About the project

This is an attempt at making a script that compiles divine praises.

It is planned to be consistent with the Galician/Catholic Kyivan version of Slavic-Byzantine rite, and with the resources available in Canada. The plan is to allow switching between different versions later, but so far to focus on this one.

Contact/contribute

Plan

1. POC stage 1 - until November 2026. Get the basic structure for every hour but matins in a priest-less mode. At this stage the translations will be sourced from different places (which will be documented here). It is expected that the same text appearing in different places might have different translations.
2. POC stage 2 - until 2028 At this point I expect all the hours but matins to be as reliable as the sources of texts. In this time I hope to implement Matins layer by layer: first as a skeleton, then octoechos-only, then have it as full as possible (except for patristic readings and other resonstructioins that require research).
3. Text improvement. If I'm still alive and motivated (or if there are more people working on it), it will be time to get a more coherent set of texts. And because there is no one good way to do it, allow switching text and rubric versions.

Sources

Texts

• Horologion The general texts are found on internet and are selected to match "The Divine Liturgy: An Anthology for Worship", Ottawa 2004. (referred to as "the Anthology" in what follows)
  The compline troparia are taken from the "Divine Office", Stamford, CT, USA, 2014 (referred to as "English vasylianka" in what follows).
  The Sunday hypakoe are taken from Royal doors.
  The lenten troparia and prokimena of the 6th hour are taken from a brochure "Little hours for weekdays of Lent" by Cyrill Kennedy, that itself relies on "The Lenten Triodion" published by the Sisters of St. Basil in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The prokimena that were different from the Triodion text, were aligned with Triodion using the same translation of the Psalms (Grail) or, where it is substantially different, updated translation of Marquis de Butte.
  The lesser doxology is adapted from Matins booklet from Ottawa, and the missing parts are taken from the vespers book from Ottawa.
  The two longest prayers of the small compline are from Metropolitan Cantor Institute (MCI) version of Compline
  Curiously, MCI edition omits the two shorter compline prayers, so they are taken from the English vasylianka.
  The penitential prayer after compline without priest was taken from MCI Typica.
  The prayer after it was translated from a Lviv chasoslov of 1900 relying on some orthodox translations of similar prayers.
  The prayers after compline with a priest are a mix of English Vasylianka and MCI versions.
  Ektenia for the dead is from English Vasylianka except the penultimate clause translated directly from the Ukrainian Vasylianka.
  Lenten parts of vespers and matins aposticha from Octoechos are taken from English Vasylianka except the Всесвятая Тройце prayer that was taken from MCI.
  Royal hours of Holy Friday and most of the Pashcal hours are from the English Vasylianka. The readings in Royal hours are from different translations. The paschal stiheron is from MASI Sunday Matins.
• Psalms are not aligned yet, as this is a POC.
  Texts of psalms in the Little hours are selected to match the Anthology.
  Psalms of the first kathisma are taken from the vespers booklet printed in Ottawa. They are reused for Great Compline.
  Rest of the psalms of the Compline are taken from the English vasylianka.
  Psalms for royal hours are taken from the version at MCI web site, that seems to follow Grail.
• Octoechos. Canons for Compline are taken from a website of St. Sergius of Radonezh Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Parma, Ohio.
• Proper texts. Amazing Royal doors.
  Stycheras for st. Theodore Studite, st. Anastasia, Lytia for st. Apostle Andrew, Aposticha for bl. Josaphata are translated by myself.
  Texts for Nativity Royal hours are taken from a UGCC brochure, so I assume they follow vasylianka. The omitted sticheras were supplied from an MCI brochure. The scriptural texts were supplied from NRSVUE translation. Those translations that are too far from the Slavonic text were supplied with comments in square brackets.
  Pre-Christmas compline canons were mostly adapted from Royal Doors Holy Week matins canons that they are modelled on.
  Epiphany Great Compline propers and Great canon of st. Andrew were taken from pаstуr.сa project..

Rubrics

• Dolnytsky's Typicon with Устав Богослужінь (link to a text in Ukrainian). Where the Horologion of 1950 contradicts Dolnytsky, I choose Dolnytsky.
• While I try to make this tool general, triodion will not work for every single year of history (so far). In fact, I limit myself by cases that happen by 2030 (e.g. Annunciation falling on Holy Friday is not implemented here).
• There are (almost) no rubrics for a laymen's/reader's office in Byzantine rite books, so each local tradition found its own approaches. I rely on Small Typicon by Arseny of Uralsk (link to download a pdf in Church Slavonic) with one exception: for the prayer after Our Father I gave more options that are present in various UGCC brochures. It represents priest-accepting old-believer tradition, that seems to be the closest tradition to UGCC that has a full set of relevant rubrics (in English internet there exists another set of rubrics, popularized by a ROCOR bishop but tracing back to priest-denying old-believers of Vyg). I looked through the horologions scanned as a part of the "Digitalized tradition" project, and those published by Lviv brotherhood sometimes have some more elaborate indications for laymen, but they are not consistent. E.g. 1726 Lviv brotherhood horologion suggests the same approach to dismissals as Arseny of Uralsk (changing priest's affirmative dismissal into a petition) in Midnight prayer, but the 1900 version that gives an indication to replace ektenias by sets of "Lord have mercy" in a couple places, completely ignores dismissals.
• Rubrics on shortening of the office are taken from The appendix to the decisions of Lviv synod of 1891 (the document's language is Iazychie (i think?? why???!!!); shortenings are described in Appendix XXX, at page 392 of the text/359 of the pdf). Here is a brief summary:
  • Vespers: one out of 8 priestly prayers can be said, according to the tone of the week.
  • Small Compline: on weekdays, one psalm is said, according to the day of the week, and the doxology (Glory to God in the highest) is omitted. On Sundays (Saturday night) psalms are omitted and only the doxology is said. If a canon is prescribed, only 2 odes are said: one out the 7 first odes, according to the day of the week, and the 9th.
  • Midnight prayer: one out 3 stases of the kathisma is said, in order. On Sundays, only one ode of the canon is said, according to the tone (ode 1 if the week is of the 1st tone, ode n+1 for any tone n>1).
  • Matins: one out of two psalms of the royal office is said, in turns. One out of 6 psalms of The Six Psalms is said, according to the day of the week (the 6th one is said on both Saturday and Sunday). One out of 11 priestly prayers can be said, according to the Sunday Matins Gospel of the week. Canons are said as at compline.
  • Hours: one out 3 psalms is said, according to the day of the week (the 3rd one is said on both Saturday and Sunday).
  Note, that there are no provisions to shorten kathismata or omit canons. There is still an option to do that in this project, as it is often done in practice.
  Устав богослужінь (the 1980 update to the Dolnytsky Typicon) includes recommended shortenings for Matins too.
• A honorable mention goes to the Basilian Molytvoslov (Vasylianka). It was a great tool to propagate the Divine Praises in pre-internet times, but let's try to live our tradition as if Vasylianka never existed.

Inspiration

• Ukrainian app for the same (but it's manually compiled): МОЛИТВА ЦЕРКВИ
• Latin app that contain lots of versions of the Office. Divinum Officium

Chant resources