The Books of the Office

The office is served from a small library of interlocking books. This section treats their mechanics — how a complete service is assembled from a fixed skeleton and a set of changeable propers. The first file covers the two books that supply the fixed skeleton: the Horologion (the ordinary of the Hours) and the liturgical Psalter. The second covers the books of the propers — the Octoechos, Triodion, Pentecostarion, and Menaion — how they interlock with the skeleton, and the Typikon that governs the whole and its authority.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

Overview

No single book contains an Orthodox service in the way a Western missal or breviary does. Instead, a service is assembled in real time from several books at once: a fixed frame that is the same every day, and changeable parts drawn from different books according to the day of the week, the tone of the week, the calendar date, and the movable season. Learning the office is largely learning how these books fit together. This section explains that mechanics. It treats the psalmodic and structural role of the books; the content of the hymnography they carry — the canons, kontakia, and stichera — is the subject of the hymnography collection and is deferred there (see The Akathist & Orthodox Hymnography).

Files

File Description
the-horologion-and-the-psalter.md The Horologion as the book of the fixed skeleton (the ordinary of the Hours); the liturgical Psalter with its kathismata and odes; how the “slots” for propers are marked
the-octoechos-triodion-menaion-and-the-typikon.md The Octoechos, Triodion, Pentecostarion, and Menaion — the movable and fixed propers and how they interlock; the Typikon and its authority

See Also