Themes of Each Day of the Week in Orthodoxy

I thought I knew what or who was commemorated on each day of the week. Many prayer books, including the first one I used, had them listed. I thought that was that. This week, however, I was caught by surprise with an interesting gap in my knowledge.

Even if your prayer book does not specifically state such, still the troparion of the day of the week will make it fairly clear that Monday is for the angels, Tuesday for St. John the Baptist, Wednesday for the Cross, Thursday for the Apostles, Friday for the Cross, Saturday for all saints, and Sunday is the Lord's Day commemorating the resurrection. But then, I noticed a few inconsistencies in that simple scheme: Thursday also mentions St. Nicholas, who is not an apostle. And then, also, I have seen references to Wednesday and Friday both being for Cross and the Theotokos. And then I went to Liturgics this week...

Fr. Herman started off by stating that there were two commemorations each day:

  • Sunday:
    • Resurrection
  • Monday:
    • compunction
    • bodiless powers (angels)
  • Tuesday:
    • compunction
    • the Forerunner and Baptist, John
  • Wednesday:
    • Cross
    • Theotokos (Mother of God)
  • Thursday:
    • Apostles
    • St. Nicholas (of Myra in Lycia)
  • Friday:
    • Cross
    • Theotokos (Mother of God)
  • Saturday:
    • all saints, particularly martyrs
    • the departed
First off, this has a ring of truth to it. Or maybe, better stated, "no wonder!" I remember in Matins on Tuesday mornings that there was always a canon of repentance and then a canon of the Forerunner. And the Wednesday and Friday, Cross and Theotokos thing is a thing. Most of us do not hear both themes each day, especially for those of us that primarily attend Liturgy. Liturgy is not the place for compunction, understandably. However, Fr. Herman added another layer of meaning to some of these...

Thursday's commemoration of the Apostles might be due to the Last Supper, and their presence there, especially since Thursday is bracketed by Wednesday and Friday, which also seem to draw their theme from the Passion Week: the day of the betrayal and the day of the crucifixion.

Why St. Nicholas, a 4th century bishop, along with the Apostles? St. Nicholas was one of the first (if not the very first) saint to be commemorated who was not a martyr. That in itself it not so important, but just to show how important St. Nicholas himself is. In the normal troparion for hierarchs, it says they are successors to the thrones of the Apostles, and commemorating St. Nicholas on the day of the Apostles is another way of saying that he is an example of what it looks like to carry on the way of the Apostles.

And I never saw this one coming: Saturday. So, what is Saturday? The Sabbath, the day of rest. (As an aside, no, Christians did not move the Sabbath to Sunday; the Sabbath is still the Sabbath, and then, we celebrate the Lord's Day on the day of our Lord's resurrection, Sunday. In Orthodox thinking, this is eighth day, when we step outside of time.) Look, though: who do we commemorate on the sabbath, the day of rest? Martyrs and the departed, who are in rest.

So, there it is. That was almost an aside in class this week, but held several points I had never thought about. One easy way to practically use this information is to add the troparion of the day of the week to your daily prayers. Morning and evening prayers always have a troparion, and most prayer books have the troparion for the day of the week listed somewhere. Just add the troparion (or troparia, on days like Thursday when more than one are listed) of the day to whatever is already printed in the prayers.

Once you do that, then you really spice things up later by adding a troparion for a feast or maybe the saint of the day, like those listed on the OCA website. I hope this little tid-bit benefits your prayers as it does mine.

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