It’s my deep conviction that a Christian’s home prayer should be at least in some way connected with that of the Church, so you live “in the rhythm of the Church.” And it would be good if you not only read the list of saints being commemorated on any given day, but knew where (besides in some Orthodox apps) to find at least some short prayer to each of them.
Some will say that the Church services are one thing and home prayer another, and that it’s enough for a layman to have a prayer book to pray at home. Indeed, the morning and evening prayers in the prayer book are prayers written by saints that set us on the right spiritual path, teaching us repentance, humility, thanksgiving, and doxology. But these rules were formulated in their current form quite late, and before that—you won’t believe it!—literate Christians were instructed to do all the Church services called for in the Typikon at home, as stated in the Domostroy. This tradition is partially preserved in our time in other Local Churches, where instead of the Evening Prayers that we’re used to, their prayer books include Small Compline, a fairly short service read in monasteries after the evening meal. I think if you pray this way, or at least integrate some small elements of the Church services into your private prayer rule, then your home prayer will have a closer connection with the Church as a whole, even if you’re not able to go to church every day.
After all, the morning and evening rule in our prayer books are, in essence, the same set of prayers every day of the year. Outside of the exceptional period from Pascha to Pentecost (when during Bright Week the usual rule is replaced with the Paschal Hours, and then until Pentecost when we don’t read the “O Heavenly King” prayer), the Church services have little influence on the usual morning and evening rule. And if an Orthodox Christian’s familiarity with the Church’s prayers is limited only to his prayer book, then his home rule is exactly the same every day of the year, excluding only these fifty days from Pascha to Pentecost (or more realistically—excluding only Bright Week)—and this continues for his whole life… But if you know at least a little bit about how Church worship is organized, any “average” parishioner burdened with work and family duties can add some elements of the Church’s worship to his home rule and thus be able to stay in the rhythm of the Church (of course, you should only add something to your prayer rule with the blessing of your spiritual father, so as not to take on too much and overexert yourself).
The liturgical Typikon is a whole universe. Theological schools devote several semesters to it, and even that’s insufficient to grasp all the historical and symbolic nuances and the full diversity of Orthodox worship. But if we have a more “accessible” goal—simply to understand the basic fundamentals and be able to integrate something into our home prayer—this is quite doable. As with everything, the main thing is to at least start with something, even if it’s very small. However, I hope that getting acquainted with the basics of the Typikon will help readers overcome their fear of the unknown and arouse their interest in delving deeper into this subject.
Liturgical Cycles and Books
So, if our goal is to get acquainted with the Typikon, then first of all we have to understand that it’s based on the daily intersection of several liturgical cycles, each of which is associated with its own specific liturgical book (not considering the books used by clergy):
1. First, there’s the fairly well-known annual liturgical cycle with services dedicated to this or that feast or saint every day. The annual cycle is divided into movable and fixed feasts. The former, which includes feasts attached to a fixed date begins on September 1/14. The services of the fixed annual cycle are found in the volumes of the Menaion. The name of these books comes from the Greek book μήνα—“month,” because each volume contains the services for a particular month. Besides the usual monthly Menaion, there’s also the General Menaion, which collects standardized liturgical texts for the different “categories” of saints. If a particular saint doesn’t have his own service, then we usually celebrate him with texts from the General Menaion. There’s also the Festal Menaion, which includes only the services for the Twelve Great Feats and some particularly venerated saints. Additionally, supplemental Menaions are periodically released with new services that have been approved for Churchwide use.
In addition to the fixed cycle, there’s also the movable annual cycle, including all the feasts connected to Pascha, from the preparatory Sundays leading up to Great Lent through the Sunday of All Saints. Since Pascha falls on a different day every year, all the Sunday commemorations and feasts tied to it are also not tied to a specific date. The texts of the services from the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee through Holy Saturday are collected in the Lenten Triodion, and from Pascha through the Sunday of All Saints in the Pentecostarion (also known as the Flowery Triodion). The name “Triodion” comes from the fact that these books contain special canons consisting not of nine odes, but three.
2. Next is the weekly liturgical cycle. Every day of the week is dedicated in Church Tradition to one or another event or saint. The week begins with Sunday, when we commemorate Christ’s Resurrection from the dead; on Monday, the Church hymns the angels, archangels, cherubim, seraphim, and all the Heavenly bodiless powers; on Tuesday—the Prophet and Forerunner John; on Wednesday, the Church mourns the betrayal of Judas and grieves with the Mother of God who stands weeping at her Son’s Cross; on Thursday, the Church venerates the Holy Apostles and St. Nicholas the Wonderworker; on Friday, it stands before the Savior’s Passion and death on the Cross; on Saturday, it honors all saints and also prays for all Orthodox Christians who have fallen asleep.
We must also note that the Orthodox chanting tradition includes a system of tones—special melodies that most of the liturgical texts are sung in. This system cycles through eight tones sequentially over the course of eight weeks. These melodies differ greatly in the traditions of the different Local Orthodox Churches, but the system as such remains the same. The cycle of tones begins every year on the Sunday of All Saints—the Sunday after Pentecost (during Bright Week, the stichera are sung in one tone each day in sequence, and from Pascha to Pentecost the tones also change weekly, though in both cases the seventh tone is omitted). Since there are eight tones, the book containing the hymns of the weekly cycle is called the Octoechos. It includes texts for every day of the week for every tone. That is, the first “chapter” of the Octoechos is the first tone, containing the texts in the first tone dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ for Sunday, then stichera and a canon in honor of the Heavenly bodiless powers for Monday’s services, also in the first tone, and so on for every day in every tone—fifty-six services altogether.
3. Finally, the smallest liturgical cycle is the daily cycle. It consists of the services that are celebrated every day. In accordance with Old Testament tradition, the daily cycle begins in the evening. Therefore, we celebrate, for example, the All-Night Vigil for Sunday on Saturday evening, preparing ourselves for the upcoming Liturgy, which is the summit of the liturgical day. The daily cycle includes Vespers, Compline, the Midnight Office, Matins, the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours, and Typika. The texts of the unchanging parts of all these services are contained in the Horologion and serve as a framework on which the troparia, stichera, and other elements of the service are arranged, depending on the day of the week and the date.
Thus, every service is a carefully thought-out interaction of several liturgical cycles. Some elements of the services also depend on the patron saint of the church where the services are being celebrated.1 Instructions for how to combine all these various liturgical elements are found in the Typikon, which includes both general information about the various types of services as well as liturgical instructions for every day of the year. But few people use the Typikon itself today. In practice, most parishes use the instructions that are published every year in a separate book.2
As you can see, acquiring a complete set of liturgical books requires considerable funds and its own, rather large bookcase. Of course, it isn’t necessary for a layman to acquire this whole library, but I think it would be useful for any Christian to see and look through these books at least once,3 to understand what readers and chanters are doing in the services. And for personal use, you can perhaps find all the above-mentioned liturgical books to download. However, I’d advise everyone to have at least the smallest book—the Horologion—in printed form.
Some Simple Ideas for Healthy Diversity in Home Prayer
So, the easiest way to connect your prayer at home with the Church services is to get acquainted with the liturgical books. If you’re at least a little familiar with them, then if you wish, you can easily add to your rule some prayers that are being read or sung in all Orthodox churches on any given day. For example:
1. The fixed liturgical cycle. If we’re talking about the minimum, the most obvious addition you can make to your cell rule to connect it with the fixed cycle of services is to read the troparion and kontakion of the saint(s) being commemorated that day. Troparia and kontakia are printed in Church calendars for each year, and they’re also available on various sites online and in various Orthodox apps.
But if you want, and time allows, then it’s definitely worth it to open the Menaion. The troparion to a saint is always at the end of Vespers, and the kontakion after the sixth ode of the canon in Matins. If you already have an idea of what the Menaion is, and again, if you have time, you can read several stichera or one or two odes of the canon dedicated to one or more saints of that day (often, the Menaion has two or three services to different saints of the day).
2. The movable liturgical cycle. Just as with the Menaion, it’s very useful during Great Lent and the Paschal period to read at least a few small texts (stichera, sedalions, canon troparia) from the services in the Lenten Triodion or Pentecostarion—especially considering the fundamental importance of this period in the Church year and the fact that working people rarely manage to attend weekday services during Lent.
3. The daily cycle. Every day of the week from Monday to Saturday has its own troparion and kontakion: on Monday—to the Heavenly powers; on Tuesday—to the Forerunner; on Wednesday—to the Cross; on Thursday—to the Apostles and St. Nicholas; on Friday—to the Cross again; on Saturday—to all saints. And if you know what the tone of the week is (which you can find in the rubrics or a Church calendar), you can also find and read something from the Octoechos service corresponding to the tone and day of the week. The canons in the Midnight Office for Sundays, dedicated to the Holy Trinity, deserve special attention.
Such reading of the texts—even if brief—is very beneficial for the soul. St. John of Kronstadt pointed to the exceptional spiritual benefit of reading the Menaion—specifically the liturgical texts, the stichera and canons, and not only the lives of the saints. And St. Porphyrios of Kavsokalyvia called reading the Octoechos, Menaion, Triodion, and other liturgical books a “spiritual university,” viewing this practice as essential to the spiritual life.
The daily cycle of services and how to integrate some of its elements into daily prayer at home is a topic for separate discussion, which the next part of this short series of articles will be devoted to.
To be continued…
