Compline

Beautiful

Well, here we are! On the evening of the first day of Great Lent, we went to Compline. In the churches I’ve been familiar with, Compline is offered every Monday night in Lent. I recommend it to anyone who’d like to just spy out a little Orthodox worship.

First, because it’s all prayers and psalms and no scary stuff for Protestants.

Second, it’s not going to be crowded.

Third, it’s an evening service with low lighting and many candles.

And fourth—I honestly don’t know express this. It’s beautiful in an unstudied, simple way. It’s serious, even solemn, but also comfortable, like being at home. It’s like we’re all working together to create something beautiful, as beautiful as we can. I’m having a hard time thinking of how to identify what this quality is. Maybe you should go see for yourself.

I got this from Sdn David Mathewes’s Facebook

(Stolen from this 2015 movie.)

I should have posted this last week, Cheesefare Week, which some people call Ice Cream Week. It’s the week when we have given up meat until Pascha, but can still have dairy, until the following Sunday which inaugurates Great Lent. I find it’s dairy that I miss the most in Lent. Here’s my son David’s lament for the last day of Cheesefare Week, Forgiveness Sunday.

Tonight (Wednesday) most Orthodox churches will offer the service that is many people’s favorite of the year. It is officially the “Liturgy of the Pre-Sanctified Gifts,” but we call it “Pre-Sanctified” for short. The term refers to the fact that this is a Eucharistic service, and we will receive communion, but the bread and wine are not consecrated during the service. On the previous Sunday the priest consecrated an extra “lamb” to use at the Pre-Sanctified.

I should explain that Orthodox use a round loaf of bread, called Prosphora, for the Eucharist. Just flour, water, yeast, and salt. People in the congregation take turns baking it, with prayers.

Once the dough is risen, the baker presses on top an incised seal like this:

(Don’t worry, it puffs up again) From the website of St. John the Evangelist Church, Beaver Falls, PA

The IS XS are the initials Iesous Xristos (Jesus Christ), and NIKA, which you recognize from Nike ads, means Victor, that Christ is victorious over death. On Sunday, before the Liturgy, the priest cuts the center from the loaf, like a cube, and that is what is consecrated for us during the service. On Sundays in Lent, he consecrates two lambs, so there’s one ready for the Wednesday night Pre-Sanctified. (Some churches have another Pre-Sanctified on Friday morning; that priest consecrates three lambs on Sunday.)

This is another service, like Compline, that is candle-lit and intimate and extraordinarily beautiful. I don’t mean just the words of the prayers or the singing, but the whole thing; when it all fits together, it’s one of the most beautiful events of the year. For many people, Pre-Sanctified is their favorite service (next to Pascha). There are only six of these, only six Wednesday nights in Lent, and I treasure them.

The next service will be Friday night, when we’ll have a shorter version of Compline combined with the beginning of the Akathist Hymn. (There are many Akathist Hymns, but this was the first one, written in the early 500s. It’s known as the Akathist Salutations to the Virgin.”) We’ll do four Friday nights, with a fourth of the Akathist at each one.

There are 24 stanzas in the Akathist Hymn, and this icon surrounds the Theotokos with a smaller icon depicting each one.

The Akathist Hymn is a lovely chanted prayer-poem that follows the life of Christ from the angel’s Annunciation to Mary, through to his flight into Egypt. The Akathist is mostly addressed to Mary, the Theotokos, God-bearer, and mostly reflecting in awe that God would choose to become incarnate. So for four weeks we do one-fourth of the Akathist, and in the fifth week we do the whole thing. (Some churches don’t do the one-fourths, but only the whole thing in the fifth week, so check local listings.)

That will be enough to get you through this week! Hope you can go to some of the services!