Church calendar · 2027

31 December Friday

Old Style — 18 December

Holy Martyrs Sebastian and His Companions: Nicostratus, His Wife Zoe, Castor, Tranquillinus the Presbyter and His Sons Marcellinus and Mark the Deacons, Claudius the Jailer, His Son Symphorian and His Brother Victorinus, Tiburtius and Castulus (+c. 287)

Nativity Fast Tone 2

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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

Holy Martyrs Sebastian and His Companions: Nicostratus, His Wife Zoe, Castor, Tranquillinus the Presbyter and His Sons Marcellinus and Mark the Deacons, Claudius the Jailer, His Son Symphorian and His Brother Victorinus, Tiburtius and Castulus (+c. 287)
St Modestus, Archbishop of Jerusalem (+633–634)
St Florus, Bishop of Amisus (VII)
Venerable Michael the Confessor (+c. 845)

All the lives for this day — 4

The tone and the day's psalms

This week's tone is 2Eight 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:

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