www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy Franciscan Horologion

I recently just acquired a copy of the Franciscan Horologion (volume 2) that was published in the 1960s.

In it, there is: Akoluthia for Angels, John the Baptist, the Holy Cross, Saint Nicholas, etc, which obviously corresponds to the weekly cycle.

I am guessing this is like "ordinary propers," if you don't have the material for the saint of the day, such as when you use the troparia of the weekly cycle and kontakia of the day of the week.

There appears to be material for both Vespers and Matins. Is this correct?

I've never seen material like this before.

I decided to compare the text to services in the online Menaion I use and basically, the services for the St. Nicholas of Myra and the Holy Apostles (Thursdays on the weekly cycle) are the same as given here. The same is true for the service for the Synaxis of the Archangel Michael and all the Bodiless Powers.

So basically, the Menaion services that corresponds to the weekly cycle are in the Horologion.

Is this an unusual practice for when one does not have the service material for the day? I'm honestly not certain. (I figured the first part out).

These same services were in the Roman Časoslóv [metropolitancantorinstitute.org] (Horologion in Slavonic) and in the more Latinized one from Zhovka.

I think it's fair to say that these weekday services replaced BOTH the Menaion (for ordinary days) and the weekday Octoechos, or book of eight tones. In effect, it allowed the Horologion to serve as a one-volume liturgical prayerbook, like the Roman breviary.

In Christ,
Jeff Mierzejewski

Using a general Menaion is not an uncommon practice for saints when a specific Menaion cannot be obtained. Several prayerbooks/zborniki/molitvoslovs also "composite" weeday services in the manner you describe, with one set of services per day rather than the propers for every day of the week according to the Octoechos and Menaion/General Menaion.

The Zhovka Molitvoslov (reprinted in English as the Stamford Horologion), contains the daily Octoechos for Vespers and Matins for each day of the week rather than the "composited" daily services in that volume of the Franciscan books. The Franciscan books also contain a very different translation of the Psalter that is not in common use anywhere.

Is the Stamford Horologion still in print and available?

Spasi Khristos.

Spasi Khristos!

Fr. Mark, the Stamford Horologion is no longer in print. There have been rumblings about another print run through the Basilian Press but nothing yet has materialized.

Thanks for the responses.

Weren't there a number of drawbacks to the Stamford Horologion? I was advised a while back to just get the Raya book instead, which is what I did and I'm pretty content with it.

The print is small and some of them were not bound well. But in terms of having excerpts from the Octoechos, Menaion, Pentecostarion, Triodion, General Menaion, Troparia, Theotokia, etc. in one volume there isn't anything else that contains that much material - far more than Byzantine Daily Worship. But then again I used the Ukrainian Molitvoslov from Zhovka long before the English Stamford edition came out and was used to that format.

No doubt BDW still stands up well (it was one of the first three English prayerbooks I owned). But in reality nothing is going to be quite perfect just because of all the material needed, peculiarities in particular usage (Melkite, UGCC, etc.), differences in translation, etc. Even if you owned twenty or so volumes there will still be some complications. When you find something that works and is spiritually appealing, stick with it as consistency in prayer is a large part of the battle. I also very much like the Horologion published in Erie by the Old Ritualist parish of the Nativity.

It is the Jerusalem Bible Psalter, which is unusual because in countries with a JB Lectionary the Psalms are usually from the Grail.