Saturday. There was, however, no uniformity of practice, and some

the day from the Menaion, with six troparia (including the irmos),

Christians fasted for less than the full six days. Only a few can have managed to keep a total fast throughout the whole period. In some places it was the practice to eat bread and salt, with water, at the

After this the deacon says the Litany Have mercy upon us, O God. . . , as at the beginning of Mattins, and the priest gives the Dismissal as on Sundays, May He who rose from the dead, Christ our true God. . . . All lights are now extinguished, except one lamp in the sanctuary. So the period of the Lenten Triodion comes to a close, and at once there begin Mattins of'the Resurrection.

Canticles Six and Seven From Monday to Friday we sing in full the Biblical Canticle appointed for the day, and also the Biblical Canticles Eight and Nine, but in the case of the other Canticles we use only the last two verses of the Biblical Canticle. On Saturday, for all the Canticles of the

Up to the end of Canticle Five, we use the Canon to the saint of

Divergent answers to these three questions account for presentday differences between the Western and the Orthodox Lent. At Rome Holy Week was included as part of the forty days, Saturday was regarded as a day of fasting,38 but in calculating the number forty all Sundays were excluded from the reckoning. This produced a six-week fast of six days in each week, constituting a total of thirty-six days. To make up the full measure of forty days, four further days of fasting were then added at the beginning, with the result that Lent in the West commences on a Wednesday.39 At Constantinople, on the other hand, Holy Week - together with

Small and Great Vespers as in The Festal Menaion, pp. 68-7 τ, 8 1 - 7 .

and the Canon to the patron saint of the church or monastery, with four troparia.15 After the irmos we sing one troparion, without any verse, and then before the remaining troparia we use the last six verses of the relevant Biblical Canticle, followed by Glory be to the Father. . . and Both now. . . . Starting at Canticle Six, we omit the

of the forty-day fast in the strict sense. At Vespers on Friday evening in the sixth week, immediately preceding the Saturday of Lazarus,

Week, which, while distinct from the forty days, were treated as part of the Lenten Fast in the broader sense. In this way the forty days and Holy Week together constituted a fast of seven weeks. So it is that Lent begins on Ash Wednesday in Western Christendom, while commencing in the East two days earlier on Monday. Christians in the Greek East, however, while as a rule counting

the forty days continuously, have sometimes chosen to exclude

cluded in the reckoning, this resulted in a seven-week fast of five days in each week, adding up to thirty-five days. But since Holy

number of days to thirty-six. As we have seen, the West before the addition of the four preliminary days likewise had a thirty-six day fast, although computed in a somewhat different manner. In both East and West this number of thirty-six has been given a symbolical meaning. Just as the Israelites dedicated to God a tithe or tenth of their produce, so Christians dedicate the season of Lent to God as a tithe or tenth of the year. The part is offered in token of the w hole: by rendering back to God a tenth of what He has given to us, we call down His blessing upon the remainder and acknowledge that all material goods and all moments of time are a gift from His hand. This notion of Lent as a tithe orfirst-fruits of thejear is not much emphasized

in the existing text of the Triodion, but it is mentioned in the Synaxarion for the Sunday of Forgiveness.40 (3)

The Completion of the Pattern. In Constantinople from the sixth

or seventh century onwards, there arose the practice of adding, be­ fore the seven weeks of the fast, an eighth or preliminary week of modified fasting. In our translation of the Triodion, we have termed this the ‘Week before Lent’ ; it is often styled ‘ Cheese W eek' or the ‘ Week without Meat’ , because during these days meat is forbidden but cheese and other dairy products are permitted. This preliminary week was added, among other reasons, from the same motive as led 40 Triodion Katanyktikon (ed. Apostoliki Diakonia, Athens, i9 6 0 ), p. 69. For Lent as a tithe of the year, see John Cassian, Conferences, xxi, 2 4 - $ ; Dorotheus, Teachings, 1 ς (P .G . lxxxviii, 1788B C); Gregory the Great, Homilies on the Gospel,

xvi, g (P .L . lxxvi, 1 1 3 7 c ) . But the tithe symbolism is rejected by John of Damascus, On the Holy Fastst 3 (P .G . xcv, 68c). For the Israelite offering of tithes, see Lev. 2 7 : 3 0 - 2 ; Deut. 1 4 : 2 2 -4 .

to the addition of four extra days at the start of Western Lent: so as to make up the full number forty. In the West, a six-week fast of six days in each week left four days missing from the requisite total. At Constantinople, on the other hand, the days of Lent were (as we have seen) reckoned continuously, and so there was no need of a further preliminary period to produce the total of forty days. But Christians in Palestine calculated in terms of eight weeks, with five days of fasting in each week (no special account being taken of Holy

additional week at the beginning of Lent. The observance of ‘ Cheese W eek' in the existing Triodion represents a compromise between

the Constantinopolitan and the Palestinian practice: for ‘ Cheese

W eek' is to be considered part of the fast, and yet it is not fully within Lent.41 During the sixth-eleventh centuries, the season of pre-Lenten preparation was gradually expanded to include three other pre­ liminary Sundays: the Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee, ten weeks before Easter; following it, the Sunday of the Prodigal Son; and then the Sunday of the Last Judgement immediately before the beginning of ‘ Cheese W eek’ . Together with the Sunday of Forgive­ ness at the end of ‘ Cheese W eek’ , this makes four preliminary Sundays in all. In this way the full pattern of the Lenten season was completed. The Triodion, as we now have it, opens with the latest

Palm Sunday, occupies a special position between Lent and Holy Week. Following the forty days of penitence which have just ended, and immediately before the days of darkness and mourning which are to follow in the week of the Passion, there come two days of joy and triumph on which the Church keeps festival. The Saturday be­ fore Palm Sunday celebrates the raising of Lazarus at Bethany (John

1 1 : 1—46). This miracle is performed by Christ as a reassurance to His disciples before the coming Passion: they are to understand that, though He suffers and dies, yet He is Lord and Victor over death.

The resurrection of Lazarus is a prophecy in the form of an action.

It foreshadows Christ’s own Resurrection eight days later, and at the same time it anticipates the resurrection of all the righteous on the Last Day: Lazarus is ‘ the saving first-fruits of the regeneration of

the w orld’ .

As the liturgical texts emphasize, the miracle at Bethany reveals

the two natures of Christ the God-man. Christ asks where Lazarus is

laid and weeps for him, and so He shows the fullness of His man­ hood, involving as it does human ignorance and genuine grief for a beloved friend. Then, disclosing the fullness of His divine power, Christ raises Lazarus from the dead, even though his corpse has already begun to decompose and stink. This double fullness of the Lord’s divinity and His humanity is to be kept in view throughout

82 See G . Bertoniere, The Historical Development o f the Easter Vigil and Related Services in the Greek Church (Orientalia Christiana Analecta 1 9 3 : Rome, 19 7 2 ).

apparent in the chant sung in place of the Trisagion, ‘ As many of you as were baptized into Christ. . . ’ , and in the choice o f Epistle reading (Rom. 6: 3—1 1 ) . W ith the verse following the Epistle, ‘ Arise, O God. .

the celebration of the Resurrection has already

begun. ^On Holy Saturday evening the people gradually reassemble in the darkened church while the Acts of the Apostles are read and then

the Midnight Office is sung. As twelve o ’clock approaches, the

lights in the body of the church are extinguished. All wait in silence for the moment when the priest will come out from the sanctuary with the burning candle that symbolizes the light of the risen Christ. So the period of the Lenten Triodion closes in a spirit of intense and eager expectation. ‘ Surely I am coming quickly’ , the Saviour says to us (Rev. 2 2 : 20), and in our hearts we make ready to reply to the risen Christ: ‘ Amen. Come, Lord Jesu s!’ j

This volume is the second in the series The Service Books of the Orthodox Churchy and forms a sequel to The Festal Menaion (Faber and Faber, 1969). Practical considerations render it impossible at this juncture to issue a printed translation of the Lenten Triodion in its entirety. The present book contains the selection of material adopted by the monks of Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery, Jordanville, N .Y ., in their Slavonic edition o f the Velikii Sborniky vol. iii, part 1 (194:6). That is to say, we have included the full text for the following days: All Sundays in the period of the Triodion (omitting Small Vespers);