What happens at Melkite Vespers

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I’ve been to MANY Melkite Divine Liturgies, and Orthros, but not Vespers. I’m sure it’s beautiful, God bless!
 
What happens at Melkite Vespers? Chanting. Lots of chanting. And after they’re done chanting, they chant some more. Oh yeah, and there’s incense. Every now and then a prayer might be spoken instead of chanted. But then the chanting starts again. Did I mention that there’s chanting? And by the time they’re done chanting and incensing (if done well) there is so much holy smoke in the air that you wonder how they were able to chant at all…

In all honesty, though. Go. It’s worth it. You likely won’t be able to follow along in any book because it literally takes a small library for the Melkites (and other Byzantines) to properly celebrate Orthros and Vespers. But just go and enjoy the… CHANTING (you knew it was coming).
 
If you live near the Cathedral and Bishop Samra is there, I’m sure Vespers will be even more beautiful than it usually is at the “normal” parish level (and it is beautiful at the parish level).
 
I have met him. I told him that I am a “Latin”, and he said “that’s okay”! I like him. In fact, I think I got to talk to him more than I’ve ever talked to my own bishop. But, we Latins are more numerous. (I love the East, though!)
 
I did not see any incense in use. Why was one of the priests (I assume he was a priest) moving around all the time?
 
Incense at 18:34.

You would see more at Great Vespers with Litija.
 
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Incense also at 8:50ish (starting behind the iconostasis and continuing through the Lord I Call psalm verses).
 
babochka said:
Incense at 18:34.

You would see more at Great Vespers with Litija.
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wynd said:
Incense also at 8:50ish (starting behind the iconostasis and continuing through the Lord I Call psalm verses).
Click to expand...
I will make two admissions. The first is I did not watch the video clip is its entirety. I skipped through it. By pure chance I obviously never skipped to a part where I saw incensation. I had anticipated from the post by Philip_Rolfes (cf. above) that the further I progressed through the video clip the ministers would be enveloped in a fug of holy smoke, but I saw no hint of any incense.

My second admission is I agree there was a lot of chanting but it was not to my taste. I am obviously used to and prefer Gregorian chant. Not that I expect for one minute the Eastern churches to use Gregorian chant. So that is a reason why I did not sit and watch the video clip from start to end without interruption.

I would be grateful to receive an answer to the second question in my earlier post. Why was that priest (or may be he was a deacon) walking around a lot?
 
TomH1 said:
Why was that priest (or may be he was a deacon) walking around a lot?
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At vespsers, during the singing of “Lord I call” and the following verses, the priest censes the altar on its four sides, comes out of the sanctuary and censes the icons, the entire temple, the choirs, and the people. Normally he would return to the sanctuary, but since the bishop is there he goes to get a blessing from the bishop instead. He then stands before the royal doors for the entrance (18:27 in that video) and singing of O Gladsome Light.
 
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