Propers March 9 2025

First Sunday of Great Lent – Sunday of Orthodoxy – Holy Fathers of Sebaste

Tone 4          Troparion     (Resurrection)
When the women disciples of the Lord
learned from the angel the joyous message of Your Resurrection,
they cast away the ancestral curse
and elatedly told the apostles:
“Death is overthrown! Christ God is risen,//
granting the world great mercy!”

Tone 2          Troparion     (Sunday of Orthodoxy)
We venerate Your most pure image, O Good One;
and ask forgiveness of our transgressions, O Christ our God.
Of Your own will You were pleased to ascend the Cross in the flesh
and deliver Your creatures from bondage to the Enemy.
Therefore with thankfulness we cry aloud to You:
“You have filled all with joy, O our Savior,//
by coming to save the world.”

Tone 1          Troparion     (Holy 40 Martyrs)

Through the sufferings which Your holy Forty Martyrs endured for
Your sake, O Lord,
we beseech You, O Lover of ^mankind://
“Heal all of our infirmities!”

Tone 4          Kontakion    (Resurrection)

My Savior and Redeemer
as God rose from the tomb and delivered the earth-born from their chains.
He has shattered the gates of hell,
and as Master,//
He has risen on the third day!

Tone 6          Kontakion    (Holy 40 Martyrs)

You have abandoned all earthly armies,
cleaving to the heavenly Master, O Forty Martyrs of the Lord.
Having passed through fire and water, O blessed ones,//
you have fittingly received heavenly glory and many crowns.

Tone 8          Kontakion    (Sunday of Orthodoxy)

No one could describe the Word of the Father;
but when He took flesh from you, O Theotokos, He accepted to be described,
and restored the fallen image to its former state by uniting it to divine beauty.//
We confess and proclaim our salvation in words and images.

Tone 4          Prokeimenon         (Song of the Fathers)
Blessed are You, O Lord God of our fathers, / and praised and glorified is Your Name forever! (Song of the three Holy Children, v. 3)
V. For You are just in all that You have done for us! (v. 4)
Tone 5          Prokeimenon         (Holy 40 Martyrs)
You, O Lord, shall protect us / and preserve us from this generation forever.(Ps. 11:7)

(Instead of “It is truly meet…,” we sing the following)
Hymn to the Theotokos
All of creation rejoices in you, O Full of Grace:
the assembly of angels and the race of men.
O sanctified temple and spiritual paradise,
the glory of virgins,
from whom God was incarnate and became a Child –
our God before the ages.
He made your body into a throne,
and your womb He made more spacious than the heavens.
All of creation rejoices in you, O Full of Grace. 
Glory to you!

Communion Hymn
Praise the Lord from the heavens, praise Him in the highest! (Ps. 148:1)
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous; praise befits the just! (Ps. 32:1)
Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia!