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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

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.


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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

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.

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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

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