Synaxarion for the Sunday of the Samaritan Woman

On the fifth Sunday of the Paschal period we celebrate the feast of the Samaritan woman.

Verses
O woman who camest to take corruptible water, 
thou drawest forth incorruptible, whereby thou washest away defilement of soul. 

We celebrate the Samaritan woman because it was to her the Christ openly declared Himself to be the Messiah, which is the Anointed One; for mesa is the Hebrew word for oil. It is for this reason, I think, that this feast was assigned to the week of the Midfeast of Pentecost. For during the week preceding this He performed the miracle at the pool, and this week at the Well of Jacob, which Jacob dug himself and gave to his son Joseph. This was a beautiful area, and it was precisely here, near Mount Somor, that the Samaritans established many cities. Christ arrived in Sychar where, when Jacob dwelt there (in ancient times) with Dinah, his daughter, and his children, Shechem, son of Hamor the Hittite, lusted after Dinah, and having ravished her, lived with her. In that place, the brethren of Dinah, defending their sister’s honor, suddenly invaded the city and slew both Shechem himself and Hamor, his father. This is where Jacob took up residence and dug this well. However, Samaritans did not dwell in this city before, but Israelites, who, having offended God during the reign of Pekah, after the first and second invasion of the Assyrians, were made tributaries. But not long afterwards, during the reign of Hoshea, when they entered into an alliance with Ethiopians, the King of Assyria, on learning of this, carried them off to Babylon and ordered that that place be resettled by people of various heathen tribes; but God sent lions against the aliens. The King of Assyria, when he received word of this, sent to them a priest of the Jews (for there were there corrupted Jews), so that they might accept the laws of God. And, casting aside their idols, they accepted only the books of Moses, but rejected the prophets and the rest of the Scriptures. These are those who were called Samaritans, after Mount Somor, and who were at enmity with the Jews who returned after the Captivity, because they [the Samaritans] were only half-Jews, and the Jews, considering them unclean, would not share food with them. For this reason the Jews often accused Christ of being a Samaritan, because He abrogated some of the law, as they had. And so, He arrived in Sychar at about the sixth hour of the day and, tired from his travels, sat down, while His disciples went on to purchase food. A certain woman came from the city to draw water; and Jesus asked water of her. But recognizing Him by his speech and dress, she remarked that there could be no communication of any sort. But He began a conversation with her concerning the spiritual water which, as He explained, is the most abundant and pure. He constantly compared the Spirit to water and fire. The woman stood firmly in her opinion and added that He did not possess any water, for He had not brought with Him a vessel wherewith to draw it forth, and the well was deep. Then she turned the conversation to the Patriarch Jacob, noting that he had dug the well and drunk of it himself, and watered his cattle therewith, thus showing the abundance, pleasantness and freshness of the spring. Although He did not place Himself higher than Jacob, so as not to offend the woman, Christ began again to speak about water, describing the superiority of His water, in that he who drank of His water would never again thirst. The woman asked to be given this water, but He told her to summon her husband, since the discussion required greater acuity of mind; but she said that she had no husband. The Omniscient One said: “Well hast thou said: ‘I have no husband”; for thou hast had five, as the Law commandeth, but the sixth, with whom thou now livest in unlawful cohabitation, is not thy husband.” There are those who understand the five husbands to represent the five books of Moses, which the Samaritans accepted, and the sixth they understand to represent the words of Christ, which she had never accepted; for grace had not yet been poured forth. Others consider the five to represent the five covenants laid down by God: the first in paradise, the second after the expulsion, the third in Noah’s time, the fourth under Abraham, and the fifth under Moses, while the sixth is the Gospel, which she did not yet possess. Yet others believe the five husbands represent the five senses. Answering Him, the woman called Him a prophet. She then asked Him on which mountain worship should be made—in Samaria, or in Jerusalem; for the Samaritans, as imperfect Jews, had no comprehension of the omnipresence of God, but imagined that He lived only where they worshipped Him, that is, on Mount Gerizim; for from all lands they assembled there for their feasts. Although Christ replied that the salvation of the world is from the Jews, added, however, that God is immaterial, and those who are accounted worthy to worship Him would do better not to worship Him with sacrifices, but in spirit and in truth; or that it were better for them to know God not as One, but with the Holy Spirit and the Son; for He is Truth. The woman again said: “From the Scriptures we know that the Messiah will come, that is, the Anointed One.” Jesus, perceiving the good direction of the woman’s thoughts, said: “I am He.” The Samaritans knew of the Messiah from the books of Moses, but primarily from the following passage: “The Lord God hath raised up for us a Prophet…”, and many others. At the end of their conversation, the disciples arrived and were amazed at the extreme condescension He displayed in conversing with the woman. Moreover, they asked Him to eat, in part because He was tired, but also because it was noontide; but He spake to them of everlasting food, that is, the salvation of men, and that they were to reap the labors of the prophets. But when the woman went to the city and described what had happened with her, all arose and went to Christ, convinced that the woman would not have said ought against herself if she had not learned something of import. They meekly requested that He remain with them for two days; and staying there, He performed so many miracles that the Evangelists could not record the multitude of them. This Samaritan woman, renamed Photina by Christ, is the same woman who, during the reign of Nero, received the crown of martyrdom with her two sons and five sisters, after enduring countless tortures: all manner of mockery, the flaying of her body, the excision of her breasts, the fracture of her arms, the insertion of sharp needles under her nails, the pouring of molten lead down her throat. It should be known that the covering of this well, as well as the stone whereon Christ sat while conversing with the Samaritan woman, were reverently moved by the Emperor Justinian and placed in the Chapel of the Word of God, in the Great Church of the Holy Wisdom. There they long lay, to the left of the entrance into the church, on the eastern side, in front of the narthex of the catechumens; and they healed all manner of sicknesses, of whatever sort: principally, their healing properties were availed of to cure fevers and the affects of malaria. Through the supplications of Thy martyr Photina, O Christ God, have mercy upon us! Amen.

Translated from the Church Slavonic by Monk Joseph (Isaac) Lambertsen. Copyright Lambertsen Foundation. All rights reserved.