www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Tropars and kontaks for uncommon commemorations

Hello!

Forgive me if this is a silly question.

I am beginning to intuit that there are whole levels of forgotten and underused saints and celebrations on the calendar that have not been "suppressed" so much as fallen into desuetude.

I am working on a project where these could be very helpful. Can anyone point me to any resources, either on-line or in hard copy? Especially if they contain tropars and kontaks ....

UGCC would be most ideal, but whatever comes close would be profoundly appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Booth

Well, the Byzantine Rite provides one or more saints' commemorations for each day of the year; each Church has its own version of this calendar, with ranks assigned to each saint depending on his or her perceived "notability". Here is the calendar for the Byzantine (Ruthenian) Archeparchy of Pittsburgh:

Calendar of Saints [metropolitancantorinstitute.org]

The church book called the Typikon gives the rules for combining these commemorations with Sundays, feast days, etc. For example, on an ordinary Sunday, you will not normally hear about the saint of the day at the Divine Liturgy, unless the saint's day is one of a higher rank; but you WILL sing hymns in honor of the saint on Saturday evening.

Also - a minor saint who is normally eclipsed by a more important saint on the same day, may still be celebrated in a major way in churches dedicated to him or her.

Here is one source you can use: the Byzantine Catholic Church has a set of books, one per month, but the a short biography of each day's saint(s), along with troparia and kontakia. Go to

Metropolitan Cantor Institute publications [metropolitancantorinstitute.org]

and scroll down to "The Byzantine Monthly Menaion". Here is the volume for June:

June menaion [metropolitancantorinstitute.org]

Not every saint has has or her own troparion, and even when they do it may not be available in English. So the Byzantine Rite provides a set of common hymns for each CLASS of saint: apostles, martyrs, monastics, etc. These hymns can be found in the Divine Liturgies book for the Byzantine Catholic Church:

Common of Saints for the Divine Liturgy [metropolitancantorinstitute.org]

(Other books contain the common stichera for Vespers.) I am fairly sure that the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church has similar materials in English, but I don't have them at hand.

So:
1. There are lots of saints, and saints' hymns, in the Byzantine Rite.
2. Which ones are commemorated depend on Church, local custom, and presider's preference. Layfolk, of course, can commemorate any saint they choose!

Yours in Christ,
Jeff

Reminds me of being in an OCA parish when they went from the "old" to the "new" calender and had commemorations at one time for all the saints who were caught in the middle.

Booth - there are troparia and kondakia in the UGCC Anthology for groups of particular saints as well as commemorations for other occasions that can be used. Several websites of UGCC parishes and eparchies, including the Eparchy of Edmonton http://www.edmontoneparchy.com/ have troparia and kondakia as well.

Thanks very much to everyone.

I was speaking to my pastor about this topic, and he said a lot of them remain untranslated from Slavonic.

One of the ones I'm looking for is for the feast of the Dedication of the Cathedral of St. Sophia in Kyiv. Rare stuff like that ... can't find it in English anywhere.

An Orthodox friend told me a woman surnamed Hepburn or something like that translated about every Eastern Christian hymn to English while she was an expatriate in Russia, just out of interest as she was not Orthodox. Maybe you could check this source out, though I forget the woman's name.

That would be Isabel Hapgood, but even she didn't translate many of the minor feasts and commemorations.

The Troparion and Kontakion for the dedication of a church, which is also the troparion for the "model" of dedications, namely the Church of the Resurrection on September 13/26, is as follows:
Troparion, Tone 4: As you revealed from above the splendour of the heavens, so you revealed on earth the splendour of the house of your holy glory. O Life and Resurrection of all, make it stand firm for ever and accept in it the pleas which we continually offer you through the Theotokos.
Kontakion, Tone 4: The Church has been declared a heaven filled with light, which guides all the faithful to the light; standing in it we cry: Establish (some translations say "Make Firm") this house, O Lord.

While the original day of dedication during the time of Yaroslav the Wise is not agreed upon, the day of re-dedication of St. Sophia on the Feast of the Nativity of the Mother of God (September 8/21) by St. Peter Mohyla is usually kept as the date of dedication.