service files lenten_matins.md

It is customary on the Holy Mountain to do a full censing during the first Ode of the Canon, whichever that may be, as on Sundays and Feasts.

Most books prescribe the prayer O God save your people before psalm 50. This is anomalous, since liturgically it is linked to the order for the Gospel. It is omitted in the Ieratikon issued by the Holy Monastery of Simonos Petra on the Holy Mountain. I have given a reference to it in brackets at the appropriate point.

The place at which the Troparia of the Canons are inserted vary from typikon to typikon. The standard Russian use is described in the translation of the Lenten Triodion by Mother Mary and Bishop Kallistos. Current Athonite practice is to insert the Troparia from the Menaion after the first four verses of the Biblical Canticle, and then recite the remaining verses, until the point at which the Canons from the Triodion are inserted, that is from 8 onwards.

The Triodion does not give precise references for the daily readings from and the Lausiac History of Palladios, nor more than it does for the reading from the ladder at the Hours. Some suitable material from St Ephrem will be found elsewhere on my pages.