October 16, 2026

Events of the day

• Hieromartyr Dionysius the Areopagite

  Commemoration

Fasting

Fast day · Wednesday / Friday

Wednesday and Friday: fast without meat, dairy or eggs. Whether fish is allowed depends on the day's feast — check the church calendar.

• Meat: not allowed
• Dairy & eggs: not allowed
• Fish: not specified
• Oil: allowed
• Wine: allowed

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

  Philippians 3:8–19

  Show the text

  ⁸Yes most certainly, and I count all things to be a loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and count them nothing but refuse, that I may gain Christ

  ⁹and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, that which is of the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith,

  ¹⁰that I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, becoming conformed to his death,

  ¹¹if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from the dead.

  ¹²Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect; but I press on, that I may take hold of that for which also I was taken hold of by Christ Jesus.

  ¹³Brothers, I don’t regard myself as yet having taken hold, but one thing I do: forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before,

  ¹⁴I press on toward the goal for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

  ¹⁵Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, think this way. If in anything you think otherwise, God will also reveal that to you.

  ¹⁶Nevertheless, to the extent that we have already attained, let’s walk by the same rule. Let’s be of the same mind.

  ¹⁷Brothers, be imitators together of me, and note those who walk this way, even as you have us for an example.

  ¹⁸For many walk, of whom I told you often, and now tell you even weeping, as the enemies of the cross of Christ,

  ¹⁹whose end is destruction, whose god is the belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who think about earthly things.

• Gospel

  Luke 6:17–23

  Show the text

  ¹⁷He came down with them, and stood on a level place, with a crowd of his disciples, and a great number of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases;

  ¹⁸as well as those who were troubled by unclean spirits, and they were being healed.

  ¹⁹All the multitude sought to touch him, for power came out of him and healed them all.

  ²⁰He lifted up his eyes to his disciples, and said, “Blessed are you who are poor, God’s Kingdom is yours.

  ²¹Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh.

  ²²Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude and mock you, and throw out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.

  ²³Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven, for their fathers did the same thing to the prophets.

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

Saints and icons

• Prayer of the day: Short penitential prayers