The “Triodion” refers to the ten weeks leading up to Pascha as well as to the book which contains the hymns, readings, and prayers specific to this season.

The name "Triodion" means “three odes”. During this period, the Canons (the series of hymns sung at Matins) contain only three odes instead of the usual nine.

The Lenten Triodion book is used continuously in services from the Sunday of the Publican through Great Lent and Holy and Great Week.

Consider well, my soul: dost thou fast? Then despise not thy neighbour.
Dost thou abstain from food? Condemn not thy brother.
Come, let us cleanse ourselves by almsgiving and acts of mercy to the poor,
Not sounding a trumpet or making a show of our charity. Let not our left hand know what our right hand is doing; Let not vainglory scatter the fruit of our almsgiving;
But in secret let us call on Him that knows all secrets: Father, forgive us our trespasses, for Thou lovest mankind.

St. Nicholas of Japan (Feb 16) was the first to bring Orthodoxy to Japan. There are now more than forty active Orthodox churches. The parishioners of the country’s main Orthodox church— the Cathedral of the Resurrection of Christ in Tokyo— are not mostly transplanted faithful from Russia and other Orthodox lands but are mainly Japanese.

You have shown before all that the Orthodox Church of Christ is foreign to worldly dominion and every tribal hatred, and embraces all tribes and languages with her love.

☦️ St Tsar Nicholas II to St. Nicholas of Japan after the Russo-Japanese war

Those forces that are preparing the appearance of Antichrist will have a leading significance in public life. Antichrist will be a man and not the devil incarnate. … That man wants to be in place of Christ, to occupy His place and possess that which Christ ought to possess. He wants to possess the same attraction and authority over the whole world.

And he will receive that authority before his own destruction and that of the whole world. He will have a helper, a Magus, who, by the power of false miracles, will fulfill his will and kill those that do not recognize the authority of Antichrist.

— from “The Antichrist and the Signs of the End of the World a Homily on the Last Judgement” by ☦️ St John Maximovitch

The Last Judgement

“for I was hungry and you gave me no food; I was thirsty and you gave me no drink.” ☦️ Luke 25:42

Prayers for every hour

O Prophet of God and Forerunner of Grace, your head has blossomed from the earth as a sacred rose. We are ever being healed, for as of old, You preach repentance to the world.

☦ Kontakion (Tone 3), First and second finding of the Honourable Head of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist of the Lord, John

Forgiveness Sunday. Forgive others. Ask for forgiveness. “God forgives. I forgive. Forgive me a sinner."

God commanded Adam to fast (Gen. 2:16), but he did not obey. Let us repent of our own disobedience, “let us, each of us, pass a judgment on our whole soul, on our whole life; judge ourselves justly and honestly, and ask forgiveness not only from God … but also from all those to whom we have not been a help on their journey to God.”

☦️Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Sermon at Forgiveness Sunday Vespers, 1999

For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. ☦️ Matthew 16:14

Lenten Prayer of ☦️ St Ephrem

O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.

Holy New Martyr Natalia Ivanovna was widowed after authorities murdered her husband for his defence of the Church and outspokenness against Soviet collective farms. Yet she refused to remain broken and bitter. She was not afraid to openly support persecuted and imprisoned clergy and speak against the confiscation and closures of churches. In May 1937, at the initiative of the Church Council of Theophany Church in the village of Churiki, where she served as churchwarden, Natalia inspired her fellow villagers to participate in a peaceful procession against its closure. Half of the church had already been converted into a granary.

For being “hostile” to the Soviet regime and a religious “counterrevolutionary”, Natalia Ivanovna and two other members of the Church Council of the Theophany Church— Vasily Matveyevich Abramkin and Vasily Danilovich Orlov— were put in the Moscow Taganka Prison and shortly thereafter sentenced to death. Their martyrdom took place at the Butovo secret firing range, where 20,000 “enemies” of the regime were executed in 1937-38. Her children carefully preserved Natalia’s Bible and shawl and donated them to the memorial museum at the church in Butovo. One of Natalia’s sons wrote years later: “In those distant, monstrously tragic years, our mother Natalia Ivanovna Kozlova suffered. She was a mother of eight children, in whose upbringing she had invested her loving heart and kind, sincere soul. With great gratitude we cherish her maternal love, care and affection...”
Holy New Martyr Natalia, pray to God for us! #NewMartyr #Natalia #Sept14