The Canon of St. Andrew of Crete

 

The Great Penitential Canon , or as it is also called, the touching canon. It has been read during the Lenten service in churches for almost 1200 years and is perceived by believers in the same way as when it was written by the reverend songwriter. “The mystagogue of repentance,” that is, the one who carefully teaches, reveals the secrets of repentance — that is how the Orthodox Church calls Saint Andrew, who compiled this canon.
The Great Canon consists of 250 troparia, and it is called great not only for an unusually large number of verses, but also for inner dignity, for the height of thoughts and the power of their expression. In it, we contemplate the events described by the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments in a spiritual light.

The entire Old Testament appears before us in the troparions of the canon, as a school of repentance. Showing the virtues and exploits of the saints, the saint does not forget about evil and cruel deeds, encouraging us to imitate the good and turn away from the evil. But in the Great Canon there are not only examples from Holy Scripture, there is also an admonition to the soul, reasoning, and prayers. It is as if the elder, filled with compassion and love, takes us by the hand and leads us into his cell in order to talk with us, tell us, share his experience, and, together with us, humbly and fervently pray.

Fasting is a time of repentance and purification, and the canon of St. Andrew is all directed towards awakening the human soul from sinful sleep, to reveal before it the perniciousness of a sinful state, to move it towards strict self-examination, self-condemnation and repentance, towards aversion from sins and towards the correction of life. ...
Orthodox people always try not to miss the services that are striking in their impact on the soul ...