Memorial Saturday of Meatfare

Commemorated on February 26

Today we remember the miracle of the boiled wheat performed by the holy Great Martyr Theodore the Recruit (February 17). Fifty years after the death of St Theodore, the emperor Julian the Apostate (361-363), wanting to commit an outrage upon the Christians, commanded the city-commander of Constantinople to sprinkle all the food provisions in the marketplaces with the blood offered to idols during the first week of Great Lent. St Theodore, having appeared in a dream to Archbishop Eudoxius, ordered him to inform all the Christians that no one should buy anything at the marketplaces, but rather to eat cooked wheat with honey (kolyva).

In memory of this occurrence, the Orthodox Church annually celebrates the holy Great Martyr Theodore the Recruit on the first Saturday of Great Lent. On Friday evening, at the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts following the prayer at the ambo, the Canon to the holy Great Martyr Theodore, composed by St John of Damascus, is sung. After this, kolyva is blessed and distributed to the faithful. The celebration of the Great Martyr Theodore on the first Saturday of Great Lent was set by the Patriarch Nectarius of Constantinople (381-397).

Troparion - Tone 8

Only Creator, with wisdom profound, You mercifully order all things,
and give that which is needed to all men:
Give rest, O Lord, to the souls of Your servants who have fallen asleep,
for they have placed their trust in You, our Maker and Fashioner, and our God.

Kontakion - Tone 8

With the saints give rest, O Christ, to the souls of Your servants,
where there is neither sickness nor sorrow, and no more sighing,
but life everlasting.
SOURCE:

SAINT OR FEAST POSTED THIS DATE 2010(with 2009's link here also and further, 2008's):