December 8 / November 25

1. The Hieromartyr Clement, Pope of Rome (101)

Clement was born in Rome of royal lineage and was a contemporary of the holy apostles. His mother and two brothers, traveling on the sea, were carried by a storm to different places. His father then went to find his wife and two sons and he, too, became lost. Clement, being twenty-four years old, then set out for the east to seek his parents and brothers. In Al- Alexandria, he made the acquaintance of the Apostle Barnabas and, afterward, joined the Apostle Peter whom his two brothers, Faustinus and Faustinian, were already following. By God’s providence, the Apostle Peter came upon Clement’s mother as an aged beggar woman and then found his father as well. Thus, the whole family was united, and all returned to Rome as Christians. Clement did not separate himself from the great apostle, who appointed him as bishop before his death. After Peter’s martyrdom, Linus was Bishop of Rome, then Cletus—both of them for a short time— and then Clement. Clement governed the Church of God with flaming zeal, and from day to day brought a great number of unbelievers to the Christian Faith. In addition, he ordered seven scribes to write the lives of the Christian martyrs who were suffering at that time for their Lord. The Emperor Trajan banished him to Cherson, where Clement found about two thousand exiled Christians. All were occupied with the difficult job of hewing stones in a waterless land. The Christians received Clement with great joy and he was a living source of comfort to them. By his prayer, he brought forth water from the ground and converted so many of the unbelieving natives to Christianity that, in one year, seventy-five churches were built there. To prevent his spreading the Christian Faith even more, the authorities condemned Clement to death, and drowned him in the sea with a stone around his neck in the year 101. His miracle-working relics were removed from the sea only in the time of Saints Cyril and Methodius.

2.  The Hieromartyr Peter, Archbishop of Alexandria (311)

Peter was a disciple and successor of St. Theonas, Archbishop of Al- Alexandria, and was for a time a teacher at Origen’s famous school of philosophy. He ascended the archiepiscopal throne in the year 299, and died a martyr’s death in 311, beside the grave of the Holy Apostle Mark. He governed the Church in a most difficult era, when assaults were be- ing made against the faithful by unbelievers from without, and by heretics from within. During his time, 670 Christians suffered in Alexandria. Often, whole families were led to the scaffold and executed. At the same time, the ungodly Arius was confusing the faithful with his false teaching. St. Peter cut him off from the Church and anathematized him, both in this world and in the next. The Lord Himself visited this great and wonderful saint in prison.

3. The Venerable Paphnutius

Paphnutius never drank wine. Once, bandits seized him, and their leader forced him to drink a cup of wine. Seeing Paphnutius’s kind nature, the chief of the bandits repented and abandoned his brigandage.

• Peter of Galatia, hermit, near Antioch in Syria (ca. 403).
• New Hieromartyr Seraphim, archbishop of Smolensk (1937).
• (Greek : Great-martyr Catherine of Alexandria, and Martyrs Augusta (Faustina) the Empress, Porphyrius Stratelates, and 200 soldiers [305-313]).
• (Bulgarian : St. Clement of Ochrid, bishop of Greater Macedonia [916]).

HYMN OF PRAISE

The Hieromartyr Clement, Bishop of Rome

The aristocrat Clement, of noble birth,
Became a zealous servant of the Living Lord.
Scorning the vanity of opulent Rome,
He elevated his spirit above all illusion.
Spiritual kinship with Peter bound him,
And loosened his fleshly kinship to the emperor.
He shone in Rome as a radiant star,
Dispelling dense darkness with the Honorable Cross;
He adorned and strengthened the Apostolic Church,
And embittered the weak powers of the demons.
A tempest arose from demonic powers
Seeking to slay the saint of God.
His body they killed; his soul then fled to Paradise.
At the bottom of the waters of the sea, his holy body remained.
After eight centuries solid iron would have wasted away,
But not the body of this knight of Christ.
He gloriously manifested many miracles,
And through Christ God Clement was glorified.
O holy Clement, help even us
By your prayers before the throne of God.

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