Ode 9. Irmos.

Exapostilarion. With the Disciples let us go.

Happiness of mysteries and revelation of divine wonders now appears: the resurrection of the Saints. For those who of old died in the flesh a natural death, have now risen incorrupt, clothed like ones who sleep.

A store of strength and seal of firm faith the cave of the Saints appears, foretelling the glory of the coming Resurrection, not Lazarus four days dead, but the dead from every age will rise.

The Youths surely appeared by number and by faith as honoured eyes of the Church of Christ, blazing more brightly than the stone of Zorobabel. Let us in spirit praise their godlike spirits. 4

You contested bravely and received the crown of martyrdom, O seven Youths, pillars of God’s wisdom and rising of the doctrines of orthodoxy. You have been declared champions of the Church and intercessors for those who sing your praise.

Pure Mary, highly glorious, you kept your body and your soul unspotted, therefore Christ the King loved your beauty, and declared you to be Mother of his incarnation, as he ever accomplishes my salvation.

From your virgin loins ineffably you gave a body to the great light before the sun, God who shone forth and lived among us in a body. Blessed and all pure Mother of God, we magnify you.

Before the judgement seat of the tyrant, O seven Martyr Youths, with boldness you proclaimed Christ as God of all, as Saviour and Creator. For you lay dead according to nature for many years in a cave by divine foreknowledge and beyond nature rose again as from sleep so stopping the mouths of every heretic.

In songs let us sing Iamblichus, John, Martin and Constantine, Maximilian and Dionysios, with famous Exakoustodius, as we radiantly celebrate their radiant memory, that by their prayers and the intercessions of the Mother of God we may find release from offences from Christ the Saviour.

The rest of the Office as usual and the Dismissal.

1. The ‘l’, the second letter of the word ‘Clement’ in Greek as in English, is missing, because there are only eight Odes. The first three letters of the word ‘seven’ are also missing, which suggests that the canon originally had nine odes. This phenomenon is frequent in the canons of the Menaia. The Irmi would, in practice, never be sung, but we have included the full text in parentheses.

2. The line is a heroic hexameter, rather than an iambic trimeter. This is normal in the last line of the verse notices for the first entry each day, which mentions the date, as in the preceding notice for the Seven Sleepers. The language in both grammar and vocabulary is ‘homeric‘.

3. Since the name *Ia* means ‘violets’, there seems no reason why ‘Violet’ should not be used as an Orthodox name in English.

4. The Menaion has the following note: The sacred Hymnographer refers to the saying of God’s Angel to the prophet Zachary concerning Zorobabel, ‘Why was someone scornful over small days? They will rejoice and see the stone made of tin in the hands of Zorobabel. These are the seven eyes of the Lord that look upon the earth’ . Anybody who wants to know more precisely the meaning of this prophetic passage should read the commentaries of the Fathers on it.