Anointing may also be given during Forgiveness Vespers and Great Week, on Great and Holy Wednesday, to all who are prepared.

Benedictine monk s singing Vespers on Holy Saturday in Morristown, NJ

In large churches where they were celebrated the services were usually grouped ; e. g. Matins and Lauds ( about 7. 30 A. M .); Prime, Terce ( High Mass ), Sext, and None ( about 10 A. M .); Vespers and Compline ( 4 P. M .); and from four to eight hours ( depending on the amount of music and the number of high masses ) are thus spent in choir.

The late Medieval period saw the recitation of certain hours of the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin, which was based on the Breviary in form and content, becoming popular among those who could read, and Bishop Challoner did much to popularise the hours of Sunday Vespers and Compline ( albeit in English translation ) in his ' Garden of the Soul ' in the eighteenth century.

This is one of the readings at Vespers on Great Feasts of the Theotokos in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic Churches.

* 1283 – War of the Sicilian Vespers: Roger of Lauria, commanding the Aragonese fleet defeats a Angevin fleet sent to put down a rebellion on Malta in the Battle of Malta.

The biblical account of this vision () is one of the standard Old Testament readings at Vespers on Great Feasts of the Theotokos.

This poem is historically interesting for its information on north Italian perspectives concerning the War of the Sicilian Vespers, the conflict between the Angevins and Aragonese for Sicily.

The result was the uprising known as the Sicilian Vespers, which was initiated in Palermo on 29 March 1282.

The Sunday of the Publican and the Pharisee is the first day the Lenten Triodion is used ( at Vespers or All-Night Vigil on Saturday night ), though it is only used for the Sunday services, with nothing pertaining to weekdays or Saturday.

During Forgiveness Vespers ( on Sunday evening ) the hangings and vestments in the church are changed to somber Lenten colours to reflect a penitential mood.

In anticipation of the Canon, Vespers on Wednesday afternoon is longer than normal, with special stichera added in honor of the Great Canon.

Great Lent ends at Vespers on the evening of the Sixth Friday, and the Lenten cycle of Old Testament readings is brought to an end ( Genesis ends with the account of the burial of Joseph, who is a type of Christ ).

Since during Holy Week Vespers is usually joined to either the Presanctified Liturgy or the Divine Liturgy, and since the faithful must observe a total fast from all food and drink before receiving Holy Communion, it is celebrated in the morning ( Vespers on Good Friday is an exception to this, usually being celebrated in the afternoon ).

In addition to the Gospel readings at Matins and Vespers, there is a reading of all four Gospels which takes place during the Little Hours ( Third Hour, Sixth Hour and Ninth Hour ) on these first three days.

From this moment on, there will be no more prostrations made in the church ( aside from those made before the epitaphios ) until Vespers on the afternoon of Pentecost.

Basil ( combined with Vespers ) is celebrated on this day.

Claudio Monteverdi ( 1567 – 1643 ) brought it to perfection with his Vespers and his Eighth Book of Madrigals, which call for great virtuosity on the part of singers and instruments alike.

The evening Mass on Saturday is liturgically a full Sunday Mass and fulfills the obligation of Sunday Mass attendance, and Vespers ( evening prayer ) on Saturday night is liturgically " first Vespers " of the Sunday.

Great Vespers is the form served on Sundays and major feast days ( those of Polyeleos rank or above ) when it may be celebrated alone or as part of an All-Night Vigil, or as the commencement of the Divine Liturgy, or on a few special occasions, e. g., Good Friday or Pascha afternoon.

Some Adventists gather for Friday evening worship to welcome in the Sabbath, a practice often known as Vespers.

In the Eastern Orthodox Church and those Eastern Catholic Churches which follow the Byzantine Rite, the Songs of Degrees ( Greek: anabathmoi ) make up the Eighteenth Kathisma ( division of the Psalter ), and are read on Friday evenings at Vespers throughout the liturgical year.

During Great Lent the Eighteenth Kathisma is read every weekday ( Monday through Friday evening ) at Vespers, and on Monday through Wednesday of Holy Week.

Vespers of Great and Holy Friday ( Vespers of the Deposition from the Cross ) is held in the morning or early afternoon of Great and Holy Friday.

During the school term the Palestrina Choir sing at Sunday morning Solemn Latin Mass ( Novus Ordo ), Wednesday evening Mass and Friday evening Vespers and Mass.

The service of Vespers on Great Friday in the Eastern Orthodox Church and Byzantine Catholic churches uses the expression " impious and transgressing people ", but the strongest expressions are in the Orthros of Great Friday, which includes the same phrase, but also speaks of " the murderers of God, the lawless nation of the Jews " and referring to " the assembly of the Jews ", prays: " But give them, O Lord, their reward, for they devised vain things against Thee.

The former name derives from that this Sunday is followed by a special Vespers called the Forgiveness Vespers which opens Great Lent.

Technically, this is not actually a Divine Liturgy, but rather a Vespers service at which a portion of the Body and Blood of Christ, which was reserved the previous Sunday, are distributed to the faithful.

" ( Vespers Aposticha, Wednesday of Cheesefare Week ) and " Now is the season of repentance ; let us begin it joyfully, O brethren ..." ( Matins, Second Canon, Ode 8, Monday of Cheesefare Week ).

In order that their services not be completely forgotten, a portion of them ( their canon at Matins, and their stichera from " Lord I Have Cried " at Vespers ) is chanted at Compline.

During Holy Week, the order of services is often brought forward by several hours: Matins being celebrated by anticipation the evening before, and Vespers in the morning.

Basil is celebrated ( combined with Vespers ).

Many composers have set the text to music, usually coupled in the Anglican church with the Magnificat, as both the Magnificat and the Nunc dimittis are sung ( or said ) during the Anglican service of Evening Prayer according to the Book of Common Prayer, 1662, in which the older offices of Vespers ( Evening Prayer ) and Compline ( Night Prayer ) were deliberately merged into one service, with both Gospel Canticles employed.

When said in the monasteries, Matins was generally said before dawn, or sometimes over the course of a night ; Lauds was said at the end of Matins, generally at the break of day ; Prime at 6 AM ; Terce at 9AM ; Sext at noon ; None at 3PM ; Vespers at the rising of the Vespers or Evening Star ( usually about 6PM ); and Compline was said at the end of the day, generally right before bed time.

Also, if the normal daily service to a saint is displaced by some more important commemoration, such as the services in the Triodion or the Pentecostarion, the saint's service will be chanted at compline, usually consisting of the saint's canon and the stichera appointed for " Lord, I have cried " at Vespers.

In casual, unqualified use, troparion usually refers to the apolytikion ( Greek: απολυτίκιον ), or " dismissal hymn ", a troparion chanted near the end of Vespers which establishes the overall theme for the liturgical day, for which it is called the " troparion of the day ".

In the earlier form, where Pentecost is celebrated with an octave, the Time after Pentecost begins at Vespers on the Saturday after Pentecost.

Small Vespers is a very abbreviated form of the service which is celebrated only on the afternoon before an All-Night Vigil.

On the afternoon of Easter Day, a joyful service called " Agape Vespers " is celebrated During this service the Great Prokeimenon is chanted and a lesson from the Gospel () is read in as many different languages as possible, accompanied by the joyful ringing of bells.

That morning is the celebration of the Royal Hours and then the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil combined with Vespers, at the conclusion of which is celebrated the Great Blessing of Waters, in commemoration of the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River.

Basil is celebrated ten times a year: on the five Sundays in Great Lent, with Vespers on Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday, on the Eves with Vespers ( or Feasts themselves, at the normal time, depending on the day of the week ) of Christmas and Theophany, and on January 1, which is the feast day of St.

* The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts ( which has no Consecration of the Gifts but distributes the Holy Mysteries from a Lamb sanctified in advance, always as a Vespers ( Liturgies on fast days always being served in conjunction with the office of vespers ) is celebrated only on certain weekdays of Great Lent: on Wednesdays, Fridays and any of the more important feast days which may occur ( however, if the Great Feast of the Annunciation occurs on a weekday of Great Lent, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is celebrated ).

A text in Callinicus ( between 447 and 450 ), first introduced in Father Pargoire's argument, informs us that between Vespers and the Night Office there was celebrated in the East a canonical Hour called in this text prothypnia, because it preceded the first sleep, being nothing other than what the Greeks today call apodeipnon, on account of the meal it follows ( see Compline in Byzantine usage, below ).

On Great Feasts it is celebrated as part of an All-Night Vigil on the evening before, combined with Vespers and the First Hour.

On Saturdays of the Dead, which are celebrated several times throughout the year, the prokeimenon at Vespers is also replaced with Alleluia, which is chanted in the following manner:

Great Vespers as it is termed in the Eastern Orthodox Church, is an extended vespers service used on the eve of a major Feast day, or on the evening before the Eucharist will be celebrated.

On Great Feasts it is celebrated as part of an All-Night Vigil on the evening before, combined with Vespers and the First Hour.

The cope and / or stole may be worn over choir dress when a cleric presides over a sacrament ( for instance, at matrimony, if not celebrated during Mass ), or by the cleric presiding over prayers ( for instance, the priest presiding at a solemn celebration of Vespers in the Liturgy of the Hours at a seminary might wear cope and stole over choir dress, while the priests of the faculty and seminarians would wear simple choir dress of cassock and surplice ).

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is celebrated on Wednesdays and Fridays during Great Lent and is a Vespers service combined with the distribution of Holy Communion that had been consecrated the previous Sunday.