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Hi there. Curious to know if there are any recommendations insofar as a copy of the Horologion (in print rather than online) goes. Which is the "best" one if one wanted something to say for the major offices of the weekdays, Saturdays, Sundays, Feast days, etc?

My understanding is that the offices included in the book, Byzantine Daily Worship, are incomplete, but I haven't heard in what way -- ie. perhaps that means the minor offices are excluded.

I have seen other copies from the likes of St. Tikhon's Seminary press as well: e.g. The Horologion, or Book of Hours. Any comments on this?

Glory to Jesus Christ!

Byzantine Daily Worship is pretty good, actually. What it lacks is propers-it has some, but not all. But don't let that discourage you, no one book has all the propers. I think it has all of the hours.

Others on this list will recommend either the Jordanville Horologion or another one (Greek) that is twice the price, but only contains a little more material. I think St Tikhon's has a Horologion as well. These three are the best, as they are actual monastic Horologia. They contain all the ordinary for all services inside and outside of Lent, as well as pre- and post-communion prayers and canons. The services contained are Vespers (Small and Great for Feasts/Sunday, daily and lenten*), Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, Great and Small Complines, Midnight Hour (this varies to some degree according to season and day of the week), Orthros (Feasts/Sunday, daily and lenten), the small hours, the Interhours for the Great Fast, Typika, Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom, and DL of St Basil. I think that covers most of it.

In Christ,
Adam

*lent here refers to days when Alleluia is sung at Orthros-namely the four fasts, when it is appointed during these seasons.

Glory to Jesus Christ.

Dear Shawn, there are about half a dozen English editions which are readily available.

By far the most complete in English is the Holy Transfiguration Monastery's Mega Horologion or Great Book of the Hours. This has all of the Hours, Lenten and non-Lenten in addition to troparia and kondakia for every day, etc. according to Athonite [Greek monastic] usage. It is about 120 dollars.

The Jordanville Unabbreviated Horologion is much less [about 40 dollars] and contains a wealth of material for that price, including the lenten and non-Lenten Hours, preparation for Holy Communion, various canons, Panagia, morning and evening prayers, verses for Magnifications Velichannya, propers for weekdays and feastdays, etc.

It is the English translation of the Unabbreviated Horologion printed at the Pecherska Lavra in Kyiv before the 1917 Revolution. For the Slavic tradition, it is the best and most complete Horologion out there. I use this at home and it is used occasionally in my parish.

The St. Tikhon's Horologion is similar in content to the Jordanville, but much larger. It is larger because it contains the variations for feast days as separate services, whereas Jordanville may just have a note on the variations.

For example, for Vespers the St. Tikhon's Horologion contains separately the order for regular weekday Vespers, Great Vespers served apart from Matins, Vespers with Vigil [Small Vespers and then Great Vespers], Vespers during the Great Fast, and Vespers during the Apostles Fast [as a guide for lesser fasts].

So, as you might imagine, by the time you put in services like Vespers several times, the book becomes very thick. But, on the other hand, the variations are all there. One neat thing about the St. Tikhon's is for Vespers they include some cool variations on doing Psalm 103, such as the Valaam usage, variations on "Blessed is the Man" from the First Kathisma, etc. This one is about 60 dollars or so.

There is also now an English edition of the Ukrainian Basilian Molitvoslov available from the Eparchy of Stamford. It is a new edition and it costs 100 dollars. At that price it is much less complete than either Jordanville or St. Tikhon's.

A really nice little softback one that is very reasonable [15 bucks or so] is put out by the ACROD and is called "The Hours of Prayer". It contains the Midnight Office for weekdays, Saturdays and Sundays, a common of Vespers and Matins, all of the Little Hours with Lenten variations for the little Hours, daily prayers, Small Compline, and a couple of Canons and Akathists.

There are some neat reproductions of lithos in this ACROD book from the 1793 Pochaiv Molitvoslov, and the "Hours of Prayer" basically follows the content of the old Pochaiv Molitvoslov. Because of its size, I can keep this one in a briefcase or bookbag when at work.

The Sisters of St. Basil the Great have a five-volume set of books in English with the commons and propers for most of the year. These books are targeted for Vespers and Matins, and lack many of the other services. The Byzantine Fransciscans also printed a multi-volume Horologion. This later became the inspiration for the New Skete Horologion [some of the former Byz. Franciscans started New Skete] and follows a more modern English translation and order.

There are several others with portions of the Horologion, such as the Old Believer Prayerbook which has the Little Hours, and some portions of Vespers and Matins.

Of course, in addition to the Horologion itself there are other supplements such as the Oktoechos, Triodion, Pentecostarion, Psalter, etc. that are needed if one is doing the "entire" cycle. In reality unless one is a monk or hermit and has access to all of the books, it is simply not practicable to pray the entire Byzantine monastic Horologion.

If you are just starting praying the Hours it may seem quite overwhelming. A good way to start is with one Little Hour per day, and perhaps Small Compline. Get comfortable with a couple simple services, make them part of your prayerlife and then move on.

Also do this under the guide of a spiritual father who can gauge your readiness to take on more ascetic tasks. I apologize for my rambling, and I hope that helps somewhat.

Diak,
You mentioned in the above post: The Byzantine Fransciscans also printed a multi-volume Horologion.

Do you know where I can get a copy of this Horologion?? I have volume I, I believe it was published in 1967 by the Franciscan's in New Canaan, CT. But I need volume 2, as that is where the Lenten/Pascha services are located. Also, was the Franciscan Horologion ever updated and a later printing than 1967? I know in the Uniontown Matins book, the Sisters thank the Byzantine Franciscan's of Sybertsville, PA for permission to use parts of their Horologion-- I wrote them several months ago asking if they have any of their Horologions for sale, but never received a reply.

God's blessings!
Dan

Danj, you can try Elaine at Icon and Book Service, www.iconbook.org [iconbook.org]

You can also try the monastery itself at http://www.rpmwebworx.com/holydorm/contact.html
My Volume II came from the monastery but that was probably 15 or more years ago. I understand "officially" they are out of print.

One will occasionally also see these floating around used on ebay.

As for a 1-volume edition a lot of people mention Raya's Byzantine Daily Worship, which I have. Now I see that the Ukrainians have their edition of the Divine Office in English (1373 pp., Bible paper, padded leather-bound) for $100 + $5 shipping. Has anybody here seen this one? If so, how does it compare with Raya's?

Porter (acutal name)

Porter, in content the Ukrainian Divine Office has more propers for Vespers and Matins such as for the Menaion, Triodion and the Pentecostarion, than BDW.

It also has some Matins propers in the eight tones which Raya doesn't have, along with the Midnight Office for weekdays and Sundays [abbreviated] along with Typika [Obednitsa] which Raya doesn't have. Raya does include the Oktoechos stikhera and apostikha for Vespers, but not for Matins.

But at $100 it is a pricy proposal, especially considering it contains many abbreviations and some juxtopositions used specifically by the Basilians, such as a different order of psalms for some offices like Royal Hours, some different readings, etc. compared to most horologia.

Raya, on the other hand, does include the Divine Liturgy texts for Chrysostom, Basil and Presanctified along with Akathist, Paraklisis, etc. The Ukie Divine Office book contains no Liturgies nor the popular paraliturgical services of the Akathist or Paraklisis.

If I had to pick only one between the two, I would definitely go with Raya and pick up supplementary material [Oktoechos, Triod, etc] as you go along.

Fr. John Whiteford has some good tips for building a liturgical library at http://www.saintjonah.org/services/library.htm
You can even download quite a nice Reader's Horologion right off his site. I know several people I have sent to his site have downloaded and spiral-bound his Reader's Horologion and use it daily.