August 13

Nerses Snorhali (1102-1173) monk and pastor

Nerses Snorhali, a monk and Catholicos of the Armenians, died in Hromklay, Armenia in 1173.
Born in 1102 at the Covk' fortress into a family that had been close to the Church for many generations, Nerses entered the Red Monastery of K'esun at a very young age, together with his brother Grigoris.
He was ordained a priest in 1120 and his brother, who in the meantime had become catholicos, made Nerses his assistant. Several years later, Grigoris ordained Nerses bishop.
A cordial and cultured man, Nerses was given the pseudonymn Snorhali, which suggests the qualities of kindness and personal warmth he had acquired through his monastic asceticism and continued to show for the rest of his life. Nerses was skillful in presiding over the unity of his own church, and at the same time he pursued dialogue with the Latin West and the Byzantine East, with whom Armenia had not been in full communion since the Council of Chalcedon.
When his brother died in 1166, Nerses succeeded him as head of the Armenian church. He oversaw the preparation of a synod devoted to the theme of reconciliation, over which Nerses of Lambron presided after his death.
Firmly convinced that a pastor's fundamental task is that of serving the unity of the Church and the churches, Nerses Snorhali never stopped reminding everyone who would listen that the elements essential to lasting unity are genuine faith and love, which flow from one's personal participation in Christ's kenosis.

BIBLICAL READINGS
1 Cor 12:4-11; Mt 7:6-12

---

 

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) pastor

In 1667 Jeremy Taylor, an Anglican bishop of Down and Connor, died in Ireland.
Born in 1613 in England, Taylor studied at Cambridge. He was ordained a priest in 1633, became rector of Uppingham five years later, and was made chaplain of King Charles I. After the king's death, Jeremy went to Ireland and was elected bishop of Down and Connor.
Taylor is remembered as an author of polemical works who drew his inspiration from his spiritual reading of Scripture and from the Book of Common Prayer. But he is remembered and loved in the Anglican Church above all for his teachings on the inner life, on prayer, and on the Christian meaning of death. His writings share many of the features of the best Anglo-Saxon literature: concreteness, extreme restraint, and the search for profound unity between religious experience and everyday life.

BIBLICAL READINGS
1 Kings 3:6-10; Titus 2:7-8.11-14; Mt 5:17-20

---

 

THE CHURCHES REMEMBER...

ANGLICANS:
Jeremy Taylor, bishop of Down and Connor, teacher of the faith
Florence Nightingale (d. 1910), nurse, social reformer
Octavia Hill (d. 1912), social reformer

WESTERN CATHOLICS:
Pontianus, pope, and Hippolytus, priest (£rd cent.), martyrs (Roman and Ambrosian calendar)
Hippolytus, martyr (Spanish-Mozarabic calendar)

COPTS AND ETHIOPIANS (7 misra/nahasse):
Annunciation to Joachim that Anne will give birth to the virgin Mary

LUTHERANS:
Radegonda (d. 587), benefactrice in France
Paul Richter (d. 1942), witness to the point of bloodshed in Saxony

MARONITES:
Clare (d. 1253), nun

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS AND GREEK CATHOLICS:
End of the feast of the Transfiguration
Relocation of the relics of Maxim the Confessor (662)
Benjamin, metropolitan of Petersburg and Gdovsk, Serge, George and John (d. 1922), neomartyrs (Russian Church)
Arsenius Ninozmindeli (d. ca. 1018; Georgian Church)

WEST SYRIAN ORTHODOX:
Cyriacus (8th-9th cent.), patriarch

OLD CATHOLICS:
Maxim the Confessor