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I was wondering where one can find the canons for the liturgy. I have the BDW and in Matins and Complines (I think) they have references to inserting here the proper canon for the day at some point in these liturgical services. I think BDW only has the resurrection canon and maybe one or 2 others.

How many canons are there actually? And is there a prayer book where one can find them?

Thank you,

John

John, there are MANY canons in the Byzantine tradition, probably thousands if you comiled all of them. The Canon is one of the unique and distinctive elements of Byzantine hymnography.

St. John of Kronstadt Press, www.sjkp.org [sjkp.org] has a 4-volume set of the Oktoechos with the canons for Matins and Compline for every day of the week in the eight tones. The Uniontown 'Office of Matins' also has the canons for Sundays and weekdays, however these are abbreviated.

For feast days, these canons will be contained in a Festal Menaion. For the Great Fast, these canons will be contained in the Triodion. Between Pascha and Sunday of All Saints these canons will be contained in the Pentecostarion.

Fr. John Whiteford has compiled on-line liturgical resources at http://pages.prodigy.net/frjohnwhiteford/horologion.htm He has wonderful versions of the Reader's Services as well as helpful notes on how to follow them.

Also if BDW is all you have for the present Archbishop Raya has included the Canon to the Theotokos in his "Paraclisis" towards the back of BDW which you can use.

Thanks Diak...taht's great information...I'll see if I can get my hands on some of those liturgical books you mentioned.

God bless...

John

The Melkite Eparchy also has the complete Octoechos in 4 volumes-- I like this set better than Kronstadt Press because the language is less awkward...you and your instead of thee and thou. If you go to their website www.melkite.org [melkite.org] and click in left column under "sophia press" publications, there is an entire list of liturgical books-- complete 12 month menaion, tridion, pentecostarion, etc.

Check it out,
Dan

Dan, your points about the Melkite translation are well taken. Their Menaion is a nice set of books, although again abbreviated compared to some other versions available. New Skete also has newer translations of some of the services.

One comment on the the Melkite books. The Melkite books are metered for Melkite/Greek chant and may need some adjustment if being used with a Slavic chant system like samoyilka, prostopinje, obikhod, Kyivan, Bulgarian, etc. If you are going to plain chant these, no big deal. But if you are going to sing them in proper Slavic tones, again, some adjustment may need to be done relative to say a SJKP or Uniontown translation. The same goes for Bishop Kallistos Ware's translations which he made with Greek chant in mind.

Agreed, Diak, since I'm not very gifted with melody, simple chant is all I use.

I just compared Ware's Triodion with Uniontown, and amazingly enough, Uniontown's is much more complete than Ware's edition (there are services listed for each day, although abridged. Ware's edition seems somehow incomplete-- it's missing many of the weekday services. I do like the Melkite and Uniontown translations personally, plus they are abbreviated just enough, as I don't have the time to pray the complete office on a daily basis, they were also less expensive than the complete Menaion, Octoechos, etc. from Kronstadt Press.

There is a supplement to Ware's triodion that includes all the weekday texts. I know that it is carried by SJKP. They also have a second supplement, around $5 that has a few compline canons and a couple other texts not carried by the other two books.

In the Slavic usage there is nothing more complete than the St. John of Kronstadt Menaion. But at over $100 per volume for 12 volumes it gets pricy.

Danj, for the texts of the 12 feasts themselves (the vigil and the feast day) Kallistos is more comprehensive. For example he includes the second and third canons for Matins which Uniontown only includes one in the Festal Menaion, as well as the texts for Little Vespers, etc.

However Kallistos does not include the pre and post festal periods, as Uniontown does include some of these, and Uniontown also includes some of the lesser feasts of polyeleos rank as well.