18 September Saturday
Old Style — 5 SeptemberToday
The Prophet Zacharias and Righteous Elisabeth, Parents of John the Baptist (I)

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
- The Prophet Zacharias and Righteous Elisabeth, Parents of John the Baptist (I)›
- Holy Martyrs Thaiphalus and His Sister Thibaea (+98–138); Holy Martyr Sarbelus›
- Holy Martyr Raisa (or Iraida) (+c. 308)›
- Holy Martyrs Juventinus and Maximus the Soldiers (+361–363)›
- Holy Martyrs Urban, Theodore, Medimnus and the Seventy-seven Fathers of the Clergy with Them, Martyred at Nicomedia (+370)›
- Holy Martyr Abdas (Abdus), Martyred in Persia (V)›
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
Be among the people as Lot was in Sodom, where all did lawlessness, yet he did not imitate them and did what was pleasing to God’s holy will: do likewise — do not imitate what the wicked world does.
Icons of the day's saints — from our shop
All icons →For every day — candles and incense
Candles and incense →Icon: Icon of Christ — Sinai, 6th c. · Public domain









