In the Byzantine Rite, today is the first day of Great Lent, traditionally known as Clean Monday. As I have described before in various articles, it is the long-standing custom of the rite that the Divine Liturgy is not celebrated on the weekdays of Lent, except on the feast of the Annunciation. In compensation, the Divine Office is lengthened in various ways: the Psalter is read twice within the week, rather than once as normal, and on the weekdays, Compline is celebrated in the much longer form known as Great Compline. (Described in three articles: part 1, part 2, part 3.)
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| An icon of St Andrew of Crete (650 ca. - 740). |
One of the most complex features of the Byzantine Office is known as the Canon, which I have described in detail elsewhere. (The name has nothing to do with the Canon of the Roman Mass.) Proportionally, canons are by far the largest part of the material in the Byzantine liturgical books. They are appointed to be said at both Orthros, the longest service of the day, which is much like the Roman Matins and Lauds, and at Compline, whether it be said according to the longer or the shorter form. But because of their length, they are very often abbreviated at Orthros, and omitted completely at Compline.
On the first four days of Great Lent, the canon of Compline is one of the most famous examples of the genre, composed by the man who invented it, St Andrew of Crete, and traditionally known simply as “The Great Canon.” It is an astonishingly long piece of work, even for a Canon; in my Greek hand-missal sized “synekdemos”, an anthology of the most commonly used liturgical texts, it runs to 26 pages of eye-wateringly small type. For these days, therefore, only one quarter is said per day, but the whole thing is appointed to be said at Orthros of the Fifth Thursday of Lent as well. (In practice, it is often very much abbreviated outside of the more liturgically energetic monasteries.)
The second hymn will suffice here to indicate its penitential theme.
“Whence shall I begin to mourn for the deeds of my miserable life? What sort of beginning shall I make, o Christ, with the lament I now sing? But as One that hath compassion, give me remission of my transgressions.”
The text is replete with Biblical typologies, of which, again, a single example must suffice here.
“In Adam the first-created, I recognized myself, having imitated (him) in transgression, despoiled of God, and of the everlasting kingdom and of delight through my sins.”
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| An ivory box carved with a scene of the Expulsion from the Garden, made in Constantinople in the 11th century, now in the Cleveland Museum of Art. (Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons.) |
https://www.ponomar.net/data/lenten_triodion.pdf.
At 48:35 there starts one of the loveliest chants of Great Compline, “God is with us”, the text of which I give in full in part one of my article about it.
