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Holy Week
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HOLY AND GREAT WEEK The following pages will eventually contain the full offices for Holy and Great Week, starting with Palm Sunday. Matins and Vespers for each day are ready, but the Canons for Compline await completion. From Monday Morning we give every service in full, so that the user does not have constantly to turn back, for example to find the Stichera for Vespers in the preceding Lauds. However, the Hours and Typika for the first three days are given once only, on Monday. Apart from the Sixth Hour, the only differences between them are the Kontakion and the Kathismata of the Psalter. The full Service of the Anointing [The Euchelaion] is available in the Euchologion, to which I give a hyperlink here. As many churches do not boast a deacon, I have, for the moment, put the word Priest throughout. Similarly, I have used various names for the non-clerical participants: People, Singers, Choir, Reader. As there are many local variations in the way the services are celebrated, it is not possible to mention every possibility. The texts are translated from the full Greek Triodion, without many of the abbreviations that are currently customary in many Greek churches. I have however made use of the 1990 edition of the Holy Week Book edited by Protopresbyter Konstantinos Papagiannis from the Apostoliki Diakonia in Athens. This edition, though incorporating the contemporary shortenings and the deplorable rearrangement of Saturday Matins, which has even affected the Holy Mountain, makes some first tentative steps to be a critical edition. His work on the Enkomia for Matins of Great Saturday is particularly important for those who sing the text to the traditional Greek melodies. The translation of these into English has been made, on the the basis of my original draft, by David Melling, and each troparion has been rendered so that it fits exactly to the Greek melody. For almost the complete music for Holy Week in English in downloadable PDF format go to David Melling's Music pages: http://www.church-music.co.uk/EOChant.htm/ I have indicated in a number of places the instructions in the Russian Typikon, particularly with regard to the patristic readings. Most have these have disappeared from the Greek books. Where possible I give hyperlinks to available translations, but much remains to be done. |
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All texts and
translations on this page are copyright to This page was last updated on 06 April 2001 |