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?

I'd like to know how long the Divine Liturgy is at other parishes. I think ours is around an hour and ten minutes, give or take. I ask because I have recently become aware of a desire of some people in my parish who would like it to be less than an hour. (One comment was "it ought to be the same length as the Roman Mass, maybe a little shorter") I personally don't think you could do it this quickly and still be reverent. Also, even though I am a recent emigre' from the Land of the 20-minute Mass, neither I nor my children would object if the Divine Liturgy was 2 hours long. (Well, maybe my sons would, if they were serving, but in the pew, no prob). We just a couple of months ago started taking the 3rd Antiphon, BTW.

I've been told my former BC parish is 45 to 50 minutes long (short).

My OCA parish is 90 minutes.

sieglinde,

be prepared to be ridiculed by those who have very short services and are embarrassed by that. They will say that you are obsessing over the length of the service and ignoring the 'important' elements. While I think that there are more important items than length of service, your question is an excellent one because I refuse to believe that one can be in and out of a Sunday Divine Liturgy in 45 minutes without some kind of short cuts taking place and it will be interesting to hear the replies.

My UGCC parish is 1 hour and 30 minutes.

Monomakh

At my Russian-Catholic parish we usually run 80 to 90 minutes,
not counting Third Hour before and Post Communion Prayers
afterwards.

Be prepared also to be ridiculed by those who make services shorter than their own sound "less authentic" or suspect.

It cuts both ways.

My home parish's hybrid liturgy is about 50 minutes, including sermon, but shortened Proskomedia.

U-C

Mine is 1 hour 10 minutes.

I think it is between an hour and ten minutes and an hour and twenty minutes.

The same at the parish I attend.

People seem to be including things other than the public part of the Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom itself. Here is my experience in my Russian Orthodox Mission Parish (i.e. services in English).

Proskomedia: 60 minutes
3rd & 6th Hours: 20 minutes
Lesser Feastday Liturgy: (no homily): 80 minutes
Great Feast Liturgy (with homily): 90 minutes
Sunday Liturgy (homily & more communicants): 105-120 minutes
Prayers of Thanksgiving: 15 minutes

Liturgy of St Basil is about 15 minutes longer, I would think.

Wow, 60 minute Proskomedia! That's longer than our entire service!

Ung

That includes, Entrance Prayers (The Kairon) of the Clergy, the vesting of the Clergy, the Proskomedia itself, and the great censing of the Church after the Proskomedia. The Prokomedia could be completed in perhaps 20 minutes without specific commemorations of individuals living and departed. I think its pretty general in the Orthodox Church to commemorate many individual names and this takes time. The Russian Church, in addition, has the custom of the faithful sending up individual prosphora with Commemoration Books or Lists. This is the longest part of my Proskomedia.

My ACROD parish has typically run an hour and a half not including the 3rd hour and concluding prayer, add 25 minutes for those. It may change since we just had a Deacon Ordained and that may shorten things a bit.

Ours is about an hour and 10 minutes, depending on if our Deacon is present, then add another 10 minutes.

If the resident Trad Lat "wannabee's" decide to go to Confession at 9:13 (our Liturgy starts at 9:15) then add 5 minutes per person, usually 4-5 members of the click... so that takes it too an hour and 30 minutes.

If we have a panachida, add 10 minutes more....

As a member of same parish, I'd like to add that ours was about the same length before the RDL. The length hasn't really changed, just the quality of the service.