INSPIRED AND NOURISHED SPIRITUALLY THROUGH THE LENTEN DIVINE SERVICES

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My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God, and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

INSPIRED AND NOURISHED SPIRITUALLY THROUGH
THE LENTEN DIVINE SERVICES.

COMPLINE (APODEIPNON) DIVINE SERVICE

Apodeipnon (Compline) is the last service of the day. It is read after the Vespers (Hesperinos) of great feasts referring to event in the life of our Lord. Apart from the longer and more formal type of Apodeipnon, there is a briefer form read by Monastics in their own cells or collectively in the Narthex of the church. Prayers resolve around two of the main points of Monastic contemplation; thanksgiving ‘for the night that gives repose from the labor of the day, and reminds us of death which sleep resembles…; and petition ‘THAT WE MAY SLEEP PEACEFULLY THROUGH THE NIGHT AND AWAKEN TO SEE THE LIGHT AGAIN.’

The Orthodox Compline (Apotheipnon) service during Holy and Great Lent is called the Great Compline (Apodeipnon Megas). It is a longer version of the Compline service that is usually held every evening during Holy and Great Lent. It is a time to reflect on the day and ask for forgiveness for sins committed. During Holy and Great Lent the Compline can be conducted every evening.

PRESANCTIFIED LITURGY
(Greek – Λειτουργία
Προηγιασμένων
Δώρων)

The Liturgy of the PRESANCTIFIED Gifts is in reality a religious service COMPOSED OF ELEMENTS DRAWN FROM HESPERINOS the Vespers service, and from the first part of the Liturgy beginning with ‘BLESSED BE THE KINGDOM…’ and ending just before the Cherubic hymn begins. It includes NO CONSECRATION, but prepared believers can receive Holy Communion from THE CONSECRATED ELEMENTS RESERVED FROM THE DIVINE LITURGY OF THE PREVIOUS SUNDAY. According to Canons 49 and 51 of the Synod in Laodicea (about 365 A.D.), the celebration of the Holy Eucharist IS PROHIBITED DURING THE GREAT LENT BEFORE THE ALL-HOLY PASCHA, apart from Saturdays and Sundays. It was in order TO PROVIDE THE NEED FOR FREQUENT HOLY COMMUNION, WIDESPREAD AT THAT TIME, THAT THE PRESANCTIFIED WAS INSTITUTED. The Church Historian Socrates (about 380-450 A.D.) speaks of an ancient custom in Alexandria by which not only during Lent but on Wednesdays and Fridays of the whole year, ‘the Holy Scripture are read and the teachers interpret them, and everything pertaining to the synaxis takes place apart from the celebration of the Mysteries.’ A service of the nature of the Presanctified can be traced back to pre-Nicene times in the West. Saint Sophronios at Jerusalem calls the Presanctified in 646 A.D. an ‘APOSTOLIC’ INSTITUTION. This means that he considered it to go back before the collective memory of the Church at the time. The Lenten substitute for the Holy Eucharist is Canon 52 of the Trullan Synod (Quinisext) in 692. One should bear in mind, however, that the Councils hardly introduced anything new, either in the faith or in the liturgical practice of the Church; rather, they verified and vested with universal authority teachings or practices that THE CONSCIENCE OF THE CHURCH had in sufficient measure already accepted. This means that the Trullian canon in reality aimed at safeguarding an established practice within the Church at large.

Discovering the author of the Presanctified in its present form would be very difficult. It is generally attributed to Gregory Dialogos, that is, to Gregory, the Great Pope of Rome (about 540-604 A.D.) Gregory lived in Constantinople for a few years as the personal representative of Pope Pelagius II to the Byzantine imperial court. But according to his own admission, he never learned Greek and actually he returned to Rome filled with anti-Greek feelings and openly against the Byzantine Patriarchate. When he became Pope, Gregory contributed more than anyone else in widening the gap between East and West by advancing THE MONARCHICAL CLAIMS OF PAPACY AND BY DISREGARDING DECISIONS EVEN OF ECUMENICAL COUNCILS GRANTING PRECEDENCE IN THE EAST TO THE PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE. His composing a Greek Liturgy appears, therefore, completely out of the question.

The Liturgy is attributed by others to Saint Epiphanius (315-733 A.D.), and even to Saint James, Saint Peter, and in Sinai it was ascribed to Saint Basil the Great. Patriarch Michael (12th century) wrote that the PRESANCTIFIED WAS KNOWN TO THE CHURCH BEFORE THE LITURGIES OF SAINT BASIL THE GREAT AND SAINT JOHN CHRYSOSTOMOS. Obviously, the pre-Byzantine core of the Presanctified goes deeply back into the beginning and only a little later than the ‘Synaxes’ of the primitive Church. Its present Byzantine form appears to be the work of more than one composer. Parts obviously added to the ancient core are of different dates and of different hands.

THE GREAT CANON OF SAINT ANDREW
OF CRETE

Saint Andrew was a theologian and hymn writer (660-740 A.D.). He was born in Damascus and became archbishop of Gortyna in Crete about the year 692 A.D. He wrote many hymns and in particular a series of Canons. He is the inventor of this form of composition. His most famous piece, THE GREAT CANON, contains more than 250 strophes. Also, a considerable number of his homilies have survived. His feast day is on July 4th.

The Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete is designed to be prayed for in sections Monday through Thursday on the First Week of Holy and Great Lent, also known as Pure Week (Kathara Evdomas) or Clean Week. It can be prayed in church in the context of either Compline (first Week) or Matins (Fifth Week). Nevertheless, it can be prayed by any of the Orthodox faithful on these solemn days. At every Ode ("Song"), we repeat "Have mercy on me O God, have mercy on me" after each stanza.

THE AKATHIST HYMN
(Ακάθιστος
‘Ύμνος) or
[The Salutations to the 

Theotokos 
Χαιρετισμοί πρός τήν
Υπεραγίαν Θεοτόκον]

The Akathist Hymn is sung on the FIRST FIVE FRIDAYS OF HOLY AND GREAT LENT during a Small Compline (Apodeipnon) Service in the Greek Orthodox Church. The hymn is divided into FOUR PARTS, and each part is sung on a different Friday. On the FIFTH FRIDAY, the entire hymn is chanted. The Akathist Hymn is a divine service also known as the "Akathistos" (Greek Akathistos meaning "not-sitting") therefore the faithful during the service are standing throughout the service.

This is a long poem prefaced by a hymn to the Ever-Virgin Mary which has become known to every Orthodox Christian. The poem was written in honor of the Ever-Virgin Mary, considered to be THE PROTECTOR OF THE GREAT CITY OF CONSTANTINOPLE. As we have it today, the poem, together with a long Canon preceding it and written by the famous Joseph the Hymnographer, forms a service in itself held in the Greek Orthodox churches in the evenings of the first Four Fridays of the Holy and Great Lent before the All-Holy Pascha. The poem is made up of 24 separate blocks called ‘oikoi", each one beginning in an acrostic manner with a letter of the alphabet. (Oikos in Greek means home, and the name is given to each of the twenty-four blocks as if they were actual buildings progressing upwards in meaning to a poetic pinnacle.) At the end of each odd ‘oikos’ the famous but almost untranslatable in any language refrain, Χαίρε νύμφη, ανύμφευτε! (Rejoice, O unwedded Bride) is sung.

It is widely believed that the poem was composed and offered in a special ALL NIGHT SERVICE TO THE THEOTOKOS OR MOTHER OF GOD, IN THE YEAR 626 A.D., when the Queen City of Constantinople was saved from the siege of Avars and Persians. By the same evidence, the author of hte poem is Patriarch Sergios, who is mentioned to have gone around the walls of the city, in a procession encouraging the soldiers to resist the barbarians. However, others have a different opinion. It appears that other research side with the opinion that the Akathist is connected with one of the many sieges Constantinople went through, and its author is Patriarch Germanos I (715-730 A.D.), NOT Patriarch Sergios who could hardly have written in the way the Akathist praises the Ever-Virgin Mary, considering the fact that he was a Monothelete heretic. (note: The HERESY of Monothelitism taught that in Christ there was only ONE WILL–namely the Divine will. This heretical teaching was rejected AS FALSE at the Sixth Ecumenical Synod). The Akathist Hymn was translated into Latin about the year 800 A.D. It has also been translated into Italian, Russian, Bulgarian, Ru;manian, Turkish, and Modern Greek and of course English.

The great value of the Akathist Hymn seems to relate to the inner state of the Orthodox faithful in attuning his/her soul to the Mother of God and our Lord Jesus Christ, rather than to its literary excellence. The personal spiritual circumstances and the group trials and tribulations to which the poem refers have secured for it a place without its equal in Orthodox hymnology. [Resources: A Dictionary of Greek Orthodoxy]

Other Lenten services include the Saturday of the Dead or Saturdays of the Souls which is a memorial service and that of the service of Forgiveness.

_______
"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things."
– Saint John Chrysostomos
+ + +

With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George

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