Paschal Hours
It is often said that the services of Pascha and Bright Week - our seven-day continuous celebration of the Resurrection of the Lord - are "characterized by their joy and brevity." This is nowhere more evident than in the Paschal Hours - the special form that the daytime Hours take for these seven days.
The Structure of the Paschal Hours
On the day of Pascha, and on each of the days of Bright week, a single short service is taken in place of each one of the Hours - the First, Third, Sixth, and Ninth Hours of the Divine Office - and the service of Typika. This service, called the Paschal Hours, consists entirely of Hymns of the Resurrection; it is sung throughout, and easily memorized.
It consists of the following order of prayer:
- Opening blessing
- The Paschal troparion, "Christ is risen from the dead"
- The hymn, "Having beheld the Resurrection of Christ"
- The hypakoje of Pascha, "The women with Mary before the dawn"
- The kontakion of Pascha, "Although you descended into the grave, O Immortal One"
- Three troparia:
- "When your body was in the tomb, and your soul in Hades..."
- "Your life-giving tomb, O Christ..."
- "Rejoice, O sanctified dwelling place..." (addressed to the Mother of God)
- "Lord, have mercy" (forty times)
- Dismissal
The Metropolitan Cantor Institute has prepared an eight-page booklet with the complete text of the Paschal Hours, with music.
Recommended Reading
- Resurrection Services according to the Ruthenian Tradition. Byzantine Leaflet Series, No. 33. (Pittsburgh: Byzantine Seminary Press, March 1985).
- Father Basil Shereghy. The Liturgical Year of the Byzantine-Slavonic Rite.
(Pittsburgh, PA: Byzantine Seminary Press, 1968.)
- A Monk of the Eastern Church (Father Lev Gilet). The Year of Grace of the Lord.
(Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2001.)