Menaion

Menaion (Ukrainian: minei, from the Greek for ‘moon’). The name for several liturgical books used in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches. They contain the services with special prayers and chants for the fixed church holidays. The most comprehensive edition, the Monthly Menaion, consists of 12 volumes containing the services for each month. A smaller edition, the General Menaion, includes services honoring particular groups of saints (such as apostles and martyrs) and for particular holidays. The Abridged Menaion, which contains only services for the major holidays, is known as the Menaion of Holy Days. In Ukraine a special type of menaion, the chet’ menaion or menaion for daily reading (eg. Menaion for Daily Reading of 1489), gained great popularity. It contained the lives of saints, organized by the calendar, and was used extensively in the education of Orthodox monks and clergy and for popular reading. The most famous was that written by Metropolitan Dymytrii Tuptalo in 1689–1705.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 3 (1993).]