Orthodox Pro vs Orthodox Hours

Orthodox Pro is a companion for anyone walking into an Orthodox church, whether for the first time or the thousandth. It was built for catechumens, for people visiting a parish whose language they do not speak, and for anyone who wants to know what today asks of them. TODAY The fasting rule for the day, in plain words, with what is allowed and whose rule it is. The daily Epistle and Gospel, the readings of a feast, and the Matins Gospel, each opening to the full passage. The saints commemorated, with lives for the better known. Walk forward to Sunday or back to yesterday. Old and New Calendar, your choice. CHURCHES Orthodox parishes in all fifty states, from every jurisdiction, on a map that groups them as you zoom out and opens them as you zoom in. Search by name, town or state. Each parish page has the address, phone, website, a view of the building from the street, whether it is a rented hall rather than a church building, and its service times where they could be found. The map never asks where you are until you press the button that says so. Choose your own parish and Today shows its week: what is served, when, and what each day is called. The directory is built from each jurisdiction's own listings and each parish's own website, and every entry has been checked. Sources do not always agree, so a parish may be missing or a detail wrong. If you are travelling any distance, telephone ahead, and tell us through Report a problem. LITURGY The full Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom with the original alongside the English, in Greek or Church Slavonic. Priest, deacon, and choir parts are marked so you always know who is speaking and what comes next. The hymns of the day, with the tone, and a line at the top saying which Liturgy is actually being served: St Basil's ten times a year, the Presanctified on the Wednesdays and Fridays of Lent, and the days on which none is served at all. HOMILY When the sermon is in a language you do not speak, turn on the translator. It listens and shows an English translation on your screen as the priest speaks. Everything happens on your phone. Nothing is recorded or sent anywhere. BIBLE The whole Orthodox Bible, including the books of the Septuagint that other Bibles leave out: Tobit, Judith, Wisdom, Sirach, Baruch, the Maccabees, the Prayer of Manasseh, and the rest. Search the text, highlight a verse, write a note on it, and follow a reading plan: the Psalter by kathisma, the Gospels, or the New Testament in a year. PRAYER The morning and evening prayers, the prayers before and after Communion, prayers for particular needs, and a hundred and eight akathists. Keep the rule your priest actually gave you. Keep a prayer list of the living and the departed. Prepare for confession, and write down what you mean to say, behind Face ID and never leaving your phone. LEARN Short articles on what a catechumen actually needs: what to say and when, what the words mean, the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Jesus Prayer, incense, icons, vestments, how a church is laid out, and how the Church came to be where it is. A day-by-day guide to Holy Week and Pascha. Each ends with the questions to bring to your priest. A searchable catalogue of the saints. SOCIAL Orthodox news in English, Russian, Serbian, Romanian and Greek, each outlet labeled with who publishes it. Events people travel to: retreats, pilgrimages, conferences, lectures. A discussion board with a moderator. The app's own headings and buttons read in English, Russian, Greek, Romanian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Ukrainian, or Arabic. The text size is yours to set, and the screen can be turned down for a dark church. Orthodox Pro shows no advertisements and does not track you. Tips are optional and unlock nothing.

Hours is a prayer book for the Eastern Orthodox Byzantine tradition: the daily cycle of prayer, the calendar of the Church, and the whole Psalter, in one place and always to hand, with or without a signal. THE HOURS The Horologion, the cycle that sanctifies the day. Orthros at dawn, the First, Third, Sixth and Ninth Hours, Vespers at sunset, and Compline before sleep. The hour you are presently in is marked when you open the app, so you always know where the day stands. The Little Hours are given in full, and change with the Church's calendar: the hymns of the Resurrection in the week's tone, the hymns of each weekday, the Great Feasts, the Lenten Hours and the Paschal Hours of Bright Week. TODAY The Orthodox calendar for the day: - The commemorations and feasts, and the rank of the celebration - The tone of the week - The fasting rule, and what is abstained from - The scripture readings, in full - The lives of the saints commemorated Follow the New Calendar or the Old in Slavic usage, as kept by the OCA, ROCOR and the Russian and Serbian Churches, or the usage of the Antiochian and Greek Archdioceses. On the memorial Saturdays and through Great Lent, Today points to the prayers the day calls for. THE PSALTER All 150 Psalms, in both Masoretic and Septuagint numbering, so the psalm you are looking for is the psalm you find. And the twenty Kathismata, stasis by stasis, with those appointed for the day at Matins, at Vespers, and at the Hours of Lent. THE LITANY Write in the names of those you pray for, the living and the departed, and they are read into the commemorations of the Prayer Book. Pin each name's saint, and keep your own patrons, your family's and your parish's; Today remembers them on their day. Check names off as you pray. The names never leave your phone. THE PRAYER BOOK Prayers for adoration, confession, thanksgiving, supplication, intercession, lamentation and consecration, and the prayers before Holy Communion. PRAYERS FOR A NEED Sickness, grief, a sick child, the departed, fear, repentance, travel, marriage, peace and more: for each, the psalms and the prayers of the Church. SEARCH Find a saint and the day they are kept, a verse of the Psalms or the readings, a life, or a prayer. REMINDERS Set any of the seven hours to call you to prayer. Each repeats daily and carries a line from that hour's own prayers rather than a generic alert. Orthros begins at four in the morning, so it is left off until you ask for it. CHANT Orthodox chant that keeps playing while you pray, with the screen locked or another app open, and with controls on the lock screen. VESTED IN THE DAY The app takes the colour of the day as the Church keeps it: gold through ordinary days, purple through Great Lent, red for the feasts of martyrs and of the Cross, dark on Great and Holy Friday, Paschal red through Bright Week. The cycle follows the moving date of Pascha by itself, year after year, on either calendar. A widget brings the day to your home and lock screens. EASY TO READ Text set for reading on a screen, that follows your iPhone's Text Size, in light or dark. WITHOUT A SIGNAL Everything is in the app itself: the prayers, the Psalter, the chant, and the calendar with its readings and lives through 2050. Hours never needs a connection, which matters most where prayer is wanted and there is no signal. PRIVACY Hours collects nothing. There is no account, no analytics, no advertising and no tracking of any kind, and the app makes no network requests. The calendar is compiled from orthocal.info; the lives of the saints are from Abbamoses.com, by permission.