Copyright 1998-2002 Reverend Peter Boutros. All rights reserved.

O Lord, Who bless those who bless You, and sanctify those who trust in You, save Your people and bless Your inheritance, safeguard the fullness of Your Church, sanctify those who love the beauty of Your house; in return, raise them to glory by Your divine power and do not forsake us who put our trust in You. Give peace to Your world, to Your churches, to your priests, to our public authorities, to those who protect us, and to all Your people: for every good gift and every perfect grace is from above, coming down from You, the Father of Lights; and to You we render glory, thanksgiving, and worship, to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and always and forever, and ever. Amen.

The purpose of this Web Site is to present to our visitors CyberTypicon. CyberTypicon is a computer program automating the practices and prayers of the Melkite Catholic Church. Beside the automation, CyberTypicon will also attempt to simplify the TASK of defining the prayers traditionally practiced by the Byzantine Eastern Christians.

Two thousand years of Christian living formed, defined, and enhanced the way we pray. It is evident that we can draw beneficial insight and knowledge from every task we undertake in preparing our Liturgies. Unfortunately, even with the smallest task of defining the Troparia or a Kinonikon for a Leave-taking of a Feast, someone can enter a maze of contradictory practices. Regrettably, over the years deviations infiltrated our practices and added complexity to the variations practiced in different parts of the world and in different churches. CyberTypicon will attempt, God Willing, to recover, compile, and simplify our meager and yet rich documentation.

The main Typicon(s) did not intend to limit the dynamic nature of our Celebrations, but their mere existence attests to the need of some order and uniformity. CyberTypicon follows the Melkite Church’s common practices, which may or may not be common with the practices of the other Eastern Churches. 

Finally, I would like you to view CyberTypicon and Typicon.com as the fruit of a deep love and admiration for our Theology, Spirituality, Liturgy, and Tradition. Let us all echo the remarks of our Patriarch Maximos IV Sayegh of Antioch at Vatican II:

"We must not allow the adaptation of the liturgy to become an obsession. The liturgy, like the inspired writings, has a permanent value apart from the circumstances giving rise to it. Before altering a rite we should make sure that a change is strictly necessary. The liturgy has an impersonal character and also has universality in space and time. It is, as it were, timeless and thus enables us to see the divine aspect of eternity. These thoughts will enable us to understand what at first seem shocking in some of the prayers of the Liturgy - feasts that seem no longer appropriate, antiquated gestures, calls to vengeance which reflect a pre-Christian mentality, anguished cries in the darkness of the night, and so on. It is good to feel oneself thus linked with all the ages of mankind. We pray not only with our contemporaries but with men who have lived in all centuries."