Other Services You'll Meet

What you'll notice

A Wednesday evening in Lent. The church is darker than on Sunday, the vestments are dark, and the people keep going down on their knees. Halfway through, the priest turns from the altar holding a lit candle and a censer and says, "The light of Christ illumineth all men," and the whole room kneels.¹ At the end there's Communion, though nobody consecrated anything tonight.

Come back in August and the same church may be singing a long, pleading canon to the Mother of God. Some Friday in Lent it's a hymn where nearly every line starts "Rejoice." On a Tuesday it's a short service in front of one icon, with a bowl of water and a list of names. None of these is the Liturgy, and all of them are normal.

What it's called

• The Presanctified Liturgy (the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts: Communion from gifts consecrated at an earlier Liturgy).
• The Akathist (a long hymn sung standing; the Greek akathistos means "not sitting").
• The Paraklesis (Greek for "supplication"; a sung prayer for help, most often to the Theotokos).
• The moleben (Slavonic for a prayer service; Hapgood's book calls it "A General Service of Prayer").²
• The litiya (a procession with fervent petitions; Hapgood derives it from the Greek for "a fervent prayer").³

What's actually happening

The Presanctified Liturgy

During the Great Fast the full Liturgy is served only on Saturdays, Sundays, the Annunciation and Holy Thursday; on the other days the Council in Trullo (692) appointed the Liturgy of the Presanctified.⁴ So on Sunday the priest consecrates extra Lambs and keeps them on the altar, and on a weekday evening the Church gives Communion from them.⁵

The service is Vespers with Communion added.⁶ Between the two Old Testament readings comes the candle and "The light of Christ illumineth all men." Then the choir sings verses of Psalm 141 (140 in the Septuagint), "Let my prayer be set forth in thy sight as the incense," while the priest censes and the people kneel, and the priest says the Prayer of Saint Ephrem with a deep bow after each line.⁷ In place of the Cherubic Hymn the choir sings, "Now the Powers of Heaven with us invisibly do minister," and then the gifts are carried in silence while the people kneel, because what passes is already the Body and Blood of Christ.⁸

The books appoint it for the Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, the Thursday of the fifth week, and the first three days of Holy Week.⁹ Many parishes serve it on Wednesday and Friday evenings, and some on only one of the two.¹⁰ The fast before it covers the whole day; people who can't manage that eat something light early.¹¹

The Akathist

The great Akathist is a hymn to the Theotokos, long stanzas full of greetings that begin "Rejoice," the angel's word at the Annunciation. Hapgood's book sets it on the Saturday of the fifth week of Lent.¹² Greek-practice parishes divide it over the first four Fridays of Lent, a quarter each evening (the "Salutations"), and sing the whole of it on the fifth Friday.

The form was loved enough to be copied. There are now akathists to saints and to particular icons; the OCA, for one, publishes akathists to Saint Herman of Alaska, Saint Innocent, Saints Joachim and Anna, and the icon "Joy of All Who Sorrow."¹³

The Paraklesis

From August 1 to 14, the fast before the Dormition, Greek and Antiochian parishes sing the Small and the Great Paraklesis on alternating evenings: a canon, a long hymn in odes, asking the Mother of God for help, with petitions for the sick and the troubled. The Small Paraklesis is also sung for anyone sick or in distress.¹⁴ Hapgood's Russian book doesn't print it, but it does print a moleben addressed to the Theotokos, which does similar work.

The moleben

The moleben is the Church's all-purpose prayer service. Hapgood's form begins like Matins, with "God is the Lord, and hath revealed himself unto us," and then takes its hymns, its psalm verse and its Gospel from whoever it's addressed to: the Savior, the Theotokos, or a saint. The deacon prays for the people by name, and the service ends with the cross held out to be kissed.¹⁵ The same book has thanksgiving services for an answered prayer and for the New Year, a prayer service for children beginning school, and the Lesser Blessing of Water.¹⁶ (Blessings: Water, Homes, and Things has more on the water.)

The litiya

On the eve of a great feast, after the entrance at Vespers, the clergy go to the back of the church and the deacon leads long petitions with "Lord, have mercy" repeated over and over. Then, back in the middle of the church, the priest blesses five loaves, wheat, wine and oil, praying to Christ, "who didst bless the five loaves and didst therewith feed the five thousand."¹⁷ In Slavic use this belongs to the festal Vigil. Greek parishes call the blessing of the loaves the artoklasia ("breaking of bread") and serve it at Vespers or after the Divine Liturgy on a feast.

Why it matters

These services fill in what Sunday can't. The Presanctified keeps the weekdays of Lent plain, since the full Liturgy was thought "unbefitting the contrition of Lent," without leaving people five days from Communion.¹⁸ The Akathist and the Paraklesis are the Church talking to the Mother of God the way people in trouble actually talk, at length and more than once. The moleben brings one need, a sick child or a new school year, into church on a weeknight. And the litiya takes the faithful to the back of the church, where the catechumens and penitents once stood, to pray alongside them.¹⁹

Where it came from

Communion from gifts consecrated earlier is very old; Saint Justin Martyr, around 150, says the deacons carried a portion to those who were absent.²⁰ The Presanctified's present form is harder to date. Hapgood's book credits it to Saint Gregory the Great, sixth-century Bishop of Rome, as tradition does;²¹ Thomas Hopko, writing for the OCA, gives the same tradition and adds that the service as we have it is plainly Byzantine work.²²

The Akathist has two stories attached. Hapgood ties it to the Mother of God's help during two sieges of Constantinople, in 673 and 716.²³ Greek tradition remembers the siege of 626.²⁴ Either way, a city that expected to fall didn't, and it sang its thanks standing up.

The Great Paraklesis is credited to the thirteenth-century Emperor Theodore II Doukas Laskaris; the author of the Small Paraklesis is uncertain, and the Patriarchate of Antioch names two candidates without choosing.²⁵ The litiya, Hapgood's appendix says, remembers the old night processions through city streets in times of public disaster.²⁶

What you do

If you're Orthodox: try the Presanctified at least once in Lent, fasting the day if you can and going to Communion in the evening (The Communion Fast has the rule). If someone you love is sick, ask for a moleben or a Paraklesis and give the names. In August, come to a Paraklesis even if you've never sung one.

If you're visiting: any of these makes a good second service. Kneel at the Presanctified if everyone does, or stand quietly; don't come forward for Communion. At a moleben you may be invited to kiss the cross at the end, and you're welcome to.

Go deeper

• Hapgood, Service Book, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, pp. 127–146, and the General Service of Prayer, pp. 559–563.
• Council in Trullo, canon 52 (NPNF2 14).
• Thomas Hopko, The Orthodox Faith, vol. 2, "Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts" (OCA).
• Go to a Wednesday Presanctified in Lent, or an August Paraklesis.

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