Vespers

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SUNDAY OF THE PARALYSED MAN

AT SMALL VESPERS

At Lord, I have cried we insert 4 Stichera, and sing the 3 Resurrection Stichera from the Octoichos, and 1 by Anatolios, as at Great Vespers.

Glory. Tone 5.

Jesus went up to Jerusalem, as at Great Vespers.

Both now. Theotokion, the Dogmatic. Tone 3.

Greatest wonder: a Virgin gives birth, and that which was born is God before the ages. Manifest the giving birth, that which was accomplished was beyond nature. O fearsome Mystery! What was apprehended remains ineffable, and that which was contemplated is not understood. Blessed are you, most pure Maiden, daughter of Adam the earthborn, and manifested as Mother of God Most High. Implore him that our souls may be saved.

Then O Joyful Light and the Prokeimenon The Lord is King with its verses. After Grant, Lord etc., we sing the first Resurrection Sticheron of the Aposticha of Great Vespers, and the following Prosomia of the Mother of God.

Tone 3.

Verse: Listen, daughter, and see, and incline your ear; and forget your people and your father’s house.

Through the great boon you brought us, O Immaculate, along with the Angels we glorify your Offspring, who deigned to be born of your womb through his deep compassion and to refashion the human race.

Verse: I shall remember your name in every generation and generation.

We sinners have all gained you, pure Virgin, as refuge and divine protection in life. Therefore we all implore your compassion. Do not turn from us, we beg, but take pity and save us.

Verse: The rich among the people of the land will entreat your favour.

Mother of God, Ever-Virgin, we your servants made from earth, with Gabriel the chief captain, fittingly offer your our ‘Hail!’ For you became cause of joy and exultation for the world.

Glory, Both now. Tone 8.

In Solomon’s porch as at Great Vespers.

Now Master, Trisagion etc. and the Resurrection Apolytikion.

And the Dismissal.

AT GREAT VESPERS

After Christ has risen, at Lord I have cried we insert 10 Stichera, and we sing 7 of the Resurrection from the Octoichos.

Tone 3.

By your Cross, Christ Saviour, death’s might has been abolished, the devil’s deception destroyed, while the human race, saved by faith, each evening offers you its hymn.

By your Resurrection, Lord, the universe has been filled with light and Paradise has been opened again, while all creation as it sings your praise, each evening offers you its hymn.

I glorify the power of the Father and the Son, and I praise the authority of the Holy Spirit, undivided, uncreated Godhead, consubstantial Trinity, that reigns from age to age.

Other Stichera, by Anatolios.

We worship your precious Cross, O Christ, and we praise and glorify your Resurrection, for by your stripes we have all been healed.

We praise the Saviour who took flesh from the Virgin; for he was crucified for us and rose on the third day, granting us his great mercy.

Going down to those in Hades, Christ proclaimed the good tidings, saying, ‘Be of good courage; now have I conquered! I am the Resurrection; I will bring you up, abolishing the gates of death’.

We who stand unworthily in your most pure house sing an evening hymn, as we cry out of the depths, ‘Christ God, who enlightened the world by your Resurrection on the third day, deliver your people from the hand of your foes, O Lover of mankind’.

Two Idiomel Stichera of the Paralytic. Tone 1.

Compassionate Christ, who fashioned humankind with your immaculate hand, you came to heal the sick. You raised the Paralytic at the Sheep Pool through your word; you cured the pain of the woman with the issue of blood; you had pity on the possessed daughter of the woman of Canaan; and you did not despise the request of the Centurion. Therefore we cry: All-powerful Lord, glory to you! (Twice)

An unburied corpse, the Paralytic, when he saw you, cried out, ‘Have mercy on me, Lord, for my bed has become for me a tomb. What does life hold for me? I cannot crave the Sheep Pool, for I have no one to put me in when the waters are stirred up. But I come to you, the source of healing, that I may cry with all: All-powerful Lord, glory to you!’

Glory. Tone 5.

Jesus went up to Jerusalem, to the Sheep Pool, called by the Jews Bethesda, having five porches. For in these lay a great multitude of the sick. For an Angel of God would come at from time to time, stir it up and grant strength to those who approached with faith. And the Lord, seeing a man who had been sick for many years, said to him, ‘Do you want to be made whole?’ The sick man answered, ‘Sir, I have no one to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up. I have spent all my livelihood on physicians, and it has not been granted me to find mercy’. But the physician of souls and bodies said to him, ‘Take up your bed and walk, while proclaiming my power and my great mercy in the ends of the earth.’

Both now. Theotokion. Tone 3.

How should we not marvel at your Offspring, who is both God and man, all-honoured one? For without knowing man, O all-blameless, you gave birth in the flesh to a Son without father, begotten from the Father before the ages without mother, in no way undergoing change, or mixture or separation, but preserving intact the identity of either nature. Therefore, Sovereign Lady, Virgin Mother, implore him that the souls may be saved of those who with right belief acknowledge you as Mother of God.

At the Liti.
The Sticheron of the Saint of the Monastery.

Glory. Tone 5. Composition of Koumoulas.

A man was lying in sickness at the Sheep Pool, and seeing you, Lord, he cried out, ‘I have no one when the water is stirred up to put me in it. While I am moving forward another gets there before me and receives the healing, while I lie sick’. And at once the Saviour, moved with compassion, says to him, ‘For your sake I have become man, for your sake I have clothed myself in flesh, yet you say ‘I have no one’? Take up your bed, and walk!’ All things are possible for you, all things obey you, all things are subject to you; remember us all and have mercy, O Holy One, as you love humankind.

Both now. The same tone.

You are the temple, the gate, the palace and the throne of the King, all-honoured Virgin; through you my Redeemer, Christ the Lord, has appeared to those who sleep in darkness, for he is the Sun of justice, who wishes to enlighten all those whom he fashioned according to his own image, by his own hand. Therefore, all-praised One, as you have a mother’s boldness towards him, intercede with him unceasingly that our souls may be saved.

At the Aposticha, Resurrection Sticheron. Tone 3.

By your passion, O Christ, you darkened the sun, and by the light of your Resurrection you made the whole universe radiant. Accept our evening hymn, O Lover of mankind.

Then the Easter Stichera with their Verses.

Tone 5.

Verse: Let God arise and let his enemies be scattered, and let those that hate him flee before his face.

A sacred Pascha has been shown forth to us to-day, a new and holy Pascha, a mystic Pascha, an all-venerable Pascha, a Pascha that is Christ the Redeemer, a spotless Pascha, a great Pascha, a Pascha of the faithful, a Pascha that has opened to us the gates of Paradise, a Pascha that hallows all the faithful.

Verse: As smoke vanishes, so let them vanish, as wax melts before the fire.

Come from the scene, O women bearers of good tidings, and say to Zion: Receive from us the tidings of joy, of the Resurrection of Christ. Exult, dance and be glad, O Jerusalem, for you have seen Christ the King as a bridegroom come forth from the tomb.

Verse: So let sinners perish at the presence of God, and let the just be glad.

The Myrrh-bearing women at early dawn came near the tomb of the Giver of life; they found an Angel sitting on the stone, and he, addressing them in this manner, said: Why do you seek the living among the dead? Why do you mourn the Incorruptible amid corruption? Go, proclaim it to his Disciples.

Verse: This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us be glad and rejoice in it.

A Pascha of delight, Pascha, the Lord’s Pascha, an all-venerable Pascha has dawned for us, a Pascha on which let us embrace one another with joy. O Pascha, ransom from sorrow! To-day Christ has shone forth from the tomb as from a bridal chamber, and has filled the women with joy, saying: Proclaim it to the Apostles.

Glory. Tone 8.

In Solomon’s Porch a great crowd of sick was lying, and at the mid-point of the Feast, Christ, finding a paralytic who had been lying there for thirty eight years, said to him with the voice of the Master, ‘Do you want to be made whole?’ The sick man answered him, ‘Sir, I have no man to put me in the pool when the water is stirred up’. But he said to him, ‘Take up your bed. See, you have been made whole. Sin no more.’ At the prayers of the Mother of God, O Lord, send down upon us your great mercy.

Both now. Tone 5.

It is the day of Resurrection; let us be radiant for the festival, and let us embrace one another. Let us say, brethren, even to those who hate us: let us forgive all things at the Resurrection, and so let us cry: Christ has risen from the dead; by death he has trampled on death, and to those in the graves given life.

Apolytikion. Tone 3.

Let everything in heaven rejoice, let everything on earth be glad, for the Lord has shown strength with his arm; by death he has trampled on death; he has become the first-born from the dead; from the belly of Hell he has delivered us, and granted the world his great mercy.

Theotokion.

Virgin Mother of God, we praise you as the means of the salvation of our race; for your Son and our God, who through the Cross accepted suffering in the flesh he had taken from you, has redeemed us from corruption, for he loves humankind.

And Dismissal.

This page was last updated on 18 April 2008