service files 16august.md

INTRODUCTION

In the second troparion of first Ode of the canon for the Icon, St Germanos quotes the phrase ‘most precise definition’ from St Gregory the Theologian, which is also quoted in the first troparion of the iambic canon for Pentecost, to describe the relation of the Word to the Father.

In the Menaion three Prosomia are given at Vespers for St Diomedes. The Typikon, however, prescribes 3 for the Mandylion and the 3 for the Feast from Small Vespers. It also prescribes an Entrance at Vespers. At Matins there is a Canon and a Kathisma, after the 3rd Ode, for the Saint, which are not translated here, and a Great Doxology. I have only translated the first third of the lengthy Synaxarion entry for the Mandylion. The exchange of letters may also be found in Eusebius’s History of the Church, but, significantly, he makes no mention of the story of the Mandylion.

**Commemoration of the translation from Edessa of the Icon of our Lord Jesus Christ Not Made With Hands, or the Mandylion; and of the Holy Martyr Diomedes.**