The All-Night Vigil

[Errham]

As a Western Riter trying to get more into the Daily Cycle, this in particular has gotten me curious for quite a while. First of all - I know that these services are usually monastic and rarely done by laymen, and that as a Westerner I’m supposed to be using the LOTH. But working from home, and having no real hobbies besides praying, I can manage to fit both the LOTH and Horologion into my schedule. It doesn’t leave very much recreation time, but I would have spent all that time praying anyways. Anyways, back to the point. The one thing that I haven’t tried to pull of yet, is the all-night vigil. There seems to be some extreme variation in this based upon local custom. For instance, in the Athonite tradition it’s a full 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM marathon of back-to-back Great Vespers, Litia, Artoklasia, Orthros, First Hour, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, and then the Divine Liturgy to top it all off. In the Slavic tradition on the other hand, it appears to be quite a bit shorter - consisting of an “only” 2 and a half hour aggregate of Vespers, Matins and First Hour. However, in that tradition it’s not reserved for feasts, but rather is the standard service for Saturday Nights. Coming from the Western Rite, I’m not entirely sure what to do. First of all - some obvious questions:
-What happened to the Midnight Office?
-Shouldn’t Compline be said at the end?
-How are the hours suddenly switched to the middle of the night? Seeing as they count from sunrise, is it simply just a matter of flipping them around and counting them from sunset?
-What happens the day after? I’m guessing that Orthros isn’t prayed, but then would the Midnight Office be, coming before Orthros but not having been part of the vigil? And what about the small hours?

And, of course, what tradition should I go by? My Horologion is Byzantine, so I guess that would be the most fitting, however I’m not entirely sure if that’s how one should decide.

Pax
-Errham

 

[Vico]

As a Western Riter trying to get more into the Daily Cycle, this in particular has gotten me curious for quite a while. First of all - I know that these services are usually monastic and rarely done by laymen, and that as a Westerner I’m supposed to be using the LOTH. But working from home, and having no real hobbies besides praying, I can manage to fit both the LOTH and Horologion into my schedule. It doesn’t leave very much recreation time, but I would have spent all that time praying anyways. Anyways, back to the point. The one thing that I haven’t tried to pull of yet, is the all-night vigil. There seems to be some extreme variation in this based upon local custom. For instance, in the Athonite tradition it’s a full 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM marathon of back-to-back Great Vespers, Litia, Artoklasia, Orthros, First Hour, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, and then the Divine Liturgy to top it all off. In the Slavic tradition on the other hand, it appears to be quite a bit shorter - consisting of an “only” 2 and a half hour aggregate of Vespers, Matins and First Hour. However, in that tradition it’s not reserved for feasts, but rather is the standard service for Saturday Nights. Coming from the Western Rite, I’m not entirely sure what to do. First of all - some obvious questions:
-What happened to the Midnight Office?
-Shouldn’t Compline be said at the end?
-How are the hours suddenly switched to the middle of the night? Seeing as they count from sunrise, is it simply just a matter of flipping them around and counting them from sunset?
-What happens the day after? I’m guessing that Orthros isn’t prayed, but then would the Midnight Office be, coming before Orthros but not having been part of the vigil? And what about the small hours?

And, of course, what tradition should I go by? My Horologion is Byzantine, so I guess that would be the most fitting, however I’m not entirely sure if that’s how one should decide.

Pax
-Errham

The Sabaitic tradition includes the all-night vigil. Some follow the Studite Typikon where the cenobitic hours of apodipnon (compline), mesonyktikon (midnight), and orthros (matins) occur.

 

[wynd]

And, of course, what tradition should I go by? My Horologion is Byzantine, so I guess that would be the most fitting, however I’m not entirely sure if that’s how one should decide.

Normally it would be whatever your parish uses

 

[Cavaradossi]

As a Western Riter trying to get more into the Daily Cycle, this in particular has gotten me curious for quite a while. First of all - I know that these services are usually monastic and rarely done by laymen, and that as a Westerner I’m supposed to be using the LOTH. But working from home, and having no real hobbies besides praying, I can manage to fit both the LOTH and Horologion into my schedule. It doesn’t leave very much recreation time, but I would have spent all that time praying anyways. Anyways, back to the point. The one thing that I haven’t tried to pull of yet, is the all-night vigil. There seems to be some extreme variation in this based upon local custom. For instance, in the Athonite tradition it’s a full 8:00 PM to 8:00 AM marathon of back-to-back Great Vespers, Litia, Artoklasia, Orthros, First Hour, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, and then the Divine Liturgy to top it all off. In the Slavic tradition on the other hand, it appears to be quite a bit shorter - consisting of an “only” 2 and a half hour aggregate of Vespers, Matins and First Hour. However, in that tradition it’s not reserved for feasts, but rather is the standard service for Saturday Nights. Coming from the Western Rite, I’m not entirely sure what to do. First of all - some obvious questions:
-What happened to the Midnight Office?
-Shouldn’t Compline be said at the end?
-How are the hours suddenly switched to the middle of the night? Seeing as they count from sunrise, is it simply just a matter of flipping them around and counting them from sunset?
-What happens the day after? I’m guessing that Orthros isn’t prayed, but then would the Midnight Office be, coming before Orthros but not having been part of the vigil? And what about the small hours?

And, of course, what tradition should I go by? My Horologion is Byzantine, so I guess that would be the most fitting, however I’m not entirely sure if that’s how one should decide.

Pax
-Errham

I’m going off of memory here, so I could be wrong, but as I remember, the midnight office is not typically served if a vigil is done.

Small compline falls before the vigil, after small vespers and the meal in the refectory (thus preserving its use as the service after the evening meal).

In an all-night vigil proper, the morning hours remain rather close to their normal time. The vespers service is usually prolongued to be several hours, leaving orthros to begin at some time so that it should finish a little bit before sunrise, followed as usual by the hours and liturgy.

In common practice (outside of monasteries), the vigil may be done the night before, with the third hour and sixth hour done before liturgy. In some places, the liturgy is served immediately following the vigil, provided that the liturgy begins close to midnight. In either case, the hours are not served twice. The time after a vigil is used for resting until the evening when the cycle of services resumes as usual.