MENEON. - A liturgical book of the Greek rite, composed of 6 or 12 volumes, containing the proper chants and the biblical lessons of the Office for the feasts of the Madonna, of the angels and of the saints, that is, of the feasts with a fixed date; and also the texts of the immovable feasts of the Lord in the ecclesiastical year (Christmas, Epiphany; the movable feasts of the Lord or of the ecclesiastical year are found in the Triodion for the time before Easter, beginning 8 days before Septuagesima, in the Pentecostarion for the paschal season, in the Octoechos for the other time).

Furthermore, the M. contains lessons of greater or lesser length from the lives of saints and the rubrics of the Typicon, and corresponds to the "proprium de sanctis" of the Roman Breviary. As an appendix there follow chants and lessons of the saints who do not have proper ones, in accordance with the "common of saints" in the Roman Breviary. The M. is arranged by days and months (whence the name) of the Byzantine civil year, beginning from September, the Byzantine new year; it is the sacred book very well known among the Greeks, repeatedly sent to press. The latest editions: Rome, 6 vols., 1888-1902; earlier ones: Venice 1527 ff., Constantinople 1843, Athens 1896.

Bibliography3 works

BIBL.: H. Delchaye, Propylaeum ad Acta SS. Novembris, Brussels 1902, pp. IV-XLVII ff.; L. Eisenhofer, Handbuch der kathol. Liturgik, I. Freiburg im Br. 1932, p. 117; P. Oppenheim, De libris liturgici, Turin-Rome 1940, p. 154.

Pietro Siffrin

@incollection{ec8_meneon, author = {Siffrin, Pietro}, title = {Meneon}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {VIII}, pages = {681}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1952}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/meneon} }

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