Selections from Seminary

Fresco in Church of the Holy Savior in Chora, Constantinople Holy Saturday Late morning or early afternoon:   Holy Saturday Reader's Vespers Between the Epistle and Gospel reading (during "Arise, O God, and judge the earth..."), we change the church's colors from dark to bright, because Vespers liturgically transitions us into the next day...Pascha. At home, this is a great time to add white or bright decoration to the icon corner and to put up an icon of Pascha, if you have such. For those who have taken on the struggle of the strict fast on Holy Friday till Vespers on Holy Saturday, the faithful partake of a little bread and wine after Vespers, along with some figs or dates (which could translate to dried fruit and nuts today). Reading the Acts of the Apostles: Following Vespers (which normally would have been a Vesperal Liturgy), the faithful would remain in church listening to the reading of the book of the Acts of the Apostles till time for the Paschal s...

In the Preface to the Orthodox Christian Prayers prayer book, there is a wonderful little paragraph that echoes many of the responses I have heard to our COVID-19 quarantine. I have noticed that many responses, from Met. Tikhon to Bishop Alexis , from Abbot Sergius to Archimandrite Zacharias , have emphasized that this quarantine is a time to turn to God in prayer. I would warn against counting out their opinion because they are monastics and unlike us in the world, but the common monastic response is no accident: these are men whose spiritual life is not dependent on going to church services, but rather on the foundation of prayer and communion with Christ in the "secrecy of their room". The prayer book has this encouraging word for us: "As disciples of Christ and his imitators, Orthodox Christians pray together at church, offering the services of Vespers, Matins, the Hours, and above all the Divine Liturgy. We may also pray in small groups outside of church, with...

We are so accustomed to going to Vespers at church, that most of us have never thought about why what service is done when. That is all we know. And now, when we cannot go to church, it would be natural to feel a need to do the same thing at home, to "go to church" home and do the same things we would have done in the church building. But we can't do that! Almost nobody out there, besides the choir director and maybe a reader, knows how to put Vespers together. Could we learn? Sure. Are most people going to do that? No. In the recesses of Church history, there is a point that could really help us out. There were two main avenues by which our services were developed. Keep your eye open for which of these two avenues sounds the most like our COVID-quarantined situation. One avenue is the "cathedral rite", which primarily comes out of Constantinople and is based on the services as they were developed in the cathedral, that is, around the patriarch, near the e...

It is the Eve of the Feast of Annunciation, the Archangel Gabriel announces to Ever-virgin Mary that she will bear a child, the Son of God. And we, restrained to our homes, will not be able to celebrate this beautiful feast in our local parish. What should we do at home? As I have said before, there is no law or rule about how to celebrate the services at home. (At church, we should do it right, and there is great meaning in the liturgics.) Yes, there is such a thing as "readers services", and that is a great thing to do, if you have the resources to use and the experience and confidence to pull it off. For those folks: keep doin' your thing. For the rest of us, I will propose two options: one with prayer book only, and two using the prayer book and one additional source found online. Prayer Book Only: Since this is the Feast of Annunciation, and the real cycle of services has additional elements to the normal Vigil, it would be fitting to add something appropriate...

I will admit it: I want to pray something at home to "replace" a service at church that I cannot attend, but it is hard. I am scared of how long it will take. It is harder to think about 45 minutes of prayer at home than it is to go to church and pray for that same 45 minutes. If it is any encouragement, I offer this... First, it does not have to be 45 minutes. Second, if it is, all the more grace you receive for toughing it out. Here are some examples of what can be done, probably only needing your prayer book: A Vespers service that you usually attend at church can very appropriately be replaced with Small Compline, since that is also an evening service, and that is easy to just read straight through in the prayer book. You could also read one of the akathists or canons available in the back of your prayer book. Those can be prayed by themselves, if you are not too liturgically adventurous, and that is fine. It is prayer! If you want to put a canon or akathist into ...

How do I adjust my prayers when I cannot attend church like normal? Here is how we have adjusted our "prayer rule" here in my house, at least, for now. Our normal prayer rule as a family remains unchanged. And, for us, that is basically a shortened version of the morning and evening prayers, but that could be whatever is normal for you. Then, all the times we would have gone to church, we replace with something "extra" at home.  That "extra" could be just about anything, but I would suggest something simple that you could read straight out of the prayer book. That is what we have done, for the most part. If you want more details, feel free to read the next post with more detailed information of how to do those "extra" prayer services at home . The basic idea of what we have done is to... Keep a regular, daily prayer rule. Replace a missed service at church with something at home. Ok...I do have one last thought:  keep the scheduled t...

As restrictions on attending church continue to rise, the faithful will be increasingly reliant on their own prayer at home. Having limited or no access to Holy Communion is a huge blow to suffer, but there is a precedent to which we can look to gain inspiration as to how we should proceed from here. It is a little early, yet, to be speaking of St. Mary of Egypt; her Sunday of Lent is still three weeks away. However, her life is commonly read at Vigil the preceding night, and thus, many of us are well-acquainted with her story. In particular, we should notice how the two saints mentioned in the life, St. Mary herself and Abba Zosimas, both had "restrictions" on their access to Holy Communion, too. St. Mary's was quite extreme, for having gone off into the desert, she lived forty-seven years outside of all communion any another person—excepting the persons of angels and the person of Christ himself. Abba Zosimas and the monks of his monastery are probably a better exa...

"It is our conversation with God that brings about our union with him. Beginning a dialogue with God and putting a stop to the monologue with ourselves and with our passions: this is the essence of prayer and of salvation." These are Abbot Sergius's words in the front of the new prayer book. It is no small task to enter into prayer, especially passing beyond the monologue. Entering into dialogue with God, or communing with him, is far beyond most of us. In this pursuit, a prayer book is an invaluable aid, as Fr. Sergius continues: "The prayers of the Orthodox Church help us learn how to speak to God in a truly Orthodox and right way. They reveal to us the disposition of heart and the height of sanctity which we must internalize and make our own. They act as icon and window, giving us a vision of the Communion of Saints, for, by using the prayers composed by the saints and by their disciples, we slowly bring our lives into harmony with theirs." One thing I ...

Reading through pre-Communion prayers tonight in preparation for Sunday morning Liturgy, I was reminded again of a little edit I made to my prayer book. I did not used to write in books...ever, but this is different, like marking music. So, here is why I changed the wording in my prayer book. In our family, we like to sing the prayers before Communion (at least, that parts that I know of that can be sung). The Canon in Preparation for Holy Communion (starting on page 159) states that it can be sung in tone 2. So, the irmos for each ode can be sung in irmos tone 2 , and there is a kontakion after ode 6 which can be sung in troparion tone 2 . Just one problem: it is close to impossible to consistently sing this wording accurately. The "unfathomable abyss" is, at least for this poor tongue, a mount too high to climb. So, I thought through several variations of the same meaning, but variations that would be easier to sing. A depth is like an abyss, and just as an unfathomab...

Earlier this week, when in the choir, I noticed the word "thanksgiving" pop up in one of the hymns. Now, that probably is not terribly rare, for it seems somewhat likely to hear a word like "thanksgiving" appear in Christian hymnography from time to time, but being the week of Thanksgiving, it caught my attention. It was during the Vespers and Matins services for the Great-martyr James of Persia on Tuesday night. I just learned that he is also called the  Great-martyr James the Sawn-Asunder , if that clarifies what might make him a great martyr. Thou hast astonished all by thy terrifying torments and the valor of thine endurance, O much suffering one, most wondrously uttering prayers of thanksgiving to the Lord as each of thy members was severed from thy body. Wherefore, receiving a crown amid thy suffering, thou hast ascended to the throne of Christ God, the King of heaven. Entreat Him, O James, that He save our souls.  This is not at all to put a damper on T...

I do not know who else out there struggles with this one, but wouldn't it be a beautiful world to have the same version of the Psalms used in our personal prayer books, as in the many Psalms read in church, and as in the innumerable uses of Psalms throughout the services? Such consistency would, that much more easily, bring those hymns to our lips throughout the day. We would accidentally memorize large chunks of the Psalter. And what unspeakable aid would that provide to our path toward union with Christ? But alas! How many versions of the Psalter are out there? I don't know. Even of something much more limited like the Septuagint Old Testament, there are still way too many. One of the most widely used Psalters in Orthodox churches, at least in my experience, is the Holy Transfiguration Monastery (HTM) Psalter . It is a beautiful, poetic rendering of the Psalms from the Septuagint (or "LXX"). That is what I am used to. It is used in the HTM prayer book and the Jo...

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 i...

I have been looking forward to the new St. Tikhon's prayer book for quite a while. I heard a mention of it almost a year ago, I think, I now I finally have one in my possession. If you are one of those who would like to buy one, but have noticed that they are on back-order, I apologize. The second batch should make it to the St. Tikhon's Bookstore  soon. Initially, I would like to share some of the features of this prayer book for those who wonder if they should order one and do not have a chance to pick one up and thumb through it, but then eventually, I would also like to share some of my little "hacks" for the book: things like marking tones to aid in singing and how I use some of the information included here that most prayer books do not have. So, to start off, here are some of the reasons I love it: Every page has a page heading so you can more easily find what you are looking for. It DOES NOT include Liturgy, which is a large section of many books that ...