AT VESPERS

Lord, I have cried **we insert 6 verses and we sing Prosomia.**

**Theotokion.**

Tone1. Joy of the heavenly ranks

Or Cross-Theotokion. You arose on the third day

Having beheld as in a mirror the beauties of Paradise and having enjoyed in abundance its undefiled meadows, you made the knowledge of God flower in the world. As we share in it, Venerable Father, by the spiritual condition of our souls, we flower once again in spirit.

You described the second coming of the Judge and with the streams of your tears you teach us to light the lamps of our souls, as you proclaim to all the Bridegroom’s coming, ‘Let us all clothe ourselves in shining robes to meet the Bridegroom Christ’.

By self control you tamed the body, O Father, and by prayers and vigils you slew the stirrings of the passions; and so the power of the Spirit overshadowed you, and revealed you to be a spiritual beacon for the whole world.

Revered Ephrem, prudently rising above life’s troubles, with love of quiet you grasped the desert; and led by it in truth towards God, you shone on the world as a beacon, and became a source of words of life for humankind; and therefore do not cease to support us by your prayers that our souls may be delivered from the enemy’s harm.

We have come to know God incarnate of you, Virgin Mother of God; implore Him that our souls may be saved.

When she who bore you saw you crucified, O Christ, she cried aloud, ‘What is the strange mystery I see, my Son? How are you dying on a tree, who hung the earth upon the waters?