The Great Penitential Canon of Andrei of Crete
The penitential canon is divided into four parts and is read during Great Compline, in the evening, on the first four days of Lent. It is also read in full on the Thursday before the Sunday of Mary of Egypt.
The penitential canon can be described as a repentant cry, revealing to us all the immensity, the entire abyss of sin, shaking the soul with despair, repentance and hope. With the exceptional art of St. Andrew interweaves great biblical images - Adam and Eve, paradise and the fall, patriarch Noah and the Flood, David, the Promised Land and above all Christ and the Church - with confession of sins and repentance. The events of sacred history are revealed as events in my life, the works of God in the past, as matters concerning me and my salvation, the tragedy of sin and betrayal, as my personal tragedy. My life is shown to me as part of that great, all-encompassing struggle between God and the forces of darkness that rise up against Him.
The penitential canon is again and again about the spiritual history of the world, which at the same time is the history of my soul. The words of the Canon call me to account, for they speak of events and deeds of the past, the meaning and power of which are eternal, since every human soul - the one and only - goes through the same path of testing, faces the same choice, meets the same higher and
the most important reality. The examples from the Holy Scriptures are not simply “allegories”, as many people think, who therefore think that the Great Canon is overloaded with names and incidents that do not apply to them. Such people ask why talk about Cain and Abel, Solomon and David, when it would be easier to say: “I have sinned”? They do not understand that the very concept of the word sin in the biblical and Christian tradition has a depth and richness that “modern man” simply cannot understand, and that therefore his confession of his sins is deeply different from true Christian repentance. Indeed, the culture in which we live and which forms our modern views, in essence, simply excludes the concept of sin. Because sin is, first of all, a person’s fall from an immeasurable spiritual height, his abandonment of his “high calling.” But what significance can this have for a culture that does not know and denies this “spiritual height”, this “calling” and evaluates a person not “from above”, but “from below” - for a culture that, if it does not openly deny God, then in fact, everything, from top to bottom, is materialistic and therefore considers a person’s life only from the point of view of material well-being, without recognizing his high, transcendental calling? In it, sin is seen primarily as a natural “weakness,” deriving fundamentally from social disorder and therefore correctable by better social and economic organization. Therefore, modern man, even if he confesses his sins, no longer repents of them. Depending on his understanding of his “religious duties,” he either formally lists his sins and violations of ritual rules, or speaks with his confessor about his “problems,” expecting from religion a kind of therapy, a treatment that will return him happiness and calmness. In neither case do we see repentance, shock of a person who, seeing himself as an image of ineffable glory, realizes that he has betrayed this “image”, tarnished and rejected it with his life; there is no repentance as sadness for sin, coming from the very depths of human consciousness, as a desire to return, as giving oneself to God's mercy and love. This is why it is not enough to simply say, “I have sinned.” These words acquire their true meaning and effectiveness only when sin is perceived and experienced in all its depth and sorrow.
The meaning and purpose of the Great Canon is precisely to reveal sin to us and thereby lead us to repentance. But he shows us sin not with definitions and enumerations, but with some deep contemplation of biblical history, which truly is the story of sin, repentance and forgiveness. This contemplation introduces us to a completely different spiritual culture, calls us to accept a completely different understanding of man, his life, his goals, his spiritual “motivations.” The Canon restores in us that spiritual worldview within which repentance becomes possible again.
Alexander Shmeman "Great Lent"
Canon of St. Andrey Kritsky on TUESDAY + audio
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On Tuesday evening of the 1st week of Great Lent, the second part of the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete is read in churches.
For those who cannot visit the temple on this Great Blessed Evening, we are posting an audio recording of the reading of the Great Canon, recorded in the Sretensky Monastery on Tuesday of the first week of Great Lent.
Canon of St. Andrei Kritsky on WEDNESDAY
Text of the Great Penitential Canon read on TUESDAY
Song 1
Irmos: Helper and Protector become my salvation, This is my God, and I will glorify Him, God of my Father, and I will exalt Him: gloriously will I be glorified.
Chorus: Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Cain passed away the murder, by the will of the murderer of the soul's conscience, reviving the flesh and fighting against it with my crafty deeds.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Abel, Jesus, did not become like righteousness; I never brought You a pleasing gift, neither divine deeds, nor pure sacrifices, nor immaculate lives.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Like Cain and we, a damned soul, brought together all our creators a vile deed, a vicious sacrifice, and an indecent life: and so we are condemned.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The Creator of the earth, having created life, has given me flesh and bones, and breath, and life; but, O my Creator, my Savior and Judge, accept me repentantly.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
I inform You, Savior, of the sins I have committed, and of the ulcers of my soul and body, which I have placed murderous thoughts of robbery upon me.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Even though we have sinned, O Savior, we know that you are a lover of mankind, you punish mercifully and show mercy with warmth: you look tearfully and flow, like a father, calling on the prodigal.
Glory: Presence of the Trinity, worshiped in Unity, take away from me the heavy burden of sin and, as you are gracious, give me tears of tenderness.
And now: Mother of God, Hope and Intercession of You who sing, take away from me the heavy sinful burden, and, like the Pure Lady, repentant, accept me.
Song 2
Irmos: Look, O Heaven, and I will speak and sing of Christ, who came in the flesh from the Virgin.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Sewing the garments of skin is a sin to me, exposing me to the first richly woven garments.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
I am surrounded by a garment of cold, like fig leaves, to expose my autocratic passions.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Dressed in a shameful robe and bloodied by the cold flow of a passionate and lustful belly.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
I fell into passionate destruction and into material aphids, and from then until now the enemy annoys me.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The Savior now prefers a loving and beloved life to intemperance, since I am burdened with a heavy burden.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
I decorate the carnal image of bad thoughts with various taxes and I am condemned.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
We diligently took care of the outer decorations alone, despising the inner God-like tabernacle.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The cellar of the first image of kindness, Savior, passions, like sometimes a drachma, having sought and found.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Those who have sinned like a harlot, I cry to You: those who have sinned only like the world of thee, accept, O Savior, my tears.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Cleanse me, like the publican, I cry to You, O Savior, cleanse me: none of those who are from Adam, like I, have sinned with You.
Glory: You are One in Three Persons, I sing the God of all, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
And now: Most Pure Virgin Mary, One All-Singing One, pray diligently that we may be saved.
Song 3
Irmos: Establish, O Lord, my moving heart on the rock of Your commandments, for You alone are Holy and Lord.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The source of life is for You, the Destroyer of Death, and I cry to You from my heart before the end: those who have sinned, cleanse and save me.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Those who have sinned, O Lord, those who have sinned against You, cleanse me: for there is no one who has sinned among men, whom he has not exceeded in sins.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Under Noah, the Savior, those who imitated fornication, those who inherited condemnation in the flood of immersion.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Hama, my soul, imitating the parricide, did not cover the shame of the sincere one, returning back in vain.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Burning, like Lot, run, my soul, from sin: run from Sodom and Gomorrah, run from the flame of every wordless desire.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Have mercy, O Lord, have mercy on me, I cry to You, when You come with Your angels to reward everyone according to the merits of their deeds.
Glory: To the Trinity, Simple, Uncreated, Originless Nature, sung in the Trinity by the Hypostasis, save us, who worship Thy power by faith.
And now: From the flightless Father, in summer, to the Mother of God, you gave birth to the Mother of God, a strange miracle, the Virgin remained milking.
Song 4
Irmos: The prophet heard Thy coming, O Lord, and feared, for Thou wouldst be born of a Virgin and appear as a man, and said: I heard Thy hearing and feared, glory to Thy power, O Lord.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Be vigilant, O my soul, do good, as the great patriarch of old did, so that you may achieve deeds with your mind, so that your mind will see God, and you will reach the never-ending darkness in your vision, and you will become a great merchant.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Having created twelve great patriarchs among all the patriarchs, secretly establish for you the ladder of active ascension, my soul: children, like foundations, degrees, like ascents, wisely laid out.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
You imitated the hated Esau, your soul, you gave the first kindnesses to your charmer the primacy and you fell away from your fatherly prayers, and you crawled twice, cursed, in deed and in mind: repent therefore now.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Esau was called Edom, extreme for the sake of misogynistic confusion: with intemperance we constantly kindle and defile with sweets, He was called Edom, which is said to kindle the soul of the sinful.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Having heard Job in the pit of rot, about my soul being justified, you were not jealous of that courage, you did not have a firm proposal in all things, and you were tempted by the image, but you appeared impatient.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Those who were first on the throne, now naked and festering in a dungeon, many children and glorious, childless and homeless in vain;
Glory: Undivided in Being, Unfused in the Person of the theologian Thee, the Trinity One Divinity, as the One-King and Co-Altar, I cry out to Thee a great song, in the highest, hymn-worthy.
And now: And you give birth, and you are virgin, and you are both by the nature of a Virgin, When you are born, you renew the laws of nature, but the womb that does not give birth gives birth. Where God wants, the order of nature is overcome: He does whatever He wants.
Song 5
Irmos: From the morning night, O Lover of mankind, enlighten me, I pray, and instruct me in Thy commandments, and teach me, O Savior, to do Thy will.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
You heard Moses hear the ark, in the soul, in the waters, in the waves of the river, as if in ancient times the affairs of the bitter council of the Pharaohs were running in the devil.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
If you have heard of women who sometimes kill an ageless man, a damned soul, an act of chastity, now, like the great Moses, bring wisdom.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Like Moses the great Egyptian, having wounded the mind, the accursed one, thou didst not kill, O soul; and how did you dwell, they say, in the desert of passions through repentance?
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The great Moses moved into the desert; Come then, imitate that life, and you will be in the bush of the Epiphany, in your soul, in a vision.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Imagine the rod of Moses, O soul, striking the sea and thickening the depths, in the image of the Divine Cross: with which you too can accomplish great things.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Aaron brought immaculate, unflattering fire to God; but Hophni and Phinehas, like you, brought to the soul a life alien to God, a defiled life.
Glory: To Thee, Trinity, we glorify the One God: Holy, Holy, Holy art thou, Father, Son and Soul, Simple Being, ever worshiped Unity.
And now: From You put on my mixture, incorruptible, husbandless Mother Virgin, God, who created the eyelids, and united to Yourself human nature.
Song 6
Irmos: I cried out with all my heart to the generous God, and heard me from the underworld, and raised my belly from aphids.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The waves, O Savior, of my sins, as if returning to the Black Sea, suddenly covered me, as the Egyptians sometimes did.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
You had an unreasonable will in your soul, like Israel before you: You predetermined the Divine manna in a wordless, lusty gluttony of passions.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Kladentsy, my soul, you preferred Canaanite thoughts to veins of stone, from which the river, like a cup, pours out currents of theology from worthless wisdom.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Thou hast ordained pork meat and cauldrons and Egyptian food, more than heavenly things, my soul, like the foolish people of old in the desert.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
As Moses, Thy servant, struck a stone with a rod, figuratively representing Thy life-giving ribs, from which we draw all the drink of life, O Savior.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Test, soul, and see, like Joshua, the land of promise as it is, and inhabit it with goodness.
Glory: The Trinity is Simple, Indivisible, separate and Personal, and the Unity is united by nature, the Father speaks, and the Son, and the Divine Spirit.
And now: Thy Womb of God give birth to us, imagined for us: Him, as the Creator of all, pray to the Mother of God, that through Thy prayers we may be justified.
Lord have mercy (three times).
Glory, and now:
Kontakion, tone 6:
My soul, my soul, arise, what are you writing off? The end is approaching, and you will be embarrassed: rise up, so that Christ God, who is everywhere and fulfills everything, will have mercy on you.
Song 7
Irmos: We have sinned, we have sinned, we have acted untruthfully before You, we are inferior to observance, inferior to those who have done what You commanded us; but do not betray us to the end, Fathers God.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The ark, as if carried on a chariot, when I touched it, when I turned into a calf, I was tempted by God’s wrath; but having fled that boldness, honor the Divine soul more honestly.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
You heard Absalom how he hated the nature, you knew his nasty deeds, such as desecrating the bed of David’s father; but you imitated that passionate and lusty aspiration.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Thou hast subdued thy unworkable dignity to thy body, for another Ahithophel, having found an enemy, to the soul, thou hast condescended with this advice; but this scattering is Christ Himself, so that you may be saved in every way.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Solomon, wonderful and filled with grace and wisdom, having sometimes done this evil thing before God, depart from Him; To whom you have become like, by your cursed life, soul.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Attracted by the pleasures of my passions, having become defiled, alas for me, the healer of wisdom, the healer of prodigal women and strange from God: whom you imitated in your mind, in your soul, with your vile lusts.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
You were jealous of Rehoboam, who did not listen to the advice of his father, and also of the evil servant Jeroboam, the former apostate, soul, but run in imitation and call to God: those who have sinned, show mercy to me.
Glory: To the Trinity, Simple, Indivisible, Consubstantial and One Nature, Light and Light, and Holy Three, and One Holy, God the Trinity is sung; but sing, glorify the Belly and Belly, the soul, all of God.
And now: We sing to Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, the Mother of God, for Thou hast given birth to the Indivisible Trinity of the One Christ God, and Thou hast Herself opened the Heavenly One to us who are on earth.
Song 8
Irmos: Whom the armies of Heaven praise, and tremble with cherubs and seraphim, every breath and creature, sing, bless and exalt to all ages.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
You, the soul of Uzziah, became jealous of this leprosy, and you acquired this leprosy in yourself: you thought without place, but acted lawlessly; leave them alone, and those who pray to repentance.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The Ninevites, my soul, heard you repenting to God in sackcloth and ashes; you did not imitate them, but you appeared more evil than all those who sinned before the law and according to the law.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
In the den of cronyism, you heard Jeremiah, the soul of the city of Zion, crying out with sobs and seeking tears: imitate this deplorable life and be saved.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Jonah fled to Tarshish, having foreseen the conversion of the Ninevites, for in his mind, as a prophet, God’s kindness: therefore, jealous of prophecy, do not lie.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Daniel in the ditch heard how you shut your mouth, about the soul, of animals; Thou didst lead, like the youths like Azariah, by extinguishing the burning flame of the furnace with faith.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The Old Testament brought everything to the likeness of the soul; imitate righteous, God-loving deeds, and avoid evil sins.
Glory: Father without beginning, Son without beginning, Good Comforter, Righteous Soul, Word of God to the Parent, Father without beginning to the Word, Living Soul and Creator, Trinity Unity, have mercy on me.
And now: As from the turning of the scarlet, the most pure, intelligent scarlet of Immanuel, the flesh was consumed within in Thy womb. Moreover, we truly honor Theotokos.
Song 9
Irmos: The birth of the seedless conception is an unspeakable Christmas, the fruit of the husbandless mother is imperishable, the Birth of God renews natures. In the same way, we all give birth to You, like the Blessed Mother of God.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Christ, having been tempted, was tempted by the devil, showing the stone so that there would be bread, and brought him up to the mountain to see all the kingdoms of the world in an instant; fear for your soul, be sober, pray to God every hour.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Desert-loving turtledove, cry out the voice of one crying, O lamp of Christ, preach repentance, Lawless Herod with Herodias. Beware, my soul, that you do not get caught in the net of lawlessness, but embrace repentance.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The grace of the Forerunner, and all of Judea and Samaria, moved into the desert, hearing, flowing and confessing their sins, being baptized diligently: you did not imitate them, soul.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
The marriage is honest and the bed is undefiled, for Christ first blessed both, poisoning the flesh and in Cana at the wedding, turning water into wine, and showing the first miracle, so that you may change, about your soul.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Christ lifted up the weakened one, lifted him up from his bed, and raised up the dead young man, the widow's birth, and the centurion's youth, and the Samaritans, who appeared to serve you, the soul, before painting.
Have mercy on me, God, have mercy on me.
Heal the bleeding one with the touch of the edge of the vestment, the Lord, cleanse the lepers, enlighten the blind and lame, correct the deaf, and the dumb, and the needy below with the word: may you be saved, damned soul.
Glory: We will glorify the Father, we will exalt the Son, we will faithfully worship the Divine Spirit, the Indivisible Trinity, the Unity in essence, as Light and Light, and Life and Life, life-giving and illuminating of ends.
And now: Preserve Your City, Most Pure Mother of God, for in You this reigns faithfully, in You it is established, and through You it conquers, it conquers every temptation, and captivates warriors, and obedience passes.
Chorus: Reverend Father Andrew, pray to God for us.
Honest Andrew and most blessed Father, Shepherd of Crete, do not stop praying for those who sing your praises: may we be delivered from all anger and sorrow, corruption, and immeasurable sins, who faithfully honor your memory.
The Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, read on WEDNESDAY >>
