service files blindcanon.md

**CANON FOR THE MAN BORN BLIND**

The subject first troparion of all the odes is the Crucifixion and of the fourth the Blind Man, and every ode ends with a Triadikon and a Theotokion. The first two odes have a similar pattern, which is found elsewhere in the liturgical texts. The subject of the first troparion is the Cross, of the second the ‘noble Joseph’ , of the third the Myrrhbearers and the fourth the Blind Man. Some of the later odes, with their allusions to Acts 1 and Luke 24, look forward to the coming feast of the Assumption.

**SAINT JOSEPH OF THESSALONIKI**

INTRODUCTION

The canon for the feast of the Man Born Blind is by St Joseph of Thessaloniki , the brother of St Theodore the Studite. He is also the author of the canons for the two preceding Sundays, that for the eve of the Assumption, commonly called the Ascension, and the second canon for the feast itself. He usually signs his compositions with his name **JOSEPH** as an acrostic in the ninth ode. This is preserved in the following translation.

Like all the canons for the Sundays of Pascha, this canon seems originally to have been intended to stand alone, since only one troparion deals with the subject of the feast, the others forming, in effect, a standard Resurrection canon.

I have not included detailed references to holy Scripture, though there are many in the text. The phrase ‘right Spirit’ in the Triadikon of the 9th ode is a quotation from Psalm 50, but because it sounds somewhat strange in English I have placed it in inverted commas.