Ode IX

Exapostilarion of the Deposition; Glory…, that of the holy hierarch: Spec. Mel.: “Hearken, ye women…”—

Irmos: With hymns do we magnify Thee, the God and man, Who wast first begotten without mother, and then wast born without father.

A s a good shepherd, and not a hireling, O Aidan, thou didst call upon the infidels to cast away their unbelief and to enter, rejoicing, into the fold of the Church, embracing the one true Faith.

Theotokion: N ow let us entreat the mediation of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of the all-seeing Judge Who hath pardoned mankind, Whose sufferings, resurrection and ascension the wondrous Aidan gloriously preached.

Great Doxology. Troparia. Litanies. Dismissal. First Hour.

Now & ever…: Exapostilarion of the Deposition, again.

I nstructing believers in word and deed, O holy hierarch, thou didst strengthen them in the doing of good deeds, that their faith might be alive within them and bear the ripe fruits of piety.

D evoting thyself to monastic ideals, thou didst found many monasteries and convents throughout Northumbria, O most glorious one, nurturing generations of monastics in continence, and uprooting the passions from them like tares.

A gain and again were the timbers of the church where thou didst repose reduced utterly to ashes, O holy Aidan; yet the wooden buttress whereon thou didst lean when thy soul took flight was never touched or consumed by the flames.

Great was thy mastery of the Christian virtues, O Aidan, for thou wast utterly free of greed and avarice. Readily didst thou tend to the needs of the souls of thy new flock, unceasingly preaching to them the words of life. Wherefore, the sheep and lambs entrusted to thee by the Chief Shepherd greatly increased in number through thy pious ministrations.

On the Praises, 4 stichera of the Deposition; and Glory…, of the holy hierarch, in Tone VI—

O royal Bamburgh, be thou exalted among all the cities of England, for within thy precincts did the holy Aidan commit his soul into the hands of his Master. And thou, O Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, whose soil was hallowed by the sacred remains of the athlete of Christ, do thou shine forth upon us the grace of the Almighty, as the sun sheddeth its rays upon the whole world, that, enlightened thereby, our eyes may clearly behold the straight and narrow path which Aidan trod, which leadeth us surely to the mansions of heaven.

Now & ever…, of the Deposition.