"Coming to the West of the Sun"
At the end of the Theotokos, the song “Quiet Light”, amazing in its touching and depth, is sung (in the book of hours it is usually listed as the creation of St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, but the history of hymnography testifies that it appeared much earlier).
However, no matter who the author of this chant is, it, as the remarkable Athonite ascetic of the 20th century, Elder Ephraim of Katunak, put it, is “a great speculation.” Unfortunately, this “speculation” remains practically incomprehensible for many believers who do not know the Church Slavonic language well and do not have the diligence to look once again at the corresponding dictionary.
And this is its meaning.
“Quiet light of the holy glory of the immortal Father in Heaven, holy, blessed...” - this is about the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son and Word of God, who is, as it were, a “quiet light” of the ineffable glory of His Heavenly Father.
“Having come to the west of the sun, having seen the evening light...” - this is about us, people whom the Lord again vouchsafed to live to see the sunset, to see its dim, “quiet” evening light. And we, filled with a feeling of gratitude, “sing to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, God.” And at the same time, turning to Christ, we testify to the immutable truth: “You, the Son of God, the Giver of life, are worthy to be sung at all times by the voices of the saints; therefore the whole world praises You.”
This song is directly related in meaning to the verses of the psalms sung before: if they contain a prophecy about the coming of the Lord to earth, then here they speak of His appearance that has already taken place. About that appearance in which, for the sake of the weakness of people, He moderated the light of His Divine glory (descended from heaven, became human, and this is how He became a “quiet Light”) and became accessible to every repentant sinner. He became accessible - like the sun, which is impossible to look at when it is at its zenith, and which we, nevertheless, calmly look at when it is leaning toward sunset.
“Thou hast created all wisdom”
After the exclamation of the priest, Blessed be our God always, now and ever and unto ages of ages, and the usual beginning at Vespers, the 103rd Psalm , which is otherwise called the pre-initial Psalm (since it begins Vespers, and therefore, along with it the entire daily circle). In it, in bright poetic images, in touching picturesque paintings, the creation of the world is glorified, the Lord, its Creator and Provider, is glorified.
The psalmist ascends in his thought to God, who dresses himself in light, like a robe (cf. Ps. 103:2), recalls the creation of heavenly ethereal forces - he created His angels, spirits, and His servants, a fiery flame (Ps. 103:2), the beginning of visible existence , the material world, is amazed at its original beauty and splendor. And, briefly calculating what can testify to the greatness and perfection of the Divine plan, he exclaims in delight: For Thy works have been magnified, O Lord; You created all things with wisdom! (Ps. 103, 24).
During the reading of the psalm, the priest performing the service, leaving the altar, stands with his head uncovered in front of the closed royal doors and secretly, that is, to himself, reads the so-called prayers of light (they are called so because they are read in the evening, when the natural light fades and the time comes to light lamps). Thus, the priest portrays himself as both Adam, mourning his fall before the gates of paradise closed for him and his descendants, and the Intercessor promised by God for the entire human race - Christ the Savior. The main content of the prayers of light is praising God for His mercies towards us, confessing our weakness and sinfulness, asking that the Lord not be angry and punish us for the iniquities we have committed, thanksgiving for the day lived under the protection of God and a request that in the remaining Evening and night time will continue to be preserved for us in peace and to remain unharmed from evil.
“Let us hear it, wisdom, let us hear it...”
Next, at the daily vespers, the prokeimenon is heard, which is a specially selected psalm verse. Literally translated from Greek, this word means “presenting”, and this explains the liturgical purpose of the prokemena: initially it always preceded the reading of the books of the New and Old Testament (this is also indicated by the exclamations before the prokemena: “Let us attend. Peace to all. Wisdom, let us attend.” Let us take heed - that is, we will be attentive. The teaching of the world is the teaching of the grace of God, without which it is impossible to truly understand the Holy Scripture. “Wisdom, let us heed” - some wisdom will be spoken, which must be heeded). However, now such reading is provided for by the charter not at every evening service, but only on those days when the polyeleos is celebrated at Matins or when the all-night vigil is served. But the prokeimenon and the exclamations preceding it at Vespers, however, are preserved. Moreover, each day of the week has its own prokeimenon (say, on Saturday evenings - “The Lord reigns, clothed with beauty”, on Sunday evenings - “Behold, now bless the Lord, all servants of the Lord,” etc.). And although it seems that in this case they do not fulfill their immediate purpose, their deep meaning still requires due attention and treatment of them as “wisdom”.
Vespers
- Vespers
- Now dost thou release thy servant, O Master.”
- All pages
The first service in the daily cycle is Vespers. Vespers can be of several types: daily - it is performed most often on days when there is no celebration with polyeleos or all-night vigil; small - according to the Charter, it should be performed on the eve of holidays and Sundays before the vigil (in practice, it is not performed almost anywhere, except in some monasteries); Great Vespers is served on the eve of the days when a polyeleos or vigil is scheduled (in conjunction with Matins, which forms the all-night vigil, or separately from it). The service of Vespers is quite small in scope, but its importance still requires a certain thoroughness, which is why we will have to divide the story about it into two parts.
Evening prayer
After the prokemna, there is a reading (or, depending on the tradition of a given temple) of a prayer, which is usually briefly entitled “Grant, O Lord.” It, like the chant “Quiet Light,” is very important for understanding the essence of the evening service. If in “Quiet Light” we thank God for the fact that we have been given one more day and remember His merciful descent upon us, then here we ask that in the remaining time of the passing day the Lord will grant us “to be preserved without sin.” We pray that the Lord will not deprive us of His mercy, because we trust in Him and no one else, and at the same time we humbly say: “Do not despise the work of Your hand (that is, the work of Your hands—us”). We ask as a gift that He would teach us by His “justification” (that is, His commandments, His commandments, and their fulfillment). And again we glorify the one God in the Trinity - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
We can say that this prayer is more fully revealed in the litany of petition that follows. In common parlance, it is sometimes called “Let us fulfill”, since it begins with the call “Let us fulfill (in the sense of adding, completing) our evening prayer to the Lord.”
Its distinctive feature is the completion of each of the petitions by singing in chorus the words: “Give, Lord.” The blessings for which we ask God at this time are a “perfect, holy, peaceful and sinless” evening, the presence in our lives of a “peaceful, faithful angel, guide of our souls and bodies,” “forgiveness and remission of sins and transgressions,” everything that can be “good and useful to our souls,” including the end of “the rest of our life (that is, our life) in peace and repentance.” And then - a worthy Christian death, “painless, shameless, peaceful,” and after it the most important thing - “a good answer at the Last Judgment of Christ.”
This litany ends with the same exhortation as the peaceful one: “Having remembered our Most Holy, Most Pure, Most Blessed Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary with all the saints” (that is, remembering their constant intercession for us and prayerfully turning to them), both ourselves and each other friend, and in general, to betray your whole life, as it were, into the very hands of Christ.
From the beginning of the world to the times of the fulfillment of prophecies
The service of Vespers is primarily associated with the remembrance of the times of the Old Testament: from the very creation of the world to the coming of Christ the Savior to earth.
In it, before the mental gaze of a believer, the main events of Old Testament history pass through: the beginning of the existence of the world and the blissful, unclouded stay of Adam and Eve in paradise, their falling away from God and the promise of the coming Messiah, given to them as a consolation, as well as the very life of the Old Testament man with his faith in the mystery of the redemption of the human race through the death of the Only Begotten Son of God, which will one day be revealed.
The evening of the day naturally seems to come closer, being compared in the evening service with the evening of our life, thereby reminding us of the inevitable end of the earthly existence of each of us - about death, prompting us to ask God, as the greatest mercy, to grant us a peaceful Christian death.
This content of Vespers is revealed in detail in those prayers, chants and sacred rites that constitute the evening service.
“Let us pray to the Lord in peace”
At the end of the opening psalm, the great , or, in other words, peaceful, litany sounds , which is pronounced by the deacon, and if he is not at the service, then by the priest.
The Greek word litany means “spreading.” Usually a litany is a series of prayer petitions that serve as a development or extension of short petitions: “Lord, have mercy,” “Give, Lord” (there are various litanies, we will talk about them and how they differ from each other below).
This litany is called peaceful because its first petitions speak of the peace that we ask from God. (Here we must, of course, understand that when we say the words “let us pray to the Lord in peace,” we do not mean that we are going to pray “with the whole world.” What is meant is a peaceful state of spirit. And that “peace from above”, about which we teach We further ask God for the peace bequeathed by Christ to His disciples: Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you [John 14:27]). It is called great because of the large number of petitions it contains.
In this litany we pray for the sending of “peace to the world”, for the temple and for those present in it, for the church hierarchy and for the secular authorities, for the country and the city in which we live, and in general for every country and every city and those living in them believers. We ask in it that the Lord grant us the “abundance of the fruits of the earth” necessary for life, we especially intercede for those who are in trouble: about “the sailors, the traveling, the sick, the suffering and the captives”, we pray that God will deliver us ourselves from “all sorrow, anger and need,” and simply - he had mercy and saved, which is probably the completeness of all our petitions. It would not be an exaggeration, perhaps, to say that the peaceful litany covers all the basic needs for which a person asks God for help on earth.
End of the day... end of life
At the end of the litany and the exclamation of the priest that concluded it, the so-called “stichera on the verse” are sung again. In fact, in their character they are almost no different from the stichera on “Lord, I cried,” the only difference being their location in the sequence of Vespers. In the same way, the singing of each of them is preceded by the proclamation by the canonarch of a psalm verse determined by the charter (only before the first stichera, not the psalm verse is proclaimed, but its first words). Only in this case there are only three stichera (on Sunday - four), and then the “slavnik” also follows, that is, the stichera for “glory”, and for “and now” - Theotokos.
In the stichera on the stichera, saints glorified by God are again sung, or some sacred event that saves people is remembered. By this, the Church arouses in the soul of a believer the desire to seek and truly find the bliss that the Lord has prepared for the righteous.
After the stichera, we hear the prayer of one of these saints of God, Simeon the God-Receiver, which has become an integral part of every Vespers (depending on the degree of solemnity of the service or local traditions, it can also be either sung or read). “Now you are releasing Your servant, O Master, according to Your word in peace...” It was revealed to the righteous Simeon that he would not die until he himself saw Christ come to earth. This promise was fulfilled, and the Lord “released” him from a sorrowful earthly life into a blissful eternal life, so that, just as Simeon received Him in the form of a Child in his arms, he could accept his holy soul into the arms of His love.
“For my eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared before the face of all people, a light for the revelation of tongues, and the glory of Your people Israel,” Simeon further testifies. That is, my eyes saw You, who came to save the whole world, every person, the Light, which will enlighten the pagans with the knowledge of the truth and will be glory for those faithful to God from among the Jews.
This song is, as it were, the voice of all the righteous of the Old Testament, who with their spiritual eyes also saw the Savior they longed for. But at the same time, it is also a reminder for us about the end of our own lives, an encouragement to think about what we will go into eternity with: will we be able to say, like the righteous Simeon, “Now let us go... in peace,” or sorrow from the consciousness of our unpreparedness for death will take possession of us.
After this, troparions of dismissal are heard - special short hymns dedicated to the saints or holiday remembered on this day of the year, which also ends with the Theotokos, a troparion in honor of the Mother of God.
Then another litany is pronounced, which is called the august one - the choir responds to each of its petitions not just once, but three times by singing “Lord, have mercy.” Her character largely determines her first petition: “Have mercy on us, O God, according to Your great mercy, we pray to You, hear and have mercy.” We ask for God's mercy to our hierarchy and all our “brethren in Christ,” the country, its people, authorities and troops, the creators of the temple in which the service is performed, and all those who work in it and do good to it.
At this point, Vespers ends, and if it does not connect with Matins, then dismissal is pronounced (that is, the words of the priest, after which the people are “dismissed” and can leave the temple): “Christ our true God, through the prayers of His Most Pure Mother, the glorious saints, the apostles, the saints and the righteous Godfather Joachim and Anna and all the saints, will have mercy and save us, for he is good and a lover of mankind.” On vacation, the saint of the temple, the saints whose memory is celebrated on this day, and the saints of the day of the week are also usually remembered. For the twelve feasts of the Lord and for some days of Great Lent there are special holidays.
