README file: Lenten Triodion Beginning of the Great Fast March 6th 1995 On p44 of in Fr Schmemann's book Great Lent he mourns that the Triodion is an unknown and neglected book. "If only we knew that it is there we can recover ... the spirit not only of Lent alone but of Orthodoxy itself...". Thanks to the industry, dedication and generosity of The Community of the Holy Myrrhbearers almost the whole of the Lenten Triodion is available as ASCII text files in this package. The texts are the ones used by the Community in its own chapel. Since the Community uses the Old Testament Canticles at matins through the week, the daily canons (Monday through Saturday) are included only for special feasts and for the 1st week of Great Lent. A translation of the Great Canon of St. Andrew has not yet been added. Given permission to use the manuscript translations from St. Vladimir's Seminary chapel as a base, for nearly 20 years they have gradually corrected and compiled these texts through comparison with other existing translations. More recently, typing the texts into a computer helped greatly in the task of preparing a consistent style and format suitable for singing and chapel use. The superior of the community, Mother Raphaela has given her blessing to distribute the texts for personal and church use but not for any kind of commercial use. My hope is that some kind soul will make this available on a gopher or Web server (and maybe even index them). Provenance: The Community of the Holy Myrrhbearers are a small monastic community for women of the Orthodox Church of America. They have a catalog of Orthodox greeting cards, prayer books and church supplies which produces their major source of income. I can personally vouch that the prayer books are excellent and the greetings cards are superb - and very reasonably priced too! Therefore, if you, dear fellow in Christ, make use of this Lenten Triodion, which I hope you will do, you could consider making a donation to the Community and/or making a purchase from their catalog. Community of the Holy Myrrhbearers, R.D. 2, Box 188, Otego, New York, 13825 (607) 432-3179 MRaphaela@aol.com Some hints on printing: The original files I got from Mother Raphaela were formatted in PC Write format and I have converted them all into ASCII with hard returns at the end of each line. The texts are designed for use in church and so are written mostly in capital letters and are 'hard' formatted, that is, page headers and some numbering is present at the top of each page and spaces are used to format headings and such like. I have found that the most satisfactory way of printing is to use a text based editor (I use PFE for Windows) with 1/2" left, right, top and bottom margins, and 11 point Courier font (True Type Courier works fine). If your printer is less sophisticated and supports 12 cpi Courier for example you'll have to experiment with the margins and I expect you'll have to make them *very* small - certainly smaller than 1/2". Parts of the Triodion are available in book form: The Lenten Triodion tr by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware Faber and Faber, London 1978 (Contains Sundays and some other major items like the Great Canon) TRIODION "CHEESEFARE WEEK" TUESDAY VESPERS APOSTIKHA TONE 1 FAITHFUL, LET US RECEIVE WITH JOY THE DIVINELY-INSPIRED ANNOUNCEMENTS OF LENT! LIKE NINEVITES OF OLD, LIKE HARLOTS AND PUBLICANS WHO HEARD JOHN PREACHING REPENTANCE, LET US PREPARE OURSELVES THROUGH FASTING FOR THE MASTER'S COMMUNION IN ZION! LET US WASH OURSELVES WITH TEARS OF PURIFICATION; LET US PRAY TO BEHOLD THE FULFILLMENT OF PASCHA, THE TRUE REVELATION! LET US PREPARE OURSELVES TO ADORE THE CROSS AND RESURRECTION OF CHRIST OUR GOD!// DO NOT DEPRIVE US OF OUR EXPECTATION, LOVER OF MANKIND! Mark Isaac Pearson March 6th 1995