Ensemble `Voca Me`: Kathrin Feldmann (alto, mezzo-coprano), Sigrid Hausen (mezzo-soprano), Sarah M. Newman (soprano), Petra Noskaiova (mezzo-soprano), Gerlinde Samann (soprano), Michael Popp (music directon & [bad word] .

This historical Sticheron is chanted in the Friday Vespers during the first week of Lent. The "Apostate Tyrant" is a reference to Emperor Julian the Apostate, who in his efforts to thwart Christianity issued an imperial decree to have blood from sacrificial pagan rituals sprinkled on the foods at the agora of Constantinople. The Archbishop of Constantinople, Eudoxius, in turn had a dream where St. Theodore appeared telling the Archbishop to ban the purchase of any foods at the markets and instead told him to tell the Christians to eat boiled wheat with sugar instead. This was the beginning of a tradition where Kolyva is found at Eastern Orthodox memorial services. The hymn ends with praise to the great martyr St. Theodore who interceded to God on behalf of all Christians.

Translation:
Using the apostate tyrant as his tool, the enemy, through a [bad word] plot, attempted to defile the people of God as they purified themselves through fasting, with food polluted by unclean sacrifices. But you defeated his design by a more skillful plan: you appeared in a dream to the then Archbishop, revealed the depths of the plot, and indicated the strange mariner of the undertaking. Therefore we offer to you a sacrifice of thanksgiving, we proclaim you as our protector, and keep a yearly memorial of what occurred, and we pray, that we may be kept safe from the designs of the evil one, through your intercessions to God, great martyr Theodore.