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| The Passion of Christ, National Art Museum of Ukraine (1575-1600) |
The Hymnography of Great Week
By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos
By Protopresbyter Fr. George Metallinos
Great Week recapitulates the whole of human history: creation, the fall, and the re-formation and re-creation in Christ. Christ — the crucified and risen Lord of the Church and of history — is presented through the Sacred Services as the One who provides the solution to the timeless tragedy of man and gives meaning to history.
There is, moreover, coherence and continuity in what is read, chanted, and enacted in worship; this, however, is weakened by a fragmentary participation, in contrast to monastic liturgical practice. The recourse of those who love the Services to monasteries during these days — especially those of Mount Athos — has precisely this meaning: the possibility of experiencing the full range of the recapitulation of the salvation of man and the world offered through worship.
The making-present of the historical saving events connected with the Passion of Christ is accomplished through the liturgical actions (the procession of the icon of the Bridegroom, of the Secret Supper, of the Cross, of the Epitaphios, the Apokathelosis), but above all through the principal means of our ecclesiastical worship: the words of the hymns and their musical vesture — this wondrous dual bearer and expression of the Orthodox faith. The liturgical hymn constitutes the heart of ecclesiastical worship, because the possibilities offered by poetic language render hymnography the most fitting means for the mystagogy of the assembled body. The hymn transforms worship into the unceasing mouth of the ecclesial community, which daily bears witness to and confesses its faith, its experience of salvation.
Yet poetic word and melody are joined in Orthodox liturgical hymnody presuppositionally, since ecclesiastical art in Orthodoxy never exists autonomously or self-sufficiently, but always liturgically and ministerially, offering means for approaching the mystery of salvation. The art of Orthodoxy moves on the boundary between created and uncreated, charismatically bridging their distance as the historical flesh of the God-man reality of the Church.
Thus the hymn, as a patristic word, becomes a pastoral means for the edification of the faithful. It offers the knowledge of God and theology of the heart purified and illumined by the Holy Spirit — of the Saints who, theologizing poetically, dip the reed in the streams of their faith and in the tears of their repentance. Great Fathers and Mothers of the Church are the poets and composers of the hymns of Great Week: Sophronios of Jerusalem, Kosmas of Maiuma, Mark of Otranto, Andrew of Crete, Kassiani (Kassia) are among the best-known names, who transform their spiritual and heartfelt experience into a “song” of the ecclesiastical body and into “Theology.”
But if the hymnographic word is the voice of the Church, music (melody) is its proper garment. It exists for the sake of the word — “the power of the sayings” — and not as an independent artistic medium. Its aim is not pleasure or emotional stimulation, but to assist the word to penetrate the depths of existence, creating a disposition of prayer, compunction, and self-reproach. It is not music for mere listening (“the Church is not a theater, that we may listen for enjoyment,” as St. John Chrysostom observes), but liturgical. It serves the mystery of the Incarnate Word, clothing the theological word so that the ecclesial body may “weave a melody of words” for the Divine Word — Christ.
For this reason, musical instruments have never found a place in the worship of the Church, according to Orthodox practice. In the Church, the believer himself becomes the sweet-sounding “instrument” of the Holy Spirit (“this man, having become a psalter,” according to St. Athanasios), through his heart purified from passions. Without purity of heart, moreover, one cannot live the events of Great Week and Pascha. As we proceed toward the “celebration” of the Resurrection on the night of Great Saturday, we will chant: “…and make us, the pious, worthy to glorify You with a pure heart.” It is the “good heart” for which our people pray in their festivals and enjoyments, raising the cup of wine. For without a “good heart” there is no possibility of communion with our fellow human beings, and without a “pure heart” the possibility of participation in the Uncreated Divine Grace is lost.
These are the ecclesiological and theological principles that govern the hymnographic word (and) of Great Week and its music-melody — established by the Spirit-bearing consciousness, identified with Orthodox self-awareness. For this reason, the people — that is, all of us — participate with compunction and chant together the principal hymns (“Behold, the Bridegroom comes…,” “I behold Your bridal chamber…,” the “Lamentations” of the Epitaphios, and so on).
From the moment that the ecclesial body loses the ability to follow the hymnographic word and the common chanting, the (at times non-theologizing) psaltic art is called into question, becoming more “art” and less a ministerial garment of the word. Then the aim becomes the listening experience rather than prayerful participation. In this way, however, ecclesiastical art becomes “westernized,” and worship is secularized.
Source: Article in the newspaper Παρὸν τῆς Κυριακῆς, 4/12/2009. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
There is, moreover, coherence and continuity in what is read, chanted, and enacted in worship; this, however, is weakened by a fragmentary participation, in contrast to monastic liturgical practice. The recourse of those who love the Services to monasteries during these days — especially those of Mount Athos — has precisely this meaning: the possibility of experiencing the full range of the recapitulation of the salvation of man and the world offered through worship.
The making-present of the historical saving events connected with the Passion of Christ is accomplished through the liturgical actions (the procession of the icon of the Bridegroom, of the Secret Supper, of the Cross, of the Epitaphios, the Apokathelosis), but above all through the principal means of our ecclesiastical worship: the words of the hymns and their musical vesture — this wondrous dual bearer and expression of the Orthodox faith. The liturgical hymn constitutes the heart of ecclesiastical worship, because the possibilities offered by poetic language render hymnography the most fitting means for the mystagogy of the assembled body. The hymn transforms worship into the unceasing mouth of the ecclesial community, which daily bears witness to and confesses its faith, its experience of salvation.
Yet poetic word and melody are joined in Orthodox liturgical hymnody presuppositionally, since ecclesiastical art in Orthodoxy never exists autonomously or self-sufficiently, but always liturgically and ministerially, offering means for approaching the mystery of salvation. The art of Orthodoxy moves on the boundary between created and uncreated, charismatically bridging their distance as the historical flesh of the God-man reality of the Church.
Thus the hymn, as a patristic word, becomes a pastoral means for the edification of the faithful. It offers the knowledge of God and theology of the heart purified and illumined by the Holy Spirit — of the Saints who, theologizing poetically, dip the reed in the streams of their faith and in the tears of their repentance. Great Fathers and Mothers of the Church are the poets and composers of the hymns of Great Week: Sophronios of Jerusalem, Kosmas of Maiuma, Mark of Otranto, Andrew of Crete, Kassiani (Kassia) are among the best-known names, who transform their spiritual and heartfelt experience into a “song” of the ecclesiastical body and into “Theology.”
But if the hymnographic word is the voice of the Church, music (melody) is its proper garment. It exists for the sake of the word — “the power of the sayings” — and not as an independent artistic medium. Its aim is not pleasure or emotional stimulation, but to assist the word to penetrate the depths of existence, creating a disposition of prayer, compunction, and self-reproach. It is not music for mere listening (“the Church is not a theater, that we may listen for enjoyment,” as St. John Chrysostom observes), but liturgical. It serves the mystery of the Incarnate Word, clothing the theological word so that the ecclesial body may “weave a melody of words” for the Divine Word — Christ.
For this reason, musical instruments have never found a place in the worship of the Church, according to Orthodox practice. In the Church, the believer himself becomes the sweet-sounding “instrument” of the Holy Spirit (“this man, having become a psalter,” according to St. Athanasios), through his heart purified from passions. Without purity of heart, moreover, one cannot live the events of Great Week and Pascha. As we proceed toward the “celebration” of the Resurrection on the night of Great Saturday, we will chant: “…and make us, the pious, worthy to glorify You with a pure heart.” It is the “good heart” for which our people pray in their festivals and enjoyments, raising the cup of wine. For without a “good heart” there is no possibility of communion with our fellow human beings, and without a “pure heart” the possibility of participation in the Uncreated Divine Grace is lost.
These are the ecclesiological and theological principles that govern the hymnographic word (and) of Great Week and its music-melody — established by the Spirit-bearing consciousness, identified with Orthodox self-awareness. For this reason, the people — that is, all of us — participate with compunction and chant together the principal hymns (“Behold, the Bridegroom comes…,” “I behold Your bridal chamber…,” the “Lamentations” of the Epitaphios, and so on).
From the moment that the ecclesial body loses the ability to follow the hymnographic word and the common chanting, the (at times non-theologizing) psaltic art is called into question, becoming more “art” and less a ministerial garment of the word. Then the aim becomes the listening experience rather than prayerful participation. In this way, however, ecclesiastical art becomes “westernized,” and worship is secularized.
Source: Article in the newspaper Παρὸν τῆς Κυριακῆς, 4/12/2009. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
