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The Menaion (; 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 Church service, religious services. Christianity Roman Rite In the Roman Rite of ...
used by the
Eastern Orthodox Church The Eastern Orthodox Church, officially the Orthodox Catholic Church, and also called the Greek Orthodox Church or simply the Orthodox Church, is List of Christian denominations by number of members, one of the three major doctrinal and ...
and those
Eastern Catholic Churches The Eastern Catholic Churches or Oriental Catholic Churches, also known as the Eastern-Rite Catholic Churches, Eastern Rite Catholicism, or simply the Eastern Churches, are 23 Eastern Christian autonomous (''sui iuris'') particular churches of ...
which follow the
Byzantine Rite The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, is a liturgical rite that is identified with the wide range of cultural, devotional, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christianity, Eastern Chri ...
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 on the
date of Easter As a moveable feast, the date of Easter is determined in each year through a calculation known as – often simply ''Computus'' – or as paschalion particularly in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the ...
. 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 known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...
liturgical year The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be obse ...
. The Festal Menaion is an abridged version containing texts for those
great feasts In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the feast of the death and 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 T ...
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' Word stem, 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 external party. In ...
s, etc.) with blank spaces for the name of the
saint In Christianity, Christian belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of sanctification in Christianity, holiness, imitation of God, likeness, or closeness to God in Christianity, God. However, the use of the ...
(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
Kyiv Pechersk Lavra The Kyiv Pechersk Lavra or Kyievo-Pecherska Lavra (), also known as the Kyiv Monastery of the Caves, is a historic lavra or large monastery of Eastern Christianity that gave its name to the Pecherskyi District where it is located in Kyiv. Sin ...
, 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, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...
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 is a solar calendar of 365 days in every year with an additional leap day every fourth year (without exception). The Julian calendar is still used as a religious calendar in parts of the Eastern Orthodox Church and in parts ...
and the
Revised Julian Calendar The Revised Julian calendar, or less formally the new calendar and also known as the Milanković calendar, is a calendar proposed in 1923 by the Serbian scientist Milutin Milanković as a more accurate alternative to both Julian calendar, Julian ...
.which is aligned with the
Gregorian Calendar The Gregorian calendar is the calendar used in most parts of the world. It went into effect in October 1582 following the papal bull issued by Pope Gregory XIII, which introduced it as a modification of, and replacement for, the Julian cale ...
As of the 21st 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, 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 day The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...
s 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.


See also

*
Calendar of Saints The calendar of saints is the traditional Christian method of organizing a liturgical year by associating each day with one or more saints and referring to the day as the feast day or feast of said saint. The word "feast" in this context does n ...
*
Pentecostarion The Pentecostarion (, ; , , literally "Flowery Triodon"; ) is the liturgical book used by the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches that includes the texts for the Paschal Season, but varies in exact span between different tradition ...
*
Menologium A menologium (, pl. menologia), also known by other names, is any collection of information arranged according to the days of a month, usually a set of such collections for all the months of the year. In particular, it is used for ancient Roman ...
*
Synaxarion Synaxarion or Synexarion (plurals Synaxaria, Synexaria; , from συνάγειν, ''synagein'', "to bring together"; cf. etymology of '' synaxis'' and ''synagogue''; Latin: ''Synaxarium'', ''Synexarium''; ; Ge'ez: ሲናክሳሪየም(ስንክ ...
* Triodion


Notes


References


Bibliography


Review of ''Festal Menaion'' translated by Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware
"Theology Today" 35 (1978) July, 241-243. *
Wikisource Wikisource is an online wiki-based digital library of free-content source text, textual sources operated by the Wikimedia Foundation. Wikisource is the name of the project as a whole; it is also the name for each instance of that project, one f ...
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 Encyclopedi ...
, edition of 1913, which is now in the
public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no Exclusive exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly Waiver, waived, or may be inapplicable. Because no one holds ...
: 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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