Brief Overview of Safro

Each large office has a distinctive set of prayers. Safro is no different. I haven't had much time to work on translating the actual texts (although I've been working on Sunday's!) but I'll give a brief overview of the setup.

Like all offices it begins with just a regular prayer. After which the priest gives the greeting of peace "Peace be with the Church and her children." The Syriac Gloria follows, unlike smaller offices we have seen until now that simply have Psalm 51 follow the first prayer.

Following the Gloria, there is always a qolo sung; it's verses are rotated with the Glory of the Virgin Mary (Luke 1: 46-55). It seems intuitive that many of the verses are very Marian, but at the same time they make many references to Jesus as the light of the world. This verse of Sunday's first qolo seems to be indicative of many of the verses' themes:

"Blessed are you, Mary, the pure and holy Virgin who was worthy to be the Mother of the infant who is the Ancient of Days. Like a child, you crooned over Him and suckled Him with pure milk. Glory to He who dawned from you and His beams shone to the ends of the world. Lo! The peoples ransomed by His Cross offer up glory to Him."

Following the first qolo is another prayer and another qolo rotated with verses from Psalm 63. After another prayer, a third qolo follows - this qolo is poorly preserved in the Prayer of the Faithful offices as the "Nuhro." In actuality, the third qolo is supposed to be a proper qolo with verses rotated with a text called the Teshbohto dMor Ephrem (the Glory of St. Ephrem). The text alludes to the second coming as the morning and likens Jesus to a rising sun. While the Prayer of the Faithful does an OK job of preserving the text itself (with, of course, typical revisionist changes and additions) it does not maintain the fact that each day has a distinct qolo with distinct verses to be rotated with the ordinary text.

Another prayer follows, with a hymn (essentially a qolo) called shabah or the imperative "praise." This makes sense because the verses of the shabah are rotated with Psalm 148, Psalm 149, Psalm 150 and Psalm 117. The shabah is, appropriately, a hymn of glorification.

After the shabah comes the sooghito, which is simply a dialoguing hymn that is listed with a letter of the alphabet corresponding to the chronology of the verse.

The typical hoosoyo follows the sooghito. For Sunday's Safro's hoosoyo's qolo there's a particular melody used called Qadishat rohem nosho (Holy are You, Lover of Man). This melody is used to do an extended and doxological form of the Syriac Trisaigon. After the etro of the hoosoyo there is a mazmooro (psalm) - this is the first time we encounter the mazmooro. Mazmooro is simply a three versed hymn that is sung, like most other things, antiphonally and uses one of the several ramremain melodies.

In conclusion of every office proper, a bo'oto is at the end.

Our Lord, accept our service, our prayers, come to our aid and have mercy on us!