moment, when the sun begins to rise, which is announced by the words "Glory to Thee, Who hast shown us the light" followed by the Great Doxology "Glory to God in the Highest". The ebb and flow of the music and the texts also mirrors this waning and flux of light, a merciful aspect of the Vigil, because, as T.S. Eliot put it in his Four Quartets, "human kind cannot bear very much reality".
In this recording Tracks 1 to 9 are from the Vespers: they begin with the litany of peace, followed by "Blessed is the man" from Psalm 1: then comes "Lord, I cry unto Thee" and a sticheron to the Mother of God (Dogmatic) followed by the evening prokeimenon (a psalm verse) and two more litanies, one very fervent with triple responses, the other a completion of evening prayer.
Tracks 10 to 18 are from Matins: they also begin with the litany of peace, but this time to a different music setting, then the Polyeleos, when the lamps are lit, and then the Antiphon of Ascents and a song to the Mother of God. The Great Doxology follows, plus a setting of the little Trisagion and immediately after it the Great Trisagion: then two litanies with differing settings, and finally the dismissal troparion to the Mother of God together with petitions to some of the saints.
Tracks 19 to 24 contain extracts from the services for the springtime fast (Great Lent). The psalm "By the waters of Babylon" is sung at Matins in the Slav tradition on the three Sundays immediately before Lent begins. There are two Irmoi (those of the first and the ninth Odes) from the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete, which is a penitential canon and is sung in four sections at Compline on the Monday evening through to Thursday evening in the first week of Lent, and then again in its entirety in the fourth week. "The Wise Thief" is the Exapostilarion at the Matins on Great Friday, in which there are 12 Gospel readings. The Irmos "Weep not for Me, O Mother" is sung at the end of the Canon for Matins on Great Saturday, and is repeated during Nocturns at the point when the shroud is taken into the altar: at this time the church is in semi-darkness, before the Paschal Matins begins with its blaze of light in the surrounding night. The final track comes from the Aposticha of the Vespers of Great Friday and speaks of Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus taking down from the cross the body of Christ and who is described as "Thou Who deckest Thyself with light as with a garment". The created light may fade and die, but the Uncreated Light is Eternal.

THE HOLY TRINITY - ST JONAH MONASTERY, KIEV
A Short History of the Monastery
The Holy Trinity - St Jonah Monastery was founded in 1862 by St Jonah of Kiev t 1902. Bom Ivan Miroshnitchenko in the Poltava region of Ukraine, the young St Jonah felt a call to the monastic life, and after visiting many holy places set out to visit St. Seraphim of Sarov, on whose directions he soon became a monk with the name of Jonah in the Bielo-Berezk hermitage in the Bryansk forests, not far from Kiev.
On two occasions, 1 and 9 March 1862, the Mother of God appeared to Jonah in a vision instructing him to found a monastery in a location she would indicate to him. He was directed to go to Kiev, and to establish a new monastery in a place where a pillar of flame would appear.
St Jonah began to build the monastery, and with the blessing of Metropolitan Philaret Drozdov of Moscow, a petition for the establishment of a monastery was sent to the Emperor Alexander II. Initially the petition met with no approval from the Imperial council, and after the council meeting ended, the Emperor went out into the garden where there was an assassination attempt on his life. His life was spared, and the Tsar, in gratitude, granted the petition to build the monastery.
In time St Jonah, his many visions and miraculous healings became famous throughout Russia.

In 1934 the monastery was dispersed, and a botanical garden was created in its place in 1936. The monastery came to life again in the first half of the 1990s. The main church, built in 1871-1872, and enlarged in 1897, has a side chapel dedicated to the Icon of the Mother of God, Three hands, which was especially venerated by St Jonah.
The relics of St Jonah, which had been transferred to the Zverinetskoe cemetery, now lie in the crypt under the church.

Services are occasionally held at another ancient monument, the Zverinetskoe cave complex, 750 metres to the North-West of the monastery. The underground caves were discovered in the 1880s and it was immediately recognised as an ancient burial crypt of a previously unknown monastery. It was not possible to anything at the time as the land was a military zone, but in 1911, the abbot Valentin, with the assistance of an influential nobleman, Prince Vladimir Zhevakhov, he was able to rent part of the land, which allowed archeological research to be carried out. It was found that it was one of several such complexes in the area, used for the burial of monks and dating back to before the 13th century. In time, the abbot was able to open a skete, and a church was built there, dedicated to the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God and St Josaphat of Belgorod, (an ancestor of the Prince Zhevakhov).
In 1934 both the Skete and the church were destroyed, and the property became part of the Kiev History Museum. It became known as 'Underground Kiev', and new research and conservation work was carried out by the Museum. This work facilitated the reopening of the Skete once again in 1977.

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