It's really everywhere if you stop and think, even the Iraqi war. Age-old traditions with a history, cultural life and outlook all their own coming face to face with modernity in the post-modern world. When either side seems threatened, tradition or change, the meeting point can contain a degree of tension. It is a challenge to both sides.
Relating to the sacred sound, the traditional psaltic art of the Orthodox Christian Church, especially Hellenic in origin, but subsequently affecting the other linguistic Orthodox traditions, it is no secret that this age-old sacred chant form, more commonly known as Byzantine Chant, has been challenged in the context of North American Orthodox Christianity. And I think it's fair to say, not just the chant, but that would get us onto other topics.
The basic question is how to acculturate this aspect of Orthodox Christian practice without assimilation into modern, secularized American "entertainment" worship. There's much to explain and much to explore, but there is also much to be gained.
What was most surprising to me, when I was finally face to face with the reality, is the fact that the challenge was not unique to the American cultural scene. The sacred music problem in the North American Orthodox Christian jurisdictions coming out of this liturgical chant tradition is actually a carry-over from the old country. It's the same challenge modernity gave to sacred Orthodox Iconography, another age-old liturgical art form, and even monasticism. The difference is that while both traditional liturgical art forms—iconography and chant—eventually prevailed in Greece and other traditionally Orthodox homelands, the same has not occured in North America for the chant.
Amidst the backdrop of all the talk on Orthodox leadership, clergy-laity relations, autocephaly, archdiocesesan and parish by-laws, parish councils, uniform codes and the rest, the tiny corner of our traditional liturgical chant will, no doubt, be viewed as quite an esoteric exercise by many, maybe even most.
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About Me
- FRCJT
- I was born in East St Louis, Illinois in 1961 and grew up in South St Louis, Missouri. I abandoned the music program at Southern Illinois University after deciding to study theology. To this end I enrolled at Hellenic College, Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology and received the BA and MDiv degrees from these schools. From there I received scholarships to complete a doctoral dissertation in Byzantine Musicology at the School of Theology of the National and Capodistrian University of Athens, Greece, from which I received the ThD in the year 2000; my dissertation was published in the Meletai series of the Institute of Byzantine Musicology. Most dear to my heart is the family I have been blessed with: my wife Diann, my daughter, Maria, and one unborn child God decided to keep for Himself. Presently, I live on the island of Aegina with my family and where I presently sit and write my psaltic musings.