Bright Week rubrics

Concerning private prayers, communion prayers, the priest's entrance Prayers

Question:

I have noticed that in none of the services of Bright Week do we say the Trisagion Prayers. Is this true also for the Prayers of Thanksgiving for Holy Communion during Bright Week? And also for the priest's entrance prayers before Liturgy?

Answer:

In the "Liturgical Directions for 2002" (pp. 263-264), published by the Moscow Patriarchate, there is the following:

"Note. In the 'Rule for Holy Communion' (Moscow, 1893), there is said: 'It should be known that during the Bright Week of Pascha:

instead of the evening and morning prayers, the Hours of Pascha are sung,

and in place of the Canon to the Lord Jesus and the Paraklisis to the Mother of God, the canon of Pascha with its theotokia; and the other [canons], according to the days of the week, are omitted.'

The Office for Holy Communion and the prayers after Communion are preceded by a three-fold reading of the troparion, 'Christ is risen from the dead...'; the psalms and the Trisagion through 'Our Father' (with the troparia after it) are not read as well."

Regarding the entrance prayers of the clergy before the Liturgy, the same work says the following:

"It is accepted to perform the entrance prayers before the Liturgy during Bright Week in the following manner.

• After the usual initial exclamation 'Blessed is our God...,'
• there is read: 'Christ is risen from the dead...' (thrice),
• and the hypakoe and kontakion of Pascha.
• Instead of the penitential troparia 'Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us...,' the troparia of the paschal Hours are read:
  • 'In the tomb bodily...,'
  • Glory...,
  • ' 'How life-bearing...,'
  • 'Both now...,'
  • and the theotokion: 'Rejoice, O sacred...'
• Then: 'We worship Thine immaculate icon, O Good One...'
• and 'A fountain of compassion...'
• Then the prayer: 'O Lord, send down Thy hand...';
• and instead of the psalm 'I shall go into into Thy house...,' the troparion of Pascha is said many times."

>From Daniel Olson