Ode 3. Irmos. Your Church, O Christ.

Or Cross-Theotokion.

By the shining out of your holy actions you kept your mind unsullied, and were revealed, O Hierarch, as a mirror of divine splendour.

Truly perfected by the hope of grace, you became a priest of the Gospel of grace.

The Church, bearing the delight of your words, glorious Saint, beyond the sweetness of honeycomb, spits out the bitterness of heresies.

As we revere you, All-blameless Mother of God, a gate and common temple of the divine glory, we are all freed from dangers.

Your Church, O Christ, rejoices in you and cries, You, Lord, are my strength, my refuge and my firmament.

Kathisma. Tone 5. Let us believers.

The meadow of the words of the inspired Scriptures, who guides us to repentance; Christ’s Hierarch, who endured temptations of many kinds, as we have been taught by him, let us honour him as is fitting, for he intercedes with the Lord to have mercy on our souls.

Hail gate of the Lord, through which none may pass; hail wall and protection of those who flee to you; hail haven without storms and who did not know wedlock; who bore in the flesh your Maker and God; do not cease to intercede for those who hymn and worship your Offspring.

Your Mother, seeing you willingly hung upon a cross between thieves, O Christ, wounded as a mother in her heart she said: My sinless Son, how you have been unjustly fixed like a malefactor, to a cross, wishing as compassionate, to save the human race.