Alexa Skill

The primary purpose for building this service was to support Orthodox Daily, an Amazon Alexa skill. Orthodox Daily makes it easy to access the daily scripture readings and commemorations. Simply ask Alexa to open Orthodox Daily, and she will provide you with a few details about today, including the fasting rules, and then read the prescribed scriptures and lives of the saints out loud. The scriptures are read from the King James Version and follow OCA rubrics and fasting guidelines. For the Alexa skill, the number of readings is abbreviated. A fuller list is available on this website. The stories from the lives of the saints are borrowed from abbamoses.com by permission.

You can also ask Alexa directly about a particular day. For instance you can say, “Alexa, ask Orthodox Daily about tomorrow.” Or you could say, “Alexa, ask Orthodox daily about the fast on Friday,” or “Alexa, ask Orthodox Daily about saints on August 10.”

If you want to skip all the extra details and go straight to the scriptures, just say, “Alexa, ask Orthodox Daily to read the scriptures.” If you missed the scriptures yesterday, you can say, “Alexa, ask Orthodox Daily to read the scriptures for yesterday.” If you'd like to jump to the lives of the saints, just say, “Alexa, ask Orthodox Daily to read the lives of the saints,” or “Alexa, ask Orthodox Daily about the commemorations on Saturday.”

There are some known bugs. Orthodox Daily runs in Pacific timezone. If you live on the east coast and open Orthodox daily at 1am, you will get the information for the previous day. Also, because the readings are specified using Septuagint versification, an incorrect reading may on rare occasions be provided (mostly in the Proverbs).