Saint Gregory's Press
Liturgical Publishing of the Ancient Catholic Rites of the West for the Orthodox Churches	icon courtsey of HTM
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The Medieval Monastic Psalter of Orthodox England

Many attempts have been made in the early and latter parts of this century to produce a version of the Hours of the Monastic Office in the English language that could be easily used for prayer by those with little or no training in ancient languages or musical theory. Yet, no previous version incorporated all the needs present before them. St. Gregory's Press has produced a thorough series for the complete and immediate use of Western Orthodox monastics.  Faced with such a monumental goal the publisher also had to present the ancient Western usage of Monks and Nuns that followed the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia in a manner that was completely Orthodox, i.e. completely in accordance with the doctrine, canons, and practices of the Orthodox Church. This, of course, requires that the Hours be done in the completely ancient manner that was practiced in the first millenial Orthodox Churches of the West, which by the year 950 A.D. had spread through the greater part of the civilized world, from the Baffin Islands in what is now Canada, to the island of Valaam in Lake Ladoga in the present day Russia, to the Western Rite Monastery of Amalphion ("Morphonou" in Greek) on Mount Athos. This usage was the singluarly predominant prayer of the monks and nuns of the present day Italy, France, Ireland, Germany. Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and England. It has been considered most appropriate to look to the latter country, whose Monks and Nuns were the source of conversion for the aforementioned countries in the north of Europe, and which had received the Monastic Office itself from St. Augustine of Canterbury, the Italian monk that had been the Prior of St. Andrew's Monastery on the Coelian Hill in Rome where our Father among the saints, St. Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Old Rome, had been the Abbot. St. Bede the Venerable writes that St. Gregory, after learning that St. Augustine had successfully begun the mission among the Angles and relating his joy for this success in a letter to St. Eulogius, Patriarch of Alexandria, sent, "all things needed in general for Divine Worship and the services of the Church, sacred vessels, altar cloths, furniture for Churches, vestments for the Clergy, relics, and also many books,"  It is the latter books that served as the foundation for the life of prayer in the Latin usage of the Monks and Nuns of medieval England that these volumes of the Monastic Office in the English language are meant to continue.