The Euchologion is the celebrant's book of the Byzantine rite, holding the texts that belong to the priest and deacon rather than to the choir. Its heart is the three Divine Liturgies, of John Chrysostom, of Basil the Great and of the Presanctified Gifts, with their quiet prayers, litanies and rubrics. Around them gather the mysteries and rites that mark a Byzantine Christian's life: baptism and chrismation, the crowning of marriage, confession, the anointing of the sick, ordinations to each degree of the clergy, the funeral in its several forms, together with the great blessing of waters at Theophany, the consecration of churches and antimensia, prayers over homes, fields, wells and travelers, and prayers of exorcism attributed to Basil and John Chrysostom.
The full collection is the Great Euchologion; smaller working volumes extract what a parish priest needs daily. Slavic usage divides the material between two books, the Sluzhebnik, carrying the liturgies and the priest's parts of Vespers and Matins, and the Trebnik, the book of needs, carrying the occasional offices, and Greek practice knows similar working splits. However divided, the contents mirror an entire life: the same volume that receives an infant at the font accompanies the believer to marriage, sickbed and grave, which makes the Euchologion, more than any other Byzantine book, the record of what the church actually does for its people.