The Catalog of Good Deeds: Church Music

Showing posts with label Church Music. Show all posts

Nun Juliania, a choral conductor and Church composer, is well-known both in her home country Belarus and abroad. In the past years Nun Juliania’s choir recorded several beautiful albums of Liturgy chants.

The current album You Simply Have to Love represents a great collection of non-Liturgical Orthodox music which belongs to the spiritual heritage of various Christian nations, including Belarus, Russia, and Greece.

Agni Parfene, a classical hymn dedicated to the Mother of God, is probably the most recognizable non-Liturgical chant of Eastern Christian tradition. The song Creeping over the Water tells a touching story about a girl who prefers a monastic cassock over bridal dress. Listening to O, Wondrous Isle of Valaam one cannot help imagining the majestic domes of the monastery surrounded by the pine tree forest and nicknamed the Athos of the North. The Belarusian spiritual folk-song Three Angels reminds us that narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it (Matthew 7:14). Finally, You Simply Have to Love is a true masterpiece composed by Nun Juliania with lyrics by Archpriest Andrew Logvinov who calls upon us to love and forgive everyone.

It is not a secret that there is some prejudice toward choral music regarded by some as old-fashioned and boring. I think the most obvious advantage of the album is a careful selection of songs which can appeal to a general audience. Moreover, some of the songs presented in the album can be performed even by small choirs. This may be an opportunity for those who love spiritual choral music to make it more popular in the modern society and educate the young generation obsessed with listening to pop artists.

The album You Simply Have to Love gives us an excellent chance to reflect on eternal values, such as faith, joy, hope, love, and mercy while enjoying the best examples of spiritual music.

You can visit the Catalog of St. Elisabeth Convent to listen to a short preview of the album.

By Vladimir Sypchu,

a chorister from the parish of

the Entry of the Most Holy Mother of God into the Temple,

Minsk, Belarus

Catalog of Good Deeds, 2018

In his On the Making of Man, St Gregory of Nyssa likened the human body to a kind of musical instrument, played upon by the mind of man. In the same work, he dismissed as pagan the idea of man as microcosm. Yet later, in his dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection, Gregory espoused precisely this notion of microcosm in order to express the mediatorial role of the human being between intelligible and phenomenal realms. Finally, in his commentary On the Inscriptions of the Psalms, Gregory brings together both his musical analogy and the notion of man as microcosm and mediator, synthesizing and expanding these tropes in a more broad-ranging vision of man’s place within the angelic and visible creation.

According to Gregory, “man is a miniature cosmos and contains all the elements of the great cosmos. And the orderly arrangement of the universe… is a diverse and variegated musical harmony which has been tuned in relation to itself and is in accord with itself and never distracted from this harmony even though a great distinction of essences is observed in the individual parts.” Man is both a miniature of this musical cosmos, and an image of the one who made it. Being microcosm, the harmony of the whole world is reproduced in man himself: “For just as in a fragment of insignificant glass it is possible to see the whole circle of the sun reflected in the gleaming part, as in a mirror, as though the smallness of what is gleaming contains it, so also all the music perceived in the universe is seen in the miniature cosmos, I mean in human nature… Even the instrumental equipment of our body, which has been artfully devised by nature for the production of music, proves this.”

Gregory likens the whole of the original creation to a dance and chorus, which looked to the one choirmaster, interpreting his song in harmony. Yet sin introduced disharmony, and removed human beings from this chorus. Only through Jesus Christ, and after trials of purifying hardship, are human persons restored to the chorus and the dance. Thus, the “cymbals” which close the book of Psalms (Ps. 150:6) – representing the final stage of spiritual ascent – indicate the unity of angelic and human natures in divine praise. This unity is accomplished through the work of Jesus Christ, who unites all things separated by sin and exalts human nature to a glory comparable to that of the angels.

The music which reflects the wisdom of God in creating the cosmos is expressed in moderation and good order. The concord of creation is a harmony of opposites which produces a hymn of glory to God. “The accord and affinity of all things with one another which is controlled in an orderly and sequential manner is the primal, archetypal, true music. It is this music which the conductor of the universe skillfully strikes up in the unspoken speech of wisdom through these ever occurring movements.” Such polyphonic music of creation is a pattern of intelligible meaning unheard by the senses, but discerned by the mind when it transcends the limitations of the flesh. It is this music, Gregory says, which the psalmist David heard when he described the heavens as declaring the glory of God (Ps. 19:1).

Human existence is a kind of music. The question is what kind of music – whether it is in accord with God and the nature of the cosmos or not. This question for Gregory has to do with the proper ordering of daily life. For Gregory, the good life is kata physin: in accord with nature. The Psalms also are a music in accord with nature. The Word of God “admonishes that your life be a psalm which does not resound with earthly sounds, but by sounds I mean thoughts, but which produces a sound from the upper and heavenly realms which is pure and audible.” Man’s life becomes a well-ordered psalm precisely through praying the psalms and putting into practice their divine teachings. The rhythms of their words and music heal the rhythms of human life, bring it to harmony and moderation:

“In this singing nature reflects on itself in a certain manner, and heals itself. For the proper rhythm of life, which singing seems to me to recommend symbolically, is a cure of nature. For perhaps the very fact that the character of those who live virtuously need not be devoid of the Muses, unharmonious and out of tune, is an encouragement to the more sublime state of life. Neither must the string be drawn taut beyond measure, for that which is well-tuned certainly breaks when it is strained beyond what the string can bear, nor on the contrary must one slacken the tension immoderately through pleasure, for the soul which becomes relaxed in such passions becomes deaf and dumb. In all other matters we must tighten and relax the tension at the right time, looking at this, that our way of life in the customs may continue always melodious and rhythmical, being neither immoderately slack nor strained beyond measure.”

As evidence of the healing power of music, Gregory cites the example of David’s healing Saul’s mental disturbance with song. This example, says Gregory, shows that the symbolic value of music is for the healing of the passions. This is not true of all music, but rather of sacred songs composed by those who are not “outside our wisdom.”

The goal of man’s life, however, is expressed not only in music, but music combined with words. “Psalm” for Gregory means music, whereas “song” means words with music: music whose meaning is made outwardly intelligible. “When we hear a song, we learn in an enigmatic way of the decorum of life concerning the visible world.” This, according to Gregory, would not be the case with purely instrumental music. Gregory associates pure “music” with speculative philosophical theory concerning the good, while “words” indicate the life of praxis. “The psalm of a song” (Ps. 92:1 LXX) indicates the combination of “music” and “words,” signifying the perfect unity of theory and praxis, thought and action, which is the Christian ideal. “‘A prayer with a song’ enjoins us equally to be zealous about our life first, so that nothing unrhythmical or out of harmony should occur in our daily pursuits, and then to approach God though prayer. Only if our life is in accord with David can we then have the boldness to “praise” God with a prayer like his.

This unity of thought and bodily life, of theoria and praxis, is related to man’s role of mediator. At the height of virtue and divine vision, of imitation of the invisible God, man nevertheless retains a bodily visibility, a face with which he relates to the visible world of men. The person who achieves the vision of God such as Moses enjoyed “stands as a kind of boundary between the changeable and the unchangeable nature and mediates, as it is appropriate, between the two poles. He offers supplications to God on behalf of those who have been converted from sin, and he transmits the mercy of the supreme power to those who need mercy.” It is precisely unity with, and imitation of, the changeless divine that tunes and orders the rhythms of this changing earthly life, making of it a harmonious music — in concord with the angels.

Source: http://myocn.net/music-mediation-st-gregory-nyssas-commentary-inscriptions-psalms/

Thy Resurrection, O Christ our Savior, the angels in heaven hymn.

Enable us also on earth to glorify Thee in purity of heart.

In trying to discern some of the truth about the phenomenon of Orthodox sacred music, it helps to start at the beginning. Where does sacred music begin? For Orthodox Christians who with a simple faith accept the authority of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, the true origin of sacred music is not to be discovered in ancient liturgical manuscripts or in passing references to psalmody in the New Testament and early Fathers, but is to be found in the singing of the angelic choir, those first-created beings who have been chanting fitting praises to God since before the beginning of the visible creation. Herein, according to the witness of Scripture and the Saints throughout the ages, lies the archetypal pattern of sacred music. It is as a participant in the angelic singing that mankind — by virtue of Christ’s Incarnation, whereby ‘the things of earth join chorus with the heavens, — becomes able once again to offer right worship (orthodoxia) to the Creator in purity of heart. I suggest, therefore, that we use the singing of the angels — and, specifically, three essential characteristics of it — as a starting point for our ‘small entrance’ into understanding the phenomenon of Orthodox sacred music.

One essential characteristic of angelic song that is evident in Scripture is that the music of the angels is exclusively vocal, that it is sung in some manner, usually with discernible words, and that it is thus a direct musical offering of the angels’ bodily and rational nature (according to the angelic sense of a ‘body’). The popular Western concept of angels accompanying their singing with harps and other instruments is unknown in Scripture and Orthodox tradition. This is important because, in exclusively singing the praises of God, the angels offer Him something essential to themselves rather than making an offering by way of a medium extrinsic to their nature. This is one key reason why Orthodox Christian liturgical tradition (including that of the West, until the Middle Ages) does not permit the use of musical instruments in the divine services.

For us humans, this exclusively vocal aspect of sacred music is all the more important, because the added dimension of our fleshly and fallen psychosomatic nature — i.e., ‘I’m tired;’ ‘I’m sick;’ ‘My voice isn’t warmed up;’ ‘I don’t read music;’ — makes it singularly difficult to sing well without the aid of instruments. Every church singer knows this. Thus, the concerted effort involved in uniting mind and body in order to praise God with the voice alone becomes an important ascetical labor, one which serves to purify and strengthen church singers in their work — provided they have the will to rise towards angelic perfection.

We can also see from Scripture and Holy Tradition that in addition to being vocal, angelic music is devotional in nature; it is a direct movement of the angels’ inner being towards God, an expression of their zeal, reverence, ardor, and love for their Maker. This means, among other things, that the angels do not offer praise to God mechanically or out of mere necessity (‘I just sing because there’s no one else to do it!’), but from a free and willing spirit. God may have created the angels to serve Him and praise Him — this is also why He created man — but He endowed them with the freedom to choose not to do this, as we will see shortly. In other words, the angels sing praises to God because they actively love Him and wish to honor Him, not just because it’s their job, or because they happen to like singing, or because it’s what they’ve ‘always done.’

It is a sad fact that, all too often, musicians in churches today fall far short of this heartfelt angelic devotion in their musical offerings to God, singing bland music in a mechanical, lackadaisical, and inattentive manner, doing what they do mostly out of habit or mere practical necessity, making but little effort to imbue their singing with zeal, reverence, divine ardor, and love. If our songs are to be truly sacred, we must struggle against this kind of spiritual inertia — both in the style of music we sing and the manner in which we sing it — offering to God instead the first-fruits of our energies with eagerness and warmth of heart.

In addition to the two aforementioned characteristics, angelic song possesses a third all-important quality which is deserving of our attention and emulation: watchfulness. For human beings, this watchfulness encompasses many aspects of music-making, from the proper composition of church hymns to being on guard against the inattentiveness and indifference that we were just speaking about before. We’ll explore some of these aspects in a more focused way in another chapter. However, in relation to the angels — and vital for us as well — the quality of watchfulness that must be mentioned here is watchfulness specifically against vainglory. Let us look for a moment at a passage from the Synaxarion for November 8, the feast of the Holy Archangels, that deals directly with this subject:

In the first moments of the creation of the invisible world, the whole celestial hierarchy, a number beyond all telling, was rejoicing in the divine light and leading a sacred round, simple and without end, while chanting with a mighty voice: Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts: heaven and earth are full of His glory (Is. 6:3). But then Lucifer, the heavenly spirit of highest rank who was nearest to God and all-shining with His light, became proud of the advantages he had been given and wanted to be equal to God. He said within himself: I will ascend into heaven; I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High (Is. 14:13–14). He was not evil by nature but, in his pride, chose to revolt against Him who brought him into being. He was the first to refuse the good and to choose evil. He turned away from the light to sink into the darkness of godlesseness. As soon as he uttered these words, he was cast down into the depths of Hell, tearing asunder the heavens as he fell and carrying down with him a multitude of angels of every order, whose chief he became. But the Archangel Michael, Prince of the Heavenly Hosts, was strengthened mightily in the divine light by reason of his humility and due deference to his Creator. On seeing the dreadful gap left in the heavens by the fall of so great a multitude, the Archangel leapt into the breach and rallied the faithful Angels with the cry: Let us attend! That is to say: ‘Let us be on our guard! Let us be vigilant; for we, who have been raised up to stand before God, are of His making! Let us remember that we are servants! Let us strive for self-knowledge, seeing what a fall those who wanted to be equal to God have had!

We see here that with the fall of Lucifer and his minions the angels learned the necessity of being watchful over their thoughts, of being on guard against pride and vainglory. Lucifer’s sin was that he chose to worship himself in place of God, to ascribe glory to himself rather than to Him that had endowed him with glory. Thus the angels learned that no matter how radiant and glorious they may be, no matter how perfect their song, they must always acknowledge that they did not bring themselves or any of their good qualities into being, and they are ever watchful against any thought that may distract them from this awareness. How vital this is for those whose duty it is to sing in church! It is a constant temptation for any church musician who enjoys even the smallest measure of apparent success in his musical endeavors to ascribe the glory to his own efforts. Such vainglory is a spiritual poison, and it will render our efforts useless more swiftly than anything else. The lesson of the Archangel Michael bears frequent and emphatic repetition: ‘Let us attend! Let us be on our guard! Let us be vigilant; for we, who have been raised up to stand before God [as every singer has been who offers praise in the divine services], are of His making! Let us remember that we are servants!’

The three essential qualities, then, that typify angelic song — and consequently the Orthodox Christian tradition of liturgical singing patterned after it — are:

- it is exclusively vocal, and is thus connected in an unmediated way with a creature’s bodily and rational nature;

- it arises out of a free and genuine devotion to God, and is not a product of indifference, self-interest, or mere necessity; and

- it is imbued with an all-pervasive spirit of watchfulness, lest the worship of God be distorted into idolatry and self-worship, becoming (at best) fruitless, and (at worst) spiritually harmful to oneself and others.

Aside from conforming to Orthodox Tradition in an external canonical sense (that is, for example, a hymn uses a canonical liturgical text), I assert that if any liturgical music is to be considered ‘sacred’ in the full spiritual sense — that is, God-pleasing and God-befitting, as well as possessing the power to ‘fan the spark’ of divine grace within the heart — it must possess all three of these qualities without exception, both in the style of its composition and in the manner of its execution. Any liturgical singing that purports to be sacred music and yet lacks or distorts one of these three essential qualities necessarily falls short of the archetypal primordial song of the angels. Such music, though it may possess many admirable qualities, must be considered a ‘song of men,’ and not in harmony with the true Orthodox tradition of angelic sacred music that has been resounding before the throne of God since the foundation of the world.

Source: https://www.orthodoxartsjournal.org/a-small-entrance-into-orthodox-christian-sacred-music-the-song-of-the-angels/

Cursed is the man that doeth the work of the Lord carelessly. (Jer. 48:10)

You have begun to sing in the choir; therefore, you glorify the Lord in the image of the heavenly hosts, who ceaselessly sing praise to the glory of their Creator and Lord. How fortunate you are! But do you acknowledge the full sacredness and importance of this godly work, which incomparably more than any other work is worthy to be called godly work? If not, then it is not superfluous to remind you of the threatening and terrible words of the Prophet: Cursed is the man that doeth the work of the Lord carelessly (Jer. 48:10). You see to what a terrible accountability those are liable who negligently and carelessly perform the work of serving God. The chanter (or singer) is the mouth of the Church, i.e., of the society of believers who are praying in church; while singing prayers and hymns, he pronounces them not only for himself, but in the name of all who are present in church, and as all who are praying pronounce their prayers through the mouths of the singers, these last also are the mouth of the Church. Chant unto our God (Ps. 46:7), the Holy Church invites them, but chant ye with understanding (Ps. 46:9). Consider and take heed: of Whom do you sing, to Whom do you pray, before Whom do you stand? You stand before the One before Whom the angelic ranks stand and walk with fear, covering their faces! You sing praises to the One of Whom all the heavenly powers ceaselessly proclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth! Understand how high the work of the chanter is. Understand and admire the mercy of God, Who allows even earthly sinners to bring praise to Him! This heavenly work is the work of an angel and not of a man having unclean lips, as the holy Prophet Isaiah expressed, having heard heavenly singing: Woe is me, for I am pricked to the heart; for being a man, and having unclean lips, I dwell in the midst of a people having unclean lips (Is. 6:5). And you, infirm, weak, and sinful, have been entrusted with such a great work. This talent which has been entrusted to you by the Lord, is a talent which you must bring forth and increase by employing it with understanding. With all humility and fear towards God say mentally to your soul: Behold, my soul, the Master entrusts thee with a talent: receive His gift with fear; and thou hast heard the condemnation of him who hid his talent, O my soul: hide not the word of God, but proclaim, sing of His glory, increase the gifts of grace entrusted to thee, and thou shalt enter into the joy of thy Lord (Stichera on Lord, I have cried and on Lauds, Great and Holy Tuesday).

The Lord is not slack concerning His promises (II Peter 3:9), (i.e., will not delay to fulfill them) to come again and exact an account from His slaves, whom He entrusted with His goods, His gifts and talents; take care, that you not hear the dreadful condemnation: Take from her My talent, which she didnt wish to bring forth with great labor, and cast ye the unprofitable servant into outer darkness (cf. Matt. 25:28, 30). The great labor of a chanter consists in this, that all the strengths which have been given to him from the Lord's talents he unremittingly applies to the glorification of God. Sing to the glory of the name of God, sing not only with lips and voice, but sing with heart, sing with mind, soul, will, desire, zeal—with all your being. This is what it means to chant with understanding. The singing of the chanter passes over to the hearts of those who are praying; if the singing proceeds from the heart, it meets the heart of the listener and so influences him that it is able to rouse him to prayer, to incite reverence even in those minutes when the heart itself is distracted and hard. Often it happens that those who enter the church without any eagerness toward prayer, from compulsion or from propriety, begin to pray fervently and tearfully, and leave the church in quite another frame of mind, in a spirit of tender feeling and repentance. Such a revival is produced in them by the magnificent service and fine singing. And conversely, often it happens that those who enter the church with the intention to pray from the soul, to pour out before the Lord their sorrowful soul, when they hear scattered, careless singing and reading, themselves little by little become distracted, and instead of profit they find harm, they receive no consolation and, having been tempted by the conduct of the singers, involuntarily fall into the sin of condemnation. And as the Lord says about those who cause temptation: Woe to that man by whom the offence corn eth; it would be better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea (cf. Matt. 18:6,7 and Luke 17:1,2). If such is the terrible judgment of the Lord against everyone who shall offend one of these little ones (Matt. 18:6 and Mark 9:42), i.e., those who believe, then do not chanters, and generally all those of a clerical office who cause temptation, deserve an even more terrible punishment, who by their vocation ought to serve as a good example for others, and not as a temptation? And so fear lest through tempting behavior on the cliros, through careless singing and dispersed conduct, you pour the poison of temptation into the hearts of those who are praying, and so be subjected to the punishment promised to those who tempt! Fear to do the work of the Lord carelessly, in order not to hear that curse which is threatened accordingly! Strive with all your strength to concentrate attentively on the words which you pronounce; pronounce them in such a manner that they come from the depth of your soul, which is singing together with your lips. Then the sounds of the vivifying current of your hymn will pour into the souls of those who hear them, and these souls, being raised from the earthly to the heavenly, having laid aside all earthly care, will receive the King of Glory Who is borne in triumph by the Angelic Hosts. Will you believe my words if I tell you from the narratives of the Holy Fathers that not only the human soul can be softened and moved by good spiritual singing, but even animals, those speechless creatures, somehow instinctively bow before it?

Have you ever chanced to read the life of the Athonite monk St. John Kukuzelis? There are mentioned the following two events from the life of this great singer. Once he was pasturing the monasterys herds of sheep and goats. (Having entered one of the Athonite desert monasteries, John hid his position in the imperial court, calling himself a simple shepherd, and thus was sent to pasture the monasterys herds in the desert.) While sitting near his flocks at pasture, John began to sing the divine songs he had formerly sung in the imperial choir. His melodious voice flowed in the open desert, and John surrendered his whole soul to the singing, resting in the thought that he was alone in the desert and no one was hearing him. Meanwhile, his sheep and goats left off grazing and surrounded their singing shepherd: as if holding their breath, they stood motionless before him, directing their eyes to him as though fascinated by his angelic singing. Behold deeply spiritual singing, coming forth from the depths of the soul and conscious mind! It is able not only to inspire the rational soul and lift it towards its Creator, but to touch even speechless and irrational animals.

Once, according to custom, John sang the Akathist to the Mother of God together with other singers on the right cliros. After the vigil he sat down in a stall (a monks seat) in front of the icon before which they sang the Akathist, and being weary he slumbered lightly. Suddenly a gentle, sweet voice woke him with the words: Rejoice, O John! John jumped up; before him stood the Mother of God in the radiance of heavenly light. Sing and do not cease singing, she continued, and for this I will not forsake you! At these words the Mother of God placed in Johns hand a gold coin and became invisible. Do you see of what great honors those zealous singers are thought worthy while still here on earth, who not only with their lips, but also with heart and mind sing of the Lord and His Most Pure Mother! Indeed, how will we avoid the just judgment of God for our listlessness and laziness and negligence, on account of which we willfully turn even the greatest gifts of God into our own property, which we dispose of as we want, according to our evil will and sinful habits. What a wonderful and great gift—the gift of a voice and the ability to sing! They were given to us for this, that with them we might both glorify the Lord ourselves, and incite others to do the same. And how often we turn these talents to our harm: becoming proud of them, we abase our neighbors who dont have them, we are idle in using them properly to the glory of God, and when we do, we do not use them in a fitting manner, nor as is required by the majesty of these gifts. May the Lord therefore give thee understanding (II Tim 2:7) to apprehend the height of your vocation in the office of singer in the chorus of the Heavenly King. Bring the gift as a sacrifice to its Giver, for what hast thou that thou didst not receive? (I Cor. 4:7). Are not all our talents and abilities from the all-generous God, and will He not require from us an account of their use? Having arrived at the cliros and stood in your place, first of all cross yourself and bring to remembrance that you have come before the invisible face of the King of Glory, Whom at this very moment, as always and ceaselessly, all the heavenly hosts glorify, and that presently your feeble and insignificant voice must join this celestial praise. Impress this upon your consciousness, turn mentally to yourself and say to your self, i.e., to all the powers of your soul: mind, thoughts, heart, will, zeal, and the rest: Come, let us worship and fall down before Christ, and let us weep before the Lord Who made us! (Ps. 94:6). The Lord will protect the good free-will actions of your heart, will give you His grace, will renew your powers, and, as the perfume of sweet-smelling incense, your singing will ascend before the Altar of the Most High. For strengthening and consolation remember more frequently the most sweet words of the Mother of God to her wonderful singer John: Sing and do not cease singing, and for this I will not forsake you! Believe and hope that the Most Holy Mother of God will not abandon you either in this extremely difficult world, nor in the future blessedness, where she will vouchsafe crowns of glory unto those who sing hymns of praise to her. Amen.

Source: http://orthodoxinfo.com/praxis/dutiesofchoirsingers.aspx

Just as an authentic icon makes visible for us, the invisible Kingdom of God, so too, authentic Church music makes audible for us the inaudible song of the angels around the throne of God.

And just as an icon of Christ or the Theotokos differs in style from nation to nation, and from one century to the next, so too, a musical setting of a hymn to Christ or to His mother differs in style from nation to nation and from one century to the next.

Because we respect the tradition of the Church, and because we know that no culture or no era stands in isolation from another in Church History, we seek to develop Church art in a living continuity with the past, realizing however, that the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church to which we are united, is not simply the Church of the past, but also of the present and of the future.

Our Patriarch Ignatius IV commenting in his book The Resurrection and Modern Man on the Apocalyptic verse "Behold, I make all things new" emphasizes that God comes into the world from the future. So, too, should our music, and iconography be made new from generation to generation, not in the sense of radical innovation or novelty, but new according to the renewal of the Holy Spirit in the Church. We must trust that the Holy Spirit will reveal the mind of the Church in every generation and in every nation as the faithful apply the great commission not only to the spread of the Orthodox faith in thought, word and deed, but also in Christian art.

Each nation and every generation must be taught and baptized. Every culture must be sanctified, and the effective missionary will find things already existing in the culture to illustrate the universality of the Gospel, just as St. Paul did at the altar of the unknown god (Acts 17:23) and the Russian missionaries with the native culture of Alaska.

In our day and age, music abounds in so many forms. Church music abounds in many forms. Authentic Church music of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church abounds in expressions from other cultures, other nations, and previous generations. We know our roots, and because we live in America, we have to say "roots" and not "root" because we live in the melting pot of the world. Concerning the Church, it is no different. We live in the musical and iconographic melting pot of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

There are forces at work, however, that would prevent us from baptizing our nation with the whole tradition that has been handed down to us. We have the Bible, the Liturgy, the Councils, the Fathers, the canons and the lives of the saints. All these things have been translated into English, so that we can read, study and worship in our own tongue. To a certain degree, our architecture, music and iconography remain in what might be called "cultural captivity".

Perhaps it is because art, more than any of these other aspects of our holy tradition, expresses our ethnic and nationalistic roots and our love for the fatherland. But what is the true fatherland? Is it not the kingdom of God not of this world, the age to come, the eschaton? It is this kingdom, which demands our ultimate loyalty and the culture of this kingdom, which we are called to preserve and protect.

Authentic Church music is music that helps us to pray, to worship God, to enter the heavenly Holy of Holies. Authentic Church music is Orthodox Church music. But when we say the word "Orthodox" what do we mean? Do we mean Church music that finds its root and expression in certain geographical areas of the world? Is Orthodox Church music limited to that music, which through the centuries has been developed in the great patriarchal, sees of Antioch, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome? Should we add Moscow and Kiev, and throw out Rome because of the great schism? Is Orthodox Church music limited to Byzantine, Russian, Romanian, Serbian, Carpathian and Bulgarian?

How did the music of the Church in Russian become Russian? Since the faith was received from Ss. Cyril and Methodios, its roots are Byzantine, or is it? Are we not aware that the music of today's Church in Russia was heavily influenced under the reign of Peter the Great by the Polish-Ukrainian composers of the 17th Century followed by the Italian-style choral polyphony of the 18th and 19th Centuries?

Is the Byzantine music that we sing today really Byzantine, i.e. from the Byzantine era of the 4th through the 15th Centuries? Are we not aware that the Church music of the See of Constantinople was heavily influenced by the demands of the Turks after the fall of the empire in 1453 AD? Are we aware that the authentic music of the Byzantine Church lost its diatonic character and accepted enharmonic and chromatic intervals during this period of the Turkish yoke? Are we aware that the music of today's churches in the Byzantine tradition throughout the entire Mediterranean region of the world is the result of the codification of these oriental elements by Chrysanthus in the 19th Century and is scarcely 200 years old?

Why is it necessary to point out all these things? Is it to shock us or to scandalize us? Absolutely not. Rather, it is important to note that the Church has always accepted certain cultural adaptations of its music in order to minister to the faithful, to further the spread of the Gospel and to continue to baptize the culture in which it finds itself, and in order to continue living in the renewal of the Holy Spirit in the Church.

Again, it is important to ask, what is "Orthodox" Church music? Is it simply music that is contrasted in its sound and use in worship to Roman Catholic music, Episcopalian music, Baptist music, or Mega Church Music? Are we simply another denomination with our own brand of Church music to be used as a kind of badge or nametag so people know who we are, so that we can simply distinguish (or denominate) ourselves from others who call themselves Christian?

In the 4th Century, St. Ambrose of Milan, whom we commemorate on December 7th, wrote countless hymns in Latin, rhymed and metered in long meter. Are these hymns Orthodox? If we are referring to their theological content and use in true prayer and spiritual ascent in worship, the answer is a resounding YES. If however, we say that they are not Orthodox because he lived in Italy or was a bishop in the See of Rome, we are sadly mistaken.

Rome was Orthodox in the 4th Century and St. Ambrose is our saint, and his writings and hymns belong to the body Patristic literature handed down to us through the ages. Obviously his hymns are not prescribed for us to sing in our services since they are not found in our Typikon or in our hymnals; nevertheless, this example is used to challenge our perspective in terms of how we use the word "Orthodox".

Orthodox music is not defined by its nationalistic culture or geographical origin. Neither is it defined simply in denominational (i.e. prejudicial) terms. The one, holy catholic and apostolic Church is not a denomination.

Orthodox Church music is that music which raises the eyes of our hearts to see the True Light. Orthodox Church music lifts up our hearts to receive the Heavenly Spirit and discover the true faith as we worship the undivided Trinity in the Kingdom of God not of this world. Orthodox Church Music, authentic Church music as such, transcends all cultural and denominational expressions and labels.

Some may negatively assume that such a proposal must necessarily lead to the development of an American Orthodox music, which will sound like Protestant music or the 70's rock and roll Christian music of the baby boomer generation's surfer churches. On the contrary, we are hinting at the development of authentic sacred music for the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in North America, a music founded on "that which has been delivered to us", but which is also the result of our interaction as Orthodox Christians with the surrounding American culture.

Others may say that western music lacks that "mystical" quality of the eastern musical tradition, which is so important to our worship. We should be reminded once again, however, that Orthodoxy couldn't be defined in geographical terms. The Orthodox Faith and worship is not trapped in its architecture, music or iconography in the eastern hemisphere. If it is trapped, then we need to free it from its bonds.

It is therefore incumbent upon us, here today at this Conference on Missions and Evangelism to struggle with these issues, to humble ourselves before God, to lay down the sword used to attack our own and to raise it up instead, against the Devil. So, who is the Devil? Any person who disagrees with me? Let's hope not. The Devil is the one who would foil our mission to bring America to it's true spiritual home in the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church.

We need to band together as a family, as brothers and sisters in Christ for the great challenge ahead of us. We need to encourage those among us whom God has gifted with music to exercise and multiply their talents for the spread of the Gospel in this nation. In order to do this, we need to look at the progress that has already been made, follow in those footsteps, and then forge ahead where the need is felt and the Spirit of God leads.

A path has already been cut by Orthodox American musical pioneers such as the Priest Michael G.H. Gelsinger, Professor Michael Hilko, the Archpriest James Meena, Frederick Karam, Basil Kazan, Raymond George, the Archpriest Antony Bassoline, the priest Sergei Glagolev, the priests Vladimir and Igor Soroka. These and many others have taken English translations of our hymns and set them to traditional old country melodies, transposed the Byzantine notation into western musical notation, (i.e., five lines and four spaces) and harmonized Byzantine melodies. Some composers have even produced new melodies that do not belong to any 8-tone system, but are somehow reminiscent of the long-standing "Church sound", i.e., the sound of heaven.

So, where do we go from here? This question is being posed fundamentally to the composers and arrangers of music for the Church. What is the next step? The answer that came to me from Fr. John Namie of blessed memory will surprise you. He said to me, "Fast and pray. If you fast and pray, just as the iconographer fasts and prays before he or she produces an icon, you will produce music that we can use to pray."

So, we must become spiritual musicians, a holy people, and a people after God's own heart. The King of Rock and the King of Pop will not likely produce the music for our prayer, but musicians who pray will produce music for prayer.

Our objective is not to save our kids with musical cultural relevancy, although we want our kids to be saved. But children respond to spiritual authenticity and repel hypocrisy. If we as musicians don't pray, if our only experience of church is Sunday Divine Liturgy, if we don't understand the liturgical cycles and structure of the services Vespers, Matins, Holy Week, major feasts and such, we may produce American music for the Church, but will it be Orthodox sacred music for prayer in America?

In addition, we need to continue working on the translations of our texts into English, and improve on existing ones. We should continue the work of transcribing Byzantine notation into modern western linear notation and adopt modern western scale intervals. We need to simplify the melodies in connection with the texts and encourage congregational participation. We should encourage the harmonization of the melodies. I have heard it said that the great musical contribution of the East is its melodies and the great contribution of the West is its development of harmony. What better place than America to bring these two great traditions together to form something uniquely American in terms of Orthodox Music? This, of course, has already been done in Russia, and will undoubtedly be a powerful influence on what is done in America in this area of musical development.

Finally, we need to work on a blend of musical renderings by clergy, cantors, choir and congregation, but not exclusively any one of these. The congregation should sing the responses, acclamations, and dialogues, but the fixed and variable sung hymnody and psalmody should include this blend described above.

In conclusion, I would like to thank the Department of Missions and Evangelism and the Department of Sacred Music of the Antiochian Archdiocese of North America for sponsoring this weekend entitled The Gospel in Song: Music, Missions and Evangelism. My prayer today, is that the leadership of these departments will rediscover that artistic path which has already been cut for us, and organize the construction of a musical, architectural and iconographic superhighway that will allow all Americans seeking the true faith, to make their journey home to the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church. Amen.

An article by Rev. John Finley

Source: http://antiochian.org/node/22682

Subscribe to: Posts ( Atom )

Search This Blog

featured Slider

"You Simply Have to Love": a Short Review on the Most Popular Album of St. Elisabeth Convent's Choirs

St. Gregory of Nyssa on Music and Mediation in a Christian's Life

The Phenomenon of Orthodox Christian Sacred Music

On the Duties of a Choir Singer

A Short Preview of the Akathist to St Nicholas the Wonderworker Sung by the sisters of St Elisabeth Convent.

A Perspective on the Authenticity of Orthodox Church Music

Partners