The Service of Vespers
The All-night Vigil Service -- The Evening Sacrifice
Fr. Victor Potapov
Preface
CHRIST DENOUNCED THE SCRIBES of His time for elevating rituals and ceremonies to the level of exalted religious virtues, and He taught that only service offered "in spirit and in truth" (John 4:24) is appropriate to be offered to God. Denouncing the legalistic attitude toward the Sabbath day, Christ said, "The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath" (Mark 2:27). While the Savior's harshest words were directed against the Pharisaical devotion to traditional ritual form, Christ Himself visited, taught, and prayed in the Temple in Jerusalem, as did His apostles and disciples.
Not only did Christianity not abandon ritual, but also in time, in the course of its historical development, it established its own complex system of worship. Does this constitute a self-contradiction? Is not private prayer sufficient for a Christian?
Faith expressed only in the soul becomes an abstraction rather than a living faith. For faith to become a living faith, it must be realized in life. Participation in church religious ceremonies is the realization of faith in our lives, and those who not only reflect upon their faith, but also live it, of necessity participate in the liturgical life of the Church of Christ; they attend Church and they know and love the order of Church services.
In his book Heaven on Earth: Worship in the Eastern Church, Archpriest Alexander Men' explains the need for external forms of worship: "Our life, in all of its most diverse manifestations, is clothed in rituals. In the Russian language the noun "obryad" is derived from the verb that means "to dress in" or "to clothe." Joy and sorrow, daily greetings, approval, delight, and indignation, all assume external forms in human life. So what right do we have to strip these forms from our feelings toward God? What right do we have to reject Christian art and Christian rituals? The words of prayers, and the hymns of thanksgiving and repentance that poured forth from the depths of the hearts of great theologians, great poets, and creators of great melodies are not without benefit for us. Immersion into them schools the soul, educating it in genuine service to the Eternal One. Worship services lead to the enlightenment and elevation of man; they ennoble his soul. Thus, Christianity, serving God 'in spirit and truth' preserves both rituals and ceremonies."
Christian worship, in the broad sense of the term, is collectively known as liturgy; that is, communal activity and common prayer, while the science of worship is known as liturgics.
Christ said, "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I" (Matthew 18:20). One may call divine services the focus of a Christian's entire spiritual life. When a multitude is inspired by common prayer, the people find themselves surrounded by a spiritual atmosphere that enables true prayer. At that point, the faithful enter into a mystical, sacramental communion with God, a state essential to genuine spiritual life. The holy fathers of the Church teach that just as a branch broken from a tree dries up because it is deprived of the sap it needs to live, so a person severed from the Church no longer receives that strength, that grace, which lives in the divine services and mysteries of the Church, and which is essential for man's spiritual life.
Fr. Pavel Florensky, a famous Russian theologian of the early 20th century, called divine services "the synthesis of the sciences," because within the temple all of the substance of man's being is ennobled. Everything in an Orthodox church is essential: its architecture, the smell of incense, the beauty of the icons, the singing of the choir, the homily, and the actions performed.
The actions carried out in Orthodox divine services are distinguished by their religious realism; a realism that engenders a sense of immediacy in the faithful to the principal events commemorated in the Gospel by removing the barriers of time and space between the events and those who pray.
During the Nativity services, we not only remember the birth of Christ, but Christ is actually mystically born, just as He is resurrected on Holy Paskha (Easter). Similar statements can be made about His Transfiguration, His Entry into Jerusalem, the Mystical Supper, His Passion, His Burial, and His Ascension; and about all of the events in the life of the Most Holy Theotokos, from her Nativity to her Dormition. Through its divine services, the life of the Church is revealed to be the mystical accomplishment of God's Incarnation. The Lord continues to live in the Church and in the same human image which, once manifested, continues to exist throughout all time; and to the Church is given the ability to bring to life the commemorations of divine events; to endow them with power, so that we might become their new witnesses and participants. Thus all of the divine services together acquire the meaning: the life of God, and the temple, which is His dwelling place.
This begins a series of commentaries on the meaning and structure of the All-night Vigil. We hope that our work will help our readers to appreciate and love this marvelous divine service of the Orthodox Church.
In the service of the All-night Vigil, the Church conveys to the faithful a sense of the beauty of the setting sun and turns their thoughts toward the spiritual light of Christ. The Church also points the faithful toward prayerful consideration of the coming day and of the eternal light of the Heavenly Kingdom. The All-night Vigil is a service that sets before us the turning point in time between the day now passing and the day now coming.
St. Basil the Great described the aspirations that guided the ancient composers of evening hymns and prayers as follows: "Our fathers did not wish to receive the grace of evening light in silence; rather, they offered thanks as soon as it appeared."
In participating in the All-night Vigil, the faithful in a sense prayerfully bid farewell to the past and welcome the future. Moreover, in the All-night Vigil they are prepared for the Divine Liturgy and for the Mystery of the Eucharist.
As its name suggests, the All-night Vigil is a service that in principle lasts all night. True, in our times, such services, lasting all night, are infrequent, and take place for the most part in some monasteries, such as those on Mount Athos. In parish churches, an abbreviated form of the All-night Vigil is served.
The All-night Vigil transports the faithful into a time long ago, into the services of the earliest Christians. For the earliest Christians, their evening meal, their prayers and commemorations of the martyrs and of the reposed, as well as the Liturgy itself, comprised one whole; traces of these observances have been preserved even to this very day in the various evening services of the Orthodox Church. These traces include the blessing of bread, wine, wheat, and oil, as well as those times in which the Liturgy is combined in one whole with Vespers; for example, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, celebrated during Great Lent; the liturgies on the eves of the feasts of the Nativity of Christ and of His Baptism; the Liturgies of Great Thursday and Great Saturday, and the midnight Liturgy of the Resurrection of Christ.
In fact, the All-night Vigil consists of three services: Great Vespers, Matins, and the First Hour. Sometimes the first part of the All-night Vigil consists not of Great Vespers, but of Great Compline. Matins is the central and most substantial part of the All-night Vigil.
Reflecting on what we hear and see in Vespers, we are transported into the historical Old Testament times of humanity, and we experience in our hearts what those people experienced.
Knowing what is recounted in Vespers and Matins makes it easy for us to understand and learn the flow of Church services; the order in which they proceed, as well as the hymns, readings, and the religious ceremonies they contain.
Part I. Great Vespers
IN THE BIBLE WE READ that in the beginning, God created heaven and earth, and that the earth was unstructured ("unsightly" or "unfurnished," as the Holy Bible says), and that the Life-giving Spirit of God moved silently above it, infusing the earth with living powers. Great Vespers, the beginning of the All-night Vigil, takes us back to this dawning of creation.
The service begins with a silent making of the sign of the cross with the censer before the Holy Table and the censing around the Holy Table in a cross fashion. This action is one of the most profound and significant moments in all of Orthodox worship. It is an image of the movement of the Holy Spirit within the essence of the Holy Trinity. The very silence of this censing gives us an indication of the Divine eternal rest, which was from before the world existed. It symbolizes the fact that the Son of God, Jesus Christ, Who sends the Holy Spirit from the Father, is "the Lamb, sacrificed from the creation of the world." Similarly, the cross, the weapon of His saving sacrifice, also has an eternal, cosmic, pre-creation significance. In one of his homilies for Great Friday, the 19th century Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow emphasized that "The Cross of Christ … is the earthly image and shadow of the heavenly Cross of Love."
The Beginning
After the censing, the priest stands before the Holy Table, while the deacon, having gone through the Royal Doors to the ambo, stands facing the west (that is, toward the faithful), and announces: "Upright!" Then, turning to the east, he continues "Bless, Master!"
The priest makes the sign of the cross with the censer before the Holy Table, and says, "Glory to the holy, consubstantial, life-creating, and indivisible Trinity, now and ever, and unto the ages of ages."
The meaning behind these words and actions rests in the fact that the deacon, concelebrating with the priest, invites those who have gathered here to stand at prayer, to be attentive, and to "take heart." The priest is confessing the Beginning and Creator of all, the consubstantial and life-creating Trinity. In making the sign of the Cross with the censer, the priest is demonstrating that it was through the Cross of Jesus Christ that Christians were made worthy to comprehend to some extent the mystery of the Holy Trinity in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.
After the doxology "Glory to the holy," the clergy within the altar glorify Jesus Christ, the Second Person of the All-holy Trinity, by singing "O Come, let us worship God our King … the very Christ, our King and God."
The Proemial Psalm
Then the choir sings verses from the Proemial Psalm, Psalm 103, beginning with the words "Bless, the Lord, O my soul," and ending with "In wisdom hast Thou made them all." This psalm hymns the universe created by God, the visible and invisible world, and it has been an inspiration to poets from among many different peoples and historical periods. Russian 18th century poet Lomonosov restated it in verse. Its themes also resound in the ode of 19th century Russian poet Derzhavin entitled "God", and in the "Prologue to the Heavens" by Goethe.
The principal feeling imbuing this psalm is man's admiration for and contemplation of the beauty and harmonious arrangement of the world made by God. God "brought order" to the unformed earth during the six days of creation. Everything became beautiful ("God saw that it was good," Genesis 1:10; cf. 12, 18, 21, 25 [LXX]). The 103rd Psalm also expresses the idea that even the least noticeable thing in nature holds within it the most wondrous of wonders.
Censing of the Church
The censing of the entire temple takes place during the singing of Psalm 103 while the Beautiful Gates are still open. This practice was introduced into the Church so that the faithful might be reminded of the movement of the Holy Spirit above God's creation. The open Beautiful Gates at this point are a symbol of paradise; that is, of the state in which the first people lived in direct communion with God. Immediately following the censing of the temple, the Beautiful Gates are closed, just as Adam's ancestral sin closed the gates of paradise to man separating him from God.
All the rituals and hymns at the beginning of the All-night Vigil reveal to us the cosmic significance of the Orthodox temple; the temple that represents a true image of the structure of the world. The altar and the Holy Table represent paradise and heaven, over which the Lord reigns. The clergy represent the angels who serve God. The central part of the temple represents the earth and man. The clergy descend from the altar and to the faithful in much the same way that paradise was returned to man by the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus Christ. They wear shining vestments as a reminder of the Divine Light with which the garments of Christ shone on Mount Tabor.
The Lamplighting Prayers
The Beautiful Gates are shut immediately after the priest censes the church, as a reminder that with Adam's ancestral sin, the gates of paradise were shut to him, and he was estranged from God. Now fallen man, standing before the closed gates of paradise, prays for a return to the path to God. The priest, representing the repentant Adam, steps before the closed Beautiful Gates. Standing there as an image of repentance, with head uncovered and without the resplendent phelonion in which he had celebrated the festive beginning of the service, he silently reads the seven Lamplighting Prayers. These prayers, composed in the 4th century, make up the most ancient part of Vespers; in them we hear man's recognition of his helplessness and his plea for direction on the path of truth. The prayers are characterized by lofty eloquence and spiritual depth. The seventh prayer states:
"O God, great and most high, Who alone hast immortality and dwellest in light unapproachable; Who hast fashioned all creation in wisdom; Who hast divided between the light and the darkness, and has appointed the sun for dominion of the day, the moon and stars for dominion of the night; Who hast counted us sinners worthy at this present hour also to come before Thy Countenance with thanksgiving, to offer unto Thee our evening glorification: do Thou Thyself, O man-befriending Lord, direct our prayer as incense before Thee, and accept it for a savour of sweet fragrance. Grant us peace in the present evening and the coming night; array us with the armour of light; deliver us from the terror by night, and from everything that walketh in darkness; and grant us sleep, which Thou hast given for the repose of our infirmities, free from all diabolic imagining-yea, O Master of all, Bestower of good things: so that we, being moved to compunction upon our beds, may call to remembrance Thy Name in the night, and being enlightened by the meditation on Thy commandments, we may rise up in joyfulness of soul to glorify Thy goodness, offering up prayers and supplications unto Thy loving kindness, for our own sins and for those of all Thy people, whom do Thou visit in Thy mercy, through the intercessions of holy Theotokos..."
It is Church practice that during the reading of these Lamplighting Prayers, the candles and lamps within the temple are lit, an action that symbolizes the hopes, revelations, and prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the coming Messiah, our Savior, Jesus Christ.
The Great Ektenia
Next, the deacon chants the Great Ektenia. Ektenia or "litany" is a series of short prayerful requests or pleas addressed to the Lord, regarding the worldly and spiritual needs of the faithful. Ektenia is an especially fervent prayer read on behalf of all of the faithful. The choir, also acting on behalf of all of those present at the service, responds to these petitions with the words "Lord, have mercy," a phrase that, while short, is nonetheless one of the most perfect and complete prayers that can be uttered by man. It says all that there is to say.
The Great Ektenia is known for its opening words "In peace let us pray to the Lord," is, thus, also known as the Litany of Peace. Peace is an essential condition for any prayer, whether an individual or a communal church prayer. In the Holy Gospel according to Mark, Christ speaks of the spirit of peace as the basis for any prayer: "And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought [anything] against any: that your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses," (Mark 11:25). St. Seraphim of Sarov said, "Acquire the spirit of peace, and thousands around you will be saved." This is why at the beginning of the Vigil, and in most services, the Church invites the faithful to pray to God with a calm, peaceful conscience, they having reconciled themselves to their neighbor and to God.
Further on in the Litany of Peace, the Church prays for peace throughout the world, for the unification of all Christians, for our native land, for the temple in which the service is taking place, and in general for all Orthodox churches, and for them that enter the temple not out of curiosity alone but, as the litany says, "with faith, reverence, and the fear of God." We remember those who travel, the sick, the imprisoned, and we hear a request to be saved from "all tribulation, wrath, danger, and necessity." In the closing petition of the Litany of Peace we state: "Calling to remembrance our Most Holy, Immaculate, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady, Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary with all the Saints, let us commit ourselves and one another and all our life unto Christ our God." This formula encompasses two profound and basic Orthodox theological concepts: the dogma of the prayerful intercession of the Mother of God at the head of all of the Saints, and the lofty ideal of Christianity - the dedication of one's life to Christ our God.
The Great Ektenia or Litany of Peace ends with the priest's doxology, which, just as at the beginning of the Vigil, glorifies The Holy Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Psalter
As Adam stood repentant before the gates of paradise and prayed to God, so, the deacon stands before the closed Beautiful Gates and begins the Great Ektenia with the words: "In peace let us pray to the Lord…"
Adam, however, had just heard God promise that the "seed of the woman would bruise the head of the serpent" and that the Savior would come into the world, so Adam's heart burned with the hope of salvation.
This hope is expressed in the All-night Vigil in the hymn that follows. As if in answer to the Great Ektenia, a biblical psalm is heard: "Blessed is the man..." This psalm, the first psalm of the Psalter, embodies a direction and warning to the believer against taking erroneous, sinful paths in life. In most churches only few verses of this psalm are chanted followed by "Alliluya." In monasteries, not only the first psalm, "Blessed is the Man," but the entire first kathisma of the Psalter is chanted. The Greek word kathisma means "seat" or "stall" because, according to Church rules, it is permitted to sit during the readings of the kathismata. The Psalter consists of 150 psalms and is divided into 20 groups of psalms known as kathismata. Each kathisma in turn is divided into three parts, or "Glories," for each part ends with the words "Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit." The entire Psalter, all 20 kathismata, is read over the course of the services in a week. During Great Lent, the 40-day period preceding Paskha, a period during which Church prayer intensifies, the Psalter is read twice each week.
The Psalter was incorporated into the liturgical life of the Church in the earliest days after the Church was established. It occupies a position of great honor within Church life. St. Basil the Great, writing in the 4th century, stated: "The Book of Psalms includes useful material from all of the books. It has prophecies regarding the future, it calls to mind past events, it sets out the laws of life, and it offers rules for action. The psalms bring peace to the soul and order to the world. The Psalter quenches restless and troubling thoughts … is comfort from daily toils. The psalm is the voice of the Church and is perfect theology..."
In his book In the World of Prayer, Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky writes about the significance of the Psalter in Orthodox worship:
"Within the Church, the Psalter is, so to speak, Christianized. Here, many Old Testament concepts and expressions take on a new, more complete meaning. For this reason, the Holy Fathers and spiritual strugglers love to use the words of the Psalter that speak about defense against our enemies and express their thoughts on the battle with the enemy of our salvation and with the passions. Thus it is no surprise that the psalms take up such a large part of divine worship services. Each service begins with psalms, some with only one, others with three. An enormous number of verses from the Psalter are to be found throughout all of the liturgical cycles."
After the first psalm is sung, the Small Litany is chanted: "Again and again in peace let us pray to the Lord." This ektenia, a shortened form of the Great Ektenia, contains two petitions:
"Help us, save us, have mercy upon us, and keep us O God, by Thy grace.
"Lord, have mercy.
"Calling to remembrance our Most Holy, Immaculate, Most Blessed, Glorious Lady Theotokos and Ever-virgin Mary with all the Saints, let us commit ourselves and one another and all our life unto Christ our God.
"To Thee, O Lord."
The Small Litany concludes with the priest's reading of one of the doxologies appointed in the order of service.
It is known from the history related in the Bible that the voices of sorrow and hope, which had first cried at the gates of paradise after the fall into sin of our first created parents, continued to sound until the very coming of the Christ.
In the Vigil, sinful man's sorrow and repentance are expressed in the verses of the penitential psalms that are sung to special melodies and with particular solemnity.
"Lord I Have Cried Unto Thee" and the Censing
After the singing of "Blessed is the Man", and after the Small Litany, we hear the verses from Psalms 140 and 141, psalms beginning with the words "Lord, I have cried unto Thee, hearken unto me." These psalms that relate fallen man's longing for God, and his striving to truly serve God, constitute the most characteristic, distinguishing feature of any Vespers service. In the second verse of Psalm 140, we encounter the words "Let my prayer be set forth as incense before Thee" (a prayerful sigh that is known for its especially moving musical setting in the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, sung during Great Lent). The censing of the entire church takes place while these verses are sung.
What does this censing signify?
The Church answers through the words of the psalm already mentioned: "Let my prayer be set forth as incense before Thee, the lifting up of my hands as an evening sacrifice," that is to say, may my prayer ascend unto Thee [God], like smoke from the censer, and may the raising of my hands be as an evening sacrifice to Thee. This verse reminds us of that time in the ancient past when, according to the Law of Moses, in the evening of each day a sacrifice was offered in the tabernacle, that is, in the portable temple used by the people of Israel while they were moving from the bondage of Egypt to the Promised Land. The sacrifice was marked by the lifting up of the hands of one bringing the sacrifice, and by the censing of the altar that contained the Holy Tablets of the Law, which had been received by Moses from God on the summit of Mt. Sinai.
The ascent of the smoke from the burning incense symbolizes the prayers of the faithful, ascending to Heaven. When the deacon or priest censes in the direction of the faithful, they respond by bowing their heads, as a sign that they recognize it to be a reminder that the prayer of the believer, like the smoke of incense, easily rises up to Heaven. The censing of the people also reveals profound truth: the Church sees in each person the image and likeness of God - a living icon of God, as it were - and sees the betrothal to Christ received in the mystery of Baptism.
During the censing of the church, the singing of "Lord, I have cried..." continues and our congregational parish prayer joins in offering the sentiment of this psalm, for we are no less sinners than were our first parents. From the depths of our hearts, we, together with them, cry out the words "Hearken unto me, O Lord."
