On Bright Friday (the Friday after Pascha) our Holy Church commemorates the Life Giving Spring of the Mother of God. This miraculous font of water was located at the site of a beautiful church in a suburb of Constantinople. In the 9th century, Joseph the Hymnographer gave the title “Zoodochos Pege” (Life-giving Spring) to a hymn for the Theotokos.
Apolytikion (Tone 3)
As a life-giving fount, thou did conceive the Dew that is transcendent in essence,
O Virgin Maid, and thou hast welled forth for our sakes the nectar of joy eternal,
which does pour forth from your fount with the water that springs up
unto everlasting life in unending and mighty streams;
wherein, taking delight, we all cry out:
Rejoice, O you Spring of life for all men.
Kontakion (Plagal of Tone 4)
O Lady graced by God,
you reward me by letting gush forth, beyond reason,
the ever-flowing waters of your grace from your perpetual Spring
I entreat you, who bore the Logos, in a manner beyond comprehension,
to refresh me in your grace that I may cry out,
“Hail redemptive waters.”
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