The Order of the Christian Year

Our Ordo governs two great streams of worship. The first is the Divine Office — the daily cycle of prayer marked by Lauds in the morning and Vespers in the evening, sung from the Monastic Breviary and the English Office. The second is the Mass, the celebration of the Holy Eucharist.

For each day the Ordo indicates which psalms, antiphons, collects, and readings are appointed, which commemorations are kept, the liturgical color, and the rank of the feast — so that the whole Church prays in harmony, in the same words, on the same day.

Our Ordo follows the use of the Western Rite Vicariate. The Mass is celebrated according to the Rite of St Gregory — derived from the historic Roman Mass — or the Rite of St Tikhon, drawn from the English liturgical tradition, both blessed for use within the Orthodox Church.

The propers of the Mass follow the English Missal of 1958, while the Office may be prayed from the Monastic Diurnal and the Monastic Breviary. In every case, the Ordo is the thread that ties these venerable books together across the year.

Beyond the day-by-day calendar, the Ordo gathers the rubrics — the rules that direct how worship is offered. It sets out the Holy Days of Obligation and Devotion, the days of fasting and abstinence, the Ember Days, and the annual blessings appointed through the year, from the blessing of homes at Epiphany to herbs and flowers at the Assumption.

It also preserves the finer points of the tradition: the ordering of Votive Masses, the manner of keeping a parish’s patronal feast, and the norms of the Eucharistic Fast — the whole inherited discipline of Western Orthodox life.

In practice, the Ordo is a working companion. It assumes the worshiper knows which elements stay the same each day and points them to what changes — the psalms of the day, the proper collect, the antiphon on the Benedictus or Magnificat, and any commemorations to be added.

The Ordo even suggests how to tab and ribbon the prayer books — a black ribbon moving through the daily Lauds psalms, a white through Vespers, a red marking the seasonal antiphon of the Blessed Virgin — so that the ancient office may be prayed without losing one’s place.