The Paraklesis (Supplicatory Canon)

A service of intercession to the Theotokos, sung when someone is in trouble and every evening of the first fourteen days of August through the Dormition fast. The Small Paraklesis is the one most parishes know. It is built as a canon, with the names of the sick or the afflicted read into the middle of it, and its refrain is short enough to carry a whole congregation: Most holy Theotokos, save us. Where the Akathist stands and praises, the Paraklesis asks, and that is the difference between the two great Marian services of the Byzantine rite.