Candles & Incense
Church calendar · 2026
8 August Saturday
Old Style — 26 JulyToday
Sts Hermolaus, Hermippus and Hermocrates
The 10th week after Pentecost. Saturday
Commemoration
Tap a name to open the life
2 of 2 names — the rest are in Georgian only
All the lives for this day — 2Readings
The tone and the day's psalms
8
This week's tone is 8Eight tones — the Octoechos
What is a tone?
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:
- At Matins · kathisma 16Psalms 109–117›
- At Matins · kathisma 17Psalms 118›
- At Vespers · kathisma 1Psalms 1–8›
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
Nothing in the world is to be rejected because it is old, nor commended because it is new. This plain truth needs no great measuring line and plumb, nor any excessive opening of the mind, for a man not to prefer fresh mud to an old rose merely because the mud is fresh and the rose is old.
