I recently failed to adequetely secure a $5 candle in the holder (the technique of meting the base with another candle before inserting it doesn’t seem to work) and found myself in the rather awkward position of having to secure it wihin seconds of “Thine own of Thine own, we offer unto Thee, on behalf of all and for all”
As I see it the alternative would have been more embarassing still.
From the Creed to the litany before "Our Father" you probably shouldn't be lighting candles at all.
Indeed, I quite agree. In this most embarassing instance I lit the candle well before the Creed, during the antiphons, I think, and then remained near the candlestand; I then noticed during the Institution Narrative that the candle was listing at a severe angle and had to rush to adjust it.
What is the trick for securing those candles anyway? Note btw this was a slightly abbreviated weekday service with the homily after the Dismissal, so the candle had only been burning for about 20 minutes when I noticed the severe lean. With the small candles, you just heat up he underside and insert while the wax is hot; when the wax cools it will form in the shape of the candle holder securing it properly.
At one ROCA-A Old Calendarist parish I visited, the sister of the young reader would continually remove burned out candles throughout the service except during the most sacred moments, like the Institution Narrative, the Entrances and so on. I have seen this a few other places and I would agree with you, I think the ideal cutoff for lighting candles would be the end of the Third Antiphon, at least at the front of the church.
A part of me wishes we wouldnt primarily sell candles during the service but instead have parishioners “subscribe” to them, so that the candles would predominantly be prepaid and lit at the start of the service. Additional candles would be available free of charge for visitors.
In most Coptic parishes I have visited the candles tend to be in the back, whereas St. Ephrems Syriac Orthodox Church has the sort of setup where you place candles in a container of sand, located in the narthex. St. Mary’s Assyrian Church of the East has a beautiful grotto attached to the narthex, out of view of the nave, an artificial cave with niches on which the faihful place lighted candles. I really like that sort of candle-cave chapel idea (which was probably in part inspired by a fear of another fire breaking out in the nave and burning their parish down again; their main altar lights are electric which I greatly dislike). On the whole, my ideal candle setup would have the Byzantine candle stands with central oil lamps and a built in thurible on one of them (St. Anthonys Greek Orthodox Monastery under Elder Ephrem has this, the stationary thurible being used during the Hours), in the entrance to the nave and in the Solea surrounding a floral-ensconced set of icons proper to the day, and a separate grotto-chapel like that at the Assyrian church off the Narthex, with Greek style sand pits, differing from the Addyrian one only in that it would have shelves wih icons (lower wuality or less standard icons vs. those in the nave), where people could purchase and light candles and let them burn continually, whereas the candles on the Byzantine candle stands in the Solea would, like the oil lamps, be “managed” at least to some extent (perhaps at a minimum you might buy the candle from a matushka or a pious yiayia who would then place it in the best spot at the best time in the service, whether that was Vespers, the Liturgy, an Akathist or whathaveyou.
This also applies to OO churches; I really like the Russian model of a central icon commemorating the feast of the day surrounded by fresh flowers and candle stands, in the heart of the solea, for everyone to see and venerate; there are aspects of this like our placement of stands with pictures of the deceased for memorial services in the West Syriac Rite that would require adjustment for compatibility, but my view is that the Russian/Slavonic layout of the solea is the aesthetic ideal we should be pushing for in the Syriac Orthodox Church, (and in the Coptic), except in the few ancient churches we have with an ancient layout, like the monasteries in Tur Abdin. It would just be a question elsewhere of placing the icon of the day, the flowers and the candle stands where they would not get in the way of the processions straight up and down the central aisle we have in our services, yet still central. One Coptic parish I visited tried to do just that, with a festal icon or an icon of the Theotokos on the ladies side of the nave next to fresh cut flowers.
