Vespers (Evening Service)

The evening service, and the beginning of the Church’s day, which starts at sunset as the days of Genesis do: there was evening and there was morning. It opens with Psalm 103, the psalm of creation, read in the Greek use and at the Russian All-Night Vigil said or sung while the priest censes the whole church, and moves through the great litany and the psalter to the psalms of the lamp-lighting, Lord, I have cried unto Thee, let my prayer be set forth as incense, with the hymns of the day between their verses. The censer is carried in procession and one of the oldest hymns the Church still sings follows, O Gladsome Light, which Christians were singing at the lighting of the lamps before St Basil’s time. On feasts three readings from the Old Testament follow. The service ends with the Song of Simeon, Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in peace, the troparion of the day, and the dismissal. Great Vespers is served on the eve of Sundays and feasts, and in the Russian use it is joined to Matins as the All-Night Vigil.