Over on the Faith and Worship forum, I have posted a request for examples / collections of local prostopinije to add to the Chant Documentation Project materials on the Metropolitan Cantor Institute website . If you have recordings or sheet music you can contribute, please contact me!

Also - I have added outlines of most of the liturgical services, pages on each of the liturgical books, and rubrics for reader services. (I would like to provide parallel Church Slavonic and English texts of the services as well, organized according to the patterns in the Roman books of the Ruthenian Recension, but not if I'm the only one would be interested in them!) Please take a look at what is out there right now, and let me know if you find any errors, or have suggestions for future additions. Thanks!

Yours in Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski
Cantor, Ss. Peter and Paul Byzantine Catholic Church
Endicott, NY
ByzKat@stny.rr.com

Where are the rubrics for reader's services?

They should have been linked from articles on Vespers, Matins and Hours; they are at

http://metropolitancantorinstitute.org/ReaderServices

Right now we have rubrics for Vespers, Matins, and the Hours, and plan to add Compline (Great and Small) and Typika. Thanks, Father Deacon!

Jeff

What is the reasoning behind omitting the prayers of the specific hours in the Little Hours? Every Orthodox reader's service I have ever seen allows the reader to say these prayers.

Jeff, a few comments although as I mentioned I am working an a larger, fuller and more coherent response via email:

Incense most definitely can be used during a Reader's Service even if a deacon is not present. The form of censer to be used should be a hand censer and not the ornate censer with bells and chains used for services when a priest is present. Even convents may have a nun who is given a blessing to cense outside the altar by the hegumenessa.

The order given for the end of the Little Hours is the opposite of the usual procedure amongst Orthodox and Greek Catholics. After "More Honorable" the Prayer of the Hours is said by the Senior Reader and not the priestly prayer said before. So for example at the First Hour, the Reader would say "O Christ, True Light" and does not say the prayer "Be gracious to us" preceding it.

At the conclusion at the end of the Our Father if using the pre-Nikonian form is "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner". I know of no usage that inserts "living God". Pre-Nikonian books of Rus' do include this as an alternate response.

Also the concluding paragraph at the end is not quite accurate; all Byzantine usages of services without a priest (not just "Great Russian") with the exception of the deacon giving Communion from Pre-Sanctified Gifts note that even a deacon is to be in riassa if leading the Reader's Service. A priest even does not fully vest for the Little Hours (other than the Royal Hours) but only wears the epitrakhil.

The Ordo nor any common usage in the tradition (Catholic or Orthodox) make any provision for a Deacon vesting without the blessing of a priest other than the Liturgy of Presanctified Gifts (but the priest is still present), or giving Pre-sanctified Gifts outside of the Divine Liturgy. The latter is a very specific privilege and blessing given to the deacon by the bishop.

Restoring the role of the deacon does not mean we instruct him follow a practice not known or celebrated in the tradition. More to come in a formal response.
FDD

Actually, the Reader Services rubrics were completely reformatted from non-HTML materials and a number of lines were omitted, particularly from the Hours. I had asked three individuals to review them before they were to be published, and when I said (by mistake) that they were available rather than in preparation, I should have responded (Father Deacon Lance) with a retraction rather than a link to the thrown-together file!

I stand by the fact that the Ruthenian service books, though they DO contain rubrics for priestless services, do NOT add a text at the Our Father, and I can find nothing similar in our own books; where in other sets of prayers I have found a good deal of variation (which I will be discussion with our own Diak, one of the reviewers, shortly).

The rubrics for deacon's services, with additional ceremonial, are justified separately, they have been used at the seminary for more than ten years, and I was asked to include them as an option. However, Professor Thompson and I decided to present them separately from the ordinary reader services rubrics, to keep the two sets from being intertwined.

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

P.S. Now, the OTHER articles are the ones I was really looking for feedback on... but obviously this shows that Reader Services are of interest. Some of the very strong input I received back in the 90's (for example, opposition to using incense, which came from other cantors in the discussion) may need to be reconsidered.

P.P.S. The rubrics for vespers celebrated with a deacon are essentially the ones described by Archimandrite Kyrill Jenner as the ones he was taught many years ago. Again, I will re-announce when I have responses back and have fixed some of the problems caused by the text->HTML shift and the massive copying when the texts were re-arranged. Again, my apologies!

Fr. Deacon Randolph,

From the preamble of the Deacon Service page:

"In the past, when a deacon has served, the emphasis on the priest's role in the liturgical order has led to the tradition that a deacon leading services in the absence of a priest did so as if he were a layman. This was consonant with the gradual loss of the understanding of a deacon's liturgical role, especially when a priest serving alone customarily took on the deacon's parts of the service as well.

The order of services presented here were prepared by Father David Petras of Saints Cyril and Methodius Byzantine Catholic Seminary in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and are used at the seminary when services are led by a deacon, in the absense of a priest. They provide for a service, with more opportunities for ceremonial than are customary when a lay ecclesiarch leads the service, and prayers from the monastic tradition which replace certain of the priest's prayers at the conclusion of the litanies."

I must voice my support for such a change. The rules regarding deacons not vesting without a blessing, using a hand censer, not taking the litanies, need to be reviewed in light of the needs of the Church today and the history of the function of the deacon in total, East and West, from the beginning until now.

As deacons we were ordained by the bishop and vested by him. We serve at his discretion and blessing. Of course when a priest is present we ask for his blessing, but when a priest is not there I see no reason not to vest. We are blessed to do so at our ordination.

In fact, I believe for a deacon to conduct a priestless service exactly as a layman would do only reinforces the misconception among the laity that a deacon is just a super-layman not a real cleric.

I support the variations given between the Reader's and Deacon's Services as a way to distinguish the deacon from the laity while preserving the distinction between deacon and presbyter.

Fr. Deacon Lance

I equally disagree. First of all, we are not specifically "blessed" to vest at our whim. Secondly, I fear the obfuscation of the distinction of priest and deacon, or the possible pretention that the deacon is "playing priest" by vesting at his own whim.

At any Reader's Service he is wearing the riassa, a clear and obvious distinction. As Protodeacon David Kennedy made clear in our diaconal training, and to which I wholeheartedly agree, the deacon exercizes his liturgical ministry fully only in relation to and with the priest, and thus in his presence - and likewise there should be a visible distinction when he does exercise his full liturgical ministry. The extra solemnity of a full liturgical celebration with a priest and deacon together I feel only strengthens this aspect.

Another point - this is also general practice amongst the Byzantine churches, Catholic and Orthodox. I do not believe an innovation of the role of the deacon in this way helps in the restoration of his authentic role at all. This is only one particular case at the Seminary and the hierarchs have not indicated this to be a general practice, to my knowledge.
FDD

Dear Jeff,

Thanks for all your good work. I do have a question: could you explain how one goes about praying the canon? What exactly is it, where do I find it, what books do I need? If you've already answered this, could you just give me a pointer to where on the website it is?

I've BEMA linked to you from the BEMA blog, by the way.

Send me your postal address privately and I'll send you a copy of the Plainchanter issue with the information you need. This will also be appearing on the website; my hope is that the articles will basically provide all the liturgics a parish cantor will need - essentially, the "Liturgics for Dummies" y'all were talking about.

Jeff

P.S. Again - if people are interested in having a complete set of the services from the Ruthenian Horologion online, in Slavonic and English, let me know, and I'll see what I can do. The advantage is that the structure of, for example, the insertion of special rules for Lent, is VERY well organized.

Fr. Deacon,

"I equally disagree. First of all, we are not specifically "blessed" to vest at our whim. Secondly, I fear the obfuscation of the distinction of priest and deacon, or the possible pretention that the deacon is "playing priest" by vesting at his own whim."

Vesting at the need of the Church is not vesting at our whim. The idea that one cannot vest without a priest's blessing is tied up with the idea that the deacon is a commissioned layperson, not a real cleric as George Florovsky presents in his The Problem of the Diaconate in the Orthodox Church, http://www.philosophy-religion.org/diaconate/chapter_4.htm and this idea seems to still be carried by the Russian Church although ironically they do not deny that a deacon is a cleric. How can there be obfuscation or pretention? The prayers and rubrics are different, the priest's prayers and blessings are not taken.

Fr. Deacon Lance

I certainly appreciate Fr. Georges analysis and believe he is quite right in his observations.

The "need to the Church" is us to lead the Reader's Service, not to vest. The vesting is not a need, but a privalege. Again I will say that the deacon exercises the fullness of his public liturgical ministry in relation to and with the priest.Our service to the Church is within this framework, and doesn't necessitate our vesting without a priest.

I don't see it really as a question of cleric/layman. I see rather as respecting the full celebration of the liturgy with a priest present. I see it as respecting the hierarchal rank of orders in a visable way. I also see a need to be consonant with the traditional practice.
FDD

P-A asked:

The Canon is one of the unique liturgical compositions of the Byzantine tradition. Some of the more famous writers are St. John Damascene, St. Cosmus of Maium, St. Andrew of Crete, etc. It is based on the nine biblical odes, with a structure of irmos, various numbers of troparia, and a katavasia, but Ode II is reserved only for Great Lent and for most of the year the Canon has eight odes.

There are proper refrains which are pertinent to the type of canon, such as "Glory to Thy Holy Resurrection, O Lord" for the Resurrection, "Most Holy Theotokos, save us" to the Mother of God, special refrains to the Trinity at Ode VIII, etc.

This is a somewhat complicated answer as there is no single print source for these. The weekday Canons according to the Oktoechos can be found in a good, comprehensive Oktoechos like that available from SJKP. Most days have multiple Canons for Matins and a changing Canon for Small Compline.

For the Menaion, Triodion and Pentecostarion, there are various sources of these, such as Uniontown, Ware, etc.

As far as online resources, several are available with Matins canons. Here is just a sample of the Octoechos which gets you through most of the year: http://www.archdiocese.ca/OctoechosComplete.pdf http://www.anastasis.org.uk/oktoich.htm
http://www.st-sergius.org/services/services2.html

The last link has all of the refrains inserted at the proper place so if you are singing all of the Canons it is there for you.


A "complete set of services"? Can you clarify what that will be, Jeff?
FDD

Some more links for material that may include Matins Canons:
For the Triodion: http://www.ocf.org/OrthodoxPage/prayers/triodion/triodion.html
This has all of the daily Canons for Great Lent as well as the Sundays at Matins.
Some excerpts from Archimandrite Ephraim: http://www.anastasis.org.uk/triodion.htm which mostly has Sundays.

Menaion:
http://www.anastasis.org.uk/menaion.htm
General Menaia: http://www.ccel.org/ccel/anonymous/menaion.titlepage.html
http://www.st-sergius.org/services.html

There is not much Pentecostarion material on-line, but again Archimandrite Ephraim has some:
http://www.anastasis.org.uk/pentecos.htm

General tips on building a liturgical library:
http://www.saintjonah.org/services/library.htm and there are many other goodies on Fr. John Whiteford's site including a variety of Canons.
FDD

Dear Diak,

What's SJKP?