Tuesday 23rd December 2025
Nativity Fast: strict fast
Forefeast of The Nativity of Christ
Today we commemorate:
Holy Ten Martyrs of Crete: Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunician, Zoticus, Pompeius, Agathopus, Basilides, and Evaristus (3rd C). Dedication of the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Agia Sophia) in Constantinople (360). St. Nahum of Ochrid, Enlightener of the Bulgarians (10th C). St. Paul, bishop of Neo-Caesarea (4th C). New Hieromartyrs John Piankov and Nicholas Yakhontov, priests (1918)
British Isles and Ireland:
St. Frithebert, bishop of Hexham (766). St. Mazota of Abernethy (8th C).
Hebrews 4:1-13; Mark 10:2-12
Readings in bold type are those appointed by the Typikon for use at the Liturgy
Hebrews 4:1-13
Brothers and sisters, let us be afraid while there remains the promise of entering into his rest, lest some of you may seem to have fallen short. For we too have been told the good news, just like them, but the message they heard did not help them, not being combined with faith in those who heard; but we who believe do enter the rest. It is as he has said: ‘As I swore in my wrath, they will never enter my rest,’ even though his work was completed at the foundation of the world. There is indeed a place where he has said this about the seventh day, ‘God rested on the seventh day from all his labours,’ but there is also this: ‘They will never enter my rest.’ Since it remains for some to enter it, but those to whom the good news was first announced did not enter because of disobedience, he also appoints a certain day, ‘Today’, when speaking much later through David the words already quoted: ‘Today if you should hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’ For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not afterwards speak of another day. The Sabbath rest therefore remains for God’s people, and those entering his rest also rest from their labours, just as God did from his own. Let us be zealous then to enter that rest so that no one may fall by following such an example of disobedience. For the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword; it penetrates to the extent of dividing soul from spirit and joints from marrow, and it is able to discern the thoughts and intentions of the heart. No creature is hidden from his sight, but all are stripped bare and exposed before the eyes of the one to whom we give account.
Mark 10:2-12
At that time the Pharisees came up to Jesus and asked whether it was lawful for a husband to divorce a wife, to test him. His response was to ask them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ They said, ‘Moses allowed a certificate of separation to be drawn up and for them to divorce.’ And in reply Jesus told them, ‘He established that provision because of the hardness of your hearts. But in the beginning, at the creation, God made them male and female. That is why a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife and the two will become one flesh. They are then no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no human being separate.’ In the house the disciples questioned him again about this. He told them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her, and if a woman divorces the husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’