One way in which we can increase the talents given to us by God is "to celebrate a service in splendor" and thereby "communicate the word to those untaught." (Matins Aposticha of Great and Holy Tuesday) A Practical Handbook for Divine Services will serve as an invaluable guide to all- priests, deacons, servers, readers and singers- who seek to increase their God given talent in fulfillment of these words.
It will also encourage all the laity who desire to enter more fully into an understanding of the Church's Typicon, the "rule" which governs how Divine worship is offered in the church, and to internalize the principles that underpin it.
Whilst drawn from Russian sources, the texts also touch upon differences found in Greek usage. The primary source is the 1998 work of I.V. Gaslov, Orthodox Divine Services, which was written to address the need of the many new clergy ordained in Russia following the fall of communism. A Practical Handbook for Divine Services will be equally helpful to the many Orthodox clergy ordained in the West in the past twenty years or more who have not grown up within settled Orthodox communtiies.
Igumen Gregory Woolfenden was a noted Western liturgical scholar who was received into the Orthodox Church (Moscow Patriarchate) in 1996. He reposed in 2008.
