In the first week of Holy Great Lent, special services are performed in Orthodox churches. Church services these days are quite long and imbued with the spirit of repentance.
Attendance at Lenten services is a very important component of Holy Lent, without which it is impossible to speak of a proper understanding of saving abstinence during the period of the Fourteenth.
Divine services in the first week of Lent are performed twice a day - in the morning and in the evening. In the morning, church services are the longest (take about four to five hours). In the evening, worship is more brief, but no less important.
From Monday to Friday of the first week of Great Lent in the morning, the services of Matins, the first, third, sixth hours, the fine, as well as the ninth hour and Vespers are performed. On Wednesday and Friday after Vespers, a liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is performed (this type of liturgy is sent to Orthodox churches only during Lent).
Morning services are not particularly solemn. Most texts are read by a psalm reader. On matins, hours, and vespers, several kathismas from the psalms are read at once, which make up most of the Lenten worship held in the morning. At the end of the morning service, commemoration of the deceased on lithium is performed.
In the evening from Monday to Thursday inclusive in the Orthodox churches, a great supper is served with the reading of the great penitential canon of Andrew Cretan. This service is especially important for the spiritual prayer spirit of an Orthodox person, because it is the canon of St. Andrew that is permeated with the spirit of repentance and is a proclamation of a sinning person to God for the forgiveness of sins.
On Saturdays and Sundays, liturgies are performed on which holy gifts can be taken. On the eve of these days, confession is performed in Orthodox churches at the end of the service. On Saturday night, if there are several priests at once, the sacrament of confession can also be performed during Sunday night vigil.
The first week of Lent ends with the celebration of the Triumph of Orthodoxy. On this day, a solemn liturgy of the liturgy of St. Basil the Great is held, after which a special rite dedicated to the feast is served in the temples. The day of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, falling on Sunday, is the historical memory of the Church about overcoming various heretical teachings that have taken place in the history of Christianity. The rank for the Triumph of Orthodoxy provides for special anathemas for those who distort dogmatically the purity of Christian doctrine. In addition, many years are declared to the primates of the Orthodox Churches and the Orthodox Creed is solemnly read.
