Bloodless Sacrifice. Two deacons, Christopher and Chariton, were beheaded with him, but no one else was harmed.
1 Saint John 1:8-2:6 KJV
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.
9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
2 My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous:
2 And he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world.
3 And hereby we do know that we know him, if we keep his commandments.
4 He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him.
5 But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him.
6 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked.
Saint Mark 13:31-14:2 KJV
31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
32 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.
33 Take ye heed, watch and pray: for ye know not when the time is.
34 For the Son of Man is as a man taking a far journey, who left his house, and gave authority to his servants, and to every man his work, and commanded the porter to watch.
35 Watch ye therefore: for ye know not when the master of the house cometh, at even, or at midnight, or at the cockcrowing, or in the morning:
36 Lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping.
37 And what I say unto you I say unto all, Watch.
14 After two days was the feast of the passover, and of unleavened bread: and the chief priests and the scribes sought how they might take him by craft, and put him to death.
2 But they said, Not on the feast day, lest there be an uproar of the people.
~ Saint Symeon the New Theologian
Illusion “If you know that all visible things are a shadow and all pass away, are you not ashamed of playing with shadows and hoarding transitory things? Like a child you draw water with a bucket full of holes; do you not realize it and take it into account, my dear friend? As though there were nothing more serious than appearance and illusion, as though reality has been taken from them?” Theosis “What is the aim of the incarnate dispensation of God’s Word, preached in all the Holy Scriptures but which we, who read them, do not know? The only aim is that, having entered into what is our own, we should participate in what is His. The Son of God has become Son of Man in order to make us, men, sons of God, raising our race by grace to what He is Himself by nature, granting us birth from above through the grace of the Holy Spirit and leading us straightway to the kingdom of heaven, or rather, granting us this kingdom of heaven within us (Luke 17:21), in order that we should not merely be fed by the hope of entering it, but entering into full possession thereof should cry: our ‘life is hid with Christ in God’ (Col. 3:3).”
The questions above are occasionally heard from adults. Interestingly, many often speculate or conjure answers or possibly as a last resort, seek answers from a metaphor referred to as 'Mother Nature'. Although we see nature metamorphose in multitudinous forms, personification of nature remains a fantasy and thereby provides no answers. Sadly, once again, we fail to respond to the call in the heart of the Son of Man. Tue believers however, hear the scripture of Christ and His followers. Again, limited by intellect, the following comment was offered concerning the writings of Saint Maximos the Confessor, commemorated on the PARAGON BLOG. The individual had difficulty understanding what St. Maximos had to say but at the same time, to her advantage, she expressed genuine humility, thereby recognized her inadequacy or falling short of becoming Christ-like and pleasing God. The the holy fathers not only offer the answer but go beyond by pointing the way to gaining favor with Christ the Judge. Here is the response she received: Make an worthy attempt but don't fret over what you don't immediately understand from scripture or the homilies from the saints. With the same humility you have acquired and with faith, while making a request, thank our Lord, trusting that if there is something you need from a writing you find difficult, Christ will eventually reveal it to you. Also, give God glory for humility and never let go of it. What salt is to food, humility is to the virtues. All of us should emulate your humility. After all, all the holy ones, no matter how spiritually graced or honored, all consider themselves condemned as they come face to face with Christ, but finding them carrying the lamp of virtue, it is His good pleasure to open the door to Eternal love and joy for them as He did the wise virgins. After thanking me, I explained that she should instead thank God for enlightening the saints from whose writings I borrowed and offered her an exclamation.
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