All-night vigil


The all-night vigil is a service of the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches consisting of an aggregation of the canonical hours of Compline, Vespers, Matins, and the First Hour. This service may be performed on any Sunday or major feast,
any feast for which a Litia is prescribed; these feasts are marked in the Typikon and in liturgical calendars by a Greek cross printed in red in a properly shaped semicircle ; this symbol is encoded in Unicode as U+1F541.

Order

When celebrated at the all-night vigil, the orders of Great Vespers and Matins vary somewhat from when they are celebrated separately. In parish usage, many portions of the service such as the readings from the Synaxarion during the Canon at Matins are abbreviated or omitted, and it therefore takes approximately two or two and a half hours to perform.
''Note that the Psalms cited below are numbered according to the Septuagint, which differs from that found in the Masoretic.''

Great Vespers

On the Eves of Nativity, Theophany, and the Annunciation, Great Compline is usually prescribed rather than Great Vespers.

Matins

Besides numerous traditional chants of several schools, several major composers have created versions of the all-night vigil. The most famous of these is by Sergei Rachmaninoff, whose setting of selections from the service is one of his most admired works. Tchaikovsky's setting of the all-night vigil, along with his Divine Liturgy and his collection of nine sacred songs were of seminal importance in the later interest in Orthodox music in general, and settings of the all-night vigil in particular. Other musical settings include those by Chesnokov, Grechaninov, Ippolitov-Ivanov, Alexander Kastalsky, Clive Strutt and Einojuhani Rautavaara. It is most often celebrated using a variety of traditional or simplified chant melodies based on the Octoechos or other sources.