Long enough

On Pascha after I finally got up, I cooked and ate a pound of bacon, all by myself. But I’ve also been craving barbecued ribs, and I haven’t indulged.

Well, I’m going to Texas Roadhouse this evening. Time for ribs. Then on to choir practice at the church. But ribs first. Mmmmm, ribs!

Yow

I don’t have much to say about the AOCA bishop scandal because it doesn’t make sense, but this quotation – from the AOCA webpage, mind — says a great deal.

The remaining Hierarch, His Grace Bishop ALEXANDER wrote the following note in place of his signature:

“This decision is already in effect and does not need my signature”

Indeed

St Ignatius Brianchaninov on the chants at Valaam Monastery.

The tones of this chant are majestic and protracted…they depict the groans of the repentant soul, sighing and longing in the land of its exile for the blessed, desired country of eternal rejoicing and pure, holy delights…These tones now drag on lugubriously, melancholically, drearily, like a wind through the wilderness, now gradually disappear like an echo among cliffs and gorges, now thunder suddenly…The majestic “Lord, have mercy” is like a wind through a desolate place, so sorrowful, moving and drawn out. The troparion “We hymn thee” ends with a protracted, shimmering, overflowing sound, gradually abating and imperceptibly fading under the vaults of the church, just as an echo dies out under a church’s arches. And when the brethren sing at vespers “Lord, I have cried unto Thee, hearken unto me”, the sounds emanate as if from a deep abyss, are quickly and thunderously wrested therefrom and rise to heaven like lightning, taking with them the thoughts and wishes of those at prayer. Everything here is full of significance and majesty, and anything merry, light-hearted of playful would simply seem strange and ugly.

You can buy CDs of the Valaam monks, who are truly amazing, at Liturgica (search on “valaam”). I’d also suggest you expose yourself to the Monks of Our Lady of Balamand Monastery in Lebanon (search on “balamand”), although all of their CDs are in Arabic.

Metropolitan Jonah in Russia

Meeting with +Kirill, Patriarch of Moscow.

Josephus has the story.

Excellent

God within, Fr. Patrick

Oh. I forgot.

One thing I really dislike is the use of dissonance as a harmonic device in Orthodox liturgical music settings (hey, I love dissonance, just not in this particular context). It’s one of the reasons I don’t much like either Karam or Kedrov, both of whom use harmonies that are inappropriate for Orthodox liturgies. There’s something very out of place about such comparatively modern harmonics in something as ancient as an Orthodox liturgy. And I don’t mean what most these days would call dissonance; I mean the use of passing seconds and sevenths, which harmonically speaking are quite conservative these days, and have been for a good two hundred years, at least.

One example is something I’ve sung hundreds, if not thousands, of times, Karam’s setting of Receive Me Today, an adaptation of the Communion Prayer as a Communion Hymn, which itself is a fine idea. It’s Karam’s setting that sets my teeth on edge (the music is here).

Listen:
Karam, Receive Me Today, at 0:41 “As partaker” where you get that passing seventh. I really, really, really despise this setting. Oh, and it’s recorded by the Antiochian New England Choir, so if you can, try not to snicker too much at the deacon’s nasal New England accent, particularly on “draw ye near.” It isn’t nice.

Considering the mess the Catholics have with inappropriate music — because there’s certainly nothing inappropriate about the text, just the setting — I’m tempted to send the URLs to pages with harmonized liturgical music to some Catholic choir directors and beg them to take these things off our hands.

Not all of them. Just the excessively modern — and over-harmonized — settings.

By the way, I do like Kedrov’s setting of the Lord’s Prayer. I posted a video of it (in Slavonic) by the Bulgarian National Choir, here.

Humor

Who says the Orthodox don’t have a sense of humor?

Well, I once assisted in the choir at an OCA church, and the director asked us (the other choir folk) which version of the Creed we’d like to do.

Naturally, being the revolutionary type, I shot up my hand and said, “Let’s do the one with the Filioque in it!”

Last time I assisted at that particular choir …

Course, it is kind of an “in” joke . . .

Tenth Antiphon

He who clothed Himself with light as with a garment, stood naked at the judgment; and received blows on His Cheeks from the hands which He had fashioned. When the lawless people nailed the Lord of glory to the Cross, then the veil of the temple was rent, and the sun went dark, unable to endure the spectacle of God blasphemed, before Whom all the universe trembles. Him let us worship.

From Energetic Procession.

Healing

Behold, my child, Christ stands here invisibly receiving your confession. Do not be ashamed and do not fear, and do not withhold anything from me; but without doubt tell all you have done and receive forgiveness from the Lord Jesus Christ. Lo, His holy image is before us, and I am only a witness, bearing testimony before Him of all things which you say to me. But if you conceal anything from me, you shall have the greater sin. Take heed, therefore, lest having come to the physician, you depart unhealed.

May Our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, through the grace and bounties of His love towards mankind, forgive you, my Child [Name] all your transgressions. And I, an unworthy priest, through the power given me by Him, forgive and absolve you from all yours sins + in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today’s fascinating historical tidbit

Quiz question: What’s wrong with this picture?

Answer: Nothing.

Wait, you say. A Russian Metropolitan with the Knights of Malta? That’s not weird? Well, yes, it certainly is, but you’ll have to read Father Ernesto to find out why it really is not.

And here is their Eastern US webpage (Western US in the links).

Iconography

From my old parish.

Which music?

You want opinionated? I got it right here. I should say, though, that I’m not going to go with my personal preference opinion (if it were up to me, we’d sing nothing but two-voice Byzantine and Znammeny, and with no moving ison), but my equally opinionated opinion about what parishes should and should not sing.

Those of you who aren’t up on Eastern liturgical music need an abbreviated history run through, so we’ll take care of that first.

Just like in the West, chant began as monophonic — just one voice, or melody. Possibly (and I say “possibly” because although this is the explanation I have always seen and it seems reasonable, I really haven’t seen anything supporting it) anyway, possibly because no instruments other than the human voice were allowed in the East, Byzantine chant developed the ison, which began as a continuous, sustained note, the base note of the tone, or mode, of the chant, ostensibly so the chanter would have a reference pitch and not drift out of tune. At some point, the original ison morphed into moving ison, where the ison or pedal tone “harmonized” with the chant melody. At this point, Eastern chant, which had been monophonic, developed into the most primitive form of homophony (a melody accompanied by chords).

Moving ison did not replace traditional ison. You still hear both.

Saints Cyril and Methodius and their missionaries took Byzantine chant to Slavic Eastern Europe, where it was nativized. Znammeny chant is held up as the original Russian liturgical music. Znammeny is traditional two-voice, chant with ison, though moving ison is more frequently heard than traditional ison.

Before we go on, all Eastern liturgical music is, like Gregorian chant, built around as system of eight tones (the octoechos), roughly corresponding to the eight modes of Gregorian chant. Eastern liturgical music has many different systems of those eight tones, however.

When Peter the Great attempted to westernize Russia, he bent his efforts toward the church, and Russian 4-voice (SATB) polyphonic chant was born. This was exported throughout Eastern Europe, and again, nativized in each area, so that today, we have all of these different systems of tones and chants (Kievan, Moscow, Prostopinije or Carpatho-Russian, Galician, the list goes on and on). To make things more complicated, Alexander Arkhangelsky, Nikolai Kedrov, and Dmitri Bortniansky harmonized much of the existing music, turning two-voice chant into SATB polyphonic chant (they aren’t the only choral composers who did this, but they are three of the major figures). Then, major composers, such as Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and Rimsy-Korsakov began writing liturgical music, some of which encountered serious opposition because it departed too far from the eight tones.

But forget for a moment the system of chant tones. The real problem that had been developing for some time but reached a zenith with the works of the big name composers was that it took a professional choir to sing the music. As choral music, it’s beautiful. As liturgical music to be sung in church, it’s overwritten, over-harmonized, and just way too, too much overall.

There is a backlash, a relatively recent phenomenon, and a movement to return to the two-voice traditional Byzantine and Znammeny chant. How successful this is depends on the parish, and to a lesser extent, the ethnic makeup.

Michael, a seminarian at St Vladimir’s, regularly expresses his opinion of liturgical music, particularly SATB Slavic music. Of course, he’s an Antiochian, so he has a strong preference for Byzantine chant, and while I agree with his personal preferences, there are other issues involved.

Slavic music is European, and more accessible to American ears. To those of us who care about evangelizing here, this point cannot be made strongly enough. Slavic here includes traditional Znammeny, so I’m not necessarily pushing SATB music. But there’s no reason a parish can’t do a mix of simple SATB and traditional Znammeny, or even Byzantine (speaking as an American, the traditional music grows on you very quickly one you adjust — there’s something very unearthly and haunting about both traditional Znammeny and Byzantine chant).

The other issue is congregational participation. The simpler the chant, the easier it is for the congregation to learn and sing. But simplicity isn’t the only issue.

I went to a Divine Liturgy at another church (which shall not be identified for reasons you’ll understand in a moment). I’m in the choir in my parish. I tried, I really did, but I finally gave up during the Cherubic Hymn. There was just no way to sing along with the choir.

Why? The music was ridiculously — nay, insanely — melismatic (meaning multiple notes to one syllable). I managed somehow to make it to what should have been “Life-creating Trinity,” but instead, it was, “Life cre-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa …” and it went on and on and on and on as the notes went up and down and sideways and all over the place and surely everybody ran out of breath multiple times before they finally got to “ting,” and then the same, as they sang, “Triiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii …” and again, all over the place for the next five minutes, and you get the idea. Sure, you can sing it if you have the music in front of you, but otherwise, you’d never know when that next syllable was finally going to get there. (And yes, of course I realize that the Cherubic Hymn has to cover a fairly long period of time, but why not choose a less ridiculously melismatic tune and repeat it if necessary?)

Rachmaninoff is unsingable. So is exessively melismatic chant, no matter how traditional to a specific ethnic group it may be. Both should be verboten in the parish.

Look, when it comes to liturgical chant, there’s nothing wrong with simple. Chant is supposed to be simple. It’s church, not a concert. I have heard far too many examples of choirs who take on music far too complex and the results are not pretty at all. And what’s sad is that it could have been so easily prevented by singing simpler, more traditional chant.

We have a pretty high level of congregational participation at my parish, starting with the Magnificat toward the end of Matins and extending throughout Divine Liturgy (interesting because the choir doesn’t take over from the chanters until the Great Doxology at the very end, after the congregation has started to participate). The reason is that we sing singable music, about two-thirds SATB, but simple, and not overly melismatic SATB (lots of Kievan, and a lot of harmonized Znammeny), and one-third two-voice chant, both Byzantine and Znammeny (like I said, if it were up to me, we’d go to all two-voice and we’d drop moving ison for traditional ison, but it’s not up to me, and life is like that). We also don’t (try to) sing anything that’s beyond our capabilities (on another blog, a priest had said his choir’s attempts were less than ideal, and I suggested he have them do simpler music). And even if I do say so myself, we do a pretty good job.

Like I said, keep it simple. It’s church, not a concert.

Bright Week pictures

Our parish here, Holy Trinity Orthodox Church.

For Lauren. Where we confess.

Where you’ll find me: In the choir.

All Bright Week, the Royal Doors and the Deacons Doors are open to symbolize the empty tomb

The altar and tabernacle.

Holy Trinity (the whole set).

Awesome

A liberal infiltrates Liberty University (Falwell’s school), to do “research” on those odd Christians, and, well:

He lined up a publisher — Grand Central Publishing — and arrived at the Lynchburg campus prepared for “hostile ideologues who spent all their time plotting abortion clinic protests and sewing Hillary Clinton voodoo dolls.”

Instead, he found that “not only are they not that, but they’re rigorously normal.”

All by itself, it’s just another failed “liberal gotcha” moment, based on the fantasy world liberals inhabit. But here’s the awesome part:

Once ambivalent about faith, Roose now prays to God regularly — for his own well-being and on behalf of others. He said he owns several translations of the Bible and has recently been rereading meditations from the letters of John on using love and compassion to solve cultural conflicts.

He’s even considering joining a church.

Ed has more

Speaking of the H-word

Many Orthodox are fond of claiming that modernism or ecumenism is a heresy. While I sympathize with their stance, they’re playing fast and loose with definitions. Modernism is a poorly defined set of fashions, not an ideological or belief system, and ecumenism can mean any one of hundreds of different things. Both are undesirable. Neither, at least not without further detailed definition, is a heresy.

What I will call the “social gospel,” which could also be called Dorthy Day-ism in a Roman Catholic context, is definitely a heresy. Note that I am not saying we shouldn’t help others, or even challenge ourselves and others to do more to help others. But Christ did not incarnate to create a more “socially just” world; note that when others identified Christ as an earthly king and associated Him with “social justice,” they were rebuked. Christ came to save souls, and the salvation of souls is the church’s sole mission. Everything else is cursory.

The reason that the “social gospel” is heresy is that it invariably strips Christ and His reason for becoming man, then dying and resurrecting for mankind, from the church, and replaces Christ with an androgynous Jesus stand-in for Karl Marx or some reactionary figure. Always.

Talk to a liberal mainstream Protestant, and the conversation will be Christ-free. He will talk social issues, and run screaming from the divinity of Christ, or the salvation of souls. The same is true of your garden-variety liberal Catholic.

But it’s worse than a mere heresy. It’s a perversion of morality, as one can see with Catholics who support the “right” of a woman to murder her innocent child, but are “morally” outraged by the execution of murderers. Those who subscribe to the “social gospel” heresy have no moral compass.

The liberal Catholic has perverted the teaching of his church and twisted it into its gruesome twin. The church calls us to help others. The liberal Catholic distorts this into “social programs.” This is not only heresy; it is blatantly immoral. Welfare programs violate two of the Ten Commandments (thou shalt not steal, and thou shalt not covet), and they are immoral because liberals support them so they can feel good about having helped others without actually having lifted a finger or spent a dime to help anyone. That’s why they want to “help others” with other peoples’ money. See the recent story about that great liberal Catholic Biden, and what an embarrassingly tiny amount of his money he has used to help others, then contrast it with how much President Bush and Vice President Cheney gave of their income to help others.

But the “social gospel” heresy isn’t confined to the left. Many in the so-called Religious Right have succumbed to it as well, and have forsaken Christ for the latest fashionable right-wing issue du jour. They invoke Bible passages just as their leftist counterparts do, using God as nothing more than a cudgel with which they beat their political opponents.

Again, there is absolutely nothing wrong with volunteering at the soup kitchen, or praying at an abortion clinic. Neither comes close to heresy. But replacing Christianity with a social agenda, left or right, is nothing but heresy, and should be condemned as such. 

And that, my friends, is about as strictly conservative as a Christian stance can get. People who have fallen prey to the “social gospel” heresy can be called many things, but Christian is not one of them.

Some gumption, please

A commenter on Amy Wellborn’s blog illustrates perfectly why Catholicism is a mess.

The assumption seems to be that people who dissent from the Church’s teachings yet remain Catholics

Actually, there are two fundamental problems here, so let’s take them one by one.

The assumption seems to be that people who dissent from the Church’s teachings

It’s this wishy-washy, gutless, utter lack of conviction that drives us to distraction, a cowardice of conscience that has pervaded Roman Catholicism as it has mainline Protestantism. Nobody this cowardly deserves respect. “People who dissent from the Church’s teachings” define heretics, those who embrace heresy. Exactly why can you not bring yourselves to use the H-word? Have you been beaten into submission by “ecumenical” groups and lesbian nuns in birkenstocks and multiculturalist heresy? Or do you only give lip service to orthodox belief, and don’t really believe that heresy exists?

Over the last 40 years, the Roman Catholic church has lost its backbone and become a church of moral cowards. Benedict XVI has a spine. It’s time the laity grew theirs back.

The assumption seems to be that people who dissent from the Church’s teachings yet remain Catholics

This is an oxymoron. One is Catholic — or Orthodox — purely by one’s adherence to the faith. One who dissents from the faith, that is, a heretic, is not a Catholic, or Orthodox. He is a heretic.

What we see here is the infection of the Oprah church, where the church has become nothing more than a social club where we can all share our feelings — hence all this nonsense about being “inclusive” and “sensitive.” Only if you accept this ecclesiology can you accept the oxymoron that Catholics can refuse to accept the faith yet remain Catholics.

And here you also see, at least attitudinally, the primary distinction between East and West, and I say East because the Eastern Rite are no more spineless than we are, and find such moral cowardice as appalling as we do. As I said in a comment on a traditionalist Catholic blog, using a political metaphor for theology for the sake of explication, you — meaning the conservative traditionalist Catholic — are Jimmy Carter, and we are Pat Buchanan. We would not tolerate the Oprah church raising its ugly head in our churches, while with only a tiny handful of exceptions, even the most conservative Roman Catholics will only object weakly.

Repeat after me: He-re-sy. It’s only three syllables. Embrace it. Grow a spine.

Psalms 141 (140)

Lord, I cry unto thee: make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee.

Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.

Incline not my heart to any evil thing, to practice wicked works with men that work iniquity: and let me not eat of their dainties.

Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness: and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head: for yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities.

When their judges are overthrown in stony places, they shall hear my words; for they are sweet.

Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth.

But mine eyes are unto thee, O GOD the Lord: in thee is my trust; leave not my soul destitute.

Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity.

Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape.

 

Paschal Messages

Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude, Metropolitan Jonah, on the occasion of the great feast of the Lord’s Pascha, 2009

Christ is Risen! Indeed He is Risen!

To the Very Reverend and Reverend Clergy, Monastics, and Faithful
of The Orthodox Church in America

Dearly Beloved in Christ,

Beloved, let us greet one another with Paschal Joy, and exchange the kiss of peace.

Let us feast soberly, that our joy may be full. Let us not stuff ourselves to satiety with feasting, nor indulge our passions to insensibility. Most of all, let us not give ourselves over to the darkness of the fallen world from which we have sought to purify ourselves, lack of forgiveness, anger and judgment, bitterness and hatred.

Rather, let us allow our old selves to remain crucified and buried, that the New Man may live, resurrected in and with Christ. Let us live according to the Kingdom, in communion with the Holy Spirit, so that we may be renewed by the Resurrection.

Our Pascha is not simply the beautiful services and the good food. It is not just family and Easter bunnies. It is not just the fellowship and familiar old customs.

Pascha is the dawn of the Age to Come, the Kingdom of God radiating into our souls and minds and hearts. Pascha is the experience of salvation itself, the foretaste of the Messianic Banquet, and the transformation of our lives. In Pascha we behold Christ, Risen from the dead, the revelation of the Second Coming.

We have gone with Christ to His Passion, but have we been crucified with Him?

We have held vigil at His Tomb, but were we asleep, and missed Him? Did our minds betray us and we doubt His Resurrection?

Let the fruit of our Lenten efforts be the enlightenment of our minds and the renewal of our hearts that our repentance not be in vain.

Let us sing with joy together with the Angels and Archangels, and all creation which has groaned awaiting the revelation of the Son of Man. With all creation, the living and dead, the spiritual and material, and with all the saints, let us cry:

Christ is Risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

Христос Воскресе из мертвых, смертию смерть поправ, и сущим во гробех живот даровав!

Χριστος ανεστη εκ νεκρων, θανατο θανατον πατησας και της εν τοις μνημασι ζωην χαρισαμενος.
With love and joy in the Risen Christ,

+JONAH
Archbishop of Washington and New York
Metropolitan of All America and Canada

 
Paschal Greetings from Metropolitan PHILIP

“He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities, the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one to His own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5-6)

“O Christ Saviour, we were but yesterday buried with Thee, and we shall rise with Thee in Thy Resurrection. We were but yesterday crucified with Thee: glorify us with Thee in Thy kingdom.” 
(Verse from the Third Ode of the Paschal Canon)

Beloved Hierarchs, Clergy, Trustees, Parish Council Members, and All Faithful of our God-Protected Archdiocese:

Christ is Risen!

I greet you with the Paschal greeting, praying that our Risen Lord will bless you and your families as we celebrate His glorious Resurrection from the dead. As we live in the midst of a world plagued by war, famine, crime and moral decay, we have no other hope than to look to our Lord who destroyed death and gave new life to all. This new life and hope should strengthen us to overcome all of these destructive forces and, in fact, enable us to speak out against them. Indeed, as Christ ended the “wailing of Eve by His Resurrection,” we must also “proclaim that the Saviour is risen from the dead.”

May the eternal light of the Empty Tomb shine in your hearts and in the hearts of people everywhere.

Wishing you a glorious Paschal season, I remain
Yours in the Risen Lord,

Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down Death by death!
And upon those in the tombs bestowing life!

 

Christ is Risen!

Evlogitaria of the Resurrection in English.

Our Father

The Lord’s Prayer, N. Kedrov, the setting we sing. Bulgarian National Choir.