Triodion

Triodion (Ukrainian: triod), from the Greek word for ‘three odes.’ A liturgical book used in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic churches on the 10 Sundays before Easter and on all the other days of Lent and the Easter period. It contains canons having usually only three odes instead of the regular nine – hence its name. In the Ukrainian church two triodia are used. The triod pisna (lenten triodion) contains religious songs, mostly of a penitential nature, that are sung during Lent. The triod’ tsvitna (floral triodion or Pentekostarion) contains liturgical services performed from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, on Pentecost, and on All Saints' Sunday. Some of the oldest Slavic incunabula were triodia (eg, those printed by S. Fiol in Cracow ca 1491). They were frequently printed in Ukraine (eg, in Kyiv in 1627, 1631, and 1640 and in Lviv in 1642 and after). In the 17th and 18th centuries the text of the Ukrainian triodion differed from that of the Russian.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]