Holy Week and Pascha: A New Bilingual Edition

GabrielCremeens

Music Director at St. George, Albuquerque, NM
A recent e-mail I just received from the Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Brookline, MA, announces the publication and printing of their newest liturgical book:

Holy Week and Pascha, a new Bilingual Edition

Last year we printed our edition of Holy Week in large format suitable for the chanting stand. Now we are presenting the same text in a bilingual edition for personal use together with the original Greek, plus the Unction Service for Holy Wednesday, and the Sunday of Pascha.

This book – the full title is Μεγάλη Ἑβδομὰς καὶ Πάσχα / Holy Week and Pascha – offers the services from Lazarus Saturday through Holy Saturday translated into English from the Greek Triodion, as printed last year in Holy Week, plus the service of the Sunday of Pascha, as printed in our Pentecostarion, in the same handy size as our Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians, although this book is twice as thick, since it comes to 880 pages. For all the services in the book, the original Greek text is given on the left-hand page and our English translation on the right page facing it.

Omitted are services not now done in general practice: the Small Vespers of Palm Sunday; the Compline Canons of Palm Sunday, of Holy Monday, of Holy Tuesday, and of Holy Wednesday; the Service of the Washing of the Feet; and the traditional order of the Ninth Ode of Pascha, which were all included in Holy Week.

The Service of Holy Unction, which is celebrated on Holy Wednesday, is printed here for the first time.

The Sunday of Pascha includes the Agape Vespers with the Gospel of Saint John in Greek, English, Slavonic, Latin, Georgian, Arabic, Romanian, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, German, Hungarian, Swahili, Luganda, and Turkish.

The book is now at the printers and we have only received digital proofs. Once we have samples of the printed pages and of the hard cover, we will post them here. The cover will be the same color, stamped with gold foil, as that of Holy Week.

While the printed book remains our first choice and priority, we are looking into making this book available also as an e-book. News of it will be posted on our webstore on the same page as the printed book.

Our printers have assured us that we will be able to receive the printed books by Friday, March 31, in time to ship out for Holy Week. Advance orders may be placed at our website here.

I welcome the publication of this book not simply because it is a new publication by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery - whose materials are, as always, top-notch - but also because it is the first real competitor that could potentially replace the ubiquitous "Papadeas book", with its plethora of textual and translational inaccuracies, incorrect rubrics, etc.

-Gabriel
 
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