Synaxarion for First Saturday of Great Lent

Verses: Tyron feeds the city with food of koliva, Declaring the polluted food unfit.

On this day, the first Saturday of Great Lent, we celebrate the wondrous miracle of the koliva (kutia) of the holy glorious great martyr Feodor the Tyron, which had the following background.

When Julian the Apostate succeeded to the throne after Konstantiy, the son of Konstantin the Great, and turned from Christ back to idolatry, a great persecution of Christians began—open and at the same time hidden. For the impious emperor forbade cruel tortures and overt inhuman attacks on Christians, being ashamed and at the same time afraid that many might join them. Instead, the vile deceiver devised a secret way to defile Christians. Recalling that Christians especially purify themselves and attend to God during the first week of the holy fast, he summoned the city prefect and ordered him to remove the usual goods for sale from the market and to set out other food instead—that is, bread and drink—having first sprinkled them with the blood of idolatrous sacrifices and defiled them by this sprinkling, so that Christians buying them after the fast would be defiled at the moment of their greatest purification. The prefect immediately carried out what was commanded, and throughout the marketplace were laid out foods and drinks polluted with the blood of idolatrous sacrifices.

But the All-seeing God, who thwarts the schemes of the crafty and ever cares for us, His servants, destroyed the loathsome plots of the apostate. To the bishop of the city, Evksiy—though he was a heretic and not Orthodox—God sent His great sufferer Feodor, from the military rank, called Tyron. Appearing before him not in a dream but in reality, the saint said: “As quickly as possible, arise, gather the flock of Christ, and strictly command that no one buy anything from what is offered in the marketplace, for all of it has been defiled with the blood of idolatrous sacrifices by order of the impious emperor.” The hierarch was perplexed and asked: “But how can those who do not have enough food at home manage not to buy what is offered in the marketplace?” “By giving them koliva,” the saint replied, “you will make up for the lack.” When the bishop, marveling and not understanding, asked what this “koliva” might mean, the great martyr Feodor said: “Boiled wheat—for that is what we are accustomed to call it in Euchaita.” The patriarch inquired who this was who cared for the Christians, and the saint answered again: “Feodor, martyr of Christ, now sent to you from Him as a helper.” The patriarch immediately arose and announced the vision to many Christians, and acting as the holy Feodor had commanded, he preserved Christ’s flock unharmed from the enemy’s and apostate’s craftiness. The emperor, seeing that his plots were exposed and had come to nothing, was deeply ashamed and once more ordered the usual goods to be sold in the market.

The Christians, giving thanks to their benefactor-martyr, after the first week of Great Lent had passed, on this Saturday joyfully celebrated his feast, preparing koliva. And from that time even to the present, we the faithful, renewing the miracle so that so glorious a deed of the martyr might not be forgotten with the passage of time, honor the memory of the great martyr Feodor by the blessing of koliva.

This saint, under Emperor Maximian, was tortured by the impious praepositus Vrinka. First he was exhausted in prison, then he set fire to their pagan temple and distributed its furnishings to the poor. When some demanded an answer from him and wanted him to turn from Christ to the idols, giving him such counsel, he would not tolerate it. Having suffered much, at last he was thrown into a huge blazing pyre; unharmed by it, in the midst of the flames he gave up his soul to God. By his prayers, O Christ God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.