Thus, Book VIII of the Apostolic Constitutions contains a fairly detailed exposition of the end of Vespers, consisting of the deacon's prayers and two prayers of the bishop, of which the latter was listened to with bowing.

With regard to the above-mentioned deacon's prayers, it should be noted that the first half of them, listened to by the worshippers with kneeling, is a kind of variant of those early Christian prayers of which Tertullian had already written: "We pray for the emperors, their ministers, and for the authorities, for the existence of the human race, for the tranquillity of the state, and for the slowing of the end of the world" [17], and which are quoted in the Testament of our Lord Jesus Christ as Proclamatio diaconi – "On the World, Who Are from Heaven..., On Faith..., On Concord and Like-mindedness..., On Patience..., On the Apostles..., On the Holy Prophets..., On the Holy Confessors..., On the Bishop..., On the Presbyters..., On the Deacons..., On the Presbyterides (Presbyteris Feminis)..., On the Subdeacons, Readers and Deaconesses..., On the Always Faithful..., On the Catechumens..., On the Empire..., On the Authorities..., On the Whole World..., On Those Who Sail and Travel..., On Those Who Endure Persecution.... For the departed, who departed from the Church..., For the fallen..., For all of us..." [18], who are also heard on their knees.

And the presence in the prayers under consideration of the Decrees of the Apostolic petitions "For those who are in ores and prisons, and in prisons and chains who are in the name of the Lord..., For those who labor in bitter labor..., For those who hate us..., For those who persecute us for the name of the Lord..." speaks of an earlier origin of these prayers than the time of the appearance of the Decrees themselves. It is possible that they were used at evening services as early as the third century, and the compiler of the Apostolic Decrees supplemented them with petitions: "Mercies of the Lord..., the Angel who is in the world, good and useful Christian ends, peaceful and sinless evenings and nights...", which he instructed, in contrast to those ancient prayers, to listen to standing up. For the history of the Orthodox rite of Vespers, these and other prayers are important, as they represent a kind of prototype of modern litanies : great and fervent (the first part of the prayers or kneeling) and supplicatory (the second part). The latter, perhaps, appeared at the time of the compilation of the Apostolic Decrees, and the compiler therefore considered it necessary to record it and assign it an appropriate place in the liturgical rites.

As for the bishop's prayers, it is not possible to establish their earlier origin, in comparison with the time of the origin of the Apostolic Decrees, due to the absence of such prayers in the surviving monuments of the second and third centuries.

For the history of Orthodox Vespers, these prayers are important, since they have much in common with the prayers of modern Vespers, both in terms of the plan of their structure and in terms of their content. In particular, the first episcopal prayer "O God without beginning and Infinite..." is close in this respect to the modern 7th lamp prayer: "O Great and Most High God, Who alone has immortality..." In both prayers, God is first glorified as the Creator of the heavenly luminaries, which determine the appearance of day and night by their flow.

PRAYER OF THE VIII BOOK OF LENT. UP.

PRAYER OF THE VIII BOOK OF LENT. UP.

"Who created the day for the works of light and the night for the repose of our infirmity, for Thine is the day and Thine is the night, Thou didst make the dawn and the sun."

"He who divides between light and darkness, and puts the sun in the region of the day, and the moon and the stars in the region of the night."

Both prayers are followed by evening thanksgiving.