What is the Katameros?

The name

The name comes from the Greek kata meros, “in parts”: the book is divided into several parts, and it presents the Scriptures portion by portion, one day at a time.

Read in church

In church, the lectionary sits on the lectern (the reading stand), open at the day’s readings. At the day’s services, the readers, the deacons and the priest read the passages it lists. Coptic Orthodox churches around the world follow this same lectionary.

What it contains

On most days, the lectionary gives the readings of three services. For the Church, the liturgical day begins at sunset. So the readings start the evening before, with Vespers. Then come Matins and the Liturgy (the Eucharist). Vespers and Matins are also called the evening and morning Raising of Incense.

1. The evening before
   Vespers
   • Psalm & Gospel
2. In the morning
   Matins
   • Psalm & Gospel
3. After Matins
   Liturgy
   • Pauline Epistle
   • Catholic Epistle
   • Acts of the Apostles
   • Synaxarium
   • Psalm & Gospel

The readings of the Liturgy

Pauline Epistle

A passage from one of the letters of St. Paul.

Catholic Epistle

A passage from the letters of St. James, St. Peter, St. John or St. Jude. “Catholic” means universal: most of these letters are addressed to the whole Church rather than to one local church.

Acts of the Apostles

A passage from the book of Acts. This reading is also called the Praxis, Greek for “Acts”.

Synaxarium

The lives of the saints and martyrs commemorated that day, read from a book of its own.

Psalm & Gospel

A few verses of a psalm, chanted just before the Gospel. The Gospel is the main reading of the day, and the other readings usually relate to it.

Five books

The Katameros is printed as five books, each used at its time of the year:

Weekdays

Monday to Saturday, following the saints and feasts of the Coptic calendar.

Sundays

The Sundays of the year, with a theme for each month.

Great Lent

The preparation week and the Forty Days, as well as the Fast of Nineveh.

Holy Week

The week before Easter, with readings for each of its prayer hours. In the Coptic Church, this week is called Pascha.

Holy Fifty Days

From Easter to Pentecost.

The Coptic calendar

The Katameros follows the Coptic calendar, the Church’s calendar inherited from ancient Egypt. The Coptic year has 13 months: 12 months of 30 days, then a short month called Nasie, with five days (six when the next February has 29 days).

The months are Thout, Babah, Hatour, Kiahk, Toubah, Amshir, Baramhat, Baramoudah, Bashans, Baounah, Abib, Misra and Nasie. The year begins on 1 Thout, which is September 11 (September 12 when the next February has 29 days).

Coptic years are counted from 284, when Diocletian became emperor. This era is called the Era of the Martyrs, in memory of the many Christians killed in his persecution.

How the readings are chosen

The readings of a day are not chosen at random. They follow what the Church celebrates that day. Three things decide them:

• The saint or feast of the day in the Coptic calendar
• The Sunday and its theme
• The seasons that move with Easter (the Fast of Nineveh, Great Lent, Holy Week, the Holy Fifty Days)

When several fall on the same day, the feasts of the Lord (such as the Nativity) and the great seasons around Easter take priority over the Sunday. The Sunday takes priority over the saint of the day.

Weekdays: the saints of the day

From Monday to Saturday, the readings match the saint or feast that the Synaxarium commemorates on that Coptic date. Often, the Gospel alone shows whose day it is:

For a prophet

The prophets who were killed Matthew 23

For a martyr

Persecution Luke 21

For a pope or a patriarch

The Good Shepherd John 10

For a holy woman

The wise virgins Matthew 25

The Weekdays book does not have different readings for every day of the year: only about 70 dates have readings of their own. Every other date reuses the readings of a saint of the same kind whose feast is on one of those dates: a martyr takes the readings of another martyr, a bishop those of another bishop, a monk those of a great monk. This is why the same readings come back several times a year.

For example, St. Anthony, the father of monks, is commemorated on 22 Toubah. His readings come back on eight other dates, mostly feasts of monks.

Sundays: the work of the Holy Trinity

On Sundays, the readings do not follow the saint of the day, but the theme of the Coptic month.

Through the Sundays of the year, the readings revolve around a single subject: the work of the Holy Trinity for our salvation. Each Coptic month shows one aspect of it.

For example, Kiahk is the month that leads to the Nativity. Its theme is the Incarnation. The Gospels of its four Sundays tell of the annunciation to Zechariah, the Annunciation to Mary, the Visitation and the birth of John the Baptist.

The seasons that move with Easter

The Coptic calendar is fixed, but Easter is not: its date is calculated each year, and it falls between April 4 and May 8. Several periods are counted from Easter, so they move with it every year:

Fast of Nineveh

Three days of fasting, two weeks before the start of Great Lent.

Great Lent

A preparation week, then the Forty Days. It begins between early February and mid-March.

Holy Week

The week before Easter.

Holy Fifty Days

From Easter to Pentecost, which falls between May 23 and June 26.

During these weeks, about 15 in the year, the readings come from the books of these seasons, by week and by day, instead of the Weekdays and Sundays books.

The readings follow the season. In Great Lent, the Sundays read the temptation of Christ, the prodigal son and the Samaritan woman. Holy Week follows Christ’s last days, day by day.

Only a few feasts of the Lord, such as the Feast of the Cross on 10 Baramhat, keep their own readings.