SUNDAY OF THE PUBLICAN AND THE PHARISEE

ON SATURDAY AT GREAT VESPERS

After the introductory psalm, we read the entire first kathisma. O Lord, we cry out: we sing the stichera for 10: three Sunday Octoechos, 4 Eastern ones, and two self-voiced ones from the Triodion, repeating the first twice:

Tone 1

Let us not pray like the Pharisees, brethren: / for he who exalts himself will be humbled. / Let us humble ourselves before God, / like the publican in the days of fasting, crying out: / "Be merciful, O God, to us sinners!" (2)

The Pharisee, overcome by vanity, / and the publican, bowed down by repentance, / approached Thee, the Only Lord: / but the one, boasting, was deprived of blessings, / and the other was vouchsafed gifts without many words. / In those lamentations strengthen me, O Christ God, / as a Lover of mankind.

Glory, tone 8: Almighty, O Lord, / I know how many tears can bear: / for they raised Hezekiah from the gate of death, / they delivered the sinner from long-term transgressions, / but they justified the publican more than the Pharisee; / and I ask: / "Numbering among them, have mercy on me!"

And now, O Theotokos: a dogmatist of an ordinary voice.

On the Litiya of the Sticheron of the Church

Glory, Tone 3: Understanding the difference between the publican and the Pharisee, O my soul, / hate the haughty voice of the former, / but be zealous for the prayer of the latter with good contrition and cry out: / "God, have mercy on me, a sinner, and have mercy on me!" *

And now, the Resurrection Theotokos of the same tone

Stichera on the verse of the Octoechos

Glory, tone 5: With my eyes, weighed down by my iniquities, / I cannot look and see the heights of heaven; / but receive me as a repentant publican, O Saviour, / and have mercy on me.