---
title: "December 20, 2024 — St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan"
description: "Friday, December 20, 2024. 7 December (Old Style). St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan; St Nilus of Stolobnoye. Fast day"
url: "https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2024-12-20"
language: "en"
---

Friday

# December 20, 2024

7 December (Old Style) · 26th week after Pentecost

Russian Orthodox Church (Old Calendar)

[Old Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2024-12-20) [New Style](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/new-style/2024-12-20)

[Month calendar](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2024-12)

[← December 19](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2024-12-19) [December 21 →](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/calendar/2024-12-21)

## Events of the day

- St Ambrose, Bishop of Milan; St Nilus of Stolobnoye

  Commemoration

## Fasting

Fast day · Nativity Fast

Nativity Fast, Wednesday and Friday: xerophagy.

- Meat: not allowed
- Dairy & eggs: not allowed
- Fish: not allowed
- Oil: not allowed
- Wine: not allowed
- Xerophagy

Food rules are reference church information. Agree your personal measure of fasting with a priest; consult a doctor if you are ill.

## Readings of the day

- Epistle

  1 Timothy 4:4–8, 16

  **Show the text**

  4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with thanksgiving.

  5 For it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer.

  6 If you instruct the brothers of these things, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, nourished in the words of the faith, and of the good doctrine which you have followed.

  7 But refuse profane and old wives’ fables. Exercise yourself toward godliness.

  8 For bodily exercise has some value, but godliness has value in all things, having the promise of the life which is now, and of that which is to come.

  16 Pay attention to yourself and to your teaching. Continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.

- Gospel

  Luke 21:37–22:8

  **Show the text**

  37 Every day Jesus was teaching in the temple, and every night he would go out and spend the night on the mountain that is called Olivet.

  38 All the people came early in the morning to him in the temple to hear him.

  1 Now the feast of unleavened bread, which is called the Passover, was approaching.

  2 The chief priests and the scribes sought how they might put him to death, for they feared the people.

  3 Satan entered into Judas, who was also called Iscariot, who was counted with the twelve.

  4 He went away, and talked with the chief priests and captains about how he might deliver him to them.

  5 They were glad, and agreed to give him money.

  6 He consented, and sought an opportunity to deliver him to them in the absence of the multitude.

  7 The day of unleavened bread came, on which the Passover must be sacrificed.

  8 Jesus sent Peter and John, saying, “Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat.”

Source: Orthocal: lectionary data — Slavic tradition, Julian calendar. Text: World English Bible.

## Saints and icons

- Prayer of the day: [Short penitential prayers](https://spas.life/en/orthodoxy/prayers/penitential-short)