Barely Even Related to the Old Prayer Book
On the topic of the "St. Tikhon's prayer book", I have a quick message for those of you out there that struggled with the old prayer book, the thin, paper-back, black prayer book. The new Orthodox Christian Prayers prayer book is barely even related.
Initially, when I first heard that the monastery was working on a new prayer book, I assumed it was going to be an update of the old one. It is not. The only similarity is that they both has St. Tikhon's written inside the front cover. Besides that, they are only similar in the way that any Orthodox prayer book will be similar.
My wife preferred the old prayer book, so that is what we used as a family. The English teacher in me had a really hard time with the typos and mistakes; I literally had to come up with coping mechanisms (little marks in the margin, just to tell myself to expect an error of some sort) to not be distracted from praying...because I do not need any more distractions. Prayer is hard enough as it is.
So, if you are worried about this new prayer book for such reasons...don't. It may use a slightly different punctuation than you were taught in school (most folks will not notice, but English nerds will), and I, too, questioned that in the beginning. But then, I noticed, when reading the Gospel one Sunday morning: there was the same punctuation usage in the King James Version. That is not to say that one is right or wrong, old or modern, but simply that they have chosen, it seems, somewhat of a continuity, in an almost imperceptible way, with a traditional text.
And as for the cheapy feel of the old book, which I definitely heard as a complaint from some, this new one is far from cheapy feeling: nice cover, gilded page edges, nice looking font and organization on the inside, and even three ribbons to help when you like to add a little something else into your prayers (we keep ours at the list of saints commemorated on what days and back on the troparia for the day of the week).
I just wanted to say that for folks like me. I was quite happy to transition out of that old book and this new one has none of those issues that irked me so much. It may sound shallow and petty, but it is literally helpful in prayer. I hope it is for you, too.
Initially, when I first heard that the monastery was working on a new prayer book, I assumed it was going to be an update of the old one. It is not. The only similarity is that they both has St. Tikhon's written inside the front cover. Besides that, they are only similar in the way that any Orthodox prayer book will be similar.
My wife preferred the old prayer book, so that is what we used as a family. The English teacher in me had a really hard time with the typos and mistakes; I literally had to come up with coping mechanisms (little marks in the margin, just to tell myself to expect an error of some sort) to not be distracted from praying...because I do not need any more distractions. Prayer is hard enough as it is.
So, if you are worried about this new prayer book for such reasons...don't. It may use a slightly different punctuation than you were taught in school (most folks will not notice, but English nerds will), and I, too, questioned that in the beginning. But then, I noticed, when reading the Gospel one Sunday morning: there was the same punctuation usage in the King James Version. That is not to say that one is right or wrong, old or modern, but simply that they have chosen, it seems, somewhat of a continuity, in an almost imperceptible way, with a traditional text.
And as for the cheapy feel of the old book, which I definitely heard as a complaint from some, this new one is far from cheapy feeling: nice cover, gilded page edges, nice looking font and organization on the inside, and even three ribbons to help when you like to add a little something else into your prayers (we keep ours at the list of saints commemorated on what days and back on the troparia for the day of the week).
I just wanted to say that for folks like me. I was quite happy to transition out of that old book and this new one has none of those issues that irked me so much. It may sound shallow and petty, but it is literally helpful in prayer. I hope it is for you, too.
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