About the project

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

It will be consistent with Western-Canadian use of Galician/Catholic Kyivan version of Slavic-Byzantine rite. The plan is to allow switching between different versions later, but so far to focus on this one.

Plan

1. POC stage. Get the basic structure for every hour but matins in a priest-less mode. At this stage the translations will be sources from different places (which will be documented). Over-reliance on the common menaion and is expected at this stage.
2. Filling the gaps stage. At this point I expect to get my hands on a steady source of texts, and have everything in a consistent translation. And make the interface less awkward.
3. Letting it go. Allow to switch between translations, versions etc and start accepting open-source contributions.

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 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 lesser doxology is taken from Metropolitan Cantor Institute (MCI) version of Compline, as are the two longet prayers of the small 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.
  
• Psalms are not aligned yet, as this is a POC.
  Texts of psalms in the Little hours are selected to match the Anthology.
  Psalms 69 and 142 is taken from Metropolitan Cantor Institute version of Compline, which coincides with the English vasylianka.
• Octoechos. Canons for Compline are taken from a website of St. Sergius of Radonezh Russian Orthodox Cathedral, Parma, Ohio.
• Proper texts. Amazing Royal doors.

Rubrics

• Dolnytsky's Typicon with Устав Богослужінь (link to a text in Ukrainian).
• There are (almost) no rubrics for a laymen's/reader's office in the actual old Byzantine rite books, except those developed in old-believers' communities. The most popular ones on the English Internet (by Daniel of Erie) seem to be adapted from the (priest-less old-believer) Vyg Typicon, which is dogmatically dubious to use in a church with the Real Presence. I opt for relying on (priest-accepting old-believer) Small Typicon by Arseny of Uralsk (link to download the pdf in Church Slavonic).
• 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