What is the evening rule of Optina Pustyn? In order to understand this, you need to find out what Optina Pustyn is, and, of course, understand what is hidden under the phrase "evening rule".
What is the "evening rule"?
This is the name of a special prayer before going to bed. Believers turn to the Lord not only with a request to protect their souls during sleep, but also share their aspirations, thoughts and everything that happened over the past day.
Of course, requests for deliverance from doubts, anxieties, various fears that are inherent in a person’s thoughts before going to bed are also included in the evening prayer rule. Optina Pustyn, on the other hand, offers a variant of turning to the Lord, which combines all the nuances and gives strength to faith, and gives peace to the soul. Many people are familiar with the condition in which it is difficult to fall asleep fromthe fact that various thoughts “roam” in the head. Evening prayer helps to avoid this.
What is Optina Pustyn?
You need to know what kind of place this is in order to understand how the evening prayer rule used in it differs from the rest. Optina Pustyn is a male monastery in the Kaluga region, near the town of Kozelsk.
The monastery has the status of stavropegial. Literally translated from Greek, this word means "raising the cross." This status is the highest of all that Orthodox monasteries can have. Its presence implies the direct participation of the patriarch in the management, daily concerns and other needs of the monastery.
From the monastery history
One legend is connected with the history of the founding of this monastery. According to legend, in the 14th century, a certain Optius robbed and acted recklessly in the local forests. Another variant of the name is Opta.
Bandit Opta was formidable and commanded his own gang of robbers-village dwellers from the Kozelskaya notch. They were in charge of all the roads that ran through the local wasteland and surrounding forests.
What exactly happened, no one knows, legends are silent about the reasons why Opta suddenly repented and leaned to serve the Lord. Nevertheless, this man took the tonsure under the name of Macarius and founded a monastery in those places where he himself robbed. Of course, the monastery began to be called Makarievsky.
The first written mention of the monastery dates back to the time when Boris Godunov ruled. And in the description of disasters,caused to this area by the Lithuanians in 1610, a monastery with a central church and six cells is mentioned.
What is special about this prayer?
The evening rule of Optina Pustyn includes several components, a kind of introduction, middle and final part.
In the first part of the prayer before going to bed, common words are spoken. This is a kind of generalized appeal to the Lord, gratitude to him for the gift of the day and the expression of one's own humility, entrusting oneself to God's will. This is a must-read part, opening or beginning the evening rule "for the next to sleep." Optina Pustyn was founded by people who had been away from God for a long time. Of course, having believed overnight, one cannot just change one's habits just as easily. Therefore, a lot of things accumulated during the day that bothered me before going to bed. Yes, and past sins probably disturbed the conscience. The introduction helped bring your own thoughts into harmony, calm down and tune in to the right way to pronounce prayers.
The middle part, which makes up the evening rule of Optina Hermitage, is a series of prayers or the reading of a troparion. However, one does not cancel the other, that is, a person can both pray in his own words about the daily, and read the troparion. It is in this middle part of the prayer that people seem to be talking with the Lord, sharing everything vital, asking for something, expressing their own aspirations.
The end of prayer is an expression of gratitude to God for the past day and a request for the protection of the soul during the night's sleep.
What can besuch a prayer?
There is no single canonical evening prayer from Optina Pustosh. A distinctive feature of the prayer before going to bed, which is pronounced by monks and novices in this monastery, is the strict construction of the text, observing the order of its constituent parts.
This means that the evening rule of Optina Pustyn is not at all some specific text that should be memorized and repeated before going to bed. It is rather a general set of evening prayers, a certain routine for pronouncing appeals to the Lord. That is, it is not at all so important to repeat the texts word for word after the monks. For example, in the monastic evening rule, the phrase "Lord, have mercy" is sung twelve times between each individual prayer. Of course, praying at home before going to bed, you can not repeat it so often. It is not obligatory at home to read the troparion. But it is important to observe the sequence recommended in the monastery - do not forget about the opening prayer and, of course, about the end.
You can start a prayer like this:
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Lord Almighty, our heavenly Father, All-Merciful, save and have mercy.
Hail, Lord, comforter and King of heaven, who cleanses our souls from filth and bestows eternal life. Amen.”
Of course, the introductory part of the prayer can be much longer. The duration depends on how much time a person needs to put his thoughts in order before the main prayer. The middle part of the prayer is the most important. Her best option would bewords that come not from the mind, but from the heart.
You can complete the evening prayer like this:
“I commit my soul to you, Heavenly Father. Save me while I sleep, save and have mercy. Amen.”
