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v t e

The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or the Rite of Constantinople, is a liturgical rite that is identified with the wide range of cultural, devotional, and canonical practices that developed in the Eastern Christian church of Constantinople.^[1]

The canonical hours are extended and complex, lasting about eight hours (longer during Great Lent) but are abridged outside of large monasteries.^[2] An iconostasis, a partition covered with icons, separates the area around the altar from the nave. The sign of the cross, accompanied by bowing, is made very frequently, e.g., more than a hundred times during the divine liturgy, and there is prominent veneration of icons, a general acceptance of the congregants freely moving within the church and interacting with each other, and distinctive traditions of liturgical chanting.

Some traditional practices are falling out of use in modern times in sundry churches and in the diaspora, e.g., the faithful standing during services, bowing and prostrating frequently, and priests, deacons, and monastics always wearing a cassock and other clerical garb even in everyday life (monastics also sleep wearing a cassock) and not shaving or trimming their hair or beards.

In addition to numerous psalms read every day, the entire psalter is read each week, and twice each week during Great Lent, and there are daily readings of other scriptures; also many hymns have quotes from, and references to, the scriptures woven into them. On the numerous fast days there is prescribed abstention from meat and dairy products, and on many fast days also from fish, wine, and the use of oil in cooking. Four fasting seasons are prescribed: Great Lent, Nativity Fast, Apostles' Fast and Dormition Fast. In addition, throughout the year most Wednesdays and Fridays, as well as Mondays in monasteries, are fast days.

History

In its present form, the rite is the product of a long cultural synthesis that developed in the years after the 8th-9th century Iconoclasm, in which monasteries and their cultural contacts with the Holy Land played a decisive role. From the 9th to the 14th centuries, the influence of the Palestinian Rite^{[note 1]} exerted a dominating influence and the rite has been called a "hybrid"^[3] between an earlier ceremonial rite which scholars have dubbed the cathedral rite of Constantinople,^[4] called the asmatiki akolouthia ("sung services") and the Palestinian Rite of Jerusalem, the Hagiopolitan (Gr. "of the Holy City") in Greek, chiefly through the monastic typikon of the Mar Saba monastery near Jerusalem. Later developments were usually connected to monasteries at Constantinople and Mt. Athos patronized by the imperial court, such as Studion, whose Rule formed the nucleus of early monastic communities in Bulgaria and the Rus'.^[5] In the early modern period, the traditions of the rite received further elaboration from the interface of Christian and Islamic mystical traditions fostered in the Ottoman court.^[6]

Before the mid-17th century, the practices of the Russian Church, relatively remote from the great ecclesiastical and cultural centers of Greek Christianity, showed some significant local and textual variation from the rest of the Christian world. The practices of the Russian Church were brought violently in line with the contemporary Greek usage during the reforms of Patriarch Nikon, resulting in relative uniformity across the Eastern Orthodox Church. The resulting Raskol (Rus. schism) split Russian Christianity into the present Russian Orthodox and the historically persecuted Old Believers, who maintained many archaic practices of worship.^[7]

Sacred Mysteries

The "Holy Mysteries", or "Sacred Mysteries", or similar, refer to the elements of Holy Communion, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, in the texts of the Divine Liturgy, the prayers before and after communion, and elsewhere, as, for example, in the first petition of the ectenia after communion, "Arise! Having partaken of the divine, holy, pure, immortal, heavenly, life-creating, and awesome Mysteries of Christ, let us worthily give thanks to the Lord."^[8]

Also termed the sacred mysteries is a broad theological category including the seven sacraments defined in the Western Church but differing slightly in emphasis—stressing their ineffable character and forgoing the intense theological definitions which emerged in the centuries following the Reformation.^[9] Although all modern Orthodox churches customarily observe the same seven sacraments as in Catholicism, the number has no dogmatic significance and, up to the 17th century, individual authors varied greatly in the number of rites considered "mysteries".^[10] Despite the historical differences, modern Orthodox and Catholic faithful are generally united in viewing the West's seven sacraments and Orthodoxy's looser number of sacred mysteries—seven only by convention—as effectively equivalent.^[11] The Catholics regard the two as identical.^[12]

Divine Liturgy

The divine liturgy may be celebrated on most days, the exceptions, known as aliturgical days, being in or near Great Lent. Typically, however, the liturgy is celebrated daily only in cathedrals and larger monasteries but elsewhere only on Sundays, major feast days, and some other days, especially during Great Lent.

These three forms of the eucharistic service are in use universal usage:

• The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is the one most commonly celebrated throughout the year.
• The Liturgy of St. Basil is celebrated ten times a year.
• The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is celebrated on certain weekdays of Great Lent and of Holy Week.

Daily office

The daily cycle begins with vespers and proceeds throughout the night and day according to the following table:^{[note 2]}

Name of service in Greek	Name of service in English	Historical time of service	Theme[13]
Hesperinós (Ἑσπερινός)	Vespers	At sunset	Glorification of God, the Creator of the world and its Providence.
Apódeipnon (Ἀπόδειπνον)	Compline	At bedtime	Sleep as the image of death, illumined by Christ's Harrowing of Hell after His death.
Mesonyktikón (Μεσονυκτικόν)	Midnight Office	At midnight	Christ's midnight prayer in Gethsemane; a reminder to be ready for the Bridegroom coming at midnight and the Last Judgment.
Órthros (Ὄρθρος)	Matins or Orthros	Morning watches, ending at dawn	The Lord having given us not only daylight but spiritual light, Christ the Savior.
Prō̂tē Hóra (Πρῶτη Ὥρα)	First Hour (Prime)	At ≈7 AM	Christ's being brought before Pilate.
Trítē Hóra (Τρίτη Ὥρα)	Third Hour (Terce)	At ≈9 AM	Pilate's judgement of Christ and the descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, which occurred during this hour.
Héktē Hóra (Ἕκτη Ὥρα)	Sixth Hour (Sext)	At ≈12 PM	Christ's crucifixion, which occurred during this hour.
Ennátē Hóra (Ἐννάτη Ὥρα)	Ninth Hour (None)	At ≈3 PM	Christ's death, which occurred during this hour.
Typicá (τυπικά) or Pro-Liturgy[14]	Typica	follows the sixth or ninth hour.

The typica is used whenever the divine liturgy is not celebrated at its usual time, i.e., when there is a vesperal liturgy or no liturgy at all. On days when the liturgy may be celebrated at its usual hour, the typica follows the sixth hour (or matins, where the custom is to serve the Liturgy then) and the Epistle and Gospel readings for the day are read therein;^{[note 3]} otherwise, on aliturgical days or when the Liturgy is served at vespers, the typica has a much shorter form and is served between the ninth hour and vespers.^[14]

Also, there are Inter-Hours for the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours. These are services of a similar structure to, but briefer than, the hours. Their usage varies with local custom, but generally they are used only during the Nativity Fast, Apostles Fast, and Dormition Fast on days when the Lenten alleluia replaces "God is the Lord" at matins, which may be done at the discretion of the ecclesiarch when the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated.

In addition to these public prayers, there are also private prayers prescribed for both monastics and laypersons; in some monasteries, however, these are read in church. These include Morning and Evening Prayers and prayers (and, in Russia, canons) to be prayed in preparation for receiving the Eucharist.

The full cycle of services are usually served only in monasteries, cathedrals, and other Katholika (sobors). In monasteries and parishes of the Russian tradition, the Third and Sixth Hours are read during the Prothesis ( Liturgy of Preparation); otherwise, the Prothesis is served during matins, the final portion of which is omitted, the Liturgy of the Catechumens beginning immediately after the troparion following the Great Doxology.

The Midnight Office is seldom served in parish churches, except at the Paschal Vigil as the essential office, wherein the burial shroud is removed from the tomb and carried to the altar.

Aggregates

The sundry Canonical Hours are, in practice, grouped together into aggregates^[15] so that there are three major times of prayer a day: Evening, Morning and Midday.^{[note 4]}

The most common groupings are as follows:

Ordinary days

• Evening — Ninth Hour, Vespers, Compline^{[note 5]}
• Morning Watches — Midnight Office,^{[note 6]} Matins, First Hour
• Morning — Third Hour, Sixth Hour, and the Divine Liturgy or Typica^{[note 7]}

Weekdays during Lent

• Evening — Great Compline
• Morning Watches — Midnight Office, Matins, First Hour
• Morning — Third Hour, Sixth Hour, Ninth Hour, Typica, Vespers (sometimes with the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts or, on the Annunciation, the Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom)

When there is an all-night vigil

On the eves before Great Feasts and, in some traditions, on all Sundays, this grouping is used. However, the All-night vigil is usually abridged so as to not last literally "all-night" and may be as short as two hours; on the other hand, on Athos and in the very traditional monastic institutions, that service followed by the hours and Liturgy may last as long as 18 hours.

Zdroj:https://en.wikipedia.org?pojem=Byzantine_Rite
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