Kontakion in the Plagal of the Fourth Tone Far-reaching beacon of the Church and God, inspired Guide of the Orthodox, you are now crowned with the flowers of song. You are the divine words of the Spirit's harp, the strong adversary of heresy and to whom we cry, "Hail all-honorable Photius."

Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople

Reading from the Synaxarion:

As for the thrice-blessed Photius, the great and most resplendent
Father and teacher of the Church, the Confessor of the Faith and Equal
to the Apostles, he lived during the years of the emperors Michael
(the son of Theophilus), Basil the Macedonian, and Leo his son. He
was the son of pious parents, Sergius and Irene, who suffered for the
Faith under the Iconoclast Emperor Theophilus; he was also a nephew of
Saint Tarasius, Patriarch of Constantinople (see Feb. 25). He was born
in Constantinople, where he excelled in the foremost imperial
ministries, while ever practicing a virtuous and godly life. An upright and
honorable man of singular learning and erudition, he was raised to the
apostolic, ecumenical, and patriarchal throne of Constantinople in the year
857.

The many struggles that this thrice-blessed one undertook for the
Orthodox Faith against the Manichaeans, the Iconoclasts, and other
heretics, and the attacks and assaults that he endured from Nicholas I, the
haughty and ambitious Pope of Rome, and the great persecutions and
distresses he suffered, are beyond number. Contending against the Latin
error of the filioque, that is, the doctrine that the Holy Spirit
proceeds from both the Father and the Son, he demonstrated clearly with
his Mystagogy on the Holy Spirit how the filioque destroys the
unity and equality of the Trinity. He has left us many theological
writings, panegyric homilies, and epistles, including one to Boris, the
Sovereign of Bulgaria, in which he set forth for him the history and
teachings of the Seven Ecumenical Councils. Having tended the Church of
Christ in holiness and in an evangelical manner, and with fervent zeal
having rooted out all the tares of every alien teaching, he departed to
the Lord in the Monastery of the Armenians on February 6, 891.

Apolytikion in the Fourth Tone
As a teacher to the world, being one with the Apostles, intercede
with the Lord of all, O Photius, that He may grant the world peace,
and to our souls His great mercy.