Prayer Rope and Liturgy Question

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gmcbroom

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Hello All,
I honestly can’t remember if this question has been asked before or not I used serach and couldn’t find it so I’ll ask here.
Can a Chokti ever be used as a substitute when one can’t go to Divine Liturgy? If so, how many times. I know the Jesus prayer is what is prayed, but no idea what else? I don’t intend to use it to avoid DL just to further my devotion to our Lord.
I look forward to the day we’re all united East West, Protestant, Orthodox, Catholic.
 
According to Orthodox Wiki, various services can be replaced with certain numbers of Jesus Prayers in certain traditions, especially the Russian.

I’ve seen, but can’t find at the moment, a reference that, in the case of being unable to attend the divine liturgy, it was 1500 recitations of the Jesus Prayer, each with a full prostration, and another 1500 for matins… meaning Sunday morning services were replaced with 3000 Jesus Prayers with prostrations.
 
Aramis said:
According to Orthodox Wiki, various services can be replaced with certain numbers of Jesus Prayers in certain traditions, especially the Russian.

I’ve seen, but can’t find at the moment, a reference that, in the case of being unable to attend the divine liturgy, it was 1500 recitations of the Jesus Prayer, each with a full prostration, and another 1500 for matins… meaning Sunday morning services were replaced with 3000 Jesus Prayers with prostrations.
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I have never heard of replacing the Divine Liturgy with use of the chotki.

Matins requires 1500, Vespers and Midnight Office 600 each, Compline 400 and the hours 1000. There is nothing official setting up these numbers it is just the common practice.
 
Aramis said:
According to Orthodox Wiki, various services can be replaced with certain numbers of Jesus Prayers in certain traditions, especially the Russian.

I’ve seen, but can’t find at the moment, a reference that, in the case of being unable to attend the divine liturgy, it was 1500 recitations of the Jesus Prayer, each with a full prostration, and another 1500 for matins… meaning Sunday morning services were replaced with 3000 Jesus Prayers with prostrations.
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I can’t imagine the person who would be able to do 1,500 full prostrations! Try doing 40 and tell me what you think. 😉
 
gmcbroom said:
Ok how exactly would it be done? Would it be Jesus prayer Prostrate then 2nd Jesus prayer then prostrate?
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That’s the normal understanding.

And having done 33, it’s hard. Heck, the dozen at the end of lenten vespers is rough for many people. Do the “typical Russian Monk’s” 100… and you will be getting fit.
 
So for a Latin it’s a mortal sin to miss Mass… but all a Russian has to do is 1,500 full prostrations? And I suppose you have to have fasted since the night before. 🙂

I started doing squats at the beginning of Great Lent to get ready for Kneeling prayers and we ended up with a very modified version, tho there were plenty during the evenings of the Great Canon. “You know you’re Orthodox if…” you have rug burns on your forehead during Great Lent.

I love your Prayaerobics, Michael! 😃 I’m trying to figure out is that Father Deacon with the megaphone…
 
Dear Friends,

The closest thing to the use of the Jesus Prayer as a “substitute” for the Divine Liturgy is the number of times it is said to replace the order of Typika - the short service that laity especially can recite that includes the daily Epistle and Gospel readings and some other prayers from the Liturgy. This follows the Sixth Hour (and in areas where priests are hard to come by, a Deacon may serve this together with the distribution of Holy Communion, as per the blessing of the Bishop). The recitation of the Prayer 100 - 300 times would suffice for the Typika.

This brings up what I’ve always found to be a fascinating question - the different ways in both East and West whereby the daily Office can be replaced by other prayers. In the East, in addition to the Jesus Prayer, one may say a kathisma of the Byzantine Psalter for each of the eight hours (but two minimum for Matins). Or one may use divisions of 12 psalms for each hour (as this is done in the Coptic Alexandrian tradition). 3,000 Jesus Prayers would suffice for the daily Office (with 6,000 for the entire Psalter).

The East, especially on Mt Athos, has the tradition of using 150 Our Father’s for the Office as well as 150 Hail Mary’s with prostrations.

One may also use prostrations with the Jesus Prayer to replace the Office where one makes the Sign of the Cross to the words of the Prayer: Lord (touching the forehead), Jesus Christ (touching the lower chest) Son of God (touching the right shoulder) have mercy on me (the left shoulder) a sinner (a bow or a full prostration to the floor). Old Believers and others use a pillow on which to place their hands and head when they make the prostration (there is even an ancient prohibition against calling attention to oneself in church by “banging” one’s head audibly on the floor!). The number of prostrations per Hour include 300 for Matins, 200 for vespers and nocturns, 150 for compline and 50 for each of the lesser Hours.

The Eastern daily rule of Prayers and prostrations gives 600 Jesus Prayers and 300 prostrations. Practically, monastics do this by gathering in church in the evening. The ihumen/abbott intones the Jesus Prayer three times and then the monastics make thirty prostrations to the Jesus Prayer (and with prayer ropes in the left hand, freeing the right hand to make the Sign of the Cross). Then they stand and recite the remaining 70 Prayers in silence. They repeat this ten times.

There is also the Eastern rule of replacing the Office with Canons and Akathists - three Canons and Akathists (of any kind) for Matins, then four Canons and Akathists for the remaining Hours for a total of seven Canons and Akathists.

The Eastern Slavic Church has developed the All-Night Akathist Rule where, following the nocturnal Hour at midnight, Akathists (with their Canons) are prayed until dawn. St Jonah Otamansky of Odessa, a married priest, would perform this rule daily and his prayers would cure countless numbers of people (including a child born blind - he prayed over its bed every night until the child received its sight on the morning of the tenth day).

The Office itself is reflected in the “Davidic Order” of continuous liturgical prayer that King David established at the Temple where people were assigned a specific hour in which to sing God’s praises (as we read in 1 Chronicles). St Alexander Akoimetes and his Unsleeping Monks did this at Constantinople where six choirs of monks would pray (the psalms and prayers of the Office) for four hours at a time, 24/7. It was from this tradition that the Studite Order evolved and then the daily eight Hours of prayer where the “Hour” signified a prayer vigil beginning every three hours, day and night. The length of the prayers varied to allow monastics and others to work and fulfill other responsibilities.

In the Latin West today, there is also the continuous Rosary devotion as well as the continuous Eucharistic Adoration that likewise reflects the Davidic Order of unceasing prayer. The Rosary was also a replacement for the liturgical Hours where the decades were prayed over the course of a day. Our Father’s were also prayed in this way in accordance with the specific rules of a given religious Order - e.g. the Franciscans prescribe 76 Our Father’s where numbers of the Lord’s Prayer are assigned to reflect the varying lengths of the Hours - 25-28 for Matins (but 50 on Sundays), 15 for Vespers, 7 for the lesser Hours and for Compline.

Alex
 
Dear Michael,

I hope that is not a picture of yourself in the upper corner of your post!

God bless!

Alex 🙂
 
I also had heard that 300 was the “substitute” following the introductory prayers, creed and psalm 50. I believe the Russian tradition is more strict about prostrations after each recitation than the byzantine.
 
Dear skinny pumpkin,

The “Rule of St Pachomios” indicates 100 Jesus Prayers and the “hundred” was to be said at the turn of every hour, night and day. At three o’clock in the afternoon, that hour being the hour our Lord died on the Cross, 300 Jesus Prayers were to be said.

The Byzantine psalter is divided, following St Basil the Great, into twenty sections called “Kathismata.” Each of these is further subdivided into three subsections, each ending with the doxology: Glory be . . . Alleluia, Alleluia, Alleluia, Glory to Thee, O God (this is said 3 x), then Lord have mercy (3x) and then Glory be . . …

For those who couldn’t read etc. St Basil prescribed 300 Jesus Prayers for each “Kathisma” where every hundred Jesus Prayers (or once around the prayer rope of 100 knots) the doxology above would be recited. So 6,000 Jesus Prayers would replace the Psalter and half than number would suffice to replace the daily Office.

There are prayer ropes with 300 knots to allow for this methodical type of praying. There are also prayer ropes with 1,000 knots which are not joined at either end and which are kept in baskets. One begins at one end and works one’s way to the other . . .

As for prostrations, these are up to one’s ability in any tradition. Monastics have a rule to perform 300 prostrations daily, other rules prescribe 300 prostrations morning and night (the Rule of the Manjava Skete, for instance) and there are those who do 1,000 prostrations daily no matter what.

The Russian Tsar Alexis IV was known to do 1,000 prostrations in Church as his practice was to hear the full Divine Office and Liturgy each day (state documents requiring his signature were brought to him to deal with in Church and when he was ill, the clergy came to his bedchamber to do the services . . .).

But in Lent, the Tsar did 1,500 prostrations. Two clerics from the Antiochian Church once visited the Tsar and stood with him throughout his challenging spiritual exercises. They later wrote that their legs and bodies hurt so much they were bedridden for two days afterwards and that “anyone who wishes to end their life soon should go to Russia and walk there as a monastic.” They should perhaps have added “or a Tsar.” 😉

Alex
 
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