www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Vespers, Matins & the Divine Liturgy The Revised Divine Liturgy Hymn sheets / structure of pew book

Simple question. Since I was not a Byzantine Catholic before 2006, were the old pew books as confounding to flip back and forth through?

Having been doing it for a year, it's not hard, but at first - or for new visitors - it's quite a handful.

We just got the $3.25 paper back versions of the pew book. They are much easier for people to follow. They do not have all of the music but that can be downloaded from the Metropolitan Cantor Institute page for each Sunday.

Did the good people at the Cantor Institute and the Liturgical Commission ever consider what percentage of the population can actually read music?

Didn't think so.

Well, I can't speak for the Liturgical Commission, but I can say that everyone involved with the Cantor Institute certainly is familiar with the extent that various people can or can't read music.

On the one hand, a surprising number of people between 20 and 50 CAN read music, at least enough to follow melodies with which they are somewhat familiar. This drops off sharply under 20 right now, probably reflecting changes in public and parochial school music education.

But far more important for our Liturgy is that our chant developed in such a way that practically ANY text could be sung to the prescribed melodies for troparia, kontakia, and stichera, AT SIGHT, and with correct accents. The primary impediment to parochial Vespers and Matins these days is that, since 1970, the faithful have been using melodies which are so thoroughly "trimmed" in wildly divergent ways that the basic FORM of each melody is hard to internalize, and thus, hard to use when singing a new text, or one used only occasionally.

One of the reasons for including the Our Father in the Divine Liturgies book in the eight samohlasen tones is so that parishes will come to KNOW these melodies in a common, easily applied form (which, pace John's statements, certainly took into account the way melodies are SUPPOSED to be adapted in the prostopinije tradition to very short or long texts). Working with the Byzanteens, it is quite striking how easily they can now sing Vespers from just the text, using the correct melodies, and changing tones whenever the cantor does.

My fondest hope is that, in five years, we could have parishes singing Vespers and Matins, as well as the Divine Liturgy, from plain text anthologies. To my mind, this makes it easier to pray the services themselves. Returning to the more structured, less "cut up" versions of melodies it a key part of this process.

Christ is risen!

Jeff Mierzejewski

P.S. Parishes that use the four ribbons in the book consistently seem to have a MUCH easier time finding their way around. But in my own parish, I've been impressed by the large fraction of the faithful who manage to be singing from the correct page at any given point in the Divine Liturgy.

I attend the Roman Catholic Mass infrequently but I finally gave up trying to follow their Missal. Our books are much easier to follow.

Fr Deacon Paul

I don't think I've ever paid attention to the music notes. It's much simpler to mimic the cantor and everybody around you. I certainly wouldn't sing differently than everybody if I thought the music sheets told me to.

I was only wondering if the old versions were any more intuitive, front-to-back style. Between having to match the corresponding Greek term for the stage of the liturgy and the page no., etc... it can be a handful.

The ideal, of course, should be no pew books at all (I suppose if you got rid of pews. . . ). If your nose is buried in a book, you aren't devoting your whole body and all your senses to worship. I find it interesting that there are no books whatsoever at Holy Transfiguration Melkite Church, and the quality of both liturgy and congregational singing is uniformly high.

I actually agree with you, Stuart, though of course pews have nothing to do with it - surely you're aware of the history of printed liturgical books for the people in our church's culture, back when we had no pews at all? There were a LOT of copies of books with all the people's texts for Vespers, Matins, and Divine Liturgy for the Sundays and major feast days of the entire liturgical year.

jjp:


The old Divine Liturgy books had the same structure of the fixed parts at the front, followed by the eight tones, the Easter Season, the Lenten Season, and the cycle of fixed feasts. So there was always page-flipping to do, unless you just wait for the cantor and the rest of the congregation to sing the changeable parts ("propers").

Jeff

Xpucmoc Bockpec

I can remember when I was a child and went with Baba to church In the 40's, everything was in Old Slavonic! How it happened? but we learned to sing from memory the entire liturgy for there were no books at all!!! (some of the older people had books which they brought from Ukraine as did my baba) with the exception of the troparia and kondakia. Everything else was learned as a matter of just being there so regularly. when they switched to modern Ukrainian, it took time to re-learn how the syllables would fit with the tradional melodies. We all forgot the Slavonic after a time....BUT When my brother and I went back to Ukraine in the last 70's and attended a Liturgy in the Orthodox church of the Nativity, the Old Slavonic came back completely!!!!as if we had never stopped using it.

As was said earlier, this generation has to have their heads buried in a book for they have forgotten how to just listen. tThis I can attest to because I have seen it coming for a long time in classroom after classroom of students.


Kolya

My intent on asking about this was mostly from the perspective of a new person to the Liturgy. But as I think about it some more, the difficult part is not so much the idea of propers in different parts of the book, but of identifying the stage of the Liturgy via it's typically Greek name. If you don't know the sequences of the Divine Liturgy, that is really the problem. I don't think there's any real way around that, other than learning the Liturgy or being with somebody who knows it.

Help me out here to understand....is it the Greek name association with which you need a better understanding? Or is it knowing what the current stage of the DL is at if you theoretically walk in at any give moment?

If it is the stage of the DL what would be helpful is a picture or visual association. When I was a young boy I couldn't understand the language and consequently the stage of the DL. But back then the good sisters of St Basil always presented a prayer book at First Communion, mine being named "Heavenly Manna." The beauty of this bilingual prayer book was that it had a fair amount of pictures. At the picture of the Gospel procession (Little Entrance) I could turn to the right page and be ready for "Svatyj Boze" ("Holy God") and so on.

I think the lack of children participation in part is because they can't relate to the DL.....they have no pictures and can't relate well to what is happening; the result being that they can't follow along, get lost and give up.
I recognized this with my six year old granddaughter, so I make up a DL book with pictures. I also added a "+" where we make the Sign of the Cross. I smile to myself when I see her intently following and blessing herself even more than the rest of the congregation.
I would like to share this with the Archeparchy's Office of Religious except that some of the pictures are copyrighted.

Fr Deacon Paul

Never actually seen that in either of the two parishes I have regularly attended for the past sixteen years. Instead, I find that, from an early age, kids are fascinated by the Liturgy--even before they can understand the words in either English or Slavonic. The Liturgy is such a feast for the senses that kids--who have a natural attraction to ritual of all sorts--get drawn into it. Congregational singing helps as well, both from its participatory aspect and from the way in which it helps us assimilate and internalize doctrinal concepts--which is why both Arius and Athanasius used hymnography to sell their doctrines. Finding other ways for them to participate keeps kids engaged. I may be fortunate, but I have never been in a Greek Catholic parish that lacked for altar servers. Finding distinct roles for girls is a little harder, but there are ways to get them involved, too. Finally, I think our children benefit from being partakers in the Holy Mysteries from infancy onward. They are full members of the Church and treated as such. Rather than seeing a falling away, at the parishes with which I am most familiar, kids stick with their faith, and even after they go away to college, anxiously return home for the Feasts of the Nativity and Pascha, and whenever else they can get back.

Of course, it also helps if their parents are deeply involved in the Liturgy and the life of the Church. Aiming at kids when the parents are disengaged is pretty much a waste of time. More focus on adult education will automatically lead to greater youth participation.

Well said Stuart. I've noticed similar trends with the children in our parish. My fiancee is Roman but has fallen in love with the concept of children participating fully in the life of the church. It really does have an effect.

And I appreciate the replies offering help with the liturgy, but I was mainly remarking on how I've observed new people struggle, and to a lesser extent my own initial fumbling about. I think ultimately, the more you put into learning it and are able to participate, the more rewarding it will be.