Talk:Canonical hours

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At this point the article is weighted towards the content (and if subsections are filled out the history) of the Liturgy of the Hours. I believe Canonical Hours is conceptually subordinate to Liturgy of the Hours. The redirect should be reversed.

Moss Hart

Contents 1 Merge 2 Fish Eaters 3 Septimal clock for measuring canonical hours 4 Paraklitike 5 Octoechos vs Oktoekhos (and others) 6 Oriental Orthodox

[edit] Merge

See Talk:Liturgy of the hours for comment. I have difficulty understanding the above remark that "Canonical Hours is conceptually subordinate to Liturgy of the Hours"; the Liturgy was developed to sanctify the time, not the other way around. TCC (talk) (contribs) 23:21, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I think that Canonical hours is good for a general article that covers traditional Christian practice. Liturgy of the Hours is a neologism dating from the 1970s, in the post-Vatican II reform of the Office of the Latin Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. The name comes from the official Latin title Liturgia Horarum, but I think that the British English translation still uses the older name Divine Office, and not Liturgy of the Hours. Also, some Latin Rite religious orders that have their own editions of the Divine Office don't use the name Liturgy of the Hours. -- Marcusscotus1 19:37, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Fish Eaters

A question: Why is there a consistent removal of Fish Eaters (note: I have no dog in this fight, don't know them, and know very little about them).

But it seems like a legitimate, rather interesting site. I assume this decision was made some time ago. What was the reasoning? Carlo 22:53, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

see User:JzG/Fisheaters. Just zis Guy you know? 22:59, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Septimal clock for measuring canonical hours

I added link to septimal clock http://the-light.com/cal/veseptimal.html that divides one day into seven hours, one hour into seven minutes, one minute into seven seconds, next one second into seven tierces, and so on. Subdivisions are arranged in pairs. As weeks has seven days, that one day has seven canonical hours. This makes measuring of time consistent by choosing septenary base for all Christian time units, and extends remembering of derivation of all creations from God itself into all branches of life and science. This can be extended too by grouping weeks into seasons containing seven weeks each, and then all seven seasons into one 343-day draconitic/ecliptic year. This septenary system can be even further extended into non-time units such as units of length, angle, mass, and so on, and even further into all mathematics. In this way canonical hours would be named as Prima, Secunda, Tertia, Quarta, Quinta, Sexta, and Septima, *without* even slight influences of babylonian pagan heritage such as 360° and 12 hours both divided into 60' and 3600", that are obviously based on multiples of '6', that is in turn derived from '666' - number of the beast. In this way remembrance of God's authorship and consistence in all measures will be obtained at once without contradiction, and all revolutionary and pagan units will be hopefully purged and abolished.

[edit] Paraklitike

Isn't the correct name of the book that refers to the weekly cycle called Paraklitike? --Kupirijo 02:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

As I undertand the matter, there were volumes of the Oktoekhos printed which contained only the propers for Sundays (as that is all that would normally be needed in a parish). But monasteries and cathedrals which serve the Divine Services every day would need the texts for weekdays as well. The volume containing the weekday hymns was referred to as the Paraklitike. Perhaps someone more knowledgable than myself can give a better explanation. MishaPan 07:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes and no. The book which contains the full services of the eight tones (Octoechos) is called Paraklitike in Greek, but English usage tends, in this matter, to follow Slavic usage, which calls the book the Octoechos (oktoikh, osmoglasnik). The full Octoechos will have all the services for the eight tones, including the weekday services - which appear to be more popular in Greece than in Slavic countries, hence the most common version of the Octoechos in Greek-parishes will be the full Paraklitike (with all the weekday services). On the other hand, Slavic editions for parishes will often be practical ones intended only for weekend use, and only rarely will parishes have the fuller editions - both of which are called Octoikh or Osmoglasnik in Slavic use. InfernoXV 08:19, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the disambiguation. But I still have a problem with the text. why do you call it a 8-day cycle. Doesn't the Parakletike define promarily the weekly cycle (then the 8 tones)? But Parakletike is not a musical book, right? It is not clear in the text that the weekly-cycle and the tone-cycle are actually in the same book. Forgive my ignorance. --a cantor in training --Kupirijo 03:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

I think you misread "8 week cycle", which is what it says in the article. But for each tone there are a set of texts for each day of the week. This is what the article intends to say; perhaps it's unclear? In any event I don't think we want to put too much detail here which would be better placed in octoechos, which is badly in need of development. You are correct that it's not a musical book. The texts are fitted to traditional chant melodies for each tone, which are found separately.

Inferno, I think it's not a good idea to generalize from the American situation. Texts were translated into English on the basis of the minimum that could be gotten by with; thus the Octoechos for Sunday was translated first since one really can't do without that. Trouble is that inertia tended to set in, so that once we had something that was "good enough" it often took a long time to complete the job. I'm not sure that weekday services are any less popular in Russia than in Greece, but in American parishes of both flavors I would guess they're of equally sparse observance on average. If you get a Slavonic Oktoikh you'll find it complete for every day of the week. (E.g. [1] -- I don't think it takes 3 volumes to cover just the Sunday texts.) TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I note that the octoechos article is about the ancient musical system and not the collections of hymns in the 8-tone cycle. Perhaps we need an article Paraklitike. TCC (talk) (contribs) 02:32, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

Quite right, an article is needed, and not just a sub-section on the Octoechos page. I've never heard anyone refer to the book as "Paraklitike" when speaking in English though. Perhaps Octoechos (liturgical)? or Octoechos (book)?

Heh, I wasn't actually thinking of the American situation (it's been over a decade since I was last in the New World), but that of the diaspora in general. Certainly the Slavonic Oktoikhs are complete, but there are Sunday Oktoikhs that many parishes use (perhaps because it's smaller and lighter?), as I'm sure you're aware - plenty of parishes start off with the minimum complement of Sunday Oktoikh, Lenten Triodion, Flowery Triodion and Festal Sbornik. InfernoXV 15:04, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I think one of those would work for article titles. I don't think I could do the subject justice myself though, since I know only the barest outline of its history and have no more complete sources available. (And have personally sung only the Carpatho-Russian Prostopinije and Russian obikhod chants, so I don't know anything about the original Byzantine system.)

We are fortunate nowadays that a complete Menaion is now available in English, according to the Russian usage anyway, but you don't have to be very old to remember when this was not the case and the Mother Mary/Bishop Kallistos "Festal Menaion" was all that could be gotten. My parish was fortunate to have had a Matushka back in the '70s who also directed the choir, was enthusiastic for English services, and had a very forceful personality, so we had lots of translated settings for Menaion feasts which many others lacked. But having a complete English Menaion is easier. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Octoechos vs Oktoekhos (and others)

Misha, two points.

I understand what you're trying to do, but the common usage in English is 'Octoechos' or even 'Eight Tones', not 'Oktoechos'. 'Oktoechos' is a direct transliteration of the Greek, and if we're going to use that, we might as well end up using 'Oktoikh' or even 'Osmoglasnik'. Not to mention 'Pentekostarion', 'Eukhologion', 'Heirmologion', Besides, an article already exists at 'Octoechos'. Let's stick to English usage.

Next, the Eastern Catholic equivalent to the Eastern Orthodox Churches are the 'Greek-Catholic Churches', not just the 'Eastern Catholic Churches' in general, which also refers to the Coptic/Armenian/Syrian Catholics too. 'Greek-Catholic' is the precise term. Also, the name of the article has been changed from 'Eastern Rite Catholic Churches' to 'Eastern Catholic Churches', so please stop linking to the former. InfernoXV 09:01, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

InfernoXV, I apologize. You see, I don't read Greek; I've seen both forms used in English translations, and didn't know there was a standarized acceptable form. I have no agenda in this, so if Octoechos is more acceptable that is fine with me. Thanks also for the heads-up on the correct article for linking. MishaPan 18:36, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

As a general guide, I think Greek word-elements that are commonly borrowed into English look more natural if we retain their usual Greek spellings. Thus "Pentecostarion" since we use "Pentecost" in English; "Octoechos" since we use both "octo-" and "echo", etc. This will most often turn out to be the most common English usage. Contra this, it seems to me (Kovalchuk notwithstanding) that "Typikon" has evolved to be used at least as often as "Typicon" if not moreso, at least among people who care about such things, even though the "Typical Psalms" are more often so spelled when it should be cognate. Go figure. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:51, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Oriental Orthodox

I've added some info about Oriental Orthodox services, based mostly on what I could research on the Internet. Anyone who is more knowledgable should look these entries over to correct my mistakes. The West Syrian entry especially needs more work.

Question: Do all Oriental Orthodox (Coptic, Armenian, etc.) observe the same lesser fasts as the East Syrians? MishaPan 01:09, 11 March 2007 (UTC)