www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology OO: Musical Instruments and Kneeling

My rule of thumb for singing in church with out instruments: never sing with them in the Temple. Sure paraliturgical hymns could be sung to instrumental accompaniment, but if you let one of those contraptions in, then, even for the occasional hymn, then it is tempting to say, "Well, since i have it here..." and then there are instruments infecting everything. Having a guideline such as "you cant play instruments when the Holy doors are open," is really not good, since most parts of most services are celebrated behind closed Doors (even the Divine Liturgy!!!).

FWIW, in the Latin Church, the Masses and sacred music of Bach, Beethoven, most of Mozart's &al were banned in 1903, as well as any non-voice instrument except the organ, which was permitted because of the logistical reason that the darned things were everywhere and too hard too move out of the buildings. So much for Papal authority in the West...

Dear Remie,

Well I have been to Greek Catholic Liturgy in both Pre�ov and Ko�ice (and many other places in Slovakia) and have GC priest friends there as well. I have never heard the liturgy "shouted or recited." The Ukrainian Catholics have the practice of the recited liturgy and its advent has been studied by Huculak. I have never heard any Catholic or Orthodox Liturgy "shouted." The only shouting I ever heard in either of those churches is perhap "Indeed, He is Risen!" Other than that I can't recall shouting.

I don't really think that you have believed that the Divine Liturgy there is shouted. All one needs to do is ask oneself "is that possible?" The answer to that is simply no. I mean if I were told that in Mexico the RCs have Mass standing on their heads I would not believe it nor would I pass it on.

Tony

I've been in the choir loft of several of our (Ruthenian) parishes in the USA where I saw electronic keyboards. I know that in one parish its introduction was for "weddings only" (so that "Here Comes the Bride" could be played) but it gradually worked its way into the usual Sunday liturgies. I suppose that in the other parishes it's used to help the choir tune up...

God help us if we can't sing things that aren't "in the book"! (The question is, what book?)

Carpatho-Rusyn Byzantine Christians have more hymns that are "not in the book" than are "in the book." The problem here in the USA is either

1) Most of our hymns have never been translated into / arranged for English (or if they have, have not been widely distributed); or
2) When a cantor tries to introduce something "new" (even if it is something very traditional and in our old books but mostly forgotten) the people resist. After years of singing only 3 different communion hymns and only 3 different Marian hymns, of course people are going to resist. They've forgotten everything else and for the most part are no longer interested in adding anything "new" (even if 10 years ago the hymn was commonly sung in the parish!).

In my home parish, the cantor's basically given up on paraliturgical hymns and has taken to singing liturgical texts in Greek, Arabic... sure, he's soloing, but that's where his interest is. And if nobody's going to sing along with him anyway, it's better that at least one person is happy...

Dear Ghazarus,

(What's with the "us" after your name? Turning Latin? :p )

We do not kneel on Sundays in our Liturgy. In fact, there is a custom in our parish to offer prayers for the dead with incense after the Liturgy, and it used to be the custom to make a full prostration before a cross as part of that, but when a visiting bishop came, he singlehandedly put a stop to years of parish tradition by saying that it was against the canons to kneel on Sunday. Now we simply venerate the priest's hand cross.

The only Liturgies I've ever been to have been Sunday and festal Liturgies, never any "plain ol'" weekday Liturgies (they are pretty non-existant). So I don't know what can be done. I do know that on Holy Thursday and Holy Saturday morning, when I suppose kneeling might be allowed (full prostrations are done during the Divine Office), no one kneels...probably this is force of habit, having never knelt for Liturgy, or maybe there is a rule, but I don't know.

I don't really think that you have believed that the Divine Liturgy there is shouted. All one needs to do is ask oneself "is that possible?" The answer to that is simply no. I mean if I were told that in Mexico the RCs have Mass standing on their heads I would not believe it nor would I pass it on.

About the guitars used in Kosice, someone here wrote that, and I also asked some people and they told me it was true.

When I wrote shouted I meant, recited loud instead of sung. Maybe if another person had told me this I would have believed it, but a friend from Canada from Ukrainian background who is a member of the ROCOR, told me some of his experiences and thoughts when we were talking about the Church. A Roman Catholic friend who was with us brought the Byzantine Catholic Church to the discussion she said it was good that they were recovering the Orthodox traditions, and then he said "oh no, the BCC is part of the same body that permits liberalisms, they have rock liturgies, guitar liturgies." I didn't believe him of course. The Melkite Liturgy I have attended is very similar to the Greek Orthodox liturgy, in Spanish you won't see so much differences.

I interrogated visitors that I had from Slovakia this summer (one of whom is a seminarian in Presov and in the Romanos choir) about the guitar liturgies. They had no idea of what I was talking about. With some effort, I finally extracted out of them, pretty much what Tony said - that at hymns are sometimes sung with accompanying instruments. While this is not my preference, musically it's not so bad.

There is an internet site that features Rusyn music. One group (Group Rosa) has instrument accompanied settings of O Mati Bozhe, Vitaj Mezhd Nami (in 3/4 time very nice), and Radujsja Serdce. I can do without the synthesizer etc., but voice with acoustic guitar figures is beautiful and, oddly, somehow seems nash to me. What do you think?

http://www.rusyn-radio.dns2go.com/RADIO_TV_SITE/html_files/music.htm

Immaculate Mary - Likuj Presvjataja - is in Sokol's blue book. Does anyone know if it goes back to Bokshaj?

PS Could someone please give me a literal translation of "Schast'a jedine v sej chas hostiny, v nevinym serdci, serdci d'itiny"?

djs

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mor Ephrem:
[QB]Dear Ghazarus,

(What's with the "us" after your name? Turning Latin? :p )

Dear Mor Ephrem,

You always like to ask the tough questions, don't you? O.k. I added the "us" to "Ghazar" because I feared that most of our non-Near Eastern brethren were pronouncing it like "Gaza" (Strip) with an "r". When actually it should be pronounced like "Bazar" with a rolled "Gh" sound (which is what happens to "L" most often in Armenian). Thus Paulos becomes "Boghos" in Western Armenian.

So, (is this a long story or what?) I figured I'd add the "us" to show that "Ghazar" is just the Armenian shortened version of "Lazarus" which happens to be part of my Armenian last name "DerGhazarian". But now since you have raised the question of my possible "re-latinizing" (God-forbid, although I could do worse) I have realized that you are indeed correct: the "us" should be "os" thus making "Ghazarus" into "Ghazaros". So, I'll make the adjustment in my screen name.

Btw, its probably just a temporary phase I'm going through. I'll probably eventually get back to just plain ole' Ghazar. Which do you like better?

Thanks for the background on your Church's practices. The Armenian Apostolics kneel. Ironically, (probably due to Byzantine Catholic influence), the Armenian Catholics do not. So we are placed in a difficult position. To be true to our tradition, should we kneel as do the Apostolics? Or, being that many of them admit kneeling is incorrect and want to see it corrected, do we stick to our guns and wait for our Orthodox brethren to get rid of their Latinizations? :p

your brother in Christ's Light,
Wm. DerGhazarian

Btw, we also have memorials for the dead, often after our Sunday Divine Liturgies.

I don't know about that, but it's featured on the recent cassette/CD recording S Nami Boh by the women's choir of the Orthodox parish of the Dormition of the Mother of God in Orjabyna / Jarabina, Slovakia.

So that I can better understand this discussion, I am still hoping someone will define "liturgical music" for me.

Dear ProdigalSonG:

Being very new here, I can only speak for myself and how I understand the term "liturgical music." By "liturgucal," one may say that such music is limited to music to which the actual text of a liturgical service is set. By "paraliturgical," one may say that this is music which is not a part of the actual liturgy, but is used, for lack of a better term, as "filler." Perhaps the best example of this would be the time when the faithful are approaching to recieve the Most Precisous Gifts (Communion), during which one often hears some type of hymn to Christ, the Theotokos or, during appropriate times, Carols of the Nativity or Songs of the Resurrection.

With regard to my humble submission regarding the use of instruments, I wholeheartedly agree with the previous posts outlining the "slippery slope" scenario as it would seem all too easy to allow instrumental accompaniment into "liturgical" music once it is used for "paraliturgical" music.

Having said this, several years ago when studying in a city far from home, I regularly attended liturgical services at a GO parish wherein the choir at the Sunday Divine Liturgy used an organ to simply double the voices. This was in stark opposition to my home parish where instruments of any kind were (and still are) strictly out. Honestly, however, it was not too bad and kept the choir on pitch. Has anyone else heard similar use?

Yours,

kl