- One of the basic liturgical books of the Orthodox Church, which contains hymns and prayers proper to the period of Lent and Passion Week; the Lenten Triodion begins with the fourth Sunday before Lent -- the "Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee" -- and concludes with Holy Saturday. There are two types of Lenten Triodion: a reader's version, which contains only texts, and a singer's version, in which the texts are supplied with musical notation. The earliest notated versions of the Lenten Triodion in the Russian Church arose in the 12th c., as part of the so-called "Triodic Sticherarion." The first printed edition of a notated Lenten Triodion in Russia, entitled "Triodion, sirech' Tripesnets," was published in square notation in 1772. The name Triodion stems from the fact that many of the kanons in it contain only three odes.