Ode 5.

By the light of your knowledge.

Ever borne with unalterable longing towards the steep ascent, towards you, O Christ, the summit of all desires, the angelic Powers ceaselessly glorify you.

O Christ, you have established singers of your greatness, spiritual in their nature, imperishable by your grace; you have created your Angels in your image, O Incomprehensible.

You have kept your ministers, O Christ, from swerving to the worse, by their closeness to you; for you are the source of goodness, who make good those who fittingly worship you.

Alone Virgin after childbirth, pure and unwedded, Mary immaculate, bring us to anchor in your haven, guiding us from dangers towards eternal salvation.

Second Canon.

Why have you abandoned.

To Balaam the seer who of old do not believe the ineffable and divine marvels of God, the Angel, by appearing to the ass in the narrow lane, brought fearful reproof, and by showing the beast to be rational altered the signs of nature.

To Peter, imprisoned and waiting in gaol, God’s Angel appeared delivering him from Herod’s hands, and from bonds and from death; and so let us all honour the wise Archangels as God-inspired guardians of our souls.

Angels, Archangels, God’s divine Powers, abolish the upheavals of wars, and the heresies and all the scandals of the Church by your constant entreaties to God, and keep us in peace.

We know you to be one God of creation in two natures, unconfused in both modes of action and both wills, the Son of God who took flesh from a woman, whose image we honour in pictures.

The universe was amazed. ****