January 4
Besides the Twelve Great Apostles, the Lord chose seventy lesser apostles and sent them to preach the Gospel: Behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves (Luke 10:3). But just as Judas, one of the Twelve, fell away from the Lord, so some among the Seventy abandoned the Lord—not with the intention of betrayal, but because of human weakness and faintheartedness (John 6:66). As Judas’s place was filled by another apostle, so also were the places of these lesser apostles filled by others that were chosen. These seventy lesser apostles labored at the same work as did the Twelve Great Apostles; they were co-workers with the Twelve in spreading and establishing the Church of God in the world. They endured many sufferings and malevolent acts from men and demons, but their strong faith and fervent love for the resurrected Lord made them victors over the world and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.
- Learn More | The Seventy
Source: St. Nikolai Velimirovic, The Prologue of Ohrid – Volume One.
Kontakion
With hymns let us praise the chorus of the Seventy disciples of Christ, ye faithful; and in godliness, let us keep a feast, for we learned through them to worship the Trinity, Who is indivisibly one; for they are the lamps of our most godly Faith.