Earlier this week, I published an article which described the Inter-hours of the Byzantine Divine Office, a second Prime, Terce, Sext and None which are said after the main ones on certain penitential days. There are also days on which two Vespers are appointed to be celebrated, which are distinguished from each other by the terms “Little Vespers” and “Great Vespers.” As with the Inter-hours, this practice is for the most part only observed in the more liturgically energetic monasteries, and indeed, it emerged specifically because of the monastic discipline of fasting.
There is a perception in some quarters that nothing has ever changed in the Byzantine Rite, a perception which is sometimes played up for propagandistic purposes, as a way of unfavorably contrasting the drastic liturgical rupture in the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican II with the continuity of worship in the Orthodox churches. There is, of course, a very considerable degree of continuity in the history of the Byzantine liturgy, as there is in the Roman, but there have also been some very significant changes, and especially in the Divine Office. And it was one of these changes that led to the institution of Little Vespers, which became a standard part of the rite in the later 14th century. |
| The rubrics for Little Vespers, and the first part of Great Vespers, in a Greek typikon printed in Venice in 1603. |
The liturgical book that regulates the various services of the Byzantine Rite is called the typikon. During the iconoclast controversy, which wracked the Byzantine world for much of the eighth century, and broke out again for three decades in the first half of the ninth, one of the major centers of opposition to the heresy was a monastery in Constantinople called the Studion, and among the most important leaders of the opposition was one of its abbots, St Theodore the Studite (759–826). Because of its role in defeating iconoclasm, the prestige of this monastery became very great, and so its typikon came to be adopted as the standard in Byzantium. This was also the version which was first translated into Church Slavonic, and diffused among the Slavs who used the Byzantine Rite in Kyivan Rus’ and elsewhere.
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| An aerial view of the lavra of St Sabas. (Image from Wikimedia Commons by Andrew Shiva, CC BY-SA 4.0) |
However, in the Holy Land there was another very prestigious monastery, the Lavra of St Sabbas, located about eight miles from Jerusalem, which had its own version of the typikon, and its own traditions which differed from those of Constantinople in several ways. In the twelfth century, this Sabaite typikon, as it is called, was adopted by one of the monasteries on Mt Athos, and from there, came to have a strong influence on that of a very important monastery in Constantinople known as the Evergetis. In the later part of the 14th century, it was spread throughout the Byzantine world by a patriarch of Constantinople named Philotheos I, who reigned in two periods, from Aug. 1353 – Dec. 1354, and again from Oct. 1364 – Aug. 1376. He was also the author of a book called the “diataxis” (arrangement) of the holy services, and it was these two books together which made various customs of the Sabaite tradition standard in the Byzantine Rite, supplanting those of the Studite tradition.
This historical summary is taken from a very useful modern book called “The Typikon Decoded” by Archimandrite Job Getcha (pp. 42-46; St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2012). He goes on to cite an author of the 15th century, Symeon of Thessalonica (1381 ca. – 1429), who says that by his time the use of the Sabaite typikon had spread almost everywhere.
One of the customs thus introduced into general use in the Byzantine Rite was that of the “All-night Vigil” [1], the celebration of Vespers, Orthros (which has features similar to those of both Matins and Lauds in the Roman Rite), and the First Hour, one after another as if they were a single service. (This is not done every day, but on Saturday evenings, as part of the liturgy of Sunday, and on the vigils of many important feasts.) Depending on the church or monastery, the “all” in “all-night” is something of a rhetorical exaggeration, but in great houses like those on Mt Athos, not by much. As I recently noted, a friend of mine attended part of the All-night Vigil at Iviron Monastery on the feast of the Nativity of the Virgin, which began at 8pm and ended at 2am, with services resuming in the morning at 6. In cathedrals and large parishes, it is normally shortened in various ways, and typically lasts for 2-2½ hours.
The All-night Vigil for the feast of the Entrance of the Mother of God into the Temple, celebrated this past Thursday evening at the monastery of St Michael in Kyiv, Ukraine.
From time immemorial, it has been the custom of monks to take their only meal of the day after Vespers, and indeed, it is still the standard arrangement of the pertinent Byzantine liturgical books that the prayers before meals are placed between Vespers and Compline. But this poses an important practical problem for the celebration of the All-night Vigil. Byzantine Vespers is not a short service to begin with, and on major feast days, is usually lengthened by the addition of Scriptural readings, and a rite called the Litia, at which various hymns are sung, followed by some very lengthy prayers, and a blessing of bread, wine and oil. Orthros is by far the longest part of the Office as a whole. If they are to be said one after another, leaving no break for a meal after Vespers, that makes for a lot to do on an empty stomach and rather less sleep than usual.
The Sabaite tradition’s answer to this problem was to create the service of Little Vespers, in which Great Vespers is abbreviated by the complete omission of some elements, and the shortening of others. This is celebrated in the later afternoon or early evening, usually preceded by the Ninth Hour, and followed by a meal, so that the monks could maintain the tradition of fasting until Vespers, but not faint away from hunger and exhaustion during the vigil. Of course, the meal after Little Vespers would be a simple one, since it is not taken on the feast day or Sunday itself. Compline is then said (often in the church’s narthex), with a pause for some rest before the All-night vigil begins.
This table outlines the major differences between Great and Little Vespers. [2]
On Sundays, the hymns for Little Vespers are partly repeated from Great Vespers, and partly proper; on feast days, they are generally all proper, except for the final one, known as the tropar or apolytikion (dismissal hymn), which closes the service. Here are just two examples from this week.
From Little Vespers of Saturday evening, tone 7, which would be said this evening:
From Thee, all-holy Mother of God and Virgin Christ our God ineffably was born, being truly God before the ages, and of late a man, being the one eternally, become the other for our sake; for He preserveth in Himself the property of both natures, the one, shining out in miracles, the other, believed in His sufferings, whence one and the same both dieth as a man, and riseth as God; whom do Thou beseech, o holy one who knewest not wedlock, that our souls may be saved.
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| An icon of the Virgin of the Passion, by the Cretan icon painter Emmanuel Lampardos (1567-1631), so called because Mary is holding Jesus as He looks forward to His passion, represented by the Cross which the angel in the upper right hand corner is showing to him. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) |
From Little Vespers of the Entrance of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple.
David proclaimed in prophecy to Thee o Immaculate one, foreseeing the sanctification of Thine entry into the Temple, at which the ends of the earth today keep festival and glorify Thee, o all-hymned one. For the virgin before childbirth, remaining incorrupt after childbirth, o Mother of the Word of life, today as she comes into the Temple Zechariah receiveth with gladness, o Lady; and the Holy of Holies rejoiceth, taking Thee in, the nourishment of our life. Wherefore we also cry out in songs to thee: Beseech thy Son and our God for us, that great mercy be granted to us.
I add the following, because it is relevant to what one might experience in a Byzantine parish today on a Saturday or the eve of a major feast. In 1838, a chief cantor of the Orthodox church in Constantinople named Constantine issued a reformed typikon for parish use, which was revised in two subsequent editions, and then corrected by another issued in 1888, known from the last name of its author as the Violakis typikon. Among the many changes which these reforms introduced “for pastoral reasons” (ahem…) is the suppression of the vigils of the Sabaite tradition, thus making Little Vespers obsolete. This reform is now standard in Greek parishes, and spread into the Balkans, but is not generally accepted among the Eastern Slavs.
[1] In Greek, the All-night Vigil is either called “παννυχίς (pannykhis)” or “ἀγρυπνία (agrypnia)”, which means “watchfulness”; the Slavonic term is, “Всенощное бдѣнїе (vsenoschnoye bdyeniye).”[2] There are no Little Vespers for Christmas, Theophany, Easter or Pentecost, due to the specific character of Great Vespers on each of these days. The rest of the Twelve Great feasts have it, as do a number of major feasts of the Saints, such as the Nativity of St John the Baptist on June 24, and Ss Peter and Paul on June 29.
