Are saints still commemorated on Great Feasts of the Lord?

[jas3]

Maybe a silly question, but on Great Feast days (I'm wondering about Pentecost, specifically) are the saints who would usually be commemorated that day still commemorated? I think I remember that being the case, but it's not something I've paid close enough attention to yet where I would feel confident in my memory.

 

[ArmyMatt]

yes

 

[RileyG]

yes

Thanks, Father. I was also curious

(posting in fellowship)

 

[ArmyMatt]

no problem

 

[The Liturgist]

Maybe a silly question, but on Great Feast days (I'm wondering about Pentecost, specifically) are the saints who would usually be commemorated that day still commemorated? I think I remember that being the case, but it's not something I've paid close enough attention to yet where I would feel confident in my memory.

There is a liturgical book called the Typikon, which tells you what to do when this happens.

This book, which I can furnish you some English editions of, can vary quite a bit between jurisdictions, and even parishes and monasteries, that exists in two main forms: the Violakis Typikon from the 19th century used mainly by the majority of Greeks and Antiochians, and the older Sabaite-Studite synthesis, which exists in two broad flavors, an ancient Studite-Sabaite version used by the Russian Orthodox Old RIte parishes like The Church of the Nativity in Erie, PA which has longer services, and a somewhat newer version that is very widely used, by all the Slavonic churches, and on Mount Athos, and in Jerusalem (and the Monastery of St. Catharine in Sinai). There is also a disused Cathedral Typikon that was used at the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople and in the cathedrals in Thessaloniki and Athens until the brutal Venetian invasion of the Byzantine Empire in 1204, which has been reconstructed by Dr. Alexander Lingas, and features services that are in some respects simpler, but in other respects more demanding in terms of requiring large numbers of deacons and psaltis in order to sing. The Violakis Typikon was ostensibly inspired by this, but really its more of a simplification of the Sabaite-Studite typikon, based on local variations and liturgical customs, and it has some features that Metropolitan Kallistos Ware famously described with great understatement as “Ill advised.”

At any rate, what the Typikon does is it tells you how to celebrate the services, for example, what to do when a fixed feast coincides with the movable feasts of the Lenten-Paschal cycle. The fixed holy days are contained in the Menaion, the most important feasts of our Lord and the Theotokos being in the Festal Menaion (of which Metropolitan Kalllistos Ware, memory eternal, did a wonderful translation with Mother Mary, memory eternal), and the Monthly Menaion, which used to be inaccessible, is now online in full thanks to st-sergius.org and another site, and it contains most of the feasts for individual saints (as most of them do not rise to the level of importance to be included in the Festal Menaion). The services of Pre-Lent, Lent and Holy Week are contained in a hymnal called the Triodion, and then on Pascha, last Saturday evening at Paschal Nocturns, you switch from the Triodion to the Pentecostarion - the best Triodion translation I’ve seen is the Metropolitan Kallistos Ware edition (also with Mother Mary), which comes in two books, one of which contains the weekday services for the Pre Lent and the second through sixth week of Lent (thus, most of the Presanctified liturgies), whereas the best Pentecostarion I’ve seen is the St. John of Kronstadt, and these versions are in my library (I do not own the complete twelve volume monthly menaion in print format, in part because of the problems I’ve been having handling books; but I do have digital access to it, both through st-sergius.org and another resource.

St-sergius.org also contains a Triodion, Pentecostarion (the Russians call it the Flowery Triodion, which is a misnomer, because the Triodion takes its name from the Triodes, distinct three-ode canons sung at Matins on the weekdays in Lent, not to be confused with the type of vacuum tube, whereas there are no Triodes in the Pentecostarion. But if you abbreviate the Canon during Bright Week so as to sing only two of the eight odes, you get a Light-Emiting Diode.

By the way, with the older typikon, and do not use the Revised Julian Calendar, but rather the Julian Calendar or the Gregorian Calendar something really special happens when Pascha and the Annunciation happen on the same day: a Kyriopascha. This last happened in 1991, and will next happen in the 2070s.

However, the Finnish Orthodox use the Gregorian Calendar, but they also use the traditional Typikon, more or less (the Finnish church is not as traditional as I would prefer), so in theory, they should be celebrating a Kyriopascha in the 2030s, I think in 2034.

 

[The Liturgist]

Also @jas3 St. John Cassian, who is much loved in the Orthodox Church, has a feast day on February 29th. I was surprised when I first found that out, but its actually kind of cool - the Typikon does make provisions for what to do in non-leap years (and on the Julian calendar, every fourth year is a leap year, so the date is not as unreasonable as it seems, historically speaking). In non-leap years, his commemoration, or specifically the longest part of it, the Canon from Matins, is done at Compline on the 28th, which is particularly elegant since St. John Cassian is known as a monastic saint par excellence, and Compline concludes the monastic day, and is the last office before the monks enter the Great Silence until getting up for Nocturns, Matins and the Divine Liturgy (at St. Anthony’s and other monasteries that do most of their liturgies at night; but again, the Typikon can vary from monastery to monastery - for instance, New Skete monastery uses a typikon based on the aforementioned Cathedral Typikon and some very unusual liturgical practices, some of which I like, such as frequent celebration of the Divine Liturgy of St. James, and some of which I dislike, such as over-simplficiation of the liturgy, removal of repetition, and some cuts to the divine office. Part of the reason for their distinctive office is the preference of the monks at New Skete, but part of it is also the way they sustain themselves - they breed german shepherds, for which they are internationally renowned, and so part of their schedule is driven by the need to take care of their dogs.

I seem to recall some German Sheperds at St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence, in a kennel near the house that would be used by visiting bishops and Elder Ephrem.

However, St. Anthony’s, like most Orthodox monasteries, has very large numbers of cats. I don’t know if they have a lot of cats at New Skete as I haven’t been there. But on Mount Athos and at many other famous Orthodox monasteries, cats are everywhere, and I love it.

Some monasteries, where local authorities have stupid rules limiting the number of cats, still have cats, the maximum number allowed. St. Barbara Monastery in Southern California has a really beautiful golden tomcat who is extremely gentle and who enjoys following the guests and nuns around and purring at them.

In Orthodoxy we really love cats, and also trees.

 

[jas3]

Interesting, so I'm guessing the OCA would use the newer version of the Sabaite-Studite typikon?

 

[The Liturgist]

Interesting, so I'm guessing the OCA would use the newer version of the Sabaite-Studite typikon?

Yes, unless it has a Russian Old Rite parish I am unaware of. But in Alaska and elsewhere there are parishes in the OCA whose liturgy is extremely traditional and indistinguishable from ROCOR parishes (except for the fact that ROCOR parishes seem to not like to use red vestments as much as the OCA or MP on Pascha after the Paschal Matins, but during the Paschal Divine Liturgy, and during Eastertide; ROCOR and the MP conversely hang up the green vestments much sooner after Pentecost, whereas some OCA parishes use them until the Transfiguration).

Interestingly, the Typikon itself in its unmodified form will only say whether to use light or dark vestments, so all liturgical color schemes are supplemental liturgical practices that can be specific to a jurisdiction or monastery. And some places don’t have the luxury of adhering to a rigidly defined scheme. Surprisingly, at St. Anthony’s Monastery in Florence, AZ, which I love, where they use Athonite style phelonions (chasubles or copes) like ROCOR and most of the OCA, I was told they use whatever vestments are on hand - red stoles were used during the hours and for the people to venerate, and during a typical divine liturgy I saw blue and gold vestments being used.

This reminded me of our Oriental Orthodox brethren in the Syriac Orthodox church, who sometimes will use coordinated colors like ours, for example, at St. Mark’s Cathedral in New Jersey, but elsewhere will frequently use a colorful mix of vestments, sometimes even color coordinated.