|
| |
Supplements
Music & Worship: Some Suggestions from the
Russian Bishops of 1905*
by Fr. John Shimchick
The missionaries who came to Alaska in the 1700's brought not
only the Orthodox faith, but also the Russian approach to the way in which this
faith was expressed in worship. From that time on, the standard service books
published by the pre-revolutionary Russian Church have been generally accepted
as the norm for the liturgical life and practice for many Orthodox churches in
America.
While some people look nostalgically back to this period as the
"golden age" of Orthodoxy, it is an historic fact that the liturgical
situation in pre-revolutionary Russia was not only unsatisfactory, but also
chaotic and in need of substantial corrections and changes.[1]
This fact is well-established in The Responses of the Diocesan Bishops
Concerning the Question of Church Reform,[2] a
collection of documents from Russian bishops of the pre-revolutionary era. These
"Responses" were prepared in 1905 for the anticipated Great
Council (Sobor) of the Russian Church that was eventually held in 1917-1918.
While the bishops spoke on many other areas of Church reform, the purpose of
this article is to discuss the relationship between their comments on worship
and the liturgical situation presently found in America.[3]
The Orthodox faith is experienced,
strengthened,
and affirmed mainly in worship. Worship is
justifiably
considered as the best school for the teaching of
faith and morality and it bountifully and generously acts
on all the powers and capacities of the soul. But, in order
for it to accomplish this, all believers must directly and
actively be able to participate in it. It must take hold and
draw them by its contents and celebration and become
an indispensable yearning. It is terribly unfortunate,
however, that one cannot say this about the worship of
the Russian Orthodox Church" (II, p.454).
With these words, Bishop Nazarius of Nizhni-Novgorod not only
introduced his own remarks about worship, but summarized what many of his fellow
bishops felt and expressed. They understood the important position worship
occupied in the life of the Church and realized, as well, how far it was from
fulfilling this responsibility.
Several bishops excellently described what was no doubt the liturgical
situation throughout much of pre-revolutionary Russia. Bishop Constantine of
Samara wrote that:
The people have no
true prayers. They patiently
stand for whole hours through the worship
in the
church, but this is not prayer since the feeling
of
prayer cannot be sustained for whole hours without an
understanding of the words of prayer, and the words
of
the service in the church are above the
understanding of the people. Divine worship is
incomprehensible to
the people not only because it is
celebrated in the
Church Slavonic language and with
hurried readings,
but also simply because a certain
measure of
theological education is needed to
understand it.
Orthodox worship is a
great treasure if we compare
our church's chants with the rather
shallow Lutheran
hymns and someday all the Orthodox
will take
advantage of this. Nevertheless, at
present this is still a
treasure "concealed within the
village walls," while the
people are spiritually starving and
impoverished having
no prayer within reach of their
understanding, except
the litanies and to some extent the
akathists, which the
people love so much just because they
are somewhat
understood. It is necessary to
educate the people so
that they will consider not just the
bows and the sign
of the cross, not just mechanical
readings or the
hearing of the incomprehensible words of the
psalter,
troparia and sticheras as forms of prayer. What
can
be done so that the corporate worship, in
the
church, which in Greece was once such a perfect way
of
satisfying the spiritual needs of prayer, should
again
be turned into a truly prayerful attitude of worship?
(I,
p. 440)
Bishop Gury of Simbirsk offers a similar description:
Orthodox worship
is one of the main expressions of
love for God and the best school for
development of
the community spirit among the
members of the parish,
for here in the church hundreds of
souls become one
in praises, thanksgivings and
supplications which
unite the souls of the shepherd and his flock,
the clergy
and the people. This, at least, must be the
ideal.
Unfortunately, the present situation of Orthodox
worship does not fully promote this merging of
souls
of the pastors and their flocks. Without mentioning the
many defects in our worship, which are related to the
abuses in the manner in which it is celebrated
(extreme hastiness, unintelligible reading and singing,
distraction in the celebration of worship and an
absence
of prayerful feeling in the people themselves)
one
cannot help but direct his attention to a feature of
our worship which, through being sanctified by church
practice, leads to the separation of the clergy and
people. While the clergy offer their hymns of
thanksgiving, supplication, and glorification the people
are
reduced to the role of passive listeners. Hence,
there exits
a striking difference in spirit among the laity
who, on the one hand, attend services in Orthodox
churches and those who attend "non-Orthodox"
sectarian) churches and the difference is not in our
favor
(II, p. 20).
Many of the bishops referred to
the church and particularly worship as the main school for Christians. Bishop
Ioanniky of Archangel seemed to sense and express the real implication
behind this image and its relation to the liturgical language. He wrote:
Worship is a
powerful means of influence which the
pastor has on his flock, and it has a
religious, moral,
and educational meaning. However, it
will fully reach its
goal only when it will be celebrated
in a language which
is understandable for all, that is,
in the native Russian
language. Holy Scripture says,
"Sing to God with
understanding." The apostles
preached and prayed
with the believers in all languages.
We have in Russia
the translation of the liturgy into
Latvian, Zirian,
Mordovian, but worship is not
celebrated in our own
native language. The sectarians lead
some astray
precisely because their worship is
simple,
comprehensible and served in Russian.
The church
building ought to be a school for the
Orthodox layman,
and the worship celebrated within it
ought to be a
series of individual lessons in
Christian life, since here a
man learns not only what he must do,
but also what he
must think and feel.
What can be said
for a school that conducts its
classes in an incomprehensible
language? Every
sensible person would say that such a
school would be
of little use, and would have little
influence on its pupils.
The Orthodox Church in Russia is, in
this case, in a
worse situation than all of the other
schools for the
people; everywhere, in all schools,
instruction is carried
out in a generally comprehensible
language; only in the
church is worship celebrated in the
partially understood
and for many even completely
unintelligible Slavonic
language. Being splendid in content,
it remains
incomprehensible, and as a result,
does not have the
desired influence on the simple
people. Therefore, it
would be useful to substitute Russian
in place of the
Slavonic language. Such a change will
give many the
great joy of participating in worship
often, not just by
standing in church, but by taking
part with knowledge
(I, pp. 335-336).
Another area mentioned by the bishops concerned the structure of
worship as indicated by the Typikon and the way that this was arbitrarily being
practiced. Bishop Michael of Minsk wrote that:
The entire
compilation of our present worship did
not appear at one time. On the
contrary, our worship
has endured many alterations: from
simple prayers,
orders, and rites that existed at the
time of the apostles,
it has undergone constant
stratification and additions
and now appears in a complicated and
many-layered
form, intended for numerous hours. In
order to
celebrate our worship as is meant,
without hurrying and
distinctly, one would need seven
hours to complete the
All-Night Vigil before a feast day,
three hours for the
liturgy, and another two hours for
vespers, which adds
up to twelve hours. This is
celebrated at a few
monasteries - and only a few at that.
In some places
where it is celebrated according to
the rules, with all of the proper
readings and hymns, the
natural weakness of the clergy forces
them to shorten it
by hurrying and as a result the
readings and hymns are
irreverently and incomprehensibly
rendered. From this
one can conclude that out of the
50,000 Russian
churches in the empire, worship is
celebrated in 49,000
of them with extremely arbitrary
abbreviations and also
hastiness and very poor reading and
singing (I, pp.
41-42).
Bishop Nazarius of Nizhni-Novgorod added:
Obviously, this
matter does not simply concern the
good or bad training of the readers
and singers. There
was a time when
"psalm-reader" positions were
assumed only by those people who had
finished a
seminary course of study; but even
then it was not
much better. The situation does
usually improve in
those places where the rectors
themselves are
concerned about the best execution of
the reading and
singing and have the support of the
other "clerics"
("psalm-readers" and others
who help with the
services) who in return welcome the
pious zeal of the
rectors . . . However, it seems that
in most cases the
liturgical service becomes a
profession or formal job
for the "clerics" and not
something in which they direct
all their energy. This leads to their
coldness and
indifference towards it and also, as
a result, to the
meaningless abbreviations of the
services. Many of
these abbreviations, because they
were done so long
ago and have been spread around to
such an extent,
have become accepted everywhere as
normal and
proper – and almost no one notices
that they do not
make any sense. The soul of one who
does notice this
mourns, grumbles and is filled with
indignation. Here
are some examples of the
abbreviations:
- At the Vigil:
The Opening Psalm "Bless the Lord, 0
My Soul" (104)
First Kathisma (Blessed is the Man)
Polyeleion Psalms (Praise the Name of the Lord)
Praises, before "Glory to God in the Highest"
The First Hour, when it begins directly with "Holy God, Holy
Mighty."
- At the Liturgy:
The Antiphons (Bless the Lord, 0
My Soul and
the others)
The usual practice in numerous
cases is to sing some
parts of the verses which are
selected from the Psalms
without any connection between the
logical meaning
and the structure. But everyone gets
so accustomed to
these abridgements that no one thinks
about it and
simply accepts them as being
necessary and even
appointed (II, pp. 454-458).
The Deanery Assembly of the Shenkursk Province (Archangel Diocese)
wrote:
The Typikon, according
to which the services must be
celebrated, is only carried out in
monasteries; in the
parishes there is so much which is
omitted, depending
on the arbitrariness of the clergy,
that the fair though
offensive saying has come about that:
"Each priest has
his own Typikon." Therefore it
is necessary to develop
a special Parish Typikon (I, p. 403).
Bishop Eusebius of Vladivostok felt that guidelines were needed to
regulate the already existing, though unofficial, "Parish Typikon." He
wrote:
I would like to point
out the desirability of introducing
uniformity into the celebration of
worship in view of the
fairly long existence of a generally
practiced and
deviated form of the Typikon. This
form is handed
down in the village and city churches
not according to a
written, but oral tradition and could
be recognized as a
"Parish Typikon." On the
one hand, it must be
acknowledged that this abridged
Typikon
for parishes obviously is caused by
the demands of life
itself and the absence of a
non-monastic Typikon. But
on the other hand, all of these
deviations, while being
reinforced by long practice, still
have not attained
widespread agreement and uniformity.
As a result,
this leaves a great deal of room for the
personal and often completely
arbitrary discretion of
the negligent and shrewd pastors who
usually justify
themselves by saying that we do not
have a monastery
here, that abbreviations are done in
all parishes and
that if the services drag on for too
long then the
worshippers will not come. If it is
necessary to shorten
the Typikon, then it would be better
to show some
definite guidelines (IV, p. 202).
Many of the bishops also pointed out that liturgical music had
an important role in making worship accessible to the people and in encouraging
congregational participation.
Bishop John of Poltava wrote:
In regard to
worship, both singing and reading have
the same essential meaning and both
should be
understandable and prayerful.
However, this prayerful
liturgical character now is
frequently disturbed by the
musical rendition of the hymnography
which was
created on a basis alien to the
spirit of our Church.
There are musical arrangements which
are completely
foreign to this humble and reverently
prayerful
character, such as "Our
Father" ascribed to Mozart,
"Open to Me the Doors of
Repentance" by Vedel
and others which are unfit for
worship.
There are such
arrangements which, because of their
artistic execution, draw the
attention of listeners more
to their aesthetical than prayerful
side, as seen, for
example in Grechaninov's recent
composition of "The
Creed" for solo voice and most
of the "concert" pieces.
Such compositions are unsuitable for
use in church.
They offer truly beautiful
harmonizations, but undermine
the spirit of man which is turned to
God. Instead of the
spiritual movement toward the One who
is everywhere,
as appears in the intense elevation
of our minds and
hearts toward God, we get musical
enjoyment instead.
The result turns out to be a
religious concert, but it is
not prayer. Probably everyone who
examines his own
prayer life during the singing of
this type will find that
what has been said is correct (II, p.
334).
Bishop George of Astrakhan added:
It is necessary
to turn our attention to liturgical
singing and to use only those chants
which are strictly in
conformity with the spirit of
Orthodox worship. Those
presently selected now exhibit great
arbitrariness and
disorder. The pieces chosen are
highly embellished,
flowery, and in the spirit of Italian
music, which, as a
result, sometimes turn the church of
God into a musical
hall, and a religiously-prayerful
spirit into one that
is more concerned with artistic and
aesthetical matters
(I, p. 323).
Bishop Antoni (Khrapovitskii) of Volhynia felt that in order to do
something about the condition of church music, one must first deal with those
whom he felt are really in charge of the services. He wrote that:
The diocesan
councils must discuss how to adorn the
divine worship to God by its correct
performance, how
to manage the chief
"regulators;" of our present
worship that is, the choir
directors), and generally, how
to change its present and confused
state. The order of
each festal service is dependent not
upon the priest or
even on the "psalm-reader"
but upon a hired "expert"
from a secular background who is
completely ignorant
and often a disgrace. During the
service there is almost
nothing that remains the same, but
everything is
abandoned in favor of two or three
disgusting "concert"
numbers that are not appointed by the
Typikon (I,
p.134).
Bishop Constantine of Samara wrote about congregational singing:
We must restore
singing to the state it should and
formerly did have. It is necessary to
renew in the minds
of the people the notion that
congregational singing is
the norm, and that choral singing is
only a substitution
for this, just as the work of cantors
only replaces the
choir in those situations where a
community is unable to
have a choir. The idea of the choir
as only a
replacement for congregational
singing, whenever it is
impractical for the whole church to
sing something
(depending on the existing conditions
of time and
place), must be taught to the people
through worship in
cathedrals and in the churches of the
ecclesiastical
schools where the worshippers would
mostly consist of
students.
Congregational
singing can begin most easily with the
singing of psalms, using melodies
that are not very
complicated and fairly well known.
The text could be
published with divisions into musical
phrases (as
when the stichera are published) so
that all churches
would be able to utilize it in
worship. After the psalms,
one could use some of the various
hymns that make up
daily worship and whose melodies are
known
throughout the whole church. For
example: "0
Gladsome Light," "St.
Simeon's Prayer," "Only
Begotten Son," "Glory to
God in the Highest," "Holy
God," and "Come, Let us
Worship" (I, pp. 440-441).
The Deanery Report of the Onezh Province (Archangel Diocese)
concluded:
It is desirable
to introduce the practice of singing
some of the psalms such as "I
will bless the Lord at all
times," Ps 34) and "Have
mercy on me, 0 God,
according to Thy great mercy,"
(Ps 51) so that those
parishioners who would like could
sing them during
Holy Communion . . . In addition, it
would be good to
teach all parishioners the following
hymns: "The
Creed," "The Anaphora - It
is meet and right;
Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth!;
We praise Thee,"
"It is Truly Meet," and
"Our Father." These hymns
should especially be taught to school
children, who will
be able to continually sing them as
they grow older (I,
p. 339).
Bishop Gury of Simbirsk, while encouraging the introduction of
congregational singing, realized that "it will not be very organized
(especially at the beginning); but what a change for the better can come about
in the spirit of the faithful!" (II, p. 20)
As we have seen, the Russian bishops touched upon many aspects
of worship. Their "Responses" reflected the desire that worship should
be intelligible, that the congregation must be able to participate in it, and
finally that it must return to its role as the "school" for the
teaching of the Christian faith. Andrew Kuharsky, an Orthodox layman, once
listed some of the problems that he has experienced in contemporary Orthodox
worship.[4] These included such things as: lack of
uniformity in the celebration, careless and hurried reading and singing, the
need for a parish typikon, the problems of liturgical language, and the need for
congregational singing. Not much has changed since the Russian bishops submitted
their "Responses" almost 90 years ago! The problems are the same, and
they concern not only the topic of worship, but the typical approach of Orthodox
people toward their faith. How does a church which prides itself in tradition
recognize creativity and change? Is the Church the preservation of customs and
identity or is it the living continuity of the faith of the apostles of Jesus
Christ? Are the unchangeable essentials of this faith accessible to every age?
These are the questions which we as Orthodox Christians
(and not just liturgical musicians) must face. These are the questions which we,
unlike the bishops of 1905, (who were prevented by the Russian Revolution from
even further discussing), have the possibility of answering.
NOTES:
[1] Fr. Alexander Schmemann, "On the Question of
Liturgical Practices - A Letter to My Bishop," St. Vladimir's Seminary
Quarterly, l7:3/1973, pp. 227-38.
[2] 0tzyvy eparkhial'nykh arkhireey po voprosam o
tserkovnoi reforme, 3 vols. St. Petersburg, 1906, and supplement (contains a
total of 79 reports from 64 bishops).
[3] Various aspects of these documents have been studied:
- Fr. John Meyendorff briefly presented the background and outlined
some areas of their discussion in "Russian Bishops and Church Reform in
1905," Catholicity and the Church, (St. Vladimir's Seminary
Press, 1983), pp. 143-156.
- James W. Cunningham studied in great detail the documents and the movement
for Church renewal in Russia (1905-1906) in A Vanquished Hope,
(St. Vladimir's Seminary Press, 1981).
- Liturgical reform has been discussed by Nicholas Zernov,
"The Reform of the Church and the Pre-revolutionary Russian Episcopate,"
St Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, 6:1962, pp. 128-138, and in The
Russian Religious Renaissance of the Twentieth Century, (London: Darton,
Longman and Todd, 1963), pp. 53-85.
[4] "Lipservice to the Lord," The Orthodox
Church, May, 1984.
+
*This article was originally featured in Orthodox Church Music, Number
2, 1985, pp. 3-8 (published by The Department of Liturgical, Orthodox Church in
America.)
Most of the material was taken from the author’s unpublished
master's thesis prepared for St. Vladimir's Theological Seminary (1980)
entitled, The Responses of the Russian Episcopate Concerning Worship, 1905,
and the Liturgical Situation in America. [This is available from the Theological
Research Exchange Network - TREN.]
|
