Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me

What is the service of Vespers? – Edited from St. Andrew Greek Orthodox Cathedral, London website. While a day on the secular calendar begins and ends at midnight, the Christian day (like the Jewish day) goes from sunset to sunset. We see this first in Genesis 1:15 — ‘there was evening and there was morning, one day’. The liturgical day thus begins in the evening, and the first service of the liturgical day is therefore Vespers, which is held around sunset — the first service of Sunday, for example, is Vespers on Saturday evening. Vespers, like Orthros, is predominantly a sung service and much of the content is variable, depending on the day and tone of the week, the date, and the season. Marking the beginning of the liturgical day, the Vesper service begins with the reading of Psalm 103 (104), which recalls the beginning of the world, and praises God as the creator and sustainer of all things. Later, the chanter sings, ‘Let my prayer be set forth as incense before Thee, the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice’ (Psalm 140:2), the deacon (or priest) will process through the church, censing the altar, the icons, and all those present, while the choir continue to sing. Then hymns called stichērá (verse-hymns) are inserted after the verses of Psalms 129 and 116. These hymns relate to the saint or feast being celebrated on that particular day. The chanter sings: ‘O Gladsome Light of the holy glory of the holy blessed, heavenly, immortal Father, O Jesus Christ: arriving at the hour of sunset, and having seen the evening light, we praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: God. It is worthy for You to be praised at all times to be praised with happy voices, O Son of God and Giver of life. Therefore the world glorifies You’. The chanter reads the Trisagion prayers (the ‘Holy God’, the ‘All-holy Trinity, have mercy on us’, and the ‘Our Father’), after which the Chanter will sing the final Dismissal Hymns (apolytíkia). The dismissal hymn (apolytíkion) is the main hymn — the ‘theme tune’, if you will — of a particular feast. It is read or sung at all of the daily services, but gets its name because it is first sung immediately before the dismissal at the end of the Vesper service. When is Vespers at the Assumption Cathedral? Saturday evenings, 5:00 – 6.00pm. see weekly bulletin. Orthros / Matins O God, my God, unto You I rise early at dawn — Psalm 62:1 In Greek, this service is known as órthros, which simply means ‘early morning’ and is the word used in the Gospel of Luke, when the myrrhbearing women arrived at the tomb ‘very early in the morning’ (24:1) only to find that the Lord had risen. Like vespers, matins is largely a sung service, and much of the content is variable, depending on the day and tone of the week, the date, and the season. The reader reads the Six Psalms: (3, 37, 62, 87, 102, 142). The Psalms express the realization of our sinfulness and brokenness, but also the Lord’s great mercy and the hope of salvation. On Sunday after the gospel reading, Psalm 50 is sung. At the verse, ‘Behold, You have loved truth’, the priest comes out of the altar and stands in the center of the church holding the Holy Gospel, which the faithful then come up to venerate. After Psalm 50, we sing the canon of the day. A canon is a set of nine odes, each with several verses relating to the theme or saint of the day. After the sixth ode, there is a reading from the Synaxárion, a list of all the saints commemorated on that particular day. The chanters sing the Magnificat (Luke 1:46-55), with the following refrain after each verse: ‘More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without corruption gave birth to God the Word, truly Theotokos, you do we magnify’. While the Magnificat is sung, the deacon (or priest) will process around the church, censing first the holy altar, the icon screen, and then all the people present. The next major part of the service are the Praises / Lauds, Psalms 148, 149, and 150, sung with accompanying verses relating to the theme of the day. The Orthros service ends with the chanting of the Doxology, a moving song of praise. While it is being sung, the priest will silently read the concluding prayers and dismissal of the service, and prepare for the start of the Liturgy. When is Orthros at the Assumption Cathedral? Sunday mornings, 8:00 – 9:30am. see weekly bulletin.