The Liturgical Structure of the Great Lent
To understand the
various liturgical particularities of the Lenten period, we must remember that
they express and convey to us the spiritual meaning of Lent and are related to
the central idea of Lent, to its function in the liturgical life of the Church.
It is the idea of repentance. In the teaching of the Orthodox Church however,
repentance means much more than a mere enumeration of sins and transgressions
to the priest. Confession and absolution are but the result, the fruit, the
"climax" of true repentance. And, before this result can be reached,
become truly valid and meaningful, one must make a spiritual effort, go through
a long period of preparation and purification. Repentance, in the Orthodox
acceptance of this word, means a deep, radical reevaluation of our whole life,
of all our ideas, judgments, worries, mutual relations, etc. It applies not
only to some "bad actions," but to the whole of life, and is a
Christian judgment passed on it, on its basic presuppositions. At every moment
of our life, but especially during Lent, the Church invites us to concentrate
our attention on the ultimate values and goals, to measure ourselves by the
criteria of Christian teaching, to contemplate our existence in its relation to
God. This is repentance and it consists therefore, before everything else, in
the acquisition of the Spirit of repentance, i.e., of a special state of mind,
a special disposition of our conscience and spiritual vision.
The Lenten worship
is thus a school of repentance. It teaches us what is repentance and how to
acquire the spirit of repentance. It prepares us for and leads us to the
spiritual regeneration, without which "absolution" remains
meaningless. It is, in short, both teaching about repentance and the way of
repentance. And, since there can be no real Christian life without repentance,
without this constant "reevaluation" of life, the Lenten worship is
an essential part of the liturgical tradition of the Church. The neglect of it,
its reduction to a few purely formal obligations and customs, the deformation
of its basic rules constitute one of the major deficiencies of our Church life
today. The aim of this article is to outline at least the most important
structures of Lenten worship, and thus to help Orthodox Christians to recover a
more Orthodox idea of Lent.
Sundays of
Preparation
Three weeks before
Lent proper begins we enter into a period of preparation. It is a constant
feature of our tradition of worship that every major liturgical event –
Christmas, Easter, Lent, etc., is announced and prepared long in advance.
Knowing our lack of concentration, the "worldliness" of our life, the
Church calls our attention to the seriousness of the approaching event, invites
us to meditate on its various "dimensions"; thus, before we can practice
Lent, we are given its basic theology.
Pre-lenten
preparation includes four consecutive Sundays preceding Lent.
1. Sunday of the
Publican and Pharisee
On the eve of this
day, i.e., at the Saturday Vigil Service, the liturgical book of the Lenten season
– the Triodion makes its first appearance and texts from it are added to the
usual liturgical material of the Resurrection service. They develop the first
major theme of the season: that of humility; the Gospel lesson of the day (Lk.
18, 10-14) teaches that humility is the condition of repentance. No one can
acquire the spirit of repentance without rejecting the attitude of the
Pharisee. Here is a man who is always pleased with himself and thinks that he
complies with all the requirements of religion. Yet, he has reduced religion to
purely formal rules and measures it by the amount of his financial contribution
to the temple. Religion for him is a source of pride and self-satisfaction. The
Publican is humble and humility justifies him before God.
2. Sunday of the
Prodigal Son
The Gospel reading
of this day (Lk. 15, 11-32) gives the second theme of Lent: that of a return to
God. It is not enough to acknowledge sins and to confess them. Repentance
remains fruitless without the desire and the decision to change life, to go
back to God. The true repentance has as its source the spiritual beauty and
purity which man has lost. "…I shall return to the compassionate Father
crying with tears, receive me as one of Thy servants." At Matins of this day
to the usual psalms of the Polyeleos "Praise ye the name of the Lord"
(Ps. 135), the Psalm 137 is added, "By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat
down, yea we wept, when we remembered Zion... If I forget thee, O Jerusalem,
let my right hand forget her cunning..." The Christian remembers and knows
that what he lost: the communion with God, the peace and joy of His Kingdom. He
was baptized, introduced into the Body of Christ. Repentance, therefore, is the
renewal of baptism, a movement of love, which brings him back to God.
3. Sunday of the
Last Judgment
(Meat Fare)
On Saturday,
preceding this Sunday (Meat Fare Saturday) the Typikon prescribes the universal
commemoration of all the departed members of the Church. In the Church we all
depend on each other, belong to each other, are united by the love of Christ.
(Therefore no service in the Church can be "private".) Our repentance
would not be complete without this act of love towards all those, who have
preceded us in death, for what is repentance if not also the recovery of the
spirit of love, which is the spirit of the Church. Liturgically this
commemoration includes Friday Vespers, Matins and Divine Liturgy on Saturday.
The Sunday Gospel
(Mt. 25, 31-46) reminds us of the third theme of repentance: preparation for the
last judgment. A Christian lives under Christ’s judgment. He will judge us on
how seriously we took His presence in the world, His identification with every
man, His gift of love. "I was in prison, I was naked..." All our
actions, attitudes, judgments and especially relations with other people must
be referred to Christ, and to call ourselves "Christians" means that
we accept life as service and ministry. The parable of the Last Judgment gives
us "terms of reference" for our self-evaluation.
On the week
following this Sunday a limited fasting is prescribed. We must prepare and
train ourselves for the great effort of Lent. Wednesday and Friday are
non-liturgical days with Lenten services (cf. infra). On Saturday of this week
(Cheesefare Saturday) the Church commemorates all men and women who were
"illumined through fasting" i.e., the Holy Ascetics or Fasters. They
are the patterns we must follow, our guides in the difficult "art" of
fasting and repentance.
4. Sunday of
Forgiveness
(Cheese Fare)
This is the last
day before Lent. Its liturgy develops three themes: (a) the "expulsion of
Adam from the Paradise of Bliss." Man was created for paradise, i.e., for
communion with God, for life with Him. He has lost this life and his existence on
earth is an exile. Christ has opened to every one the doors of Paradise and the
Church guides us to our heavenly fatherland. (b) Our fast must not be
hypocritical, a show off. We must "appear not unto men to fast, but unto
our Father who is in secret" (cf. Sunday Gospel, Mt. 6, 14-21), and (c)
its condition is that we forgive each other as God has forgiven us – "If
ye forgive men their trespasses, your Heavenly Father will also forgive
you."
The evening of that
day, at Vespers, Lent is inaugurated by the Great Prokimenon: "Turn not
away Thy face from Thy servant, for I am in trouble; hear me speedily. Attend
to my soul and deliver it." After the service the rite of forgiveness
takes place and the Church begins its pilgrimage towards the glorious day of Easter.
The Canon of
St. Andrew of Crete
The Great Canon of
St. Andrew of Crete. On the first four days of Lent – Monday through Thursday –
the Typikon prescribes the reading at Great Compline (i.e., after Vespers) of
the Great Canon of St. Andrew of Crete, divided in four parts. This canon is
entirely devoted to repentance and constitutes, so to say, the
"inauguration of Lent." It is repeated in its complete form at Matins
on Thursday of the fifth week of Lent.
Weekdays of
Lent – The Daily Cycle
Lent consists of
six weeks or forty days. It begins on Monday after the Cheese Fare Sunday and
ends on Friday evening before Psalm Sunday. The Saturday of Lazarus’
resurrection, the Palm Sunday and the Holy Week form a special liturgical cycle
not analyzed in this article. The Lenten weekdays – Monday through Friday –
have a liturgical structure very different from that of Saturdays and Sundays.
We will deal with these two days in a special paragraph.
The Lenten weekday
cycle, although it consists of the same services, as prescribed for the whole
year (Vespers, Compline, Midnight, Matins, Hours) has nevertheless some
important particularities:
(a) It has its own
liturgical book – the Triodion. Throughout the year the changing elements of
the daily services – troparia, stichira, canons – are taken from the Octoechos
(the book of the week) and the Menaion (the book of the month, giving the
office of the Saint of the day). The basic rule of Lent is that the Octoechos
is not used on weekdays but replaced by the Triodion, which supplies each day
with,
— at Vespers – a
set of stichiras (3 for "Lord, I have cried" and 3 for the
"Aposticha") and 2 readings or "parimias" from the Old
Testament.
— at Matins – 2
groups of "cathismata" ("Sedalny," short hymns sung after
the reading of the Psalter), a canon of three odes (or "Triodion"
which gave its name to the whole book) and 3 stichiras at the
"Praises," i.e., sung at the end of the regular morning psalms 148,
149, 150 – at the Sixth Hour – a "parimia" from the Book of Isaiah.
The commemoration
of the Saint of the day ("Menaion") is not omitted, but combined with
the texts of the Triodion. The latter are mainly, if not exclusively
penitential in their content. Especially deep and beautiful are the
"idiornela" ("Samoglasni") stichira of each day (1 at
Vespers and 1 at Matins). And it is a sad fact that so little of the Triodion
has been translated into English.
(b) The use of
Psalter is doubled. Normally the Psalter, divided in 20 cathismata is read once
every week: (1 cathisma. at Vespers, 2 at Matins). During Lent it is read twice
(1 at Vespers, 3 at Matins, 1 at the Hours 3, 6 and 9). This is done of course
mainly in monasteries, yet to know that the Church considers the psalms to be
an essential "spiritual food" for the Lenten season is important.
(c) The Lenten
rubrics put an emphasis on prostrations. They are prescribed at the end of each
service with the Lenten prayer of St. Ephrem the Syrian, "O Lord and
Master of my life," and also after each of the special Lenten troparia at
Vespers. They express the spirit of repentance as "breaking down" our
pride and selfsatisfaction. They also make our body partake of the effort of
prayer.
(d) The Spirit of
Lent is also expressed in the liturgical music. Special Lenten
"tones" or melodies are used for the responses at litanies and the
"Alleluias" which replace at Matins the solemn singing of the
"God is the Lord and has revealed Himself unto us."
(e) A
characteristic feature of Lenten services is the use of the Old Testament,
normally absent from the daily cycle. Three books are read daily throughout
Lent: Genesis with Parables at Vespers. Isaiah at the Sixth Hour. Genesis tells
us the story of Creation, Fall and the beginnings of the history of salvation.
Parables is the book of Wisdom, which leads us to God and to His precepts.
Isaiah is the prophet of redemption, salvation and the Messianic Kingdom.
(f) The liturgical
vestments to be used on weekdays of Lent are dark, theoretically purple.
The order for the
weekday Lenten services is to be found in the Triodion ("Monday of the
first week of Lent"). Of special importance are the regulations concerning
the singing of the Canon. Lent is the only season of the liturgical year that
has preserved the use of the nine biblical odes, which formed the original
framework of the Canon.
Non-Liturgical
Days
The Liturgy of the
Presanctified Gifts
On weekdays of Lent
(Monday through Friday) the celebration of the Divine Liturgy is strictly
forbidden. They are non-liturgical days, with one possible exception – the
Feast of Annunciation (then the Liturgy of St. Chrysostom is prescribed after
Vespers). The reason for this rule is that the Eucharist is by its very nature
a festal celebration, the joyful commemoration of Christ’s Resurrection and
presence among His disciples. (For further elaboration of this point cf. my
note "Eucharist and Communion" in St. Vladimir’s Quarterly, Vol. 1,
No. 2, April 1957, pp. 31-33.) But twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays, the
Church prescribes the celebration after Vespers, i.e., in the evening of the
Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (cf. the order of this service in I.
Hapgood, The Service Book, pp. 127-146.) It consists of solemn Great Vespers
and communion with the Holy Gifts consecrated on the previous Sunday. These
days being days of strict fasting (theoretically: complete abstinence) are
"crowned" with the partaking of the Bread of Life, the ultimate
fulfillment of all our efforts.
One must
acknowledge the tragical neglect of these rules in many American parishes. The
celebration of the so called "requiem liturgies" on non-liturgical
days constitutes a flagrant violation of the universal tradition of Orthodoxy
and cannot be justified from either theological or pastoral points of view.
They are remnants of "uniatism" in our Church and are in
contradiction with both – the Orthodox doctrine of the commemoration of the
dead and the Orthodox doctrine of Eucharist and its function in the Church.
Everything must be done in order to restore the real liturgical principles of
Lent.
Saturdays of
Lent
Lenten Saturdays,
with the exception of the first – dedicated to the memory of the Holy Martyr
Theodore Tyron, and the fifth – the Saturday of the Acathistos, are days of
commemoration of the departed. And, instead of multiplying the "private
requiem liturgies" on days when they are forbidden, it would be good to
restore this practice of one weekly universal commemoration of all Orthodox
Christians departed this life, of their integration in the Eucharist, which is
always offered "on behalf of all and for all."
The Acathistos
Saturday is the annual commemoration of the deliverance of Constantinople in
620. The "Acathist," a beautiful hymn to the Mother of God, is sung
at Matins.
Sundays of Lent
Each Sunday in
Lent, although it keeps its character of the weekly feast of Resurrection, has
its specific theme, Triodion is combined with Octoechos.
1st Sunday —
"Triumph of Orthodoxy" — commemorates the victory of the Church over
the last great heresy – Iconoclasm (842).
2nd Sunday — is
dedicated to the memory of St. Gregory Palamas, a great Byzantine theologian,
canonized in 1366.
3rd Sunday —
"of the Veneration of the Holy Cross"– At Matins the Cross is brought
in a solemn procession from the sanctuary and put in the center of the Church
where it will remain for the whole week. This ceremony announces the
approaching of the Holy Week and the commemoration of Christ’s passion. At the
end of each service takes place a special veneration of the Cross.
4th Sunday —St.
John the Ladder, one of the greatest Ascetics, who in his "Spiritual
Ladder" described the basic principles of Christian spirituality.
5th Sunday — St.
Mary of Egypt, the most wonderful example of repentance.
At the conclusion
of this brief description of the liturgical structure of Lent, let me emphasize
once more that Lenten worship constitutes one of the deepest, the most
beautiful and the most essential elements of our Orthodox liturgical tradition.
Its restoration in the life of the Church, its understanding by Orthodox
Christions, constitute one of the urgent tasks of our time.
An article by Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann
