Canon LXVI.
From
the holy day of the
Resurrection of Christ our God until the next Lord’s day, for a
whole week, in the holy churches the faithful ought to be free from
labour, rejoicing in Christ with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;
and celebrating the feast, and applying their minds to the reading of
the holy Scriptures, and delighting in the Holy Mysteries; for thus
shall we be exalted with Christ and together with him be raised
up. Therefore, on the aforesaid days there must not be any horse
races or any public spectacle.
Notes.
Ancient Epitome of Canon
LXVI.
The faithful shall every one of them go to church during
the whole week after Easter.
Van Espen.
It is certain that the whole of Easter week was kept as
a feast by the whole Church both East and West; and this Synod did not
introduce this custom by its canon, but adopted this canon to ensure
its continuance.
Here we have clearly set forth the Christian manner of
passing a feast-day, viz., that the faithful on those days did give
themselves up to “Psalms and Hymns and Spiritual Songs,”
from which the divine office which we call today canonical [i.e.,
chiefly Mattins and Vespers] are made up; and hence we understand that
all the faithful ought to attend the choir-offices, which was indeed
observed for many centuries, as I have shewn in my
Dissertation on
the Canonical Hours
, cap. III., § 1, and therefore it was
called “public” [or common] prayer.