THE PARAGON FRIDAY JAN 24/FEB 6 NS 2026 • Sts. Xénia of Rome and Xénia of Petersburg, St. Neóphytos the Recluse of Cyprus ~ NO FASTING THROUGHOUT THE WEEK ~ I St. John 2:7-17; St. Mark 14:3-9

Friday 

January 24

New Style February 6

2026

~ No fasting through the week ~

Sts. Xénia of Rome
and Xénia of Petersburg,

St. Neóphytos the Recluse
of Cyprus

Xenia was born in Rome, the only daughter of a prominent senator. Drawn by love for Christ, she refused to enter into marriage as her parents wished, but rather, to avoid this, she secretly fled from her home with two of her slaves and arrived at the Island of Cos to a place called Mylassa. There she founded a convent for virgins where she lived an ascetical life until her death.

Even though she was a frail woman, she possessed a steadfast endurance in fasting, prayer and all-night vigils. She often stood all night in prayer; she was dressed more poorly than all the other sisters; and the bread which she ate, she often sprinkled with ashes from the censer. At the time of her death (450 A.D.), a wonderful sign appeared over the virgin's convent: a wreath of stars with a cross in the center, brighter than the sun. Many, who were sick, received healing from her relics. Her tonsured nuns continued in the example of their abbess and when they died, and according to their wishes, were buried at the feet of Blessed Xenia [Ksenia].

St. Xenia of Petersburg is a patron saint of Petersburg Russia, who according to tradition, gave all her possessions to the poor after her husband died.

Her husband had been Colonel Andrey Fyodorovich Petrov, a chanter at the Saint Andrew Cathedral. After his death, Xenia became a "fool-for-Christ" and for 45 years wandered around the streets of  Petersburg, usually wearing her late husband's military uniform.

Xenia's grave is in the Smolensky Cemetery of Petersburg. It has been marked by an ornate chapel since 1902. She was glorified by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in the Synodal Cathedral of Our Lady of the Sign in New York, USA and by the Russian Orthodox Church. Her feast day is January 24, which is February 6 in the New Calendar. 

As a saint, she is noted for her intercessions in helping those with employment, marriage, the homeless, for fires, for missing children, and for a spouse. She is venerated in several countries. There are about 40 churches and chapels built in her name.

 1 Saint John 2:7-17 KJV

7 Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which ye had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which ye have heard from the beginning.

8 Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you: because the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth.

9 He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now.

10 He that loveth his brother abideth in the light, and there is none occasion of stumbling in him.

11 But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because that darkness hath blinded his eyes.

12 I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake.

13 I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father.

14 I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one.

15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

17 And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.

Saint Mark 14:3-9 KJV

3 And being in Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at meat, there came a woman having an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious; and she brake the box, and poured it on his head.

4 And there were some that had indignation within themselves, and said, Why was this waste of the ointment made?

5 For it might have been sold for more than three hundred pence, and have been given to the poor. And they murmured against her.

6 And Jesus said, Let her alone; why trouble ye her? she hath wrought a good work on me.

7 For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good: but me ye have not always.

8 She hath done what she could: she is come aforehand to anoint my body to the burying.

9 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, this also that she hath done shall be spoken of for a memorial of her.

THE PARAGON THUR JAN 23/FEB 5 NS 2026 • Holy Martyrs Clement and Agathángelos; St. Dionýsios of Olympus; St. Paulinus the Merciful, Bishop of Nola ~ No Fasting Throughout The Week ~ I St. John 1:8-2:6; St. Mark 13:31-14:2

 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 (St. 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).”

DO VEGETABLES HAVE SOULS?

St. Anthony the Great

Because some people impiously dare to say that plants and vegetables have a soul, I will write briefly about this for the guidance of the simple. Plants have a natural life, but they do not have a soul. Man is called an intelligent animal because he has intellect and is capable of acquiring knowledge. The other animals and the birds can make sounds because they possess breath and soul. All things that are subject to growth and decline are alive: but the fact that they live and grow does not necessarily mean that they all have souls. There are four categories of living beings. The first are immortal and have souls, such as angels. The second have intellect, soul and breath, such as men. The third have breath and soul, such as animals. The fourth have only life, such as plants. The life of plants is without soul, breath, intellect or immortality. These four attributes, on the other hand, presuppose the possession of life. Every human soul is in continual movement.

ANECDOTE

Who am I?  What's life all about and how do I deal with its ups and downs? 

The questions above are occasionally heard from adults. Interestingly, many often speculate, conjure answers or possibly, as a last resort, seek answers from the 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. And, pitifully, lacking stillness, we once again fail to hear and respond to the voice in the heart of the Son of Man.

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 a pious 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 been granted and shown, trust in our Lord that if there is something you need from a writing you find difficult, He 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. 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.

Please leave comments below 

 

THE PARAGON Wed. Jan 4/22 ns 2026 • Holy Apostle Timothy, Holy Monk-Martyr Anastásios the Persian ~ No Fasting Throughout the Week ~ Apostle: II St. Tim. 1:3-9; St. Matt. 10:32-33, 37-38, 19:27-30 ANECDOTE

 Wednesday 

January 22

New Style February 4
2026

~ No Fasting throughout the week ~

The Holy ApostleTimothy,

The Holy Monk-Martyr Anastásios the Persian

St. Timothy's Skull

Saint Timothy was one of the Seventy Apostles. He was born in Lystra in Lycaonia of a Greek father and a Jewish mother. The Apostle Paul praised his mother and grandmother because of their sincere faith. "I yearn to see you again, recalling your tears, so that I may be filled with joy, as I recall your sincere faith that first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and that, I am confident, lives also in you" (II St Timothy 1: 4-5).

Timothy first met with the great apostle in Lystra and was himself a witness when Paul healed the one lame from birth. Later, Timothy was an almost constant traveling companion of Paul, traveling with him to Achaia, Macedonia, Italy and Spain. Sweet in soul, he was a great zealot for the Faith, and a superb preacher. Timothy contributed much to the spreading and establishing of the Christian Faith. Paul calls him "my own son in the faith." "Paul an apostle of Christ Jesus, Who is our hope, to Timothy, my own son in the Faith: grace, mercy and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord" (I St Timothy 1-2).

After Paul's martyrdom, Timothy had St. John the Evangelist as his teacher. But when the Emperor Domentian banished John from Ephesus to the island of Patmos, Timothy remained in Ephesus to serve as bishop. During the time of an idolatrous feast called Katagogium, the pagans, resentful of the Christians, treacherously and in disguise, attacked Timothy and killed him about the year 93 A.D. Later his honorable relics were translated to Constantinople and interred in the Church of the Twelve Apostles along side of the grave of St. Luke the Evangelist and St. Andrew the First-called.

2 Saint Timothy 1:3-9, 10:32-33, 37-38; 19:27-30 KJV

3 I thank God, whom I serve from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing I have remembrance of thee in my prayers night and day;

4 Greatly desiring to see thee, being mindful of thy tears, that I may be filled with joy;

5 When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.

6 Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands.

7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;

9 Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,

St. Matthew 10:32-33, 37-38, 19:27-30 KJV

32 Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

33 But whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven.

37 He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.

38 And he that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.

19:27 Then answered Peter and said unto him, Behold, we have forsaken all, and followed thee; what shall we have therefore?

28 And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.

29 And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life.

30 But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.

ON THE AQUISITION
OF THE HOLY SPIRIT

By Saint Seraphim of Sarov

"Anthony the Great in his letters to monks says: 'Many monks and virgins have no idea of the different kinds of will which act in man, and they do not know that we are influenced by three wills: the first is God's all-perfect and all-saving will; the second is our own human will which, if not destructive, neither is it saving; and the third will is the devil's will—wholly destructive.' 

This third will of the enemy prompts man to do any no good deeds, or to do them good out of vanity, or merely for virtue's sake rather than for Christ's sake. The second, our own will, prompts us to do everything to flatter our passions, or else it teaches us like the enemy, to do good for the sake of good and not care for the grace which is acquired by it. But the first, God's all-saving will, consists in doing good solely to acquire the Holy Spirit, as an eternal, inexhaustible treasure which is priceless.

The acquisition of the Holy Spirit is, in a manner of speaking, the oil, which the foolish virgins lacked. They were called foolish just because they had forgotten the necessary fruit of virtue, the grace of the Holy Spirit, without which no one is or can be saved, for: 'Through the Holy Spirit every soul is quickened and through purification is exalted and illumined by the Triune Unity in a Holy mystery.'

ANECDOTE

Who am I?   

What's life all about and how do I deal 

 with its ups and downs?

The questions above are occasionally heard from adults.  Interestingly, many seek answers from a metaphor referred to as 'Mother Nature'. Although we see metamorphosis in multitudinous forms and attribute them to ‘Mother Nature” - she is nothing more than a personification of a fantasy - we then look to our limited intellect because 'Mother' has no answer for us. Once again we fail to turn to our Maker who expressed His love by becoming one of us. 

For believers however, the questions, and others, are indeed answered within Christian scripture and also by the writings of enlightened followers of Christ.

Again, limited by intellect, the following comment was offered concerning the writings of Saint Maximos the Confessor, commemorated Tuesday on the  

PARAGON BLOG. 

The the holy fathers not only offer the answer but even beyond it by pointing the way to gaining favor with Christ the Judge.  

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.    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 saint. 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.

Please leave a comment.