The Divine Liturgy explained

[Patrick Lee]

A parishioner was showing us her copy of this book, which appears to have last been printed in 1966. Its really wonderful, as it has th Divine Liturgy in Greek and English with extensive notes about what is going on and why.

It appears that this is no longer printed. Is anyone familiar with anything similar to this?

[Michael Stickles]

Actually, assuming this is the book written by Fr. Nicholas Elias, it doesn't seem to be out of print, but the only place I found a non-used listing is at Nioras.com (http://www.nioras.com/product_info.php?products_id=90849) (Greece).

In Christ,
Mike

[Olga]

Ah, yes, the famous and indispensable "little black book"! It's most certainly in print, as every Greek church where I live still stocks it. Might I also suggest the equally indispensable "Holy Week and Easter" book, which contains complete bilingual texts for every service from Palm Sunday evening, to the Agape vespers on the evening of Easter Day. This book is also definitely still in print. (Pity there aren't similar Slavonic/English books, but I'm working on it ...)

[Patrick Lee]

As usual, if there is an answer to be found, I can find it here. Thank you very much.

I was just introduced to this title over the weekend during our Greek Festival. One of the parishioners asked if I had heard of it, and if they had anything like it that we could stock on our book cart. She had been unable to locate it (as had I).

Now I have one ordered, and if our priest approves, we'll have another great resource.

[Patrick Lee]

Might I also suggest the equally indispensable "Holy Week and Easter" book, which contains complete bilingual texts for every service from Palm Sunday evening, to the Agape vespers on the evening of Easter Day.


We use and stock the Narthex press version. This latest printing has a lot of errors, but you deal with what you have to.

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

From Olga:


(Pity there aren't similar Slavonic/English books, but I'm working on it ...)

Please, please let us know if you come up with something. The only thing I've found so far is a bilingual version of the Matins for Holy Friday (12 Passion Gospels).

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Michael Stickles]

Please, please let us know if you come up with something. The only thing I've found so far is a bilingual version of the Matins for Holy Friday (12 Passion Gospels).

I found a few English/Slavonic texts out on the 'net.

Orthodox.net has English/Slavonic parallel versions of both the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (http://www.orthodox.net/services/sluzebnic-chrysostom-es.rtf) and the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil (http://www.orthodox.net/services/sluzebnic-basil-es.rtf) in RTF format. Only the audible parts are in parallel; the rubrics and private prayers are in English only (and both look like a handful of audible parts don't have the Slavonic). Note that both are quite big (542KB and 607KB, respectively).

OrthodoxLiturgicalText.com has a page for English/Slavonic texts (http://www.orthodoxliturgicaltext.com/English-Slavonic.htm) including both Divine Liturgies (1022KB), the Hours(68KB), Pentecost Sunday Vigil (480KB), Pentecost Sunday Kneeling Vespers (101KB), the Menanion for the Dormition of the Theotokos (609KB) and the Menanion for the Nativity of the Theotokos (21KB). Sizes are for the ZIP files. Unfortunately, they are all in WordPerfect document format and these booklets do not seem to get translated properly when loaded into Microsoft Word (which the site notes, and I confirmed), so I couldn't get a good look at the contents.

PatronageChurch.com has an online parallel Psalter (http://www.patronagechurch.com/documents/GCU_Psalter/htm/57.htm), the preparation rite from the Liturgikon (http://www.patronagechurch.com/Liturgikon%20E&S/Preparation/index%20E&S%20-%20Preparation.htm) (they also have an English/Slavonic/Greek side-by-side version (http://www.patronagechurch.com/Liturgikon%20E&S/Preparation/Greek/index%20E&S&G%20-%20Preparation.htm)), and the Creed (http://www.patronagechurch.com/HTML/creed-slavonic.htm). The Psalter and Liturgikon have scans from Slavonic and English texts placed side-by-side.

FatherAlexander.org has the Pannikhida (memorial service) in parallel Slavonic/English (http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/pannihida_e.htm).

As far as printed texts, there's one at Eastern Christian Publications (https://ssl.webvalence.com/ecommerce/kiosk.lasso?merchant=ecpubs&kiosk=books&class=4) called "Leiturgikon: Christ With Us". The description says "Published in 1950, this leather-bound book of 250+ pages includes the Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom and related services in English and Church Slavonic, with both Cyrillic characters and transliterated Latin characters. Many illustrations, includes two color text with gold edged paper. $90.00." Or, if you want something a good bit less expensive, St. Tikhon's Press carries a paperback English/Slavonic Divine Liturgy Book (http://www.stspress.com/detail.aspx?ID=1165) as well.

St. Tikhon's Press also has a "Fieldguide to Orthodox Church Services (http://www.stspress.com/detail.aspx?ID=2092)". It's by a Rev Deacon Serge Arlievsky. Description: "This book is intended to be a graphical (flow-chart) approach to explaining the order of Orthodox Services in a clear, approachable manner, with parallel Russian and English text. A general "fieldguide" showing the typical Sunday (and major Feast Day) services with the variations that occur most often."

Finally, I found this online text interesting for its own sake - it's a PDF document of the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom in interlinear Greek/Slavonic/Japanese (http://www.orthodox-jp.com/liturgy/prayerbook/Liturgy_Gr_Sl_Jp.pdf) (507KB). Any Greek Orthodox out there trying to learn Slavonic or Japanese? Or Russian Orthodox trying to learn Japanese or Greek?

In Christ,
Mike

[Father David Moser]

I

St. Tikhon's Press also has a "Fieldguide to Orthodox Church Services (http://www.stspress.com/detail.aspx?ID=2092)". It's by a Rev Deacon Serge Arlievsky. Description: "This book is intended to be a graphical (flow-chart) approach to explaining the order of Orthodox Services in a clear, approachable manner, with parallel Russian and English text. A general "fieldguide" showing the typical Sunday (and major Feast Day) services with the variations that occur most often."


Let me just say that this book (I have an older edition that was hand copied) is one of the most excellent resources for anyone who is trying to understand how the various typicon services (esp. Vespers, Matins and Liturgy) are put together. The flow chart is amazingly clear and is a real boon for those who can't make heads or tails of the written explanations - it is also much more complete than any other "chart" I have seen out there (for example the charts in the preface to the Festal Menaion published by Faber an Faber). Fr Serge is a deacon in the Russian Orthodox Church, and is in his own right a gifted musician. I have had the privilege of singing under his direction on occasion. If St Tikhon's has it in stock that too is a boon since ordering directly from Fr Serge has proved "spotty" at best.

Fr David Moser

[Fr Raphael Vereshack]

Great work Mike! The one site that a lot of our people access is the page for English/Slavonic texts. This is run by Reader Michael Bishop and he puts lot of work into the site. But as you indicate since he uses Word Perfect, for those who use Word (like myself) we can't open the documents.

The Ruthenian (Eastern Rite Carpatho-Russians) site was very interesting. The Slavonic was authentic except that for some reason there were no accent marks which all of our Slavonic texts always have. Also their version of the Proskomedia shows both Uniate and pre-Nikonian influences. The Uniate influence in the saints they commemorate on the discos is to be expected. But they have a more ancient Byzantine usage in the first particle placed on the discos which is for the Angels rather than St John the Baptist as for us in the Russian tradition.

In Christ- Fr Raphael

[Olga]

Please, please let us know if you come up with something. The only thing I've found so far is a bilingual version of the Matins for Holy Friday (12 Passion Gospels).

In Christ- Fr Raphael

I have been compiling bilingual service books for our parish use for a few years now (difficult, but not impossible). At present, I have produced the Divine Liturgy, the vigils of the Twelve Feasts, vigils for some of the "lesser" feasts such as Protection of the Mother of God, Beheading of St John the Baptist, St Nicholas of Myra (patron of our church), etc. Also in the pipeline (currently in advanced draft form) are for the Great Canon of St Andrew of Crete (first four days of Great Lent, and 5th week of Lent), and the services for Holy Week and Easter.

Forum members are welcome to email me privately for more information.

[Anthony]

This is not quite answering the question, but it might be worth also drawing people's attention to the following resource:

http://www.orthodox-islington.org.uk/liturgy_commentary.htm