www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Please tell me this isn't part of Byzantine chant now!!

This sure is a funny thread. It makes me laugh.

And now shifting gears:

TO TONY IN CRESTWOOD,NY--
On page 2 of this thread you mentioned a Czech Orthodox prayerbook. May I enquire where you got it? Maybe others are interested, too.
Do you have a mailing address for the company?
I'm an American of Czech descent on both of my parents' sides, and I would love to have a Czech Orthodox prayerbook -- whether it is in English or Czech.
Thank you for replying.

Dear amonasticbeginner,

I bought it in the Prague Orthodox cathedral some years back. I don't have it in front of me (it is at home, I am at work) but IIRC it is from the '50s. I will post an update later. Getting such things from Central and Eastern Europe is difficult. Perhaps I will pass thru Prague again soon.

If you are near me respond privately, if there is anything in particular you would like copied I can perhaps do that for you.

Tony

Tony, I do not have any possible way of exploring every Orthodox church around the world. First of all, I'm not independently wealthy, and second of all, I'm afraid of flying. So all I have to judge by are the ones in my own part of the world, and also those which are represented on the Internet.

Since, therefore, I can never fully understand the "Orthodox tradition worldwide," and therefore will never be fully qualified to express an opinion on any aspect of Orthodoxy or Eastern Christianity, here or anywhere else on the Internet or in any other forum, to your complete satisfaction, I apologize as well, and humbly thank you for pointing out my many inadequacies.

(Would this qualify as a "backhanded apology"? )

You can also occasionally find a plethora of prayer books from various Catholic and Orthodox churches at the Icon and Book Shop, operated by the Monastery of the Holy Cross in DC. I've seen different Czech prayer books there over the years.

This link may prove interesting.

http://www.pravoslav.gts.cz/

This is Czech Greek Catholic.

http://acizek.nfo.sk/

By the way, I have an old prayer book in English and Slavonic from 1944. I inherited it. I still haven't found one I like quite as much. (It is a very small fat book that travels well and it has pretty much everything I need.) People always ask to thumb through it. It's so transportable, that it is easy to carry on the subway and say morning and evening prayers from. :-)

It is a 1953 edition., published by �Pravoslavn� C�rkev v Československu� and this one has the following information about its printing �Pro potřeby Pravoslavn�ch Čechů a Moravanů vytiskla Srbsk� C�rkev Bĕlehrad 1990.� The outside over has �Otče N�.�

dear TG:

To save you the air-fare to NC , our parish does not have a choir and the entire congregation sings/chants. We can even do it in harmony
But we have been told that this is very rare in most Byzantine Parishes, that most of the parishes have choirs that do most of the chants and responses. I saw this first hand during the Life March to DC this past January. The group of us from our parish who had gone up for the March, about 20 of us, all went to a Compline Service the night before the March. The Bishop of our Eparchy did the Liturgy and there was a choir as well. Not knowing any better , our group sang as we always do. We were pretty much the only group there who was joining the choir...other people there were looking at us as if we were wierd! What made it worse is that the bulk of our group were the kids from our Parish school...about twelve of them and they sing rather loudly when they sing together.

Maybe we should hire them out to the other parishes?

Now see, to me, that just sounds amazing ... and sad.

And weird! In fact, one of the major reasons that I was attracted to the Byzantine Catholic church in the first place was that, a few years ago, when I attended a Tridentine Mass, I sang along with all the responses. And afterwards, was pulled aside and given a stern lecture by a sour-faced old lady, who told me that it was "against Canon law" for the congregation to sing! Yes, she actually told me that, with a straight (and kind of scary) face.

So when I encountered the Ruthenian and Byzantine rites, and saw the congregation happily chanting and singing the responses, in or out of key, it was a welcome change. No "canon laws" against anyone and everyone joining in , or so I thought.

Now I'm hearing that the churches I've been fortunate enough to encounter out here in sunny California, are an aberration. I hate to say it, but is it possible that most of the rest of the Orthodox and Eastern world are (musically, anyway) in agreement with that sour-faced old lady??

If that's true, then all I can say is, California, here I stay!

TG and Ladyhawke,

Congregaional singing is the norm for Ruthenian and Ukrainian parishes. In my experience very few have choirs and even fewer let them do all the singing or don't sing at all. Most have a cantor or two that lead the congregation in singing. Some Ukrainian and a few Ruthenian parishes have got in the bad habit of spoken liturgies but this is not the norm. I believe the Melkites are congregational singers as well.

The point Tony was trying to make was that whatever the ideal, most Orthodox parishes do not have congregational singing. ACROD parishes usually have congregational singing. Many OCA parishes with Greek Catholic roots do as well. Other OCA parishes have choirs that do most of the singing. GOA parishes are normally cantor/choir only in my experience.

Ladyhawke, I was at the March for Life and attended Compline also. I also sang the responses too, but I don't remember any weird looks though. I think that the majority of people at Compline weren't Byzantine so maybe that accounts for it. In any case I am surprised that somebody said congregational singing is rare. It is definately the norm in Pittsburgh, perhaps Passaic is different but this is the first time I had heard it.

In Christ,
Subdeacon Lance

I don't know where you were sitting in the Crypt Church, but the group from my parish was singing along with the choir and no one was giving us any weird looks. Indeed, the elderly couple behind us, both Latins, finally joined in once they got the hang of the tones we were using.

We did hear other voices besides our own...to think we were all sitting there in one place and didn't know each other

There were two priests sitting next to our group, and they kept looking at us like we were doing something wrong and a woman in front of us kept turning around and frowning...okay guys, we weren't that off tune...I mean, our cantors were with us...

and wasn't the Compline wonderful...to be honest, aside from the March itself, the Compline was my favorite part of everything...

Vie

Open mouth insert foot...which wouldn't happen if I would learn to write in my only language properly...when I said 'pretty much' I didn't mean that we were the absolutely only folks singing, but that I didn't hear too many others, compared to what I am used to being surrounded by.

Also, my concentration was taken over with trying to keep up with the choir...they seemed to be chanting at a faster tone than I am used to.

As for wierd looks...most normal people, during a Liturgy, are paying attention to what they are there for...worship of the Lord. Because of problems I have with closed in places and large crowds, I tend to fidget, look around, even get up and walk around, to calm myself down. So I saw the folks in our pew and the woman in front of us, and the group of teen age girls a few rows down looking at the boys in our group...

Next year in the Crypt guys...we'll all sit together and show the RC's how it's done...

Ladyhawke1017,

I would disagree that most BC parishes have choirs.

In my travels, though limited in scope, I have noticed generally that the BC parishes I have visited are more likely to encourage congregational singing, often with wonderful harmonies. True some parishes have choirs, though maybe I seem to find the ones that don't have choirs. In my own parish we do not have a choir and the congregation does sing!!

Again, in general I notice that almost without exception every Orthodox church will have a choir even for regular Saturday vespers (often with more choir than congregation )

Maybe things are different between east/west coasts.

Respectfully,
Steve Petach