Words new to me: причетник

Prichetnik combines a common prefix, root, and suffix to make a culture-bound and fairly precise meaning. I noticed it in Ursa Major (Большая медведица, 1870–71) by Nadezhda Khvoshchinskaya, in a description of the ostentatious Easter service held at the private home that Nikolai Bagrianskii has just signed over to his evil son Viktor: There the all-night vigil and matins had been underway since [the previous] evening. It did not seem to be the same sitting room, being arranged a new way, with different furniture and neither a piano nor an ivy-covered lattice. In the corner is a large table covered with a cloth; on it are many icons and candles. The old priest and the old deacon are in beautiful formal vestments; the cross and candle they held while censing the room have artificial flowers wound around them. The prichetniki sang the Easter canon very loud and reasonably in tune. The gold, the flickering of pinkish flames, the fog of smoke and the twilight, the joyful…