Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Rare word #13: apolytikion

This description from the OMHKSEA:

The principal troparion (hymn) of the day, chanted at the end of Vespers (hence its name, which means “dismissal hymn”), and celebrating the particular feast or saint being commemorated. It is also known as the “troparion of the feast” or the “troparion of the day”. On Great Feasts it is sung three times at the end of Vespers, four times at Matins: three times after “The Lord is God”, and once at the end of Matins, immediately after the Great Doxology; once at the Liturgy, after the Little Entrance and the Introit; at Great Compline and at all the Hours.

5 comments:

  1. Knows simply as the 'tropar' in the OCA, and probably in Slav practice generally.

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  2. Tropar isn't a Slavic term, is it? It's always seemed Greek to me.

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  3. Apo- is a Greek prefix (where we get our word apogee from). Apo would mean the furthest (hence last) hymn.

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  4. The apolysis is the dismissal. So an apolytikion is a type of troparion sung immediately before the dismissal.

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