The Menaion ( el, Μηναῖον; Slavonic: Минїѧ, ''Miniya'', "of the month") is the

liturgical book A liturgical book, or service book, is a book published by the authority of a church body that contains the text and directions for the liturgy of its official religious services. Christianity Roman Rite In the Roman Rite of the Catholic C ...

used by the

Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, also called the Orthodox Church, is the second-largest Christian church, with approximately 220 million baptized members. It operates as a communion of autocephalous churches, each governed by its bishops vi ...

and those

Eastern Catholic Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also called the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous ('' sui iuris'') particular churches of t ...

which follow the Byzantine Rite containing the

propers The proper (Latin: ''proprium'') is a part of the Christian liturgy that varies according to the date, either representing an observance within the liturgical year, or of a particular saint or significant event. The term is used in contrast to the ...

for fixed dates of the calendar year, ''i.e.'' entities not dependent of the date of Easter. The Menaion is the largest volume of the propers for the Byzantine Rite and is used at nearly all the daily services.

Editions

The complete Menaion is published in twelve volumes, one for each month; the first volume is for September which commences the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

liturgical year. The Festal Menaion is an abridged version containing texts for those

great feasts In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the feast of the Resurrection of Jesus, called Pascha (Easter), is the greatest of all holy days and as such it is called the "feast of feasts". Immediately below it in importance, there is a group of Twelve Great F ...

falling on the fixed cycle, some editions also containing feasts of the major saints. The General Menaion contains services for each type of celebration ( apostles,

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

s, etc.) with blank spaces for the name of the saint(s) commemorated. Originating before the invention of printing when the enormous volume of the complete Menaion could not be copied for every church, this is still used for saints that do not have complete services, ''e.g.'', for the patron feast of a church named after a minor saint; it is also used by missions and parishes unable to afford a complete Menaion. Supplementary volumes to the Menaion exist for local saints, ''e.g.'', one for all the Saints of the

Kiev Caves Monastery Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra or Kyivo-Pechers’ka Lavra ( uk, Києво-Печерська лавра, translit=Kyievo-Pecherska lavra, russian: Киево-Печерская лавра), also known as the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, is a historic Ea ...

, or for newly canonized saints or

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Catholic churches. They are not simply artworks; "an icon is a sacred image used in religious devotion". The most ...

s which have their own locally observed feasts.

Calendar

Since 1921, there have been two calendars in use within the Orthodox Church: the

Julian Calendar The Julian calendar, proposed by Roman consul Julius Caesar in 46 BC, was a reform of the Roman calendar. It took effect on , by edict. It was designed with the aid of Greek mathematicians and astronomers such as Sosigenes of Alexandr ...

and the

Revised Julian Calendar The Revised Julian calendar, or less formally the new calendar, is a calendar proposed in 1923 by the Serbian scientist Milutin Milanković as a more accurate alternative to both Julian and Gregorian calendars. At the time, the Julian calendar ...

.which is aligned with the

Gregorian Calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It was introduced in October 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian calendar. The principal change was to space leap years dif ...

As of this century there is a thirteen-day difference between the two calendars, so where the former is used, any given fixed date occurs thirteen days later than where the latter is used, ''e.g.'', Christmas is fixed on December 25, but where the Julian calendar is used, that date falls on what is commonly known as January 7. The date of

Pascha Pascha (or other similar spellings) may refer to: * Passover, the Aramaic spelling of the Hebrew word ''Pesach'' **Pesach seder,_the_festive_meal_beginning_the_14th_and_ending_on_the_15th_of_Nisan *Easter.html" ;"title="san in the Hebrew c ..., t ...

, however, is everywhere reckoned using the Julian Calendar, resulting in differing interactions between the

Paschal cycle The Paschal cycle, in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is the cycle of the moveable feasts built around Pascha (Easter). The cycle consists of approximately ten weeks before and seven weeks after Pascha. The ten weeks before Pascha are known as ...

and the fixed cycle, ''e.g.'' the Annunciation may fall as late as Bright Wednesday where the Julian Calendar is used but only as late as the Thursday before Palm Sunday where the revised calendar is used.

Icons

The term "Menaion" is also applied to icons of all the saints whose feast days fall within a particular month. A particular church may have 12 such icons, one for each month of the year, or it may have one large icon depicting all 12 months on one panel.

Notes

References

Bibliography

Review of ''Festal Menaion'' translated by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware
"Theology Today" 35 (1978) July, 241-243. *

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has the article of the

Catholic Encyclopedia The ''Catholic Encyclopedia: An International Work of Reference on the Constitution, Doctrine, Discipline, and History of the Catholic Church'' (also referred to as the ''Old Catholic Encyclopedia'' and the ''Original Catholic Encyclopedia'') i ...

, edition of 1913, which is now in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

: look at Menaion

External links

Complete text in the Church Slavonic language, Retrieved 2013-08-29
* ttp://www.orthlib.info/Menaia/Festal_Menaion/Festal-Menaion.html Text of the Festal Menaion in the Church Slavonic language, Retrieved 2013-08-29br>Snippets of the text in the English language, Retrieved 2013-08-29
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