4 September Saturday
Old Style — 22 AugustToday
This year's detailed calendar has not been published yet — these are calculated dates.
Commemorated — from the synaxarion
Tap a name to open the life
Feast of the Icon of the Mother of God Called the Iverian (Georgian), in Moscow, in the Monastery of Metropolitan Alexis (1650)›
Holy Martyrs Agathonicus, Zoticus, Theoprepius, Acindynus, Severian, Zeno and Others (IV)›
Hieromartyr Athanasius the Bishop (+270–275); Venerable Anthusa (+c. 298) and Her Servants, the Holy Martyrs Charisimus and Neophytus (III)›
Holy Martyr Eulalia the Virgin (+c. 303); Holy Martyr Felix (+c. 303)›
The tone and the day's psalms
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
The radii of a circle are joined to its centre, and the nearer they are to the centre, the nearer they come to one another. But if they move away from the centre, they move away from one another too. So it is with people: the further they are from God, the further they draw apart from one another.
Icons of the day's saints — from our shop
For every day — candles and incense
Honey (Beeswax) Candles, 50 pieces
Incense, Grade III
Charcoal for the Liturgy
Censer
Icon: Icon of Christ — Sinai, 6th c. · Public domain