Ochtoechos and Horologion and Menaion...oh MY!
So, even before I moved, I started attending a Reader's class at St. Elizabeth Mission. Apparently Bishop Benjamin and Father Christopher want their new readers to be educated in more than just...well...umm reading. In essence, those of us in the class - whether we will ever be formally ordained or not - will be able to put together any given service on any given day from the raw materials. It reminds me of my first few days in an upper level Immunology class.
I think the quizzes would make for an exciting game show, seeing who could be the fastest draw:
Ok...give me a Vespers for August 1st 2007!
Pages begin flipping furiously....is it Great Vespers? Will there be a vigil? or perhaps there will be a Vesperal Divine Liturgy? How many Kathisma? Which saints and Ranks? Stichera count? (Jeopardy theme playing)
One evening after the class, they asked me to read for Vespers. I thought: Hey no worries...what the heck, how much to readers do during Vespers anyway?
Weeeellll...this apparently showed me how sheltered we can be in our own particular parishes. For at St. Paul, I really do not recall the reader doing anything for Vespers....but at St. Elizabeth (and perhaps much of the OCA?) - as I found out - the Reader is quite busy during Vespers. I only screwed up in a few places though, and that was usually because the translations were quite different....O how I missed the "rocks being a refuge for rock badgers!"
:)
All fun aside, it is fascinating to see how everything connects together and why.
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For whatever it is worth... the Reader in our Parish is a rather busy fellow during Vespers.
I must suggest another, naughtier thing for the next Reader's class. Bring the current parish bulletin along. Ask the bearded one the address of the nearest parish that does "the whole psalter in a week, twice a week in lent". For that matter the nearest one that does a whole psalm ever. Ask why. Say "Anonymous" sent you...
One is that a reader shouldn't have much to do. Perhaps the reading of Psalm 103 at daily vespers, and the OT readings. In some parishes, the readers chant the fixed prayers: trisagion prayers, etc. The rest of the responses for vespers are properly for the choir and canonarch. If the reader is flipping a lot of pages, it probably means he's doing material designated for the choir, which is to say he's no longer the reader, but also wearing the combined hat of choir/chanters/canonarch. Which is also to ask: Dude, where's your choir?
I'm strongly opposed to "Anonymous" who says that we should just go look up the rubrics at some website. That's Welfare Liturgics. What a great way to lobotomize the local leadership. No one in Church History had a pre-printed calendar spoon-feeding the rubrics. James is right to get the training to build up the services from the sources. It's the rough equivalent of teaching a man to shoot his own game, as opposed to taking his nourishment from a bottle.
James, at your prior parish, liturgical life was operating on all 8 cylinders. Well, maybe 7 of 8. This is why as a former reader at the parish, I had relatively little to do other than those things which a reader should do: psalmody and scriptural readings. I was always astonished to hear a certain well-intentioned reader friend of ours assert that this was somehow deficient. On the contrary, the mystery of your former parish is that it was more or less Russian Practice. Full Russian practice leaves relatively little for the Reader to do. At Hierarchical Services, even the NT readings are taken away from him.
"Anonymous" is right to point out the lies we tell ourselves. When was the last time a parish or even a monastery did the "full psalter every week?" 1200s? 600s? As your training probably indicates, psalmody is the underlying foundation for a service like vespers, but it has been catastrophically abbreviated. Most Orthodox Christians don't even realize they're psalm verses any more.
- Steve Knowlton
I am actually learning through the class how much Russian practice was actually used at St. Paul's. A prime example I believe is the singing of the Beatitudes.
As for the duties of the reader, I suspect you are right Steve in that with the choir still maturing we have the reader wearing multiple hats.
Someone suggested that a computer program could be written that would do all this work for you. Simply input the full date and out pops the full litany of services for that date.
While no doubt handy - especially so in a pinch - I can certainly see the benefit of knowing HOW it is put together. Sorta like being able to do SOME math in your head as opposed to relying on a calculator. I mean, what happens if - unfathomable as it may sound - the power goes out on Kitsap and I cannot access the OCA website?
It is, and you should note UNIQUE among parishes in that the Reader's parts are done by everyone. I'm thinking several years in the past, of course. It, and not the standard
practice of a Reader bellowing alone
has resulted (again, in a romantic past) in a literate congregation. Learn the book juggling, but try and ask the authorities just when they will have produced a set of books that agree with each other. Right now the OCA website is also unique.
It alone is even interested in consistant translation from a pslam verse to the things stuffed in between. Pointing this out will confuse alot of people because it has never been seen before. It makes so much sense in a place that can often make a point of being confusing.
There is some need for the jurisdictions to publish these rubrics books, *as a Guide* in explaining how, say, the Greek tradition deals with the Canon.
Another example: The OCA Rubrics book, while very helpful, assumes that everyone has the full menaion, which they don't. They assume that everyone does vigils, which they don't, Thank God. Still, it's a helpful guideline. But if one knows the underlying rules, one can avoid the occasional error in these guides, and moreover, one can know what to do if the Rector decides to not observe a commemmoration for someone like St. Michael of Khlopsk, or perhaps he wants to commemorate some Saint that is not in the Rubrics book, or wants to observe a simple weekday service.
While the jurisdictions are putting out these guidelines, all reinforcing their own narrow preferences, it's the fringe -- ROCOR and HOCNA -- that is flooding the market with MASSIVE translations of the Menaion, both of them in an English -- if one can call words like "tardiloquent" English -- that totally contradicts the English used for the fixed material.
In addition to the OCA's rubrics book, the OCA website is also pursuing a translation effort of their own, with English that is far more readible than the others, but also far less complete. They tend to provide translations of troparia, but not all the stikhera for a given observance. While helpful, this just makes the mish mash of translations more painful.
There shouldn't be any flipping during a service, especially in the digital age, when one can pre-print a service in advance. However, the research, like any research, involves a LOT of flipping and comparing.
- Steve Knowlton