Romanos神父：正教之声

• 按：此是Romanos神父关于拜占庭圣乐的讲座，Enjoy！若要引用本文，请按以下格式：Romanos神父《东正教之声讲座》（伦敦：光从东方来，2024年01月26日），Eva姐妹，阿甲整理，本网页网址，引用日期。具体也请参考版权申明

• 本讲座讲稿的内容是按Romanos神父提供的英文讲稿翻译而成，与讲座有一定出入。我们会以附录的方式附上英文原文。问答部分正在整理中…

油管订阅和网盘下载，请见主页

讲稿正文

Sounds of Orthodoxy: Bells, Readings, and Byzantine Chant

Fr. Romanos Karanos, Director of the Byzantine Music Program, Holy Cross School of Theology

亲爱的大家，晚上好。

我非常感谢我深爱的前学生袁永甲，友善邀请我第一次来为中国听众分享一些关于东正教音乐的思想。我为他以及各位能够在此聆听而深表感激。

所有感官都参与崇拜（标题乃译者所加，下同）

首先，我想要强调的是，在东正教基督传统中，所有的感官都参与崇拜，因为我们相信上帝道成了肉身。在我们的信仰之中，上帝不是外在于我们远在天堂，他也不是崇高的思想，我们不会只在理智上接近他。他来到了地上，我们看见了他，所以，我们可以描述他；我们听见了他教导、讲道、歌唱，所以，我们用我们的语言来谈论他，并向他讲话；他触摸了我们，所以，我们用我们的身体来划十字「圣号」，我们鞠躬，跪拜；我们甚至从行神迹的圣像或者圣骸流落出的香与没药中，闻到了天堂的香气；我们在圣餐中品尝他。

我们相信他真地以即看不见，又看得见的方式在圣坛上。我们不知道怎么样也不能理解或者解释它，但是它是基本的基督教信仰——可以说是最基本的，也就是神圣的三位一体中的第二位格，真真实实且完完全全地呈现出人类肉身的形态，并且以带着他的肉身上升到天堂，永永远远地坐在上帝的宝座上。这是极深的奥秘，是一个真正提升我们的人性到一个不可想象的高度的奥秘，它也使我们的信仰独一无二。这也是我们每年在复活节后40天，也就是基督升天节，所庆祝的内容。想象一下，像我们一样，一个完美的人，同时又是全能的上帝（尽管如此，也仍旧是一个人）在天堂登基即位。它超出信仰可以表述的范围，唯一合宜的回应就是静默。

静修主义与耶稣祷文

静默。我演讲的名字是"东正教之声：铃声，读经声，和拜占庭圣咏"。在我们考察东方基督教的声乐之前，让我们首先思想一下东方基督教的静默。如果你周间或者周日下午进入教堂，你可能不会听到圣咏，你可能会被神圣的静默所包裹。你可能会看见神父或者其他人坐在教堂的长椅上安静地祷告或者默想；你也可能看见有人进来，点燃蜡烛，亲吻圣像，然后离开，或者可能进到教堂正厅，单独地和上帝呆一会。基督教不仅仅只有荣耀辉煌的音乐，虽然它确实非常壮丽光辉，就像我们所看到的一样，几个世纪以来它们吸引了上千人来了解我们的信仰，但是基督教的音乐也关乎静默。

希腊语中，静默的写法是ησυχία。现在ησυχία不是指空洞的安静，也不是被各种自然的声音或者你自己的心跳所填充的安静。你可能知道20世纪一部非常著名的音乐作品，叫做4'33", 由现代主义作曲家约翰科芝(John Cage)作曲，包含4分33秒的彻底安静。当乐队指挥举起他的指挥棒，音乐家们切切实实地保持安静4分33秒。它不像是音乐创作，更像是一种哲学立场，即每一件围绕着我们的事情，包括有人咳嗽或者某人的鞋子在地上动来动去，都是音乐。但这并不是基督教意义上的ησυχία。基督教的ησυχία是一个空间，在里面我们可以更进一步地与我们的上帝更亲密地合一。当周遭安静下来的时候，我们专注于不止息地呼求耶稣祷文。它只包含几个词语：“主耶稣基督，上帝的儿子，怜悯我这个罪人。“如果进一步缩短，为：“主耶稣基督，怜悯我。” 甚或 “耶稣怜悯我。” 在甚者，连续不断地默念上帝的名字直到彻底安静下来。

钟声和铃声

神圣的静默之后就是神圣的声乐，它不只是人的嗓音，用歌曲赞美神，也包含敬拜中所使用的其他物品和元素的声音，例如：钟。钟是第一个被引进到罗马的，是由教皇Sabinian在604年引进的。我们不知道具体什么时候它们也被东方基督教所吸收，但是几百年来，它们已经成为传统基督教国家，信仰礼拜仪式中不可或缺的元素。

它们的功能多种多样，可以说，它们的主要功能是召集信徒到教堂。这也是为什么在晚祷、晨祷、弥撒——在东方通常被称为侍奉圣礼(Divine Liturgy)。当地的教堂生活中，有重要事情需要公告的时候，钟声也会响起，例如：主教的参访，或者新主教的选举，或者教区教徒安息主怀了。但是，我认为钟声最重要的作用是在关键的礼拜仪式中表达教会的喜悦，例如：在复活节敬拜中，当神父和会众咏唱复活节赞美诗"基督从死里复活了！“10次的时候，钟声立刻敲起，并且持续数分钟。根据场景的不同，钟有不同种类的声音，快的，慢的，欢欣鼓舞的，悲痛欲绝的。在修道院，敲钟几乎被上升到了艺术的形式，或许在斯拉夫传统中更可以这么说。

另外一个声音是焚香炉中发出的声音。几乎在所有的敬拜及所有的神圣仪式中，辅祭或者神父用香炉「上下左右摇晃」，创造出一种视听景象，「使」天堂之芬芳平滑弥漫「开来」，并且圣灵恩典从天上之域发出，渗透到我们地上之空间。实际上，拜占庭式的焚香炉有12个铃铛，代表12个使徒，所以，焚香的行为是一种听觉图像，演绎使徒们将福音传到地球的四个角落。还有其他种类的圣乐，例如，主教祭服上铃铛发出的声音。让我回到我讨论的主题--圣言（上帝的圣言和对上帝说的圣言）。

如果你去过东正教崇拜，无疑地你会注意到它充满了声乐，不歌唱的崇拜很少。总体上来说，它们是清晰地表述神职人员的祈祷文，圣咏和其他旧约书卷里的仪文内容，尽管它们有些时候是缓慢庄重的，或者反复吟唱的。布道，诸圣的生平，都会在修道院中被诵读出来，其他的仪文也会或多或少注入一些音乐处理的部分。为什么？为什么我们会咏唱呢？为什么我们不简简单单地说话呢？有多重的原因。首先，我们在地上的崇拜，是在天堂向上帝崇拜的一个镜像。天堂崇拜都包含什么呢？福音作者圣约翰在启示录中给了我们答案：“我又观看，见羔羊站在锡安山，同他又有十四万四千人，都有他的名和他父的名写在额上。我听见从天上有声音，像重水的声音和打雷的声音，并且我所听见的好像弹琴的所弹的琴声。他们在宝座前，并在四活物和众长老前唱歌，仿佛是新歌。(启14：1-3)” 这个段落中写的很清楚，天堂中有歌声，向上帝歌唱是天使的工作。而当我们在地上吟诵神圣的文本时，我们模仿这种咏唱。

崇拜中使用音乐的圣经根据

在崇拜中我们使用音乐的第二个原因是多种场合中圣经鼓励我们歌唱。在诗篇中，我们声明和劝告，例如：“只要我活着，我就要向主歌唱;” “当我有的时候，我就要歌唱赞美我的上帝，” “用歌唱进入他的同在,” “哦，向上帝唱新歌，因祂做了奇妙无比的事情！” 主的兄弟圣雅各在书信中写道：“你们中间有受苦的呢，他就该祷告；有喜乐的呢，他就该歌颂。” 圣保罗写信给歌罗西人：“当用各样的智慧，把基督的道理丰丰富富地存在心里，用诗章、颂词、灵歌，彼此教导，互相劝戒，心被恩感，歌颂神。” 圣经中确实有几十个关于歌唱的引用。或许更值得注意的是： 圣经记载告诉我们，旧约中不仅先知和圣民，新约中不仅使徒，就连主耶稣自己也歌唱赞美。事实上，颂赞是他受难前做的最后几件事情之一，在马太福音关于最后晚餐的叙述中，我们读到：“他们唱了诗，就出来往橄榄山去。“很清晰，主喜好唱歌赞美！

音乐更易传达教导

我们颂唱圣经文本的第三个原因是：音乐能以一种单纯的文字不能达到的方式穿透信仰人的灵魂，因此，能让教会的教导更容易地浸透到人们的心里，尤其是那些在理智上很难接受的教导。大圣巴西尔写道：

当圣灵看到人类在走向美德的道路上只会伴随着困难，并且因为我们对享乐的倾向，忽略了正直的生活时，祂做了什么？祂把旋律的美妙与教义融合在一起，因此，当我们听到那悦耳柔和的声音时，我们不知不觉中就领受了言语的益处。就像一个聪明的医生，在给药时不会一丝不苟地只给苦药，而是经常在杯子上抹蜂蜜一样。因此，祂为我们设计出诗篇里的和谐旋律，无论是年龄上很小的孩子，甚或性情上很稚嫩的年轻人，表面上在吟唱诗歌，实际上灵魂却在得到训练

著名的凯撒利亚主教「即圣巴西尔」论及音乐扮演的三个角色。首先，它帮助言语以一种几乎巧妙的方式更容易的落地。他同时代的叙利亚圣艾弗冷非常了解这一点，当他使用诺斯底主义者，巴尔德萨纳（Gnostic Bardesanes）以及他儿子哈姆纽斯（Harmonius）的流行曲目时，艾弗冷「以此」保持并劝人们进入正统信仰。第二，音乐可以把话语更深层次的植入听者的内心与头脑。一个人很容易就忘记了几分钟前在教会内听到的圣经节选，但是赞美诗却可以一直在脑海里。第三，音乐本身就受益于灵魂，独立于文本。它因甜美，简单地平息了愤怒。总体来说，教父文献、礼拜仪式、教会教规及其他文本的见证，几乎一致地将音乐作为来自上帝的礼物，并颂扬它对基督徒的教化价值。

• 按：以上部分为伊娃姐妹翻译，阿甲修订而成。以下部分为阿甲翻译。

音乐可让人进入祈祷的状态

我们使用音乐的第四个原因是，音乐能营造出一种优美、宁静的氛围，以扩展和转化语言来促进祈祷。教会从其成员那里得到的任何东西，都会献给天主，而天主则会将其转化，提升到更高的层次，然后又赐给他们。信徒奉献面包和葡萄酒等礼物，教会将它们献给天主，而天主则将它们作为基督的身体和宝血回赐信友。同样，赞美诗作者献上诗歌，天主启发作曲家、神父和咏唱者将旋律融入诗歌，结果，这些诗歌通过优美「的旋律」成了天主与人更直接交流的工具。

举例来说，让我们看看辅祭「即执事」在神圣礼仪开始时的第一个祷文 (first petition): Εν ειρήνη του Κυρίου δεηθώμεν. 在平安中，让我们向主祈祷。如果辅祭只是简单地说出这句劝勉，那么我们就需要付出巨大的努力，精神高度集中，才能将自己提升到祈祷的境界。但是，当辅祭吟诵这句话时，或者更准确地说，当辅祭吟诵 "Εν ειρήνη του Κυρίου δεηθώμεν, In peace let us pray to the Lord "时，我们会立刻被带到另一个地方。我们以一种无形却又非常真实的方式被带到神的宝座前。音乐仿佛打开了通往另一个现实的大门。

音乐是为了我们的圣化

我们吟诵的最后一个原因是为了我们的圣化，也为了聆听吟诵者的圣化。圣金口约翰写道："学习吟诵，这样你就能体验到其甜美，因为吟诵的人被圣灵充满"。一位当代的上帝所见证的教父，克里特长老提摩太斯-查尼斯（Timotheos Tzanis the Cretan）于 1991 年在主里长眠，他说过以下这段话：

带着上帝的恩典吟唱的唱诗者(cantors)被圣灵俘虏，他不活在这个世界上，他升入了天堂！他将这种恩典传递给全体会众！如果我们有一双眼睛，能看到从唱诗者口中发出的光芒，落在信徒们的头上，那该多好啊！

现在让我们来谈谈这个问题： 我们吟唱什么？我们在圣保罗给歌罗西人的书信中找到了答案： "当把基督的道丰丰富富的存在心里，用诗篇、赞美诗、灵歌，彼此教导，互相劝戒，以感恩的心歌颂上帝"（西3:16）。诗篇、赞美诗和灵歌是我们吟唱的内容。尽管这些术语经常被交替使用，而且使徒对它们的确切含义也有不同的解释，但它们中的每一个都可以与教会传统所保留并传给我们的特定类型的圣歌相关联。

唱诗的内容或类型

一、诗篇

这是先知大卫王和其他旧约诗人所写的 150 首充满恩典的诗歌，收录在《诗篇》中。毫不夸张地说，诗篇是东正教崇拜的 "面包和黄油"。教会中没有一个礼拜不包含诗篇要素的，无论是诵读整篇诗篇、吟唱诗篇选段，还是受诗篇启发、引用或转述诗篇的赞美诗。787 年在尼西亚召开的第七次大公会议在其第二条教规中规定，"任何即将晋升为主教的人都应通过各种途径了解《诗篇》"。从历史上看，《诗篇》在犹太教和基督教的崇拜中占据着最核心、最突出的地位。古代以色列人用《诗篇》祈祷。学者们认为，耶稣基督和他的使徒们在最后的晚餐上所唱的歌就是《哈勒尔诗篇》(Hallel Psalms)¹，这是一套由六首诗组成的诗篇，犹太人至今仍在重大节日和喜庆场合使用这套诗篇。早期教会在崇拜中也广泛使用诗篇。有时，诗篇是由两个唱诗班交替咏唱的。其他时候，神父、辅祭或唱诗者逐一吟诵诗篇，会众则以简短的颂词回应，如《哈利路亚》或《上帝啊，请怜悯我》或《我们的上帝，我们的赞美归于您》。

二、赞美诗或颂歌 hymsn or troparia

这些歌词逐渐开始扩展，从而产生了第二种圣歌，即赞美诗或颂歌（hymns or troparia²）。这些诗歌是由基督教赞美诗作者创作的，旨在颂扬神圣的三位一体，赞美基督的道成肉身、神迹、受难、复活和升天，恳求圣母向她的儿子代求以赦免我们的罪，并将圣人作为基督徒的榜样，尽管「我们基督徒」会跌倒犯罪，但仍从 “窄门"进入，走 “难行之路”，因此，在他们的启发下，我们也可以追随他们的脚步。所有这些赞美诗的数量超过了 50,000 首，它们以最佳方式表达了教会神学，可以在正式的礼仪书籍中找到。这些礼仪书中的绝大多数赞美诗都是按照快速的旋律以简单、朴素的方式吟唱的，相对容易记忆。然而，有些赞美诗的旋律非常复杂，只有经验丰富的唱诗者才能演唱。这些可以与圣保罗提到的第三种圣歌，即灵歌 (spiritual songs) 联系起来。

三、灵歌 spiritual songs

让我们花一些时间来详细探讨这三种类型的歌唱。根据丰富的原始资料，我们可以得出三个主要结论：a) 拜占庭圣咏的作曲家从未忽视文本的相对首要地位。通过适当的乐句和音乐重音来提高可理解性始终是首要考虑的问题；b) 圣经文本和赞美诗材料的处理是有区别的，前者是神的话，庄严、肃穆、易懂，后者是对上帝说的话，耦合着文学与音乐之美；c) 随着时间的推移，自然而然地有机发展到更加精致和复杂。

更具体地说，《圣经》经文历来以朗诵的方式来表达，这种朗诵具有威严和惊叹的风格，但绝不是戏剧性的，甚至也不是说教性的。其目的是传递信息，读经者无需解释或评论。至于将如何接受这一信息以及它将对听众产生何种影响，则要靠圣灵的力量。从技术上讲，要做到这一点，朗诵时要保持稳定的音调，尽量减少音调周围的移动，以更好地突出重点，并利用公式化的半音和全音来标示标点符号。这种吟诵方式不需要「音乐」记号，它本身不需要这样，不过也有一些福音书采用非常简单的音标记号。下面是以希腊传统中最常见、最古老的圣书诵读方式诵读的《路加福音》节选：

有一个律法师起来试探耶稣，说：“夫子！我该做什么才可以承受永生？” 耶稣对他说：“律法上写的是什么？你念的是怎样呢？” 他回答说：“你要尽心、尽性、尽力、尽意爱主你的　神；又要爱邻舍如同自己。” 耶稣说：“你回答的是；你这样行，就必得永生。"(路10:25-28)

对于赞美诗来说，这种最基本的音乐处理自然是不够的。音乐的下一阶段是以音节吟唱的形式出现的，大概早在教会建立之初就出现了，但肯定是随着 5 世纪短篇颂歌 (Troparia) 的出现以及后来较长的诗歌体裁「叙事」颂歌集 (Kanon)³ 的出现。这些赞美诗的目的是赞美基督或圣人，或回顾神圣的历史时刻，通常具有准叙事性。这些赞美诗采用简单的音节处理，节奏明快，充满活力。下面是一首颂扬基督复活的赞美诗。这首赞美诗篇幅虽短，却蕴含着丰富的神学意义，它既是在讲述一个故事，也是在向会众传授一种信仰。

音乐范例1

日常圣咏大多属于这一类。不过，在一组赞美诗或仪式的一个部分结束时，力度会明显加大，通常还伴有动作。例如，在晚祷(Vespers)第一部分结束时，手持福音书或香炉的神父会走出祭坛。这种高潮时刻通常伴随着新咏，新咏的音乐阐述和文字描绘更加细腻，节奏也更加庄严肃穆。下面是《马利亚热切的眼泪 The Fervent tears of Mary》的开头一句，这是主日上午礼拜结束时吟唱的 11 首赞美诗之一。请注意半音阶音符赋予 "泪水 "一词的悲伤特征，以及描绘 "流泪 "的下行数字。

音乐范例2

帕帕迪克吟诵诗（Papadike）的音乐复杂程度更高，它是日常圣事和圣餐仪式固定部分的集合，其中大部分是诗篇。Papadike 圣咏篇幅长、速度慢、旋律性强，但结构和形态非常紧凑。对这些圣咏进行大量阐释的一个实际原因是，这些圣咏通常伴随着耗时的祭司「礼仪」活动，如朗读冗长，但不出声的祷文，因此必须加长圣咏的篇幅以满足所需时间。

另一个原因是美学。由于这些经文变化较少，作曲家们认为有必要在其中加入更多的变化，以避免沉闷。例如，574 年在君士坦丁堡问世的五言诗《齐鲁宾赞美诗 Cherubic Hymn⁴》，从 1300 年到 1800 年被 180 位作曲家改编成 1100 多种不同的曲调。更重要的原因在于神学。这些圣咏大多在礼仪至高时刻之前演奏。例如，圣餐颂(Communion Verse)就是在领受圣餐之前吟唱的。

在这些时刻到来之前的高度待期，音乐会呈现出截然不同的特质。它扩展和转换了圣餐经文，给人一种惊奇和神秘的感觉，让人专注和默想，并帮助信众为即将经历和领受的圣餐做好准备。在这里，意义主要是通过音乐而非文字来传达，因为文字现在已经无法跟进「圣奥妙了」。下面的例子选自君士坦丁堡唱诗班歌手 Petros Vyzantios（卒于 1808 年）⁵创作的圣餐颂。最初的音节与一段长旋律相呼应，经过三次调式。

音乐范例3

这三种圣咏——即音节、音调和旋律 （syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic）——可以说是人们对神的赞美、感恩、忏悔和祈求之词。不过，拜占庭圣咏中还有一种体裁，其中的词语完全消失了。一些音乐学家将其称为拜占庭音乐创作的巅峰之作。

克拉提玛(Kratima) 「按：这就是灵歌」出现于 13 世纪晚期，最初是通过圣索菲亚大教堂和君士坦丁堡其他大教堂的精湛唱诗者对音调公式和旋律的扩展而产生的。但音乐以外的因素也可能对其进一步发展起到了作用。14 世纪是神学激烈争论的世纪，争论的焦点是上帝的本质和人类分享神能的可能性。圣帕拉马斯（St. Gregory Palamas）阐明了东方的立场，他认为 "心祷 "可以让人看到上帝未创造之光。这种苦欲主义的祈祷方法被称为 "静修"（Hesychasm），包括专注地重复短语 "主耶稣基督，上帝之子，请怜悯我这个罪人"，在更高的阶段，短语会缩短为 "主耶稣基督，请怜悯我"，之后会简单地重复唤出耶稣的名字，最后是完全的沉默，ἡσυχία，这也是 "静修 "一词的词根。

在这种精神和思想氛围中，克拉提玛（Kratima ）可被视为耶稣祈祷的音乐模拟。敬拜的灵魂到了一个阶段，言语已不足以表达其与神结合的渴望，于是诉诸纯音乐。为了培养与上帝之间的亲密关系，对上帝的言语或话语完全停止了。

早在一千年前的西方，希波的圣奥古斯丁就表达过类似的观点："不要去寻找歌词，好像你能用语言表达出任何能让上帝高兴的东西。要欢快地向他歌唱。这就是向上帝歌唱的意思：欢快地歌唱。但那是什么呢？那就是要明白，心中所唱的是无法用言语表达的。想想那些在收获时节，或在葡萄园里，或在任何有摇摆的工作中歌唱的人们。开始时，他们用语言歌颂自己的喜悦，但过了一会儿，他们似乎满心欢喜，发现语言已不足以表达，于是他们放弃了明显的音节和词语，只用一声欢呼来表达喜悦之情：.… 你们不能谈论他，因为他超越了我们的言语；如果你们不能谈论他，但又不能保持沉默，那么除了欢呼雀跃，你们还能做什么？最后，我们将以一首克拉提玛结束。

附录：英文原文

Sounds of Orthodoxy: Bells, Readings, and Byzantine Chant Fr. Romanos Karanos, Director of the Byzantine Music Program, Holy Cross School of Theology Friday, January 26, 2024

Dear all, I would like to thank my beloved former student Jason Yuan for his kind invitation to share some thoughts about the sounds of Orthodoxy for the first time with a Chinese audience. I am truly grateful to him and to all of you for being here. Now first of all, I would like to stress that in the Orthodox Christian tradition, all the senses are engaged in the act of worship because we believe that God became a human being. In our faith, God is not out there in heaven. He is not a lofty idea. We do not approach Him only intellectually. He came down to earth. We saw Him, so we can depict Him. We heard Him teach, preach, and sing and so we use our words to talk about Him and to Him. He touched us, so we use our body to cross ourselves, make processions, make prostrations, genuflections. We even smell the fragrance of heaven in the incense and myrrh that flows from miraculous icons or from the relics of saints. We taste Him in Eucharist. We believe that He is truly present both invisibly but also visibly on the altar. We don’t know how, we can’t understand or explain it. But it is a fundamental article of faith of Christianity, perhaps the most fundamental article of faith, that the Second Person of the Holy Trinity truly and fully assumed human flesh, He ascended into heaven with His flesh, and He is seated eternally on the throne of divinity with His flesh. It is a profound mystery, but one that really elevates our human nature to an unimaginable height. And it makes our faith really unique. This is actually what we celebrate every year on the day of Ascension, forty days after Easter. Just imagine it. A human being, like us, sure, a perfect human being, One that is at the same the Almighty God, but a human being nonetheless, enthroned in heaven. It is beyond belief and the only appropriate response is silence. Silence. The title of my lecture is “Sounds of the Orthodoxy: Bells, Readings, and Byzantine Chant.” But before we examine the sounds of the Christian East, let us first consider the silence of the Christian East. If you enter a church on a weekday or in the afternoon on a Sunday, chances are you will not hear chanting. Chances are you will be enveloped in sacred silence. You may see the priest or somebody else sitting in one of the pews, silently praying or meditating. You may see somebody enter, light a candle, kiss the icons, and leave or perhaps come into the nave of the church and spend some time alone with God. Time alone with God. Christianity is not only about its glorious sounds although its sounds are indeed glorious, as we shall see, and throughout the centuries they have attracted to the faith thousands of people. Christianity is also about silence.

In Greek the word for silence is ησυχία. Now ησυχία is not an empty silence or even a silence that is filled by the sounds of nature or your own heartbeat. You may be aware of a famous musical work of the 20th century by the modernist composer John Cage, titled 4΄33΄΄, which consists of 4 minutes and 33 seconds of utter silence. The conductor raises his baton and the musicians literally stay silent for 4 minutes and 33 seconds. It is less of a musical composition and more of a philosophical position that everything around us, including somebody coughing or the shuffling of one’s shoes on the floor, is music. But this is not the Christian meaning of ησυχία. Ησυχία is the space, in which we can more into a more intimate union with God. This is achieved when externally there is silence, but internally, we focus on a continuous repetition of the so-called Jesus Prayer, which consists of only a few words: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,” which in more advanced stages is shortened to “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me,” then to “Jesus have mercy on me,” then to a constant repetition of the name of the Lord, and finally to utter silence.

After sacred silence come sacred sounds. And not just the sounds of human voices praising God in song, but also sounds of other objects and elements used in worship. For example: bells. Bells were first introduced in Rome by Pope Sabinian in 604. We don’t know when exactly they were adopted in the East, but for hundreds of years they have been an indispensable element of the liturgical experience of the faithful in traditionally Christian countries. Their function is manifold. It can be argued that their main function is to summon the faithful to the church. This is why they are rung before the beginning of Vespers, Matins, and the Mass, which in the East is usually called the Divine Liturgy. They are also rung to announce important events in the life of a local church, for example, the visit of a bishop or the election of a new bishop or the falling asleep of a member of the parish. But I think that the most important function of the bells is to express the Church’s joy at key liturgical moments, such as when they are rung for several minutes straight at the Resurrection Service when the priest and the people chant the paschal hymn “Christ is risen from dead!” ten times. Depending on the occasion, there are different types of bell ringing, fast, slow, triumphant, mournful. In monasteries and perhaps more so in the Slavic tradition, bell-ringing has been elevated to almost an art form.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5mEhwQqCy4

Another sacred sound is that of censing. In almost every service and certainly in the Divine Liturgy, the deacon or the priest offers incense and he does it in a way that creates an audio-visual image of smooth waves of the fragrance of heaven and the grace of the Holy Spirit emanating from the celestial sphere and penetrating our earthly space. In fact, Byzantine-type censers have twelve bells, symbolizing the twelve Apostles, and so the act of censing is an auditory image of the Apostles preaching the Gospel to the four corners of the earth. There are other types of sacred sound, such as that made by the bells on a bishop’s vestments, but let me now turn to the main subject of my talk, which is sacred words. Sacred words of God and sacred words to God.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0KeclpOVq4

Now if you have ever been to an Orthodox service, you undoubtedly noticed that it is full of song. There is very little that is not sung. In general, the only things that are plainly spoken the the priestly prayers, readings from the Psalms and other Old Testament books, even though those are sometimes intoned or chanted, the sermon, and the lives of saints, which are read in monasteries. Everything else is infused with more or less musical treatment. Why? Why do we chant? Why don’t we simply say the words? There are multiple reasons. First of all, the worship we offer here on Earth is a mirror image of the worship offered to God in heaven. What does heavenly worship consist of? St. John the Evangelist gives us the answer in the Book of Revelation: “And I looked, and, lo, a Lamb stood on the Mount Sion, and with him a hundred forty and four thousand, having his Father’s name written in their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps. And they sang as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four beasts, and the elders.” The passage is clear. There is singing in heaven. Singing unto the Lord is the work of the angels, and this work we imitate on earth when we chant the sacred texts. A second reason why we use music in our worship is that the Bible on multiple occasions encourages us to sing. In the Psalms we statements and exhortations such as “I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being,” “Come into His presence with singing,” “Oh sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things!” St. James the Brother of the Lord in his Catholic Epistle writes: “Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him chant.” Saint Paul writes to the Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” There are literally dozens of references to singing in the Bible. Perhaps even more significantly, the biblical accounts tell us that not only the prophets and holy people of the Old Testament, not only the Apostles in the New Testament, but the Lord Jesus Christ Himself sang. In fact, singing was one of the last things He did before His Passion. In St. Matthew’s Gospel narrative on the Last Supper, we read: “And after they had sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.” Clearly then, the Lord is fond of singing! A third reason we sing the sacred texts is that the melody penetrates the soul of the faithful in a way that mere speech can’t and, as a result, it makes the teachings of the Church easier to instill in the hearts of the people, especially those teachings that are difficult to accept intellectually. St. Basil the Great writes: “When the Holy Spirit saw that the human race was guided only with difficulty toward virtue, and that, because of our inclination toward pleasure, we were neglectful of an upright life, what did He do? He mingled the delight of melody with the doctrines, so that by the pleasantness and softness of the sound heard we might receive, without perceiving it, the benefit of the words, just as wise physicians who, when giving the fastidious rather bitter drugs to drink, frequently smear the cup with honey. Therefore, He devised for us these harmonious melodies of the psalms, that they who are children in age, or even those who are youthful in disposition, might to all appearances chant, but in reality become trained in the soul.” The renowned bishop of Caesarea is arguing here that music plays a threefold role. First, it helps the words go down more easily in an almost cunning way. His contemporary St. Ephrem the Syrian knew this well when he used the popular tunes of the Gnostic Bardesanes and his son Harmonius to keep or lure people into the Orthodox faith. Second, music plants the words more deeply in the heart and mind of the listener. One easily forgets the biblical excerpt heard in church a few minutes ago, but the hymns stay in the mind. Third, music benefits the soul in and of itself, independently of the text. It quiets wrath simply on account of its sweetness. In general, the witness of patristic writings, liturgical, canonical, and other texts is almost unanimous in presenting music as a gift from God and extolling its value for the edification of Christians. A fourth reason that we use music is that it creates a beautiful, serene atmosphere that is conducive to prayer by expanding and transforming the words. Whatever the Church receives from its members it offers to God Who, in turn, transforms it, elevates it to a higher level of being, and offers it back to them. The faithful give the gifts of bread and wine, the Church offers them to God, and God offers them back as the Body and Blood of Christ. In a similar fashion, the hymnographers offer poems, God inspires composers, priests, and cantors, to mix melody into the poems, and, as a result, these poems are transformed into vehicles of a more direct communication between God and man through beauty. Let us consider, for example, the first petition offered by the deacon in the beginning of the Divine Liturgy. Εν ειρήνη του Κυρίου δεηθώμεν. In peace let us pray to the Lord. If the deacon simply stated this exhortation, an intense effort and a great mental concentration would be required to elevate ourselves to a sphere of prayer. But when he chants it or, as is more technically accurate, intones it, Εν ειρήνη του Κυρίου δεηθώμεν, In peace let us pray to the Lord, we are immediately transported somewhere else. We are taken before the Throne of God in an invisible yet very real way. It’s as if music opens a door to another reality. A final reason why we chant is for our personal sanctification and for the sanctification of those who listen to the chanting. St. John Chrysostom writes: “Learn to chant, so that you may experience the sweetness of the work, for those who chant are filled with the Holy Spirit.” A contemporary God-bearing father, Elder Timotheos Tzanis the Cretan, who fell asleep in the Lord in 1991, said the following: “The cantor who chants with the grace of God is captured by the Holy Spirit, he does not live in this world, he ascends to the heavens! And he imparts this grace to the entire congregation! If only we had eyes to see the rays of light that come out of the cantor’s mouth and fall on the heads of the faithful!” Let us now turn to the question: What do we chant? We have our answer in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs are what we chant. Even though these terms are often used interchangeably and the precise meaning the Apostle intended for them is subject to interpretation, each of them can be correlated to a particular type of sacred song that the tradition of the Church has preserved and handed down to us. First of all, psalms. These are the 150 grace-filled poems authored by the Prophet King David and other poets of the Old Testament that are found in the Book of Psalms, also known as the Psalter. It is no exaggeration to state that the Psalms are the “bread and butter” of Orthodox Christian worship. There is not a single service of the Church that does not include a psalmic element, be it recitation of entire psalms, chanting selections from psalms or hymns inspired by, quoting and/or paraphrasing psalms. The Seventh Ecumenical Council, which convened in Nicaea in 787, decreed in its Second Canon that “anyone who is about to be promoted to the rank of bishop shall by all means know the Psalter.” Historically, the Psalter has had the most central and prominent place in Judeo-Christian worship. The ancient Israelites prayed with the Psalms. Scholars believe that what Jesus Christ and His Apostles sang at the Last Supper was the Hallel Psalms, a set of six psalms used by Jews on great feast days and joyous occasions to this day. The early Church also used the Psalms extensively in its worship. Sometimes the Psalms were chanted antiphonally, in other words, alternately by two choirs. Other times a priest, a deacon or a cantor recited the verses one by one and the congregation responded with a short refrain, such as Hallelujah or Have mercy on me, O God or To You, Our God, is due our praise. These refrains gradually started to be expanded and this led to the birth of a second type of sacred song, namely hymns or troparia. These are the poems written by Christian hymnographers to glorify the Holy Trinity, to praise Christ’s Incarnation, Miracles, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension, to plead with the Theotokos that she intercede to Her Son for the forgiveness of our sins, and to set the saints as examples of Christians who, despite their fallen and sinful nature, entered through the “narrow gate” and followed the “difficult way,” so that, inspired by them, we too can follow in their steps. All these hymns, whose number exceeds 50,000, express in the best possible way the theology of the Church and can be found in the official liturgical books. The vast majority of the hymns found in these books are chanted in a simple and unadorned fashion to fast melodies that are relatively easy to memorize. Some, however, are very complex and can only be performed by accomplished cantors. These can be correlated to the third type of sacred song mentioned by St. Paul, namely the spiritual songs. Let us spend some time exploring these three types of singing in greater detail. Based on the abundant source material, we can make three main observations: a) composers of Byzantine chant never lose sight of the relative primacy of the text. Comprehensibility through proper phrasing and musical accentuation is always a primary concern; b) there is a distinction between the treatment of biblical texts, the words of God, where solemnity, austerity, and intelligibility prevail, and that of the hymnographic material, the words to God, whose literary beauty is coupled with musical beauty; and c) there is a natural and organic progression over time towards more elaboration and sophistication. More specifically, biblical texts have traditionally been delivered in a recitative style that is magisterial and exclamatory but never dramatic or even didactic. Its purpose is to deliver a message without interpretation or commentary by the reader. How this message will be received and what effect it will have on the listener is left to the power of the Holy Spirit. Technically, this is achieved by reciting the words on a steady pitch with minimal movement around it for better accentuation, and utilizing formulaic half and full cadences to mark punctuation. Notation is not required or even desired for this type of chanting, although there are Gospel lectionaries with very simple ekphonetic notation. Here is an excerpt from Luke’s Gospel read in the most common and oldest manner of delivery of sacred texts in the Greek tradition: “At that time, a lawyer stood up to put Jesus to the test, saying, ‘Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?’ Jesus said to him, ‘What is written in the law? How do you read?’ And the lawyer answered: ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.’ And Jesus said to him: ‘You have answered right; do this and you will live.’” This minimal musical treatment was naturally not sufficient for hymnography. The next stage of musical elaboration came in the form of syllabic chants, presumably as early as the beginning of the Church, but certainly with the emergence of the short Troparia of the 5th century and later the longer poetic genre of the Kanon. These hymns, whose purpose is to praise Christ or a saint or to recall a moment of sacred history, often have a quasi-narrative character. They receive a simple, syllabic treatment and are performed at a fast and energetic tempo. The following example is a hymn glorifying Christ’s Resurrection. Short but dense with theological meaning, it is at once telling a story and teaching an article of faith to the congregation.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE

Most of the chants of the daily office belong to this category. However, at the conclusion of a group of hymns or of a section of a service, there is a noticeable rise in intensity often accompanied by movement. For example, at the conclusion of the first part of Vespers, the priest holding the Gospel or a censer comes out of the altar. Such climactic moments are usually accompanied by neumatic chants, which are performed with more musical elaboration, text-painting, and at a more solemn tempo. Here is the opening line from The fervent tears of Mary, one of eleven hymns chanted at the end of Sunday morning service. Notice the sorrowful character that the chromatic notes give to the word “tears” and the descending figure which illustrates the “shedding of tears.”

MUSICAL EXAMPLE

An even greater degree of musical sophistication is found in the chants of the Papadike, a collection of the fixed portions of the daily office and the Eucharistic service, most of which are Psalm verses. Chants of the Papadike are long, slow, highly melismatic, but with a very tight structure and morphology. A practical reason for the extensive elaboration of these chants is that they often accompany time-consuming priestly acts, such as the inaudible reading of long prayers, so they have to be elongated to cover the time needed. Another reason is aesthetic. Because these texts vary less often, composers felt the need to introduce greater variety into them to avoid dullness. For instance, the Cherubic Hymn, a poem of five verses that was introduced in Constantinople in 574, received over 1,100 different settings by 180 composers from 1300 to 1800, and in the past two centuries, this number has increased greatly and keeps increasing. A more important reason is theological. Most of these chants are performed before the highest liturgical moments. For example, the Communion Verse is chanted before the partaking of the Sacrament. In the period of heightened anticipation that precedes these moments, music takes on a very different quality. It expands and transforms the words to instill a sense of wonder and mystery, to allow for focus and meditation, and to help the faithful prepare for what they are about to experience and receive. Here the meaning is conveyed primarily through music at the expense of the text, which is now impossible to follow. The following example is from a Communion Verse composed by the Constantinopolitan cantor Petros Vyzantios (d. 1808). The initial syllable is set to a long melody that goes through three modulations.

MUSICAL EXAMPLE

These three types of chants, the syllabic, neumatic, and melismatic, can be characterized as the people’s words of praise, thanksgiving, expression of repentance, and supplication to God. However, there is another genre of Byzantine chant in which words disappear altogether. It is the Kratima, which some musicologists characterize as the pinnacle of Byzantine musical creation. The Kratima emerged in the late 13th century initially through the expansion of intonation formulae and melismas by virtuoso cantors in Hagia Sophia and other cathedrals of Constantinople. But extra-musical considerations probably played a role in its further development. The 14th century was a century of intense theological debates on the nature of God and the possibility of humans’ partaking of the divine energies. The Eastern position was articulated by St. Gregory Palamas who argued that the Prayer of the Heart can lead to a vision of God’s Uncreated Light. This ascetic method of prayer, known as Hesychasm, consists in the focused repetition of the short phrase “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner,” which in more advanced stages is shortened to “Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me,” later to a simple repeated invocation of the name of Jesus, and finally to utter silence, ἡσυχία, which is the root of the word Hesychasm. In this spiritual and intellectual atmosphere, the Kratima can be viewed as a musical analogue of the Jesus prayer. The worshiping soul reaches a stage in which words are no longer sufficient to express its longing for a union with God, and thus resorts to pure music. Words of or to God cease altogether, in order for an intimate relationship with God to be cultivated. A similar notion had been expressed a thousand years earlier in the West by St. Augustine of Hippo: “Do not go seeking lyrics, as though you could spell out in words anything that would give God pleasure. Sing to him in jubilation. That is what acceptable singing to God means: to sing jubilantly. But what is that? It is to grasp the fact that what is sung in the heart cannot be articulated in words. Think of people who sing at harvest time, or in the vineyard, or at any work that goes with a swing. They begin by caroling their joy in words, but after a while they seem to be so full of gladness that they find words no longer adequate to express it, so they abandon distinct syllables and words, and resort to a single cry of jubilant happiness….You cannot speak of him because he transcends our speech; and if you cannot speak of him, yet may not remain silent, what else can you do but cry out in jubilation, so that your heart may tell its joy without words, and the unbounded rush of gladness not be cramped by syllables?” We will conclude with a Kratima:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1nnTPDm8-ic