www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy How long is your Divine Liturgy now?

Father, I assume you also do All-Night Vigil the night before a Divine Liturgy. How long is that?

I've always wondered why Russian and ROCOR services seem so long. (Not that it is bad, I actually like the idea that losing oneself in liturgical prayer hasn't disappeared yet from our planet.) I listened to a recording of a ROCOR hierarchical Divine Liturgy and the All Night Vigil preceding and each took 3 hours of nearly non-stop singing (and I'm pretty sure the recordings didn't cover everything)! And one of the posters here, who formerly stayed at Jordanville, told me in a PM that the daily Divine Liturgy in Jordanville takes 2 hours 15 minutes. I also read that Jordanville's daily Vespers and Matins in the afternoon and early evening last 2.5 hours.

As for the reason why length is important: the length of a liturgy is a pretty good indicator of the quality of that liturgy's celebration -- of the ars celebrandi, if you will. The liturgy has its own cadence, its particular rhythm, and to unduly shorten or lengthen it always impacts on the quality of the celebration and of the worship offered.

Speaking from a Latin Catholic perspective, I can give the following indicative lengths for a well-done Mass:

Novus Ordo -- recited, no homily: 20 - 25 minutes
-- recited with short homily: 25 - 30 minutes
-- more solemn celebrations (always with homily and some singing, normally for Sundays and feasts): 45 minutes to 1 hour. Sometimes, a priest feels like giving a 30-40 minute homily, so the Mass goes into overtime of 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Of course, when its a big event, lots of clergy (perhaps even a bishop) and there are multitudes of communicants, Mass can last up to 1 hour 45 minutes. John Paul II's masses at St. Peter's basilica often lasted about 90 minutes while Pope Benedict XVI often takes about 1 hour 45 minutes.

Tridentine -- Low Mass: 30 - 40 minutes (in old monastic and parish horaria and in some trad Benedictine monasteries to this day, private low masses are strictly limited to 30 minutes)

-- Missa Cantata: 45 minutes (the shortest possible time while still maintaining a decent pace and without cutting anything, from my experience), 50 mins to 1 hour 10 mins (normal length, with short sermon), 1 hour 20 (or 30) minutes, when the priest feels like giving a long sermon and when there is a lot of deliberately slow movement.

I've heard of solemn Pontifical Tridentine Masses that lasted 2 - 3 hours, but the length is due to the large number of communicants, the huge numbers of servers, the mistake of not a few that gravitas means being very slow, and other elements that artifically lengthen the rite.

From my experience, priests who are well-versed in celebrating the Tridentine Mass celebrate much faster than priests new to it, for the simple reason that the latter are more unsure and therefore slower and more deliberate in their movements. There is also the general absence of the "high-speed Latin gabble" so beloved of some older priests. I think this is the reason why Tridentine Masses today are reputedly much longer than the Masses actually celebrated prior to Vatican II.

Thank you all for responding....I'd also like to add that we have what I think I've seen called 'pre-cut' prosphora which our priest brings from the Sisters in Uniontown - our priest is also their chaplain and resides there. So we have no true Proskomedia. Also no Hours before the Divine Liturgy, and antidoron (sp?) and mirovanije only on feast days, not every Sunday. I think if we sang at the proper tempo it would take off perhaps 5 minutes overall. Sometimes people sing slowly and drag the tempo a bit in comparison to the recordings of the new music I've heard. Also we have no Deacon, only altar boys. I think there may be a couple of members of this forum who used to attend my parish (St. Mary's Holy Protection in Morgantown, WV), perhaps they'd be willing to say how long the Divine Liturgy was when they were here?

We clock in about 1:45 on a normal Sunday, 2:30 or so if the bishop's there, I think... It might not be that long, though. ACROD parish.

I've been to Jordanville myself, too, and I recall the Saturday morning liturgy being maybe an hour and a half at most. It takes awhile for all the clergy to Communicate in Jordanville, it seems.

I was taught a long long time ago to not wear a watch to church -- something about chronos vs. chiros, if memory serves me. So my times might be suspect. But I KNOW our services push 2 hours, because there's a clock in the basement and I see it when I go for coffee.

3rd & 6th Hours about 20 minutes
Divine Liturgy another 80 minutes

ACROD parish

HAving a deacon cuts our communion time in half... having one has shaved 5-10 minutes off per liturgy.

One difference I observed in the Russian Church when I came to it from the Antiochian was that Russians do not expect the clergy communion to be brief. It does seem to be very unrushed in the Russian Church. In fact in some Russian churches where there are multiple clergy, the sermon is preached at this point in the Liturgy. Hmm.

Fr David Straut

Interesting. The HTM Jordanville website indicates [jordanville.org] that Midnight Office, Morning Prayers and Divine Liturgy take about 2.5 hours.

Having a deacon actually increases the time somewhat at the Communion of the clergy.

You may mean that the deacon is distributing Holy Communion from a second chalice at the same time as the priest distributes from the first. If that is so, it is not a traditional Eastern practise. So what if Holy Communion takes 5, 10 or 20 minutes longer? It is the deacon's job to assist the priest at Communion. If there's a deacon at the Liturgy, I don't read the Gospel - it's his job. Since there has to be a priest at a Liturgy, it's the priest's job to distribute the Holy Gifts, not the deacon's.

One sees all sorts of surprising people distributing Holy Communion in Latin Rite churches, not to mention fiddling around with the Holy Table and sacred vessels. I think it is practises like this that form as real barrier to unity with the Orthodox as doctrinal issues.

Fr David Straut

The Vigil Service in my parish usually takes about 2.5 to 3 hours, with 2.75 being a good average.

The Vigil Service is a very practical service. The clergy, the core choir members, and a few die-hard pious people are there from beginning to end. The majority are present from (around ) the beginning of Great Vespers through the veneration of the Gospel at Matins, i.e. the first few Odes of the canons. There are a few that come just for Vespers, fewer that come just for Matins. There are even those who don't make it for much but the First Hour at the end. But one way or another, the congregation for Vigil is about two thirds of that for the Divine Liturgy on Sunday morning, and is almost equal to that of Liturgy on a Feastday morning.

Fr David Straut

On a typical Sunday morning, from the beginning of Orthros to the receiving of Antidoron, our service (adding on a mnymosyno here and there at the end, and/or a forty day blessing) can take anywhere from two to two and a half hours. As beautiful as our Sunday service is, when we finally get downstairs for coffee hour, one feels that one has really earned it! (Especially me, because I am not a morning person, and I really need a cup of coffee or tea to help me get going, and without it on Sunday mornings, I am a little spaced out at times).

On the other hand, yesterday we had a Divine Liturgy in our chapel, at my and my husband's request, for St. Xenia of Petersburg. Father had a nice young convert priest from nearby St. Vladimir's Seminary officiate. The whole service from beginning of Orthros to the receiving of antidoron took about one hour and ten minutes . It was quite nice. Ofcourse there were only four attendees, so the communion line was considerably shorter...and the choir was not present, there was only one chanter, and no sermon was said, etc.....

After that I left for work and I felt spiritually refreshed and nourished the rest of the day.

In Christ,
Alice

Father,

I am not sure I follow (or I misunderstand) the correlation between the priest having to be at DL and making the distribution of communion his job as a result.

As far as I understand, the distribution of communion by deacons is fully allowed in the Ruthenian Church - that being the case, discussing the merits or debating its appropriateness may be better served by forming a new thread to that end.

How the Roman practices were brought into this or what function that serves, seems odd and unclear to me. IMHO, how the Romans opt to handle this practice seems pretty well far down the list of impediments in discussions between intercommunion... Then again, I don't sit in on the dialogues, so maybe it has been offered "We'd love to heal this fracture, but just can't so long as you use EMs!" Again, a new thread might be started to discuss that, but I am not really certain how that sensitive issue (aspects of it, I don't like either, and have been happy to note a decline in that trend locally) is pertient.

-Simple

An hour and three quarters to two hours usually at my OCA mission parish for Liturgy itself, with twenty minutes beforehand for the Hours, and maybe 5-10 minutes afterwards with the post-communion prayers being read.

Tim

Ours is too short. It is missing some verses of the antiphons and litanies.

Oh yes, I forgot about that, we only take one verse of the antiphons at the beginning, and none of the optional litany midway through....and none of the optional additions to the other litanies.
I'd have to say the only real 'extra' we take now is that at the end when we sing "Many Years" we do it first in English and then always do it again in Slavonic. I am happy about that.