Left Choir

Lion. krill. We sing lines

EVENING SACRIFICE

Adj. Hear us, O Lord.

Right Choir

DO NOT FORGET THE GUILT OF SINS

DO NOT DEPRIVE MY SOUL.

WITH MY VOICE I WILL PRAY TO THE LORD

Prir. I have cried unto thee, save me.

Left Choir.

LET NOT MY HEAD BE SMEARED

UNTIL I CROSS.

AND I WILL DECLARE MY SORROW BEFORE HIM.

adj. I have cried unto Thee, save me.

Right Choir

"AND SEEK NOT MY SOUL TO CONFESS THY NAME.

LORD, LORD, HEAR MY VOICE.

adj. Christ the Saviour, have mercy on us.

Left Choir

THOU ART MY PART IN THE LAND OF THE LIVING

UNTIL THOU RECOMPENSE ME

HEARKEN TO THE VOICE OF MY PRAYER

adj. Christ the Saviour, have mercy on me.

Right Choir

FOR FROM THEE IS PURIFICATION

LET ISRAEL TRUST IN THE LORD, PRAISE HIM, ALL YE PEOPLE

Left Choir

lion. krill. We sing 1 lines

IN THY WORD MY SOUL TRUSTS IN THE LORD

FROM ALL HIS INIQUITIES

AND THE TRUTH OF THE LORD ENDURES FOREVER [154].

As can be seen from the above text of the lamp psalms, the choirs, alternating with each other, sang not the full verses of this or that psalm, but individual phrases from them, which, being taken out of the context of the psalm, sometimes turned out to be devoid of meaning, for example, "evening sacrifice" or "until I pass away." This was a direct imitation of those opening phrases like "And sleep. Glory to Thee, O God", with which the domestiki once began the singing of this or that psalm-antiphon at the hymned services. In this singing of the psalms, the prayerful attention of those present at the service was concentrated on the touching refrains: "Hear us, O Lord," "I have cried unto Thee, save me," and "Christ the Saviour, have mercy on us," which were attached to one or another phrase of the psalm. The refrain was not attached to the last six phrases, since they were combined with stichera.

During the singing of the lamp psalms, incense was performed. The latter, as is known, existed from ancient times in hymned vespers and was performed by a deacon. But when the Jerusalem Ustav appeared in the Russian Church with the rite of the All-Night Vigil, where it was instructed to perform the censing of the church before the beginning of the vigil to the priest in the presence of a candle by the paraecclesiarch, then they began to perform the censing on "Lord, I have cried;.." according to the example of the vigil. This order was first confirmed by the instructions in the printed service books [155], and then was legalized in the Typikon – "When the Lord begins to sing, the priest of the icon and the rector and the two faces and all the brethren cense, and the deacon walks before him with the priest" [156].

The Russian Church, like the Greek Church, inherited from Vespers the custom of making the entrance at Great Vespers, but at the same time it introduced into this rite something of its own, Russian. In the Russian Church, the evening entrance of the cathedral was performed without fail not only on feast days, but also on the eve of Sundays. The place of its celebration was the cathedral church of the given city, and not only all the city clergy were obliged to participate in it, but also the so-called "priests", i.e. priests who arrived in this city on some business from the periphery and stayed in it on the eve of the holiday. The priests of the city's churches had to perform vespers in their church a little earlier than it happened in the cathedral church, and appear in the latter to sing the lamp psalms.

This custom will be understandable in the light of the importance that the cathedral church had in the history of the ancient Russian city. In the cathedral church, all the most important church acts in the history of a particular principality were performed: the enthronement of a bishop, the church rite of "seating" the prince on the throne, councils, i.e. meetings of the clergy on issues of doctrine and church discipline. At the councils, the Church's activity in the field of the spiritual enlightenment of the people was mainly concentrated; The cathedrals were schools of church singing. Thus, the cathedral was the center of spiritual life not only of the city, but also of the adjacent periphery of the principality or region.