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Vassa Larin
Feasting and Fasting According to the Byzantine Typikon1
Any feast in the churches of the Byzantine tradition is a
carefully planned event. The "plan" I am referring to can be found
in the "Typikon," an ordinal or liturgical book that prescribes
specific rituals, prayers, and even specific behavior on the
special occasion of a feast. Since a feast is not like any other
day, it must be set out as distinct from non-festal days; it must
depart from the usual liturgical routine. Accordingly, the faithful
too must remove them-selves from the inevitable hustle-and-bustle
of everyday life to enter into the reality of the church's feast
and truly celebrate. The purpose of the Typikon's detailed
instructions concerning feast-days, then, is to effect not a change
of rubrics but a change of focus. It is to enable us to leave aside
our individual cares and join in the communal celebration in and as
church: as one body, one heart, one mind.
I will draw attention to the festal instructions of the Russian
Orthodox Church's Typikon,2 because it is in the Russian branch of
the Byzantine rite that I was born and raised, and to which I have
devoted my liturgical studies. The object of my reflections will be
both the theory of the feast as reflected in the Typikon, and its
modern-day practice as I have known it from my earliest child-hood,
first in a small Russian Orthodox parish outside New York City, and
later — when my work involved a great deal of traveling — in
numerous Russian Orthodox parishes, cathedrals and monasteries in
Germany, France, Italy, Russia, and the Holy Land.
Sister Vassa Latin, a nun of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad,
is the Graduate Assistant of Professor Robert Taft at the
Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome.
1 This is a lecture given at the (Mentale Lumen XII conferences
in June-July 2008 in Washington, DC, San Diego, and Detroit.
2 For a history of the Slavonic Typikon see: I. Mansvetov,
Cerkovnyj ustav (Tipik) (Moscow: Tip. Lissner i Roman 1885). The
entire book is accessible on the internet on the website of Deacon
M. Zheltov: http://www.mzh.mrezha.ru.
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http://www.mzh.mrezha.ru
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TYPIKON IN THEORY AND TYPIKON IN PRACTICE Before we immerse
ourselves in the Typikon's rules and regulations, I should say a
few more words about this heavy and somewhat intimidating book. In
earlier centuries the Slavonic Typikon was entitled differently: it
was called "Ustav," which literally means "The Law." But eventually
the Greek title "Typikon" was preferred and now remains
untranslated — and not without reason. The Greek word "Typikon,"
from an adjective modifying the presumed substantive biblion or
"book," is derived from the word "typos,"3
meaning image, plan, pattern, model, example, etc.4 So the title
"Typikon" could be translated as a book of examples,5 hence not to
be confused with an obligatory code of laws. That is to say, the
Slavonic Typikon by definition has no qualms about divergence in
its theory and practice. Here is how the Russian expert on the
Typikon, Mikhail Skaballanovïc, summarized this function of the
Typikon: " . . . a book with such a title [Typikon] does not intend
to turn its minutest details into law, thus abolishing the freedom
of the worshippers: it rather intends0 to sketch a magnificent
ideal of liturgy, whose beauty would constantly inspire all to its
realization, though this may not even be possible — just like it is
with the realization of any ideal, or with the imitation of any
magnificent example. Such is, in essence, the entire law of Christ.
. . ."6This perhaps explains why there is only one Typikon in the
Russian Orthodox tradition for monasteries and parishes alike: the
Typikon's instructions can be applied freely, in accordance with
the exigencies of any worshiping community, be it monastic or
parochial. The Typikon thus creates a vast range of liturgical
possi-bilities, and, I might add — when in the hands of the inept —
some rather frightening prospects.
3 The most recent study on the origins and various usages of the
term "Typikon" is: A. Thiermeyer, "Das Typikon-Ktetorikon und sein
literarhistorischer Kontext," Orientalia Christiana Periodica 58
(1992) 475-513. See also R. Taft, "Typikon, Litur-gical," The
Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium 3 (New York-Oxford: Oxford
Univer-sity Press 1991) 2131-32; and A. Skaf, "Typika,"
Dictionnaire de Spiritualité 15 (Paris: Beauchesne 1991)
1358-71.
4 G.W.H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon
Press 1995) 1418-19.
5 M. Skaballanovic, Tolkovyj Typikon, Vyp. II (Kiev: Tipografia
Akcionernago Obscestva pecatnago i izdatel'skago delà N. T.
Korcak-Novickago 1913) 1-2.
6 Ibid., 2.
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Be that as it may, even a less-than-ideal execution of the
Typikon's festal regulations can provide an enlightening glimpse
into the "ideal" reality of a feast. I remember the Easter vigil
(what we call Pascha) at a small parish in a Bavarian village on
the outskirts of Munich. The choir consisted of 5-6 elderly women
not yet com-pletely tone-deaf, but they were getting there; the
priest, who had been ordained very late in life, tended to miss his
cues; and the con-gregation consisted of about thirty elderly
Russians — post-World War II DPs from the Soviet Union — with
little if any knowledge of their liturgical tradition. This parish
was hands-down the world champion of bad liturgy. And nonetheless,
when exactly at mid-night, after a procession around the church,
the priest proclaimed, "Christ is risen!" and the congregation
began to sing the Easter hymn: "Christ is risen from the dead!" and
the only, little church bell with a tin-pan clang of a sound began
to ring, signalizing the entrance of the procession into the
church, the once-a-year feeling that Pascha has arrived filled that
village parish, and we truly cele-brated. It is a rite that, even
when sloppily accomplished, succeeds quite powerfully in conveying
the news of the resurrection.
It is the same rite celebrated by a fourteenth-century witness
in Constantinople, Metropolitan Matthew of Ephesus (1329-1351), who
vividly describes a similar Pascha Vigil and the popular joy at the
entrance of the clergy and people into church: "Marvelously adorned
with every sacred vestment, and in good order, [the clergy and
people] exit from the church . . . closing its doors according to a
symbolic custom. And then the preacher, who raises his voice on
high and praises God and with all his strength attracts the
attention of everyone to the moment when he gives the awaited
announce-ment, crying out in a clear voice the arrival of the
resurrection of the Deceased One. At the same moment those present
join the chant of thanksgiving and a harmonious melody with the
tones of the triumphal hymn rises up as high as the heads of those
who sing, and Christ rises too. The Risen one is celebrated; death,
defeated, is silent; and the resurrection is granted to the dead of
all times. . . . Finally, according to the ritual, at a command the
priest, having entered the atrium, opens to the crowd of
participants in the pro-cession the doors he had closed, and
'Raised to glory/ he cries: 'Raise the doors, O princes of Hades,
and the King shall enter!' [Ps 23/24:6]. He cries not according to
his own wishes, nor according
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to a custom of recent vintage, but because this cry was already
in-toned in an ancient, divine prophecy regarding the institution
of this feast."7
THE TYPIKON'S C L A S S I F I C A T I O N OF FEASTS
Naturally, not all the feasts of the Byzantine tradition are
cele-brated with such paschal solemnity: there is, in fact, a very
sophis-ticated and precisely outlined hierarchy of feasts. There
are the "dominical feasts" or the feasts of the Lord, dedicated to
the saving mysteries of the life, death and resurrection of our
Savior; there are the Marian feasts, dedicated to the mysteries of
the life of the Theotokos8; and finally there are the feasts of the
saints.9 A differ-entiation between greater and lesser feasts
became necessary with the evolution of the liturgical calendar
throughout the centuries: while in apostolic times the primitive
church had very few feasts, initially only the Lord's Day (Sunday),
Pascha (Easter), and a bit later Pentecost,10 the subsequent
development of Christian life and theology led to a multiplication
of memorials, both local and ecumenical.
The earliest Byzantine "typika" or ordinals divide the feasts
into only three groups: "great," "medium," and "small," marking
each type of feast with a special sign.11 These signs, written next
to the date and name of the feast within the Typikon, indicated to
the
7 Matteo di Efeso, Racconto di una festa popolare, ed. A.
Pignani (Naples: M. D'Auria Editore 1984), Italian trans. 18-21;
Greek text 33-35; English trans, from R. Taft, Through Their Own
Eyes (Berkeley, CA: InterOrthodox Press 2006) 43.
8 See R. Taft, "Liturgical Veneration of the Mother of God in
the Byzantine Orthodox and Roman Catholic Traditions," We Are All
Brothers 3: A Collection of Essays in Honor of Archbishop Vsevolod
ofScopelos (Fairfax, VA: Eastern Christian Publications 2007)
87-112.
9 In the words of James Martin,"The saints are not just useful
tools; they are people to celebrate. The stories of their lives on
earth are gifts for which we can be grateful. . ." Cf. My Life With
the Saints (Chicago: Loyola Press 2006) 380.
10 For an overview of the development of the liturgical year see
T. Talley, The Origins of the Liturgical Year (New York: Pueblo
Publishing Company 1986); G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London:
Dacre Press 1947) 333-82; A. McArthur, The Evolution of the
Christian Year (London: SPCK1953).
11 See example in: J. Pitra, Spicilegium Solesmense Complectens
Sanctorum Patrum (Paris: Firmin-Didot Fratres 1858) 445. The great
feasts are marked with a cross in a circle, the medium feasts are
marked with a cross, and the small feasts with a horizontal line
between two dots.
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cantors what type of service was to be celebrated. Nikon of the
Black Mountain, a learned eleventh-century monk, adopted this
system into his ordinal or "Taktikon."121 mention this document
because it was well-known in Old Russia, and it is from Nikon's
ordinal that Muscovite scribes got the idea of classifying and
marking feasts with the little signs we find to this day in the
Slavonic Typikon.13 These signs tell cantors and choir directors at
a glance what type of service is to be celebrated for the
feast.
The Russian system is more elaborate than the tripartite
Byzan-tine one. In the Russian Typikon today we have not three, but
six classes of feasts.141 will explain only some of the
distinctions of these various feast-groups, just to give you an
idea of the complex-ity of the whole business: 1) the "greatest"
feasts are marked with a red cross in a full circle. Most of these
feasts are preceded by a preparatory day/days called "forefeast"
and are followed by several days called "afterfeasts" — a
continuation of the festal solemnity like the Western system of
octaves; on the eve of the feast a vigil is invariably celebrated
with a special "litya", i.e., a series of interces-sory prayers
with a blessing of five breads toward the end of vespers; fasting
is suspended or at least mitigated if the feast coin-cides with a
fast-day; great prostrations are completely suspended. 2) The
second-to-greatest feasts are marked with a red cross in a
half-circle: these are celebrated almost as first-class feasts with
a vigil, but often have no "litya," nor a forefeast or afterfeast.
3) The third-class feasts are called "polyeleos" feasts and are
marked with a red cross: no vigil is celebrated for these feasts.
However, many elements of the vigil are retained: Old-Testament
lections are added to vespers; the singing of the
"polyeleos"-psalms (Ps 134-135) is included at matins; the hymnody
found in the liturgical book
12 V. Benesevic, ed., Taktikon Nikona Cernogorca (Petrograd:
Petrogradskij universitet 1917). See R. Allison's introduction and
English translation in J. Thomas-A.Hero, Byzantine Monastic
Foundation Documents, vol. I (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks
Research Library and Collection 2000) 377-439.
13 M. Skaballanovic, Tolkovyj Typikon, Vyp. I (Kiev: Tipografia
Akcionernago Obscestva pecatnago i izdatel'skago delà Ν. T.
Korcak-Novickago 1910) 452-53.
14 The Slavonic Typikon itself offers an explanation of its six
classes of feasts and their signs, albeit not a very comprehensible
one, in chapter 47, "O znamenijax" (About the Signs): Typikon
siest'ustav (Moscow: Moskovskaja Sinodal'naja Tipografija 1901;
repr. Graz: Akademischer Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1964) f. 24V.
See also A. Stoelen, "L'année liturgique Byzantine/' Irénïkon 10,
t. IV (1928) 6-13.
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"Oktoichos" is suppressed (this will be explained later); the
monastic psalmody or Kathismata is abbreviated, and so on. 4) The
fourth-class feasts are signified with a red three dots in a
half-circle and are called "doxological" (slavoslovnye), because
the Great Doxology is sung, not read, at the end of matins. There
are not many other festal elements in a "doxological" feast, though
it sometimes includes a suppression of the Oktoichos and
abbreviated Psalm-readings. A doxological feast also effects a
slight mitigation of a fast-day and the suspension of great
prostrations. 5) The fifth-class feasts are invariably in honor of
saints and are marked with a black three dots in a half-circle.
These are called "six-fold saints" (sestericnye), because precisely
six troparia or hymns are sung in their honor at specific moments
of the Divine Office. The Oktoichos is never suppressed in this
case, and a "six-fold saint" day usually does not affect fasting
rules or great prostrations. 6) Finally, there is the sixth
category of calendar days, marked with no sign at all. These are
called "simple" (prostye) days and comprise just over half the
year: only 189 days in the year are "simple," with no "sign," no
"forefeast" or "afterfeast." On these days, the Divine Office is
chanted in full, complete with the Oktoichos and all the prescribed
psalmody, and fast-days remain in full force.
In Russian Orthodox monastic communities, where the Divine
Office is celebrated daily, these "classes" of feasts are
well-known; everyone knows what a "great" feast or "six-fold" or
"doxological" feast or "simple" day means, although not everyone
keeps track of the current calendar day. When I lived in a Russian
convent in France, I was the choir director and hence responsible
for figuring out the order of the services in advance. Having
checked the Typikon in my room about half an hour before the
service for any surprises, I would run to church. Along the way,
nuns would stop me to ask: "What is it today? Polyeleos?
Doxological? Simple?" This was important, because it determined the
length of the evening service and the severity of the day's fast —
in other words, how much we were going to sleep, and how much we
were going to eat. I shared their concern.
What, then, are the changes that occur in the liturgical routine
on occasion of a feast? We have already heard some rather
perplexing ones mentioned: suppression of the psalmody and
Oktoichos hymnody; preparatory periods or "forefeasts;" suspension
of
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fasting and great prostrations; longer services called vigils.
Let us take a closer look at these "festal" regulations, and try to
make some sense of them. I shall begin with the first phase of any
feast — its preparation.
THE FOREFEAST
A "forefeast," lasting from one to five days before the great
feasts, is signalized by themes of the upcoming feast appearing in
the propers of the Divine Office one or several days immediately
preceding the feast. For example, the feast of the Dormition of the
Virgin Mary is celebrated on August 15. A day earlier, on the
August 14 "forefeast," the following words are intoned at vespers:
". . . let us sing resounding hymns, anticipating the feast of her
departure. Let us lift our voices in a brilliant chorus before her
sepulchre. For the Mother of God and the golden Tabernacle now
prepares to pass from earth to heaven. . . ."15 Before Christmas,
on December 20, the propers include the following passage: "Let us
lift up our minds and hearts to Bethlehem, and imagine the Virgin
on her way to the cave to give birth to the Lord of all, our God. .
. ."16 The "forefeast," as you can gather from these texts, helps
us mentally and spiritually enter into the atmosphere and spirit of
the feast, placing us in the midst of the events we are about to
celebrate. In the first text, we found ourselves before the
sepulchre of the Holy Virgin in Gethsemane; in the second, we were
invited to Bethlehem to accompany Mary on her way to the cave. . .
. The forefeast offers these meditations to draw us away from our
everyday cares, and gradually leads us first into the com-munal
anticipation of the feast, and finally to its celebration. The
concept of the forefeast is based on the anthropological
observation that it is almost impossible for us to turn to
undistracted prayer suddenly, without internal preparation. Similar
to the meditations on the lives of Mary and Jesus in the Western
rosary, the medita-tions of the fore-festal hymns are, simply put,
an aid to prayer.
15 Pestai Menaion, trans, by the Sisters of St Basil the Great
(Uniontown, PA: The Sisters of St Basil the Great 1985) 444.
16 December Menaion, trans, by Melkite Greek Catholic Eparchy
(Newton, MA: Sophia Press 1985) 153.
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" N O N - L I T U R G I C A L " P R E P A R A T I O N
As wonderful as all this may sound in the liturgical books,
outside of monasteries it seldom affects the reality of our
church-life. The fact is, most parishes do not have any services
before the great feasts, so most people never hear the hymns of the
"forefeast." What is more, there are members of the congregation —
for ex-ample, small children, the hearing-impaired, the poorly
educated or simply inattentive — who do not benefit from such
hymno-graphic texts even if they attend a service of the
"forefeast." This is doubtlessly a pastoral problem and not quite
according to the Typikon's "plan." It is also true, however, that a
"forefeast" is not limited to what is heard or sung in church; it
also happens at home. Children as well as adults can recognize and
anticipate feasts by specific activities characteristic of a
certain feast, even its sounds and smells.
As a child I distinctly recognized the "smell of Lent" in the
house well before Pascha, though I was not sure what it was. I
later realized it was the smell of buckwheat (grecnevaja kasa), a
staple Lenten food in any Russian household. To this day, I somehow
associate this smell with Lenten melodies and prayers. As peculiar
as that may sound: the smell of buckwheat. . . the prayer of St
Ephrem (only read in Lent). . . the Liturgy of the Presanctified —
are all inseparable in my memories. Then, the uncommon silence in
the house on Good Friday impressed upon me the magnitude of the
day, when we would not have anything to eat until after the church
service at 3 p.m., when the Epitaphion was venerated — a cloth upon
which the scene of Christ's burial is depicted. We would then come
home and have a light meal of boiled potatoes and salad, after
which we returned to church for a longer evening service. Holy
Saturday was also a day of silence, but of a different kind: this
was a silence of almost overwhelming anticipation. On that Saturday
morning during the liturgy the church's black Lenten vestments were
suddenly changed to dazzling white ones. As children, we would come
home after this liturgy, and despite our excitement about the
upcoming feast, were peremptorily sent to sleep before the midnight
Easter vigil. The blinds were closed in our room and talking
strictly forbidden, but I could hear my mom fussing in the kitchen,
the entire house smell-ing of roasted ham and all sorts of other
tasty things for the Easter
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meal after the vigil. Everything was changing: the vestments in
church, the smells at home — everything was starting anew! When I
was a teen-ager, the feeling that Easter was near was also brought
on by my then favorite activity: shopping. More specifically —
going out to shopping malls with my mom to buy an Easter dress: she
considered a brand-new Easter dress for each of her daughters a
must every year.
I have intentionally left out the purely "religious" side of
these reminiscences to stress the "other level" of the Typikon's
forefeasts: the fasting-and-feasting rhythm pulsates beyond the
walls of the church, extending the liturgical experience to
everyday life. Thus the particular atmosphere of the great feasts
can be grasped on the simplest level, even by a child not yet
instructed in the theological meaning of it all. When the child
grows up to understand this meaning, the same smells, tastes and
even kitchen fuss will bring that meaning to mind. And this is
precisely the point of the Typikon's vibrant tradition: it
inexorably draws our working, sleeping, playing, eating, and the
whole of our existence into the salvific meaning of the life,
death, and resurrection of our Lord.
FASTING
In the liturgical picture thus far described, one motif is
completely foreign to most of modern-day Western spirituality, and
that is fasting. Indeed, according to the Typikon the liturgical
memory of every single day is reflected in what gets put on the
table. The greatest feasts are preceded by prolonged periods of
fasting, when one must abstain from meat, dairy products (sometimes
also fish and oil). On the other hand, the feasts themselves have
varying effects on the fasts, suspending them completely or at
least miti-gating their severity. Why this preoccupation with
fasting? It is true that it lowers our cholesterol and offers us
some practice in self-control. Then again, so do Weight Watcher's,
Dr Atkins, or the much healthier, they say, South Beach diet. The
answer, of course, is in the already mentioned meaning of it all.
The liturgical rhythm of the Typikon intimately connects feast and
fast, prayer and diet, the spiritual and the physical; it demands a
constant vigilance concerning, among other things, our food choices
every day. This vigilance or ascetical "vigil" is kept in an effort
to prepare for the
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Gottesschau (vision of God) revealed in the feast.17 In taking
control of one's eating habits with this objective in mind, one
becomes free to achieve the change in focus, the wholehearted
conversion or metanoia that, according to the teaching of the
Fathers, opens the mind to this divine vision. It is in this sense
that several third-century witnesses called fasts "stanzas," or
times of keeping watch.18
Similar to a feast, a fast offers freedom from the usual
routine: our food choices, our most basic necessities, are no
longer determined by the often unreflected criteria of our everyday
lives.19 Fr Alexander Schmemann writes: "This is exactly the
meaning of a feast at its deepest and most primitive level — man
liberating himself from a life chained solely to necessity and
unbreakable law."20 In this regard the fasts of the Byzantine
tradition bear a puzzling resem-blance to feasts. Anyone familiar
with the solemnity of Byzantine Lent would agree that Lent is both
anticipated and celebrated not unlike a feast.
Nonetheless, feasts are not fasts — even in the Byzantine
tradi-tion — and we have seen that feast-days mitigate or
completely suspend fasts: the greater a feast, the less friendly it
is to fasting. Why is fasting incompatible with a feast? Because
fasting signifies anticipation, waiting, whereas a feast reflects
fulfillment, the Chris-tian eschaton or arrival of the Kingdom in
its glory and joy. The arrival of the feast signalizes the end of
the preparatory vigil, a time to rest and take joy in the fruits of
the penitential labors of the fast.
This part of the festal experience — the resting part — was
taken very seriously in my parents' home, especially on Pascha and
on the feasts of their patron saints, the days of St George in May
and St Catherine in December. It was a tradition in our parish for
every
17 N. Zatorsky, Pasten und Essen im geistlichen Leben (Hamburg:
Verlag Dr Kovac 2004)56-57.
18 See citations in Skaballanovic, Tolkovyj Typikon 1,121-22. 19
On the anthropological and theological aspects of fasting see: A.
Schmemann,
Great Lent (Crestwood: St Vladimir's Orthodox Theological
Seminary Press 1974). See also: R. Taft, "Lent: A Meditation,"
Beyond East and West (Rome: Pontifical Oriental Institute 1997)
73-85; and L. Contos, The Lenten Covenant (Redwood Shores, CA:
Narthex Press 1994).
20 A. Schmemann, Sermons 2, "The Church Year," (Crestwood: St
Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary Press 1994) 17.
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family to have an "open house" on the first one or two days of
Easter, as well as on the evening of one's saint's day. On Easter
Sunday the table is set and the doorbell rings all day, as
parishioners come to say, "Christ is risen!" (Xristos Voskrese!).
To this greeting one answers, "Indeed He is risen!" (Voistinu
voskrese!) and kisses three times. People would come in, stay and
eat for a while, then they would go on to someone else's house. My
father is the priest of the parish, so we usually had a steady
crowd filing in the entire day. I remember that on Easter morning,
after a vigil that had lasted until about three in the morning and
a subsequent big night-time Easter meal, we children were usually
the first ones up as my parents rested. The doorbell would ring for
the first time at around 8 a.m., and it was invariably a certain
old parishioner with a slight drinking problem. He seemed to have
been up all night, but some-how managed to stop by our house before
turning in. I remember that every year neither of my sisters wanted
to go say "Christ is risen!" to him because it involved kissing him
three times, so either I or my brother, the two youngest, would
have to do it. This notwithstanding, Pascha was the best day of the
year, with every-one in their bright Easter clothes, just
celebrating together all day, from house to house.
Again I am reminded of the paschal celebration in
fourteenth-century Constantinople witnessed by Matthew,
Metropolitan of Ephesus (1329-1351). The entire city, having
completed the eight-week fasting period of Lent, joined in the
festivities beginning with the Pascha vigil on the eve of Easter
Sunday: "Therefore, since we have all been purified in body and
soul through [Lenten] exercises, we go to meet the resurrection
with courage. We go in this way on the eve of the already-announced
great event of the common lib-eration of humankind. Gathered
together in front of their houses — men, women, children, and those
of advanced age — we proceed toward the sacred sanctuaries of the
city. And leaving the dwellings empty we have no fear at all that
anyone may carry away what is in them, for in truth not even the
thieves have time to do so, for the celebration draws all to
itself. . . . And everyone acts in the same way, not one city or
two or ten or a hundred, but every city in the whole world. Only
later, when we have arrived there, we divide into two groups. Some
stay there and wait throughout the whole night, between hymns and
prayers and piously chanting in fear
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and trembling at the Passion of Him who would rise, continuing
until cockcrow has signaled that the moment of the mystery has
arrived. The others of every age and sex, seized, I believe, by a
more ardent desire for the Deceased One, go forth in groups and
race throughout the whole city. . . illuminating the darkness of
the night with torches. . . . While they rush through the town in
this way, they gather for a short time wherever a holy sanctuary
rises up to implore God with prayers and lamentations, intoning a
single chant and rendering to God a single voice of thanksgiving.
From there, still raising their chants, they go back along the
streets and pass by the other sanctuaries. The purpose of his holy
jubila-tion is to pass most of the night and at the same time to
give ear to those in the holy churches who indicate exactly the
time — if God is about to rise or is already risen. For as soon as
they come to know that, they immediately put an end to their tour
and remain where they are, joining in one body with those in the
church. [. . .] [When] everyone enters and hastens . . . into the
churches . . . they kiss one another and exchange the greetings of
the hidden mystery of the event, how through it the ends of heaven
and earth meet that previously were evilly divided by hatred and
envy. . . . So the common splendor shining on all like a rising
sun, keeps some in that place and they devote themselves to hymns
and chants for the Risen One. The others, instead, men mixed with
women and children, set themselves to dance in the atrium before
the entrances [to the church], applauding the chants with their
voices or their stamping feet. Thus the air drums with the beat of
chants and the ground with stamping feet. . . . Finally, when they
remember to return home, they depart in groups, interrupting
neither their chanting nor their joy, their gait keeping rhythm
with their voice, and their voice with their gait. . . . Until each
one has reached his own house, as they pass one another they kiss,
the young and old, the middle-aged and the aged, nor does the
master refuse the servant, but willingly offers his cheek and
esteem. . . ."21
In my small parish outside New York City we admittedly could not
boast of having danced in front of the church similar to the
21 Matteo di Efeso, Racconto di una festa popolare, ed. A.
Pignani (Naples: M. D'Auria Editore 1984), Italian trans. 17-21;
Greek ext 32-35; English trans. R. Taft, Through Their Own Eyes
(Berkeley, CA: InterOrthodox Press 2006) 43.
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Byzantines. However, we do have another tradition that the
Byzantines surely did not: Pascha is the only day in the year that
everyone is allowed to ring the church bells at our parish church,
just a block away from my parents' home. In Old Russia the
tradi-tion was to ring the bells all day on Easter Sunday, we were
told. My brother and I did not quite have that much energy —
fortunately for the neighbors — but we would climb the stairs of
the bell tower and give it our best.
SUPPRESSION OF PROSTRATIONS
AND OF THE OKTOICHOS
The eschatological coloring of feasts is also the reasoning
behind two other "festal" regulations of the Typikon: suppression
of full prostrations and suppression of the predominantly
penitential liturgical book Oktoichos. Full prostrations are
penitential in char-acter and thus inappropriate during a feast. A
full prostration (to first kneel to the ground so as to touch the
floor with one's fore-head, then rise again to a standing position)
signifies full contrition before God; it is a physical expression
both of repentance and of a determination to rise again from sin.
Saint Basil the Great (379) explains the eschatological
significance of not kneeling: ". . . it is not only that it serves
to remind us that when we have risen from the dead together with
Christ we ought to seek the things above, in the day of
resurrection of the grace given us . . . but that it also seems to
serve in a way as a picture of the expected age."22
In Russia, however, despite the prohibition of kneeling on
Sundays in the Typikon, in canonical23 and patristic texts, it
always has been24 and is today popular to kneel on Sundays during
the Divine Liturgy and also during Sunday vigil. For example, I
noticed
22 De Spirita Soneto 27, English trans, adapted from D.
Cummings, The Rudder (Chicago: Orthodox Christian Educational
Society 1957) 855.
23 Canon 20 of the First Ecumenical Council: "Since there are
some persons who kneel in church on Sunday and on the days of
Pentecost, with a view to preserving uniformity in all parishes, it
has seemed best to the Holy Council for prayers to be offered to
God while standing/' Ibid., 196.
24 As witnessed by a mid-seventeenth century pilgrim to Russia,
Paul of Aleppo: Putesestvie antioxijskogo patrìarxa Makarija ν
Rossiju ν polovine XVII veka, opisannoe ego synom arxidiakonom
Pavlom, transa into Russian by G. Murkos (Moscow: Obscestvo
soxranenija literaturnogo nasledija 2005) 233.
Feasting and Fasting According to the Byzantine Typikon
145
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the following usage in several parishes of the Moscow
Patriarchate, both in Moscow and in Rome: at Sunday vigil, when the
choir sings the Lenten hymn "Open the doors of repentance"
(Pokajanija otverzi mi dveri), all the lights in the church are
suddenly put out, and the entire congregation and celebrants
prostrate fully on the floor until the end of the hymn. I suppose
it is easier for people to understand the concept "penitential
kneeling" than the concept "eschatological standing." It is
probably for this reason that we have canonical regulations already
in the fourth century battling the natural impulse to kneel in
prayer on Sundays.
The weekday hymnography of the liturgical book the Oktoichos,
called the Paraklitiki in the Greek tradition, is suppressed on
feasts because it is penitential in character. Here are two
examples from the weekday Oktoichos, to give you an idea of the
general mood of this hymnography: "I have sinned, Lord my God, I
have sinned against you! O Word, be merciful to me, do not reject
me, do not despise me, for you alone are compassionate" (Sunday
evening stichera of 'Lord, I have cried/ tone 3); "The tempest of
the pas-sions affrights me and the weight of my iniquities pulls me
under. Give me your helping hand and lead me up to the light of
com-punction, for you alone are compassionate and lover of
human-kind" (Sunday evening Aposticha, tone 3).25
VIGILS
But perhaps the most conspicuous element of a festal celebration
according to the Slavonic Typikon is the "All-Night Vigil"
(vsenoscnoe bdenie). What is an "All-Night Vigil"? Theoretically,26
it unites vespers, the old Jerusalem cathedral vigil, and matins
into one long service27 that begins in the late evening and lasts
until early morning, as distinct from the non-festal Divine Office,
when vespers and matins are celebrated separately — vespers in the
evening and matins in the morning. The vigil thus effects the
omis-sion of two monastic offices usually celebrated between
vespers and matins — the Apodeipnon or Compline and Mesonyktikon
or
25 English translation adapted from: www.web.ukonline.co.uk. 26
See a complete description of the Ail-Night Vigil in chapter 2 of
the Typikon. 27 R. Taft, Beyond East and West (Rome: Pontifical
Oriental Institute 1997) 59-60.
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http://www.web.ukonline.co.uk
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midnight office.28 "All-Night Vigils" are celebrated in Russian
Orthodox churches on the eve of every Sunday and of every first and
second-class feast. Except in monasteries, the Greek Orthodox do
not have this tradition, which stems from the liturgical rite of
Jerusalem29 adopted by the Russian Church around the beginning of
the fifteenth century.30 It is clear that the intention of the
Typikon is to prolong the common'prayer on the eve of a feast. The
theology of keeping "vigil" in anticipation of a great feast was
already discussed in connection with fasting and shall not detain
us further here. Note, however, that in practice "All-Night Vigils"
do not last "all night," and are not really "vigils."31
In Russian Orthodox churches and monasteries today, this
service, still called "All-Night Vigil," is indeed celebrated on
the eve of all Sundays and great feasts, but it lasts anywhere from
two to four hours; most commonly — just over two hours. Even in
monasteries, the celebration of a "vigil" with the omission of the
Apodeipnon and the Mesonyktikon is considerably shorter than the
Divine Office celebrated on non-festal days.32 Hence we can observe
a complete turnaround of the original liturgical principle, that a
great feast means a longer service. In modern-day practice, the
opposite is true: a great feast means a shorter service. Is this to
be lamented? For someone living in a monastery, a slight break and
some quiet time in one's room on a feast-day is greatly appreciated
and physically needed. After all, the Old Slavonic terms for
"feast" and "Sunday" (prazdnik, nedelja) both literally mean "day
of not doing," indicating abstinence from certain activity.33 For
lay
28 For practical reasons most parishes and monasteries celebrate
both vespers and matins in the evening.
29 A. Pentkovskij, "Ierusalmskij Typikon ν Konstantinopole,"
Zumal Moskovskoj Patriarxii 5 (2003) 77-78.
30 Mansvetov, Cerkovnyj ustav. 31 For an overview of the
evolution of "All-Night Vigils" in Russia see:
M. Zheltov-S. Pravdoljubov, "Bogosluzenie RPC," Pravoslavnaja
Enciklopedia (introductory volume) (Moscow: Cerkovno-naucnyj centr
"Pravoslavnaja Enciklopedia" 2000) 509.
32 The very long services of Great Week could be seen as an
exception. However, none of these services are "All-Night Vigils"
and hence do not concern us here.
33 V. Dal', Tolkovyj Slovar'¿ivogo Velikorusskago Jazyka III (St
Petersburg-Moscow: M. O. Vol'f 1912) 994.
ν Feasting and Fasting According to the Byzantine Typikon
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people, the prospect of going to church all night every Sunday
and feast-day would simply be unrealistic. Imagine the family
dilemma: Should we leave the kids at home? Should we take them with
us? Should we all stay home and miss another vigil? It is not
difficult to predict the outcome of that discussion.
The evolution of the "All-Night Vigil" and other aspects of the
celebration of feasts in the Russian Orthodox Church today are
examples of liturgical change based on the real needs and
possibili-ties of the praying church. Contrary to a popular
misconception, change does happen in the liturgy of the East,
though, as Fr Robert Taft often says, to observe it "is like
watching the grass grow": it usually does not happen by synodal
decree, but by generations of church communities living the Typikon
day-in and day-out, according to their strengths and weaknesses,
and thus shaping Tradition.
Mark G. Boyer
Exploring the Concept of "Progressive Solemnity"
Every day we thank God for our life through the Liturgy of the
Hours and Eucharist. However, while we celebrate and thank God
every day, every day is not our birthday, baptismal anniversary, or
ordination anniversary. Most people hold some days special during
the year, but most days are ordinary. In other words, each person
has a repertoire of solemnities scattered over 365-366 days. The
days preceding the special days in our lives lead to the
celebration progressively.
Such is the case in the Roman Catholic Church. Every Sunday,
whose observance "begins with the evening of the preceding day"
(General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar [here-
Mark G. Boyer, a presbyter of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape
Girardeau in Missouri, teaches in the Religious Studies Department
at Missouri State Univer-sity in Springfield, Missouri.
Mark G. Boyer
148
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^ s
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