www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Vespers/Matins and the Jesus Prayer

I am having trouble locating the source of the practice of praying the Jesus Prayer a certain number of times for each hour should you be unable to have the texts for that hour. Can anyone help me?

fr michael

Bless Father Rector!

http://www.synaxis.info/synaxis/6_paraliturgical/old_rite/ustav_domahnyi.html had this and I have a print-out. I don't why it doesn't come up.

It is in Russian, but I can translate the rules here for you, if you like.

Reverencing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

the unworthy Alex

In the Erie Old Orthodox Prayerbook, there is a table That has this information on page 356, in English no less. The table has a total of six rules, four using the Jesus Prayer, and two using the Psalter.

In Christ,
Adam

Well get to posting man!

If I may:

Rule for the Prayer of Jesus:

Vespers - 600 prayers; Great Compline, 700; Small Compline, 400; Midnight Hour - 600; Matins - 1,500; First Hour - 300; 3rd, 6th and 9th Hours - 1,000 prayers for all three; With the inter-Hours - 1,500. The entire Psalter - 6,000 prayers; Each Kathisma - 300 prayers; Each stasis - 100 prayers;

Rule for the reading of the Psalter:

Vespers - 2 kathismata (or 1 for the lesser rule); Great Compline - 2 kathismata (or 1); Small Compline - 1 kathisma;
Midnight Hour - 2 kathismata (or 1); Matins - 5 kathismata (or else 3, but not less than 2); First Hour - 1 kathisma; 3rd, 6th, 9th Hours - 3 kathismata; (So all the Hours can be replaced with one kathisma only, except for Matins which can be replaced, at a minimum, by two).

Rule for bows with the Prayer of Jesus:

Vespers - 300 bows or 200 or 100; Great Compline - 300 bows or 100 or 50; Small Compline - 200 bows or 100 or 50; Midnight Hour - 300 bows or 200 or 100; Matins - 700 bows or 400 or 300 or 200; First Hour - 150 bows or 100 or 50; 3rd, 6th and 9th Hours - 500 bows or 300 or 200; Hours with the Inter-Hours - 750 bows; Akathist Canon with Ikosi - 300 bows;

The "Home Prayerbook" of the Old Believers which is on the url that doesn't come up also prescribes that each Hour that we choose to do either with the Psalms, or the Jesus Prayer or with bows MUST be preceded as any Hour is - with the beginning bows and the Trisagion prayers. The Midnight Hour's beginning should include Psalm 50 and the Creed. After this, we pray the Kathismata, of Jesus Prayers or do the bows as prescribed above.

When we complete the Hour in such a way (or more than one Hour), we end with "It is truly meet" then Glory be, Lord have mercy (the Old Believers say this twice), Lord bless and then the ending:

Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, by the prayers of Thy most Pure Mother,(here include the Saint of the weekday and the Saint(s) of the day) and all Thy Saints, have mercy and save us, for Thou art Good and a Lover of Mankind.

After this, the Departure Bows as prescribed by Old Rite practice.

Alex

Thank you kind sir.

Thank you, kind sir! This is most helpful.

Fr Michael

Bless, Father Rector!

I shared these tables with an Orthodox priest friend of mine - after studying them for a bit, he said it would be much simpler (and less "painful") just to do the Hours!

In the back of a Greek-Catholic Horologion I used to have (edited by Fr. Basil Zinko OSBM) is an outline for Jesus Prayers in place of the Horologion that reads as follows:

Matins - 300 prayers
Vespers - 200 prayers
Compline - 150
For each of the 1st, 3rd, 6th and 9th Hours - 50 prayers
Midnight Hour - 300

Reverencing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Alex

I am trying to figure out why the number for the Midnight Office is so high. It is true that Monday-Saturday the Midnight Office contains an entire Kathisma of the Psalter, but the Midnight Office takes no longer to read than half an hour. Even Daily Vespers would be longer than that if the prescribed Vespers Kathisma of the Psalter were done in full.

Archpriest David Straut

Bless me a sinner, Rev. Father Archpriest!

Yes, it would take longer to do the 1st - 9th Hours reading one Kathisma per Hour than it would by simply reading the Hours themselves.

The Midnight Hour can be replaced by one Kathisma as well. When I do that, I read the 17th Kathisma with the penitential prayers at the end, sometimes adding the 16th Kathisma first to fulfill the Rule as set forth above.

I like the flexibility in this regard. One Orthodox priest I know told me that a monastery he visited allows its monks the freedom to say 400 Prayers of Jesus instead of Small Compline.

To read the Hours themselves gives one a "time" perspective which isn't to be had when one does "substitute prayers," where the particular periods of the day are celebrated, which is what the Horologion is supposed to do. The entire day feels especially consecrated to the praise and glorification of God.

Perhaps these heavier than normal substitute rules of prayer are in place to get us all to return to the Horologion proper?

Kissing your right hand, I again implore your blessing,

Your unworthy servant,

Alex

Dear Sir,

I was very happy to find and read your post from 2013 about a "mild" rule for replacing the Hours by Jesus Prayer.
Would you give me the bibliographical data of that Horologion, edited by reposed Father Basil Zinko OSBM?
I have searched for it (also as Василь Зінько, Часослов) in diverse catalogues and antiquariates, but without success.
If it does not feel inconvenient to you, I would like to know more about that book, and possibly cite that prayer rule by booktitle etc. and page in a thesis.
Although I do not intend to abandon the canonical hours, such a "mild" rule might be practical for working people from time to time, and I would like to figure out, from which source Father Basil had derived that rule.

Pray for me, the unworthy sinner,
with Christian greetings,

Martin

Martin:

Christ is in our midst!!

Welcome to the forum.

Bob
Moderator

Genuine question of the recitation of the Jesus prayer. When one is to be fully involved mentally in the praying of the Jesus prayer, how is it possible to keep track when the counts are in the upper hundreds and low thousands range? To keep count for such high numbers, doesn't one have to be actively thinking on the number as well? Would this not detract from the total surrender to/involvement with the prayer?

You can use beads attached to the cross of your prayer rope, to use as a counter

The Daily Office by Fr Zinko is out of print and I myself no longer have it. It was his translation from the Slavonic into Ukrainian - I thought it was well done for something approximating a kind of "Eastern Breviary." However, Fr Lev Gillet, the Monk of the Eastern Church, in one of his own works, lists the shortened and "very doable" outline of the Prayer of Jesus as an Horologion substitute. I just can't remember which book of his has it. I think it should be not much of a problem to find it as it is the preferred Rule of Ukrainian Catholic clergy . . . I will look around to see if I can find an exact source for this. But the Old Believer outline is, in fact, the most widely publicized. Another characteristic of the Ukrainian Catholic Church is that whenever a minimum prescription is established - that become the rule for everyone and any discussion of lengthened rules gets thrown out of the belfry . . .

There is the Basilian Daily Office where it is so shortened that only one psalm of the three prescribed for each of the four day Hours is recited. Once I was invited to pray the Sixth Hour with a priest in Church and he turned to me to say "You mean you want say all THREE PSALMS?!"

"Of course not, of course not . . ." I responded. What was I going to say to him? He was buying lunch afterwards . . .