First Hour

Variations

When the Royal Hours are chanted (the Eve of Nativity, the Eve of Theophany and Great Friday), the First Hour is not joined to Matins as normal, but it becomes the first office in an aggregated office composed of the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours and the Typica. This is the most elaborate form of the First Hour. Both the priest and deacon are vested and serve, and the Gospel Book is set on an analogion (lectern) in the center of the temple (church building). At the beginning of the First Hour, the deacon performs a full censing of the church, clergy and faithful. Two of the three fixed psalms (89 and 100) are replaced by others that are appropriate to the particular feast day being celebrated. A number of hymns (stichera) are sung in place of the Troparion of the Day. Then a prokeimenon, the reading of a relevant Old Testamentprophecy, an Epistle and a Gospel are chanted. The Kontakion of the Day is chanted by the choir, instead of being read. Since at the Royal Hours other services immediately follow the First Hour, there is no dismissal.