Holy Tuesday is dedicated on the one hand to the mention of the holy Gospel which refers to Jesus’ sharp denunciation against the religious leaders of Israel, the Scribes and the Pharisees, and on the other hand to the parable of the ten virgins.
The parable of the ten virgins
In the Orthro of Holy Tuesday, which is sung on the evening of Holy Monday, the condemnation of the Pharisees is read from the Gospel of Matthew (22, 15-23, 39). In the Service, the reading from the Gospel of Matthew continues, where the End is spoken of. This is what both parables of the day are talking about. The first is the parable of the ten virgins.
“Five of them were wise” and had taken enough oil with their lamps, “five were children”, their lamps went out and they were not admitted to the wedding supper.[3] The other parable is of the talents which teaches us to be industrious and to cultivate and increase our spiritual gifts.
The trope of Cassiana
On the evening of Holy Tuesday, the liturgy of Holy Wednesday is sung, which is dedicated to the sinful woman (Lk. 7,47) who in repentance anointed the feet of the Lord with myrrh, and was forgiven for her sins, as she showed great love and faith in the Lord . One of the most well-known and popular tropes of religious hymnology is sung, that of Kassiana.
Euphrosyne, mother of Emperor Theophilus and daughter of Constantine VI, in her attempt to marry her son, in the year 830 AD, organized in the magnificent Triclinio hall of the palaces of Constantinople, a large gathering of the most beautiful girls of the Empire.
The most beautiful was Kassiani. But Theophilus, wanting to find out, although her intelligence was proportional to her beauty, he said to her: “Os ara di gyunekos erryi ta faula” (“From a woman bad things begin”), implying Eve. Kassiani replied: “But also through women springs the creitons” (“And from the woman the best, the noblest things spring”), implying the Virgin Mary.
Theophilos thought that the answer showed prophesy and frivolity, so he gave the apple to the also beautiful, but modest Theodora.
Kassiani was disappointed and decided to stay alone. In the monastery he also composed the famous Idiomello “Tropary of Kassiani” from her name, which later the Orthodox Church established as the Doxasticus of the Apostiches of the Holy Wednesday Orthrus.
It seems clear that Cassiani was inspired by this idiosyncratic trope from the words of the Evangelists, who do not refer to Mary Magdalene, as many believe, but to the nameless sinful woman, the adulteress, whom Christ saved from certain stoning by the angry crowd of Pharisees for her moral transgression, with those words of His: “I cast the sinless first stone on her”.
She, with tears in her eyes, washes the feet of Jesus and wipes them with her untied hair.