Who is this project for?
For all Orthodox Christians, regardless of their church experience.
What is its essence?
A. The prayer rule is not limited to morning and evening prayers, but sanctifies the entire day. (To begin with, you can not change your usual prayer schedule, using Matins instead of the morning rule, and Vespers with Compline instead of the evening rule.)
b. Prayers correspond not only to a certain time of day, but also to the days of the week, holidays and fasts.
Can a person who does not understand church services use your Book of Hours?
The parish book without a priest and the home Book of Hours are compiled in such a way that anyone can use them without special training.
How long will you need to pray?
It depends on the Book of Hours you choose. Prayer according to a short home Book of Hours during the day will take less time than the currently accepted morning and evening rules.
The goal of the “Praying by the Hour” project is to intensify home and church prayer, which has now been reduced to attending church services every Sunday and reading morning and evening prayers every day. The disadvantage of the established practice of home and church worship is that it is performed very rarely (no more than 2 times a day) and extremely disorderly (Matins can be performed in the evening, and the 6th hour in the morning). But the point is not only to perform the service, but to perform it on time - or, as the Apostle would say, “decently and in order” (1 Cor. 14:40).
According to St. Clement of Rome, “The Lord commanded that sacrifices and sacred actions should not be performed randomly or without order, but at certain times and hours.” And from ancient times it was prescribed to sing psalms, read the Scriptures and perform prayers in the morning, in the afternoon at the third, sixth and ninth hours, in the evening and at the chanting. Moreover, it was prescribed to perform such a service to God collectively with the participation of the bishop, and, when this is not possible, then to each individual. And one of the main goals of our project is the desire, if not to make public worship more frequent, then at least to return private prayer to the conciliar foundations, the main principle of which is the desire to consecrate through rites all the milestones of the daily circle.
When using the rites offered here, you should remember that what is important is not so much the number of services read per day, but the correspondence of their time of day. If it was not possible to read any sequence at the time specified for it, then it is not read at all, for each time must have its own service. And not only time, but also each person requires his own worship. Therefore, we present a choice of six versions of the Book of Hours, the services of which not only differ from each other, but are also modified in accordance with the different times of the church year. Naturally, depending on the needs and circumstances, any of the options can be used, for even according to the current regulations it is allowed to use both cathedral-song sequences, which we call parish, and monastic ones, which are the most common today, and a mixed type, which includes home and cell-skete types of services.
The principle by which these Books of Hours are compiled and how to use them is discussed in detail on YouTube or Telegram channels called “Home Church,” as well as in the VKontakte community of the same name.
You can resolve your confusion in the “Answers to Questions” section.
Priest Vadim Korzhevsky
In your personal account, you can set up your Memorial Book; names from the Memorial Book will be displayed directly in the texts of prayers. Select the version of your Book of Hours, your gender in the texts of prayers, the language of the Bible, adjust your time zone. The capabilities of your personal account are constantly evolving. Register to gain access to your personal account.