« The services of the first week of Great Lent are celebrated at the London Cathedral »

The services of the first week of Great Lent are being celebrated at the London Cathedral. On Sunday evening many parishioners gathered for Vespers, during which the clergy changed into the sombre Lenten vestments. Archbishop Elisey preached a sermon about forgiveness and himself asked forgiveness of all. The clergy and people then asked one another's forgiveness. 

Each morning the services began at 8 am. The clergy together with the choir and a few people gathered in the still quite dark church illumined only by the light of candles for Matins. During the morning more people came to participate in the quiet and prayerful celebration of the Hours, Typika and Vespers, with the frequent prostrations accompanying the reading of the Prayer of St Ephraim.

On the first four evenings about 200 parishioners gathered for Great Compline and the reading of the penitential Canon of St Andrew of Crete. Archbishop Elisey preached a series of sermons, recordings of which are available here. 

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts was celebrated on Wednesday and Friday morning, so that the faithful could be strengthened in their  effort of prayer and fasting by partaking of the Holy Mysteries. On Friday, the kolivo (sweetened boiled wheat) was blessed and distributed in memory of St Theodore the Tyro.