The Hours are short services of prayer that mark specific times of the day. There are four main ones: First Hour, Third Hour, Sixth Hour, and Ninth Hour. They’re part of the daily cycle of Orthodox worship, and they consist mostly of psalms, brief prayers, and hymns.
Think of them as checkpoints in the day when the Church pauses to pray. The early Christians inherited this practice from Jewish tradition, you can see it in Acts when Peter and John go to the temple at the “hour of prayer” or when the Holy Spirit descends at the third hour on Pentecost. The Church took these natural rhythms of prayer and gave them structure.
Each Hour originally corresponded to a specific time. First Hour at sunrise (around 6 a.m.). Third Hour at mid-morning (9 a.m.). Sixth Hour at noon. Ninth Hour at mid-afternoon (3 p.m.). Monasteries still pray them at these times. Most parishes don’t keep that full schedule publicly, but the Hours remain part of our liturgical life.
What’s Inside an Hour?
Each one is short. Maybe ten minutes if you’re reading it alone, a bit longer if you’re chanting it in church.
They all follow the same basic pattern. You start with an opening prayer, often “O Heavenly King” or “Come, let us worship.” Then you pray three appointed psalms. After that comes a brief hymn (usually the troparion of the day and a hymn to the Theotokos), the Trisagion prayers, the Lord’s Prayer, and a concluding prayer specific to that Hour.
The psalms and prayers give each Hour its own character. The Third Hour remembers Pentecost and the descent of the Holy Spirit. The Sixth Hour focuses on Christ’s Crucifixion, He was nailed to the Cross at the sixth hour. The Ninth Hour recalls His death at 3 p.m. when He gave up His spirit. The First Hour celebrates the new day and the light of creation.
There’s a beautiful prayer in the Sixth Hour that begins, “Thou Who at every season and every hour, in heaven and on earth, art worshipped and glorified, O Christ our God…” It captures what the Hours are about: sanctifying time itself, remembering that every moment belongs to God.
How We Use Them
In monasteries, all four Hours are prayed daily at their appointed times. Parish life works differently.
Most Antiochian parishes in North America don’t serve all the Hours publicly every day. We’re not monks. People work at the plants, they’re offshore on rotation, they’ve got kids in school. But the Hours still matter.
You’ll often find the Third and Sixth Hours prayed right before Divine Liturgy on Sundays and feast days. Some parishes pray them quietly while people are arriving. Others chant them as part of the service. During Great Lent, many parishes add the Hours to their weekday services. The rhythm of Lent includes them.
Clergy and chanters often pray the Hours privately as part of their daily rule. Laypeople can too. If you’ve got a prayer book or the Horologion (the book that contains the Hours), you can pray them at home. They’re especially good if you’re trying to build a prayer rule but Matins and Vespers feel too long. Start with one Hour. See what happens.
Their Connection to the Liturgy
The Hours prepare us for the Eucharist. When you pray the Third and Sixth Hours before Liturgy, you’re not just filling time while people find parking. You’re entering into the rhythm of prayer that leads to the altar.
The psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, the Trisagion, these same elements appear in the Liturgy itself. The Hours are like a threshold. They help us cross from ordinary time into liturgical time, from the parking lot into the Kingdom.
On days when there’s no Liturgy, the Typica (a service that includes parts of the Liturgy without the Eucharist) sometimes follows the Sixth Hour. It’s the Church’s way of keeping the daily cycle complete even when we can’t celebrate the full Eucharistic assembly.
A Practical Note for Southeast Texas
If you’re curious about the Hours, ask Fr. Nicholas or one of the chanters at St. Michael. Some people find them helpful for praying at work, you can read the Sixth Hour on your lunch break, the Ninth Hour before you leave the refinery. They’re portable. They don’t require anything but a book and a few minutes.
You can also find the Hours in the Orthodox Study Bible’s appendix or in a small Horologion. Ancient Faith Publishing sells a pocket-sized one that’s easy to keep in your truck.
The Hours won’t make sense overnight. They’re part of a bigger picture, the Church’s whole cycle of prayer. But they’re also completely accessible. Three psalms and some prayers. That’s it. Over time, they shape how you see the day, not as empty hours to fill but as time already full of God’s presence, time we’re invited to enter with prayer.
