A tone is not a psalm number. It is the mode in which that week's resurrection hymns are sung — the whole week's Vespers, Matins and Liturgy are set in one tone.

There are eight tones, and they change each week. The cycle opens with the first tone on Thomas Sunday after Pascha and returns to the first every eight weeks; Bright Week itself has no tone of its own. A new tone begins on Saturday evening, with the new church week.

The Psalter is divided into twenty kathismata and, by the usual rule, is read through once a week. Appointed for this day:

This is the usual rule. In Great Lent the Psalter is read twice a week, and the kathismata are divided differently.

Word of the day

On worldly holidays what was gathered on working days is spent; on the feasts of the Church one can and should gather the spiritual riches of contemplative and active wisdom as abundantly as on ordinary days, or even more so. A feast is not there so that you put off your work and stay idle. A holiday is not idleness: a holy day is the joy of the soul in the awareness of God’s greatest mercy.

— Bishop Theophan of Vladimir · #