Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts Continue reading March 15, 2017 Wednesday of the Third Week of the Great Fast Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at which we commemorate the Holy Martyrs Sabinus and Papas (284-305)
Year: 2017
March 12, 2017 Second Sunday of the Great Fast: St. Gregory of Palamas; Octoechos Tone 2; Venerable Father and Confessor Theophanes of Sigriana; Holy Father Gregory the Dialogist, Pope of Rome
The Second Sunday of Lent is kept as a feast of Saint Gregory Palamas, the Archbishop of Thessaloniki in the fourteenth century. Like the restoration of the holy icons, this memorial of Saint Gregory has to do with historical events, but also relates to our understanding of the Christian vocation, and the possibility for every Christian to achieve genuine holiness. Saint Gregory taught that all Christians are called to union with God, which is the object of the Christian life. Continue reading March 12, 2017 Second Sunday of the Great Fast: St. Gregory of Palamas; Octoechos Tone 2; Venerable Father and Confessor Theophanes of Sigriana; Holy Father Gregory the Dialogist, Pope of Rome
March 10, 2017 Friday of the Second Week of the Great Fast Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at which we commemorate our Holy Father Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem (638)
March 9, 2017 The Holy Forty Martyrs of Sebaste (321-23) Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at which we also commemorate Codratus
March 8, 2017 Wednesday of the Second Week of the Great Fast (with commemoration of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste)
Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts Continue reading March 8, 2017 Wednesday of the Second Week of the Great Fast (with commemoration of the 40 Martyrs of Sebaste)
March 5, 2017 First Sunday of the Great Fast; Sunday of Orthodoxy; Octoechos Tone 1; Holy Martyr Conon (249-251)
The First Sunday of Great Lent is kept as the anniversary of the restoration of the Holy Icons to veneration and honour after the final defeat of the iconoclast heresy. The Seventh Ecumenical Council in the year 787 condemned the iconoclast heresy, but the final restoration of the Holy Icons did not take place until 843, with a solemn procession on the first Sunday of Lent in that year. Ever since then, all the churches of the Byzantine tradition, including our Ukrainian Catholic Church, remember that event joyfully. Continue reading March 5, 2017 First Sunday of the Great Fast; Sunday of Orthodoxy; Octoechos Tone 1; Holy Martyr Conon (249-251)
March 3, 2017 Friday of the First Week of the Great Fast Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at which we commemorate the Great Martyr Theodore the Recruit
March 1, 2017 Wednesday of the First Week of the Great Fast Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts at which we commemorate the Holy Priest-Martyr Theodotus, Bishop of Cyrenia
February 26, 2017 Sunday of Forgiveness (Cheesefare); Octoechos Tone 8; Our Holy Father Porphyrius, Bishop of Gaza (420)
On the final day before Great Lent, the Gospel teaches us the importance of reconciliation with one another, of mutual forgiveness. Vespers and Matins for this Sunday sing about the Garden of Paradise, which we lost through the Fall of Adam and Eve. Again, this reminds us that in this world we are exiles, that our true home is in the Eternal Paradise, the Heavenly Kingdom, and that the Paschal Pilgrimage leads us toward our eternal homeland.
February 23, 2017 The First and Second Finding of the Precious Head of the Holy, Glorious Prophet, Forerunner and Baptist John
(moved from February 24 according to Typikon)
After the Forerunner was beheaded at the order of Herod and his illicit wife Herodias, his head was discarded in what the Synaxarion calls “an unseemly location,” presumably a privy. According to some, it was secretly recovered by Joanna, one of the Myrrhbearing women, and given honourable burial near Jerusalem. There it was found, through a revelation of the Forerunner, by two monks who had come to Jerusalem to worship at the tomb of our Saviour (the first finding). Putting the head in a bag, the monks returned home. On the way, they met an indigent potter from Emesa. That night the Forerunner appeared to the poor man and instructed him to make off with the relic. He returned with it to Emesa and immediately began to prosper in his business. Just before he died, he put the holy relic in a chest, which he left to his sister with these instructions: never to open it without instructions from the one hidden inside it; and to pass it on to a pious man beloved of God. Thus, the Head of the Baptist passed through many generations, eventually being concealed in a cave near a monastery founded during the reign of Marcian (450-457), whose abbot was the godly Marcellus.