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

Instead of being united to God, people grow proud, fall into delusion, judge others and set themselves on a level with the saints. Some even think themselves saints. God allows them, as a punishment and to bring them to their senses, to commit some shameful sin, by the weight of which they often come to themselves, repent and are set right. But often even this does not help them, and they perish for ever.

— Schema-Archimandrite Zosima (Zacharias) Minaev · #