Practices

Matins

Devotional Practices

Citation Formats

General Reference

Divinity Atlas. "Matins." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/practices/matins.

APA Style

Divinity Atlas. (n.d.). Matins. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/practices/matins

BibTeX

@misc{divinityatlas-matins,
  author = {Divinity Atlas},
  title = {Matins},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/practices/matins},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

Origin From the vigils of the early church; fixed as the night office in 4th-century monasticism

Matins is the night office of the Christian daily cycle, the longest and most austere of the canonical hours, descended from the early church's vigils: prayer kept in the hours of darkness, in imitation of the psalmist rising at midnight and in expectation of the Lord who comes like a thief in the night. Historically sung in the small hours, it carries the greatest weight of psalmody and the office's cycle of readings from scripture and the fathers. The reform of 1971 transformed the Roman hour into an Office of Readings that may be said at any time of day, while monastic communities and the Byzantine orthros continue the night and early-morning forms.

Facts

Practice

Category of Practice

Devotional 2

Who Performs It

Clergy or ordained officiants 2

Obligation

Obligatory 2

Frequency

Daily 1Christianity

Cadence Detail

Daily, historically in the night hours; since 1971 an Office of Readings for any hour 1Christianity

Solitary or Communal

Performed alone or together 2

Liturgical and Scriptural Role

The long night office of psalmody and readings. In the Roman books revised after the Second Vatican Council it became the Office of Readings, which may be said at any hour of the day. 2

Origins

Origin Period

From the vigils of the early church; fixed as the night office in 4th-century monasticism 1

Place of Origin

Italy 2

In monasteries, kept to the psalm scheme of the sixth century Rule of Saint Benedict.

Meaning

Literal Meaning

Of the morning, from the Latin matutinus, although the office was long kept in the hours of the night. 2

Attributions

Tradition

Matins in its Byzantine form is combined with other night offices into the Orthros, the principal morning service of the Eastern Orthodox Church. 3

Text

Source Text

The Liturgy of the Hours, and in the older Roman books the Breviarium Romanum; in monasteries the psalm scheme of the Rule of Saint Benedict. 2

Status

Status Today

Living tradition, practised today 2

Learn More

The Office of the Night

Rising in the dark to pray is the office's oldest gesture. The early church kept vigil through the night before Pascha, then before Sundays and the feasts of martyrs, and the desert monks of the fourth century turned occasional vigil into daily discipline, meeting in the deep night to recite psalms in long unbroken sequence. The hour that grew from this practice kept the night's character even when its timing softened.

Medieval Matins was a service of nocturns, each a block of psalms with antiphons followed by lessons: readings from scripture, from the sermons of the fathers, and from the lives of the saints, answered by the great responsories whose elaborate chant is among the treasures of the repertory. On the highest feasts Matins ran to three nocturns and ended in the Te Deum, and services such as the Tenebrae of Holy Week, with its candles extinguished one by one, show the hour's dramatic possibilities. The practical burden was real: a monastic community rose between midnight and three, sang for an hour or more, and returned to bed or continued to Lauds at dawn, a rhythm Benedict legislates with careful humanity, allowing more sleep in winter and shorter lessons in summer. Cathedral and collegiate clergy kept the hour by anticipation on the previous evening, a concession that spread until night recitation was the exception, the monasteries alone keeping the office where it began, in the hours when the world sleeps and the church watches.

From Vigil to Office of Readings

No hour was reshaped more decisively by the twentieth century's reforms than Matins. The Second Vatican Council's liturgy constitution directed that the hour should retain its nocturnal character for those who keep vigil but be adaptable to any time of day, and the 1971 Liturgy of the Hours drew the conclusion: the Roman Matins became the Office of Readings, a service of three psalms and two substantial lessons, one scriptural and one from the fathers or church writers, which a priest or layperson may pray at whatever hour suits, with an appendix of vigil material for those who want the old form. The change acknowledged what centuries of anticipation had already conceded, that the secular clergy did not rise at midnight, while preserving the hour's real treasure, its readings, now spread across a richer two-year cycle in the full edition.

The contrast with the East is instructive. The Byzantine orthros, the rough equivalent, never migrated: it remains an early-morning office of substantial length, containing the canon, the great sung poetry of the Byzantine tradition, and in parish practice it is celebrated immediately before the liturgy on Sunday mornings, while the monasteries of Athos still keep true night vigils running many hours. Anglican Mattins, meanwhile, condensed the old Matins and Lauds into the Morning Prayer of the Book of Common Prayer, whose choral form remains a fixture of English cathedral life. One ancient impulse, to fill the night with psalms, thus survives in three distinct modern shapes.

Cross-Tradition Connections

Belongs to Tradition

Anglican Communion

Kept across the provinces of the Anglican Communion. Morning Prayer is the surviving daily office, and it is Matins and Lauds combined into one service. The reduction of eight hours to two was deliberate and is the plainest liturgical difference between this church and Rome.

Anglicanism

Morning Prayer is the surviving daily office, and it is Matins and Lauds combined into one service. The reduction of eight hours to two was deliberate and is the plainest liturgical difference between this church and Rome.

Source The Book of Common PrayerChurch of England; ed. Brian Cummings

Armenian Apostolic Church

Kept in the Armenian Apostolic Church. The night office is kept, most fully in the monasteries, and in the Coptic use it is the Midnight Prayer with its three watches.

Christianity

Church of Cyprus

Kept in the Church of Cyprus, autocephalous since the Council of Ephesus in 431.

Church of England

Kept in the Church of England, the province from which the Prayer Book tradition comes. Morning Prayer is the surviving daily office, and it is Matins and Lauds combined into one service. The reduction of eight hours to two was deliberate and is the plainest liturgical difference between this church and Rome.

Church of Greece

Kept in the Church of Greece.

Church of Ireland

Kept in the Church of Ireland. Morning Prayer is the surviving daily office, and it is Matins and Lauds combined into one service. The reduction of eight hours to two was deliberate and is the plainest liturgical difference between this church and Rome.

Church of Sweden

Kept in the Church of Sweden, which retained the historic episcopate through the Reformation as few Lutheran churches did. Matins is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Benedictus as its gospel canticle.

Coptic Orthodoxy

Kept in the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria. The night office is kept, most fully in the monasteries, and in the Coptic use it is the Midnight Prayer with its three watches.

Eastern Orthodoxy

Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople

Kept in the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, the see of first honour among the Orthodox churches.

Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Kept in the Eritrean Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The night office is kept, most fully in the monasteries, and in the Coptic use it is the Midnight Prayer with its three watches.

Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church

Kept in the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church. The night office is kept, most fully in the monasteries, and in the Coptic use it is the Midnight Prayer with its three watches.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Kept in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Matins is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Benedictus as its gospel canticle.

Georgian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Georgian Orthodox Church, which has used its own language and script in worship since the fifth century.

Greek Orthodox Church

Kept in the Greek Orthodox churches.

Lutheranism

Matins is kept in Lutheran service books, with the Benedictus as its gospel canticle.

Oriental Orthodoxy

The night office is kept, most fully in the monasteries, and in the Coptic use it is the Midnight Prayer with its three watches.

Source The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical ServicesO. H. E. KHS-Burmester

Roman Catholicism

Romanian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Romanian Orthodox Church, the one Orthodox church of the Byzantine tradition whose language is Romance.

Russian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Russian Orthodox Church, in the Slavonic recension of the Byzantine books.

Serbian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Serbian Orthodox Church.

The Episcopal Church

Kept in the Episcopal Church, whose own Prayer Book descends from the Scottish rather than the English line. Morning Prayer is the surviving daily office, and it is Matins and Lauds combined into one service. The reduction of eight hours to two was deliberate and is the plainest liturgical difference between this church and Rome.

Ukrainian Orthodox Church

Kept in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

Sources

1. The Catholic Encyclopedia

Charles George Herbermann et al. (eds.), Robert Appleton Company, 1913View the Source

2. The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd revised edition

F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (eds.), Oxford University Press, 2005View the Source

3. Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal Themes

John Meyendorff, Fordham University Press, 1979View the Source

The Egyptian or Coptic Church: A Detailed Description of Her Liturgical Services

O. H. E. KHS-Burmester, Societe d'Archeologie Copte, Cairo, 1967View the Source

The Book of Common Prayer