On the houses, the liturgy was celebrated by the Czech Orthodox Church, which was banned by the fascist occupiers [135]. You can conduct services in your home apartment, in the forest, in the field, in a cave and even in a hotel room.

In the preface to the Psalter, published with the blessing of His Holiness Patriarch Pimen of Moscow and All Russia (Moscow, 1973), it is said: "If a believer has not attended divine services in church, then he may include in his home rule either the psalms from the divine service, or in full, one or another daily service (except for the Divine Liturgy, which is celebrated only by a bishop or priest): matins and the first hour; the Third and Sixth Hours and the Pictorial Hours, the Ninth Hour and Vespers" (p. 7).

Any service is a meeting with God, so the room in which it is supposed to be celebrated should be cleaned as for the reception of a dear guest. If you don't have the strength to clean up the whole room, you need to clean up at least the corner in which the service is supposed to be held.

St. St. John Chrysostom in his discourse "On the Cross and the Thief" says: "... when Christ came <... > He cleansed the whole earth, made every place convenient for prayer; the whole earth has finally become a temple."

In family life, home worship helps to deepen the prayerful communion of spouses and include children in it. If there are children, a husband and wife often cannot go to church together. In this case, it would be good for the person who remains at home to read something from the divine service of the day, if he is not able to fulfill it completely. What to read depends on the books available at home, the time (children spinning under their feet, etc.), the strength and mood of the person praying.

Liturgical circles

Those who constantly go to church notice that the divine service consists of daily or weekly prayers and prayers repeated at regular intervals or read once a year. This is due to the fact that the divine service consists of several interconnected circles: daily, weekly, eight-voiced, annual movable and annual fixed.

The daily cycle creates the basic structure of the divine service and consists of Vespers, Compline, Midnight Office, Matins, the First, Third, Sixth, Ninth Hours and the Liturgy. In parish churches, all these services are not served every day. In ancient times, there were holy monasteries of the sleepless, where divine services and prayers were performed continuously. Some monks went to rest or to household obediences, while others went to pray in churches, prayer for the whole world and the salvation of all went on in the monastery unceasingly.

The usual services of modern church practice are Vespers, Matins, the First, Third, Sixth Hour, and Liturgy. They consist of the main prayers and of prayers, hymns and readings of the day, depending on its position in the weekly, eight-voice and both annual cycles. The annual fixed cycle includes prayers dedicated to feasts and saints honored on certain days of the year. They are written in a book called the Menaion. Prayers and services of the movable circle are associated with feasts that fall on different dates in different years. They are contained in books called the Lenten and Colored Triodions; the first contains the services of Great Lent and the weeks of preparation for it, the second contains the services from Pascha to Trinity.

Каждый день седмицы имеет свою молитвенную тему: воскресение — по–церковнославянски неделя — посвящено воскресению Христову; понедельник — бесплотным силам; вторник — Предтече и Крестителю Иоанну; среда и пятница — Кресту и Страданиям Христовым; четверг — апостолам и святителю Николаю; суббота — всем святым и молению за умерших.

Чтобы не было однообразия недель, дневные службы — точнее, дневные песнопения — группируются по восемь, согласно восьми основным церковным напевам — гласам, образуя таким образом еще один круг молитвословий, содержащийся в книге Октоих , или «Осьмогласник».

Конечно, мирянину в своем домашнем, семейном богослужении соблюдать все многоцветие церковного богослужения, предусмотренного уставом и церковной практикой, практически невозможно. Однако в той или иной мере приближаться к этому идеалу вполне доступно даже с тем количеством пособий, которые имеются.

Схемы богослужения и пособия

Церковь никогда не считала, что полное единообразие в обрядах и молитвах является непременным условием единства. Поэтому и нет единого устава Православной церкви, о чем часто забывают «строгие» уставщики. Два основных варианта «Типикона» — книги, регламентирующей наше богослужение, называются по месту своего происхождения: «Уставом Лавры св. Саввы» и «Уставом Великой церкви». Первый еще называется «Изображением последования во Иерусалиме святой Лавры» или сокращенно «Иерусалимским уставом», а также «Славянским», ибо получил распространение в славянских землях. Второй представляет собой слегка видоизмененный устав Студийского монастыря и применялся в храме св. Софии; иногда он называется греческим.