To be taught on Feb 23, 2020:
In this is the final in the last volume of Metropolitan Hilarion’s work on the Orthodox Church. In this volume, he has described the Sacraments and other rites of the Orthodox Church.
The Orthodox Book of Needs is a four volume set that, according to St Tikhon’s Monestary bookstore, “contains the prayers and services for all aspects of Church life.” Most of what has been described in this volume are the rites contained in the Book of Needs. The specific content of this book varies depending on the time and place of publication.
In this chapter, the Metropolitan gives us the rest of the story, as it were. He briefly describes rites that have been left undescribed to this point. The Metropolitan divides these into the following categories:
The blessing of liturgical implements and icons;
Molbens (supplications) for various occasions; and
Molebens and Akathists (hymns). Worship according to and outside the Typicon.
The Typicon contains the rules and rubrics for the religious services of the church. Over the past two centuries, the Chruch has become more open to conducting “‘customized’ divine services” for individuals that are unregulated by the rules and regulations of the Typicon.
Next week, we begin in Volume 1, which covers the history of the Orthodox Church. Nearly two years ago, the St Thomas school began and our first study was with Volume 2 of the Metropolitan’s 5 volume set. Completing Volume 1 will take us through the first complete cycle of this work.