Right, is this the prayer Paul B? it is said at Divine Liturgy prior to each Holy Communion, in my parish it was always said out loud, the priest would start O Lord I believe and process and then the people would pick up the rest to the end....

Communion Prayer

O Lord, I believe and profess that You are truly Christ, the Son of the living God, Who came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the first.

Accept me as a partaker of Your mystical supper, O Son of God, for I will not reveal Your mystery to Your enemies, nor will I give you a kiss as did Judas, but like the thief I confess to You:

Remember me, O Lord, when You shall come into Your kingdom.

Remember me, O Master, when You shall come into Your kingdom.

Remember me, O Holy One, when You shall come into Your kingdom.

May the partaking of Your Holy mysteries, O Lord, be not for my judgment or condemnation, but for the healing of my soul and body.

O Lord, I also believe and profess that this, which I am about to receive, is truly Your most precious body and Your life-giving blood, which, I pray, make me worthy to receive for the remission of all my sins and for life everlasting. Amen.

O God, be merciful to me a sinner.

O God, cleanse me of my sins and have mercy on me.

O Lord, forgive me for I have sinned without number

Right, that is the way we've been doing it for the past 50 years, but prior to that, it was done in our parish as I described. I have no idea if that was unique or common for BC's at the time.

I was trying to convey to Invictus how we approached Communion prior to the time of Vatican II.

Ah, understood, sorry if I did not understand exactly as sometimes the threads do not match right under the last thread.

This is the way the prayer has been done forever in the parish I attend, at one time, they had these BIG cards in the pews, on one side was English, on one side was Slavonic, they were taking no chances

Likewise in ACROD the same prayer is said. As to the reference to 'baldachino' I always assumed that they were a Latin addition but in recent years I have seen them in a number of Moscow Patriarch churches in Russia on the MP's youtube video channel. Not large semi- enclosed canopy like ones, and not in every church, but in some. I am guessing that they made their way there during post-Peter the Great church construction under Italian architects?

DMD, no doubt, Saint Petersburg was dominated by many western architects (as was the case in Catherine the Greats time and beyond), In 1716 Domenico Trezzini sketched his project whereby the city centre would be located on Vasilyevsky Island and shaped by a rectangular grid of canals, while not completed, the street layout still shows this original design.

In 1716 Jean-Baptiste Alexandre Le Blond was appointed chief architect of Saint Petersburg by Peter the Great.

Auguste de Montferrand was the architect of Saint Isaac's Cathedral, I attached a photo, its genre is definately western
and in the altar area is a stained-glass window made by M. E. Ainmiller in Munich during 1843. The rare quality of this is that Christ is seen dressed in the color of Catholic red as opposed to the Orthodox blue.

There were many architects brought to the Empire (French, Italian, German), prior to Peter the Great the forgeign quarter of Moscow held Germans, Sweedish, Dutch, English, Scotch, etc., artisans, soliders, etc., who were brought to this country to train others since the local population had no experience in western inventions or construction techniques, etc. Thankfully, Peter spent his time in this quarter and it helped to shape his outlook which was of great importance.

I get a kick out of 'purists' who ignorantly blame the Basilians or the Jesuits for any and all 'western' influences they see in the churches of the 'Ruthenian' background. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and the styles popularized by the Russians in the 18th and early19th century influenced Church design across the whole of east Europe - both Orthodox and Eastern Catholic alike - and followed the immigrants across the Atlantic.

We tend to flatter ourselves by not acknowledging that those who lived before us suffered from the same vanities as we do and somehow assuming that only in the modern times are people aware of what goes on in other countries.

St. Isac's, St. Petersburgh.