On the sixteenth of this month, the veneration of the honorable Chain of the Holy and Glorious Apostle Peter is celebrated.
Verses
We venerate your honorable bonds O Peter,
Release me from the long bonds of my accusations.
On the sixteenth I venerate the bonds of Peter.
Release me from the long bonds of my accusations.
On the sixteenth I venerate the bonds of Peter.
On this day is venerated the honorable Chain, with which the Foremost Peter was bound for Christ by orders of the tetrarch Herod, as the Apostle Luke records in the twelfth chapter of Acts. From his apostolic and all-sacred body, this Chain received sanctifying and wonderworking grace, to sanctify those who venerate it with faith, and to release those bound by all types of evils and illness.
When this Chain fell from the body of the Apostle Peter, through the manifestation of the divine Angel, immediately the chains from his hands also fell. Some Christians then found these, and kept them by succession from one to another. Then through the pious emperor it was brought to Constantinople and treasured in the Temple of the Holy Apostle Peter which was found within the Great Church, where the Synaxis and Feast was celebrated.
Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
Without leaving Rome, thou didst come to us by the honorable chains which thou didst wear, O foremost of the Apostles. And venerating them with faith, we pray: By thine intercessions with God, grant us great mercy.
Kontakion in the Second Tone
Now Christ God, the Rock, doth glorify the rock of faith, illustriously, in calling all to celebrate the dread wonders of the most honorable Chains of Peter, the first and chief of the disciples of Christ our God, Who granteth forgiveness of sins unto all.
