The lighting of lamps in the church is consistent with the hymns and rites of the services. The more solemn the service, the more lamps are lit. The Ustav specifies when and how many lamps should be lit at which services. Thus, for example, during the Six Psalms, almost all the lamps are extinguished, and during the singing of the polyeleos, all the candles in the church are lit. At the Liturgy, as the most solemn service, it is customary to light the most candles. Candles in the church and altar, except for the altar and the altar, are lit by the candilov-burner, or sexton. Candles on the altar and altar are prescribed to be lit and extinguished only by a priest or deacon. For the first time in the altar, during the consecration of the church, the bishop himself lights a candle. Believers who come to church themselves light candles in front of the icons as they wish. This is an expression of love and fervent faith for the saint, in front of whose image we place a candle.

Censing before holy icons expresses our reverence for the saints depicted on icons, and censing addressed to the faithful expresses the desire that they be filled with the Holy Spirit and fragrant before the Lord with their good deeds, like incense. The smoke of incense, embracing the worshippers, symbolizes the grace of God that surrounds us. Censing in general expresses the desire of the worshippers that their prayers be lifted up to the throne of God, just as incense is lifted up to heaven, and would be as pleasing to God as the fragrance of incense is pleasant. Censing is always combined with a prayer pronounced by the bishop or priest, blessing the censer before censing. In this prayer there is a petition to God that He accept this censer into the stench of spiritual fragrance, that is, that the people who stand before and pray may be a spiritually pleasant fragrance to Christ (2 Corinthians 2:15), that the Lord, receiving the censer into His most heavenly altar, send down the grace of His Most Holy Spirit. For incense there is a censer on chains, a hand censer called a censer, a vessel for incense, called a palm, and other special vessels that are placed in certain places of the church to fill the church with incense, as the Ustav indicates to be done at Paschal Matins. Incense, or frankincense, is the fragrant tree resin of certain trees; it is sometimes prepared artificially from various fragrant substances. Censing is performed at different moments of the service, sometimes by one priest, sometimes by a priest with a deacon, and sometimes by one deacon. During the episcopal service, the censing is sometimes performed by the bishop himself. According to the rules, the censer must, with each stroke of the censer, make a cross with it, and bow to the person or icon with which he is censing. The deacon, when censing with a priest or bishop, precedes him with candles in his hands. In addition to the deacon with candles, the censing bishop is preceded by subdeacons with the dikirion and trikirion. Censing can be of different types: sometimes only a certain part of the church or a certain object is censed, as, for example, a lectern with an icon, or a cross, or the Gospel. The rite of incense is described in detail in Chapter 22 of the Typicon. The full censing of the entire church from the altar begins as follows: first, the altar is censed on all four sides, then the high place and the altar, (if the Holy Gifts are prepared on the altar, then the altar first) and the entire altar. Then the censer goes through the north doors to the ambo, censes the Holy Doors, then the icons of the south side of the iconostasis, beginning with the icon of the Savior, then the icons of the north side of the iconostasis, beginning with the icon of the Mother of God, then the right and left faces, or kliros, and all those present in the church. Then, going around the church from the south side, he censes the icons of the entire church, then enters the narthex, censes the "red gates", leaving the narthex, goes to the altar with the north side, censing all the icons of the church on this side, and returns again to the Holy Doors, censes the Holy Doors, the icon of the Savior, the icon of the Mother of God, and enters the altar through the south door, after which, standing before the altar, censes it from the front. If the Royal Doors are open, he goes out onto the ambo and returns to the altar through the Royal Doors. In case of incomplete censing, the censer, having censed the iconostasis, the icons and the people from the ambo, turns, censes again the Holy Doors, the icon of the Savior and the Mother of God, and enters the altar. Sometimes the censing begins in the middle of the church from the analogion, on which the icon of the feast lies. Then first they cense this icon, lying on the analogion, on all four sides, then they enter the altar through the royal doors, cense the altar, leave it through the royal doors, and then the entire church is censed in the usual order, after which they return from the royal doors not to the altar, but again to the analogion with the icon in the middle of the church. Sometimes the censing is performed by two deacons at once: in this case, they disperse in opposite directions: one censes the southern part of the church, the other the northern part, and then they come together again and cense together at the same time.

The censing of the entire church, which begins from the altar, takes place at Vespers at the beginning of the All-Night Vigil and during the singing of "Lord, I have cried", at Matins at the beginning of it, during the singing of the "Immaculate", during the singing of the polyeleos, as well as at the 8th and 9th cantos of the canon, at the Liturgy at the end of the proskomedia and the reading of the Hours. The censing of the entire church, which begins in the middle of the church, takes place at the festal Matins after the singing of the magnification, at Matins of Great Friday, when the 12 Gospels are read in the middle of the church, at the Royal Hours, on Great Friday, and on Christmas and Epiphany Eves, at which the reading of the Gospel takes place, and at Matins of Holy Saturday during the singing of funeral praises. The censing of one altar and iconostasis takes place at the Liturgy during the reading of the Epistle (and according to the Ustav during the singing of the Alleluia after the Epistles), during the singing of the Cherubic Hymn, and during the Hierarchal Liturgy, the bishop himself censes immediately after the Little Entrance. It should be known that at the Liturgy, after the censing of the entire altar, the clergy and clergy in it are not immediately censed, but first they leave through the Royal Doors, then the iconostasis is censed, after which they return to the altar, cense those who are in it, and again go out through the Holy Doors to the ambo, and then the people standing in the church, beginning with the faces, censes. Upon returning to the altar and censing the altar, the bishop or primate is always censed for the last time. For the first time, the bishop is censed three times, that is, not one, as usual, but three crosses with censers. The censing of one altar table or altar takes place at the Liturgy at the end of the proskomedia, before the Great Entrance, after the Great Entrance, at the words: "O Most Holy One...", and after the exclamation: "Save, O God, Thy people..."

7. Liturgical books

The books according to which divine services are performed in the church are called liturgical books. They are divided into simple and musical (singing).

About Simple Books

There are four types of simple liturgical books: 1) for public worship, 2) for private worship at the need of one or more persons, 3) used for both services, and 4) for home worship without the participation of clergy.

Books for Public Worship

First of all, it is necessary to know that in order to compose a single service for any day of the year, it is necessary to use several books. This is because in the composition of each service one is constant, is an unchangeable part of the given service, and the other changes on different days of the week and on different days of the year. It would be impossible to set forth all this unchangeable and changeable in one book, because the divine services change daily depending on the sacred commemorations and commemorations of the holy saints of God celebrated by the Church. Therefore, in some books the unchangeable parts of the divine service are set forth, and in others those that change depending on the various fixed and movable feasts. The books relating to public worship are as follows:

Missal

It is a book that sets forth the unchangeable parts of the daily service, and exactly what priests and deacons should say and do. The service book contains the service of Vespers, Matins, the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the Liturgy of St. Basil the Great, the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, and additional sections, such as: a collection of dismissals, prokeimena, menologion, and at the end the Teaching News, which explains how the clergy should act in various perplexing cases of divine services.

Clerk of the Episcopal Priesthood

This is the same Service Book, but appointed for the use of bishops who perform divine services with an indication of all the features of the episcopal service. In addition to the rites of the three liturgies, it contains the rites of ordination to various ecclesiastical degrees and the rite of consecration of the Antimensions.

Book of Hours