www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Prostration in the Divine Liturgy

Well, this is a question I've asked several times in various fora, and the answer seems to be as follows:

1) In most diaspora monasteries, there is Liturgy a couple of times from Monday to Saturday. In the "old countries" it is not uncommon for monasteries to have daily Divine Liturgy.

2) A few cathedrals in the diaspora and a lot of old country cathedrals have daily Matins, Divine Liturgy and Vespers, sometimes even Compline and Midnight Office. I myself often listen to the daily cycle of services (Midnight Office, Matins, Divine Liturgy, Vespers, Compline) broadcast from either the Patriarchal Cathedral in Bucharest or from Holy Trinity Cathedral in Pireaus, Greece.

3) Many urban parishes in the old country have daily services (Matins and Vespers) with Liturgy on Sundays and Feast Days.

4) In the diaspora, few Orthodox parishes have frequent services, but yes, there do exist some such parishes. Some even have daily Liturgy.

In many larger monasteries there are actually two daily Divine Liturgies outside of weekdays of Great Lent, one offered earlier outside of the catholicon in another chapel. St. Theodore of Sanaxar and several other monastic fathers speak of this second "early liturgy" in their rules.

Monks and lay workers that had to attend to earlier chores [livestock, refectory, etc.] and obediences attended this liturgy, and it was often offered for the souls of the numerous benefactors of the monastery.

A Russian Orthodox bishop once told me that the mind of the canons is to prohibit prostrations of a penitential nature on Sunday, but that a prostration of gratitude is permitted.

Fr. Serge

If "a prostration of gratitude is permitted" on Sunday, can it be inferred that kneeling in gratitude on Sunday is also acceptable?

I thought daily Masses/Liturgies were mostly a "Roman Catholic" thing for your average Catholic or Orthodox parish church?

Alexis

So, I'm going to ask this again...


Alexis

The Rome 1942 etc. Ruthenian Recension books give three Divine Liturgies: Chrysostom, Basil and Presanctified.

For that recension AFAIK there are no prostrations in the Chrysostom and Basil Liturgies. There are prostrations specified in the Presanctified Liturgy.

During the Presanctified, at least at St. George, everyone in our parish will prostrate. Also, with the Prayer of St. Ephrim, come full prostrations.

Do any Eastern Catholics on this board attend weekday or Saturday Divine Liturgies and find people prostrating?

Is this the kind of custom that everyone likes to talk about, but no one really does? Or is it something that's fairly common in mainline Eastern Catholic and Orthodox churches? I confess to have never seen them done, but my experience of Byzantine worship has been mainly restricted to Sunday Divine Liturgies, mostly.

Alexis

In 35+ years as a Byzantine Catholic (Eparchy of Passaic) I never once saw people prostrate at a divine liturgy outside of the few who prostrated at feast of the Holy cross and the 3rd Sunday of the Great Fast. In my 3+ years with the Orthodox Church I have only witnessed a priest making a prostration at the end of the Anaphora (following the epiclisis) once. That being said...DL, at least in Orthodoxy (in my experiences) is something you tend not to see outside of Sundays and holy days...

Job

Are we talking about the deep bow at the waist with the fingertips touching the ground (if possible)? If so, then at my Orthodox parish, yes this does happen at prescribed times and spontaneously on a regular basis in the Sunday DL. If we're talking about full forehead-on-floor, we have only done this for feasts and days which have called for this (like the Exaltation of the Holy Cross) and of course, the Pre-Sanctified.

(Both forms have been described as "prostrations" to me, so I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing...)

I believe a deep bow at the waist with the fingertips touching the ground is a poklon. A Prostration is full forehead on the floor. Poklons are what are normally done on Sundays and feast days in place of prostrations.

Here is a quick overview, with small illustrations, of all six of the types of bows and prostrations you can see in an Eastern Church...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poklon

Slava Isusu Christu!

Can someone please explain the difference between Poklons and Metanys in the Contantinoplitan-Kievan Church and when we should do these bows?

In Christ,

John

They are the same thing. As for the second part of the question you could look through the archives here or try Google.