In ancient times, when the faith of Christ began to spread, and the light of the Apostolic teaching began to illuminate people, selected Christians gathered to say their first public prayer before midnight, as if at the call of the Angel's trumpet on the last day of the Last Judgment, to meet the Bridegroom coming at midnight! In general, the result of prayers, these firstborn of Christ's Church, considering it their duty, following the example of the heavenly powers constantly glorifying and in fulfillment of the Apostolic teaching: pray unceasingly and spend time in psalms and songs and spiritual songs (Eph. 5:19), gathered for prayers, in the first centuries of Christianity, seven times throughout the day. But later on, the Holy Fathers, seeing that working people, busy with household chores and crafts, could not tear themselves away from them so often, established that only three Divine services should be celebrated daily, namely; evening, morning and lunchtime, with the intention that moral and religious ideas should be associated with saving business time, i.e.
so that the day ends and begins with prayer, and the time of the human meal is preceded by the memory of the Divine meal served by the Savior himself. Why, during the last service, a bloodless sacrifice was performed, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus Christ, who through His death redeemed humanity suffering from the Fall. From this division of the ancient services came the proper names of the services still performed today, i.e. Vespers, Matins and Mass. And since on the eve of great holidays and days the remembrances of especially revered saints, Vespers and Matins became so lengthened through the reading in them of prophecies, singing, special prayers of praise, magnifications, etc., corresponding to the holiday, that the period of free time between them disappeared, then the Holy Fathers decided to combine these two services on such days, with the addition to the last of them of one more daytime prayer, called the First Hour.
Through this merging of three services into one continuous prayer, it, with proper leisurely performance, required a lot of time, so that the ancient Christians, who generally chose late hours of the day to perform their public prayers, in order to avoid persecution from Jews and pagans, appointed an all-night vigil for it and ended it at dawn. This name, as well as the pious custom of celebrating great days with prayer at night and in the morning, has been passed down from generation to generation until our times, and is fulfilled by the service of the festive Vigil and Matins.
The separate and general meaning of each of the three mentioned services is the following:
Vespers - depicts the revelation of the glory and wisdom of the Triune God, revealed by Him in the creation of the world and man; the blissful state of the Ancestors in paradise, their loss of this bliss through the Fall and their expulsion from paradise. Then, they depict: the torment and painful cry of a fallen man begging for mercy; God's propitiation over him and the gracious promise that the Seed of the woman will erase the head of the serpent, that is, that the Son of the Virgin will defeat the devil. Next, the history of the Patriarchal Church is depicted, encouraged by the fulfillment of this promise and the holy life according to the faith of the Forefathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who, as a result of this faith, retired from idolaters to the Promised Land, their wanderings, Jacob's blessing of the 12 ancestors of the rut of Israel and his prediction about the fourth son Judah, who became the forefather The Promised One.
Then both the Old Testament prototypes and the prophecies of men filled with the Holy Spirit are depicted about events that have already come to fruition; it is reminded of the conception of the Forerunner of the Lord and the impatient expectation of the Messiah by the holy elder Simeon, in refutation of his doubts about the prophetic words, and finally, the fulfillment of the eternal advice about the salvation of people, through the gospel of the Blessed Virgin Mary, about the incarnation of the Savior of the world in Her, is depicted!
Matins - depicts the gradual revelation of the destinies of God, regarding the preparation of the human race for the acceptance of the Savior, at all times under the law, starting from the time of Moses and until the last times, illuminated by a number of prophetic revelations that foreshadowed Christ the Savior: until the time when in the house of the priest of the second temple of Jerusalem, Zechariah, the Chosen Young Lady appeared, having already accepted the gospel of the Archangel and when Zechariah’s wife, righteous Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, greeted Her as the Mother of the Lord. Then the birth of the Forerunner of Christ is mentioned in the prophetic appeal of Zechariah to the East from Above and, finally, the Nativity of the Savior Himself, announced by the heavenly choir of Angels.
Mass or Liturgy - depicts the entire earthly life of Christ: His teaching, suffering, death, removal from the cross, burial, resurrection and ascension to heaven. In a word: in the symbolic rites of the Liturgy, a complete picture of the wondrous blessings of God bestowed by the incarnate Savior on the human race is presented to the Christian mind, heart and gaze.