�� ������� ��������� ������ ��� ����� ������ / Cathedral Rite of St. Sophia Church
������������ ���������� / Selected topics from the Typikon and byzantinechant discussion
groups.
A. Lingas:
University of Oxford news release
20 May 2001
Resurrected medieval music to be heard for the first time in 500 years Music which
has not been heard for over 500 years will be played at 6pm on Saturday 26
May at 6pm in the Chapel of St Peter¹s College, Oxford, following painstaking
reconstruction of medieval manuscripts by scholars at Oxford and the Ionian University,
Corfu.
The evening service of Vespers according to the ancient Rite of the Great Church
of Hagia Sophia, Constantinople was lost following the capture of Constantinople
by the Ottoman Turks in 1453. It will be recreated on the 26 May by the renowned
Greek Byzantine Choir of Athens, under the direction of Lycourgos Angelopoulos,
who have flown over specially to take part in the service. The Rt. Rev. Dr Kallistos
Ware, Greek Orthodox Bishop of Diokleia, and Spalding Lecturer in Eastern Christian
Studies at Pembroke College, Oxford, will preside.
Dr Alexander Lingas, a researcher at St Peter¹s College, who worked on deciphering
the manuscripts with Ioannis Arvanitis of Ionian University, said: ³Many people
who think nothing ever changes in the Orthodox Church will be immensely surprised.
Radically different from the monastic form of Vespers sung today in Greek and Russian
churches, this service represents a tradition of urban Christian worship that was
celebrated in Byzantium for nearly a thousand years. Utterly forgotten after 1453,
its texts and music survive in a small number of manuscripts ranging in provenance
from
8th-century Constantinople to 15th-century Thessalonica. Thanks to earlier scholars,
particularly those working during the latter half of the 20th century, enough of
these sources had been identified to allow me to undertake study of the Byzantine
cathedral rite as a graduate student, resulting in an article on vespers and a doctoral
thesis on Sunday matins.
²Soon after I arrived at St. Peter¹s with a British Academy Postdoctoral
Fellowship to continue my work on Byzantium¹s urban liturgy, the Master (Professor
John Barron) suggested that I combine my scholarly and practical interests‹I
have sung Byzantine chant in Orthodox churches since I was a teenager‹by performing
a cathedral rite service in the college chapel. Although I could draw together a
service from the sources at my disposal, I knew it was vital to engage the choir
of my former teacher Mr. Angelopoulos, which was really the only ensemble capable
of doing justice to the music. Thanks to a generous grant from the A.G. Leventis
Foundation, the participation of the Greek Byzantine Choir was assured and a date
was chosen, enabling me to begin assembling the materials for the service. Because
the musical manuscripts are in an obsolete and rather ambiguous form of staffless
notation, I then sought the assistance of my friend and colleague Ioannis Arvanitis,
who kindly agreed to produce the scores in modern Byzantine notation required by
the choir. My final task is to complete a booklet of the service¹s texts and
rubrics for the presiding clergy, for whom this will all be a rather new experience.²
The service is free and open to the public. For further information please contact
the Press Office on (01865) 180531
Notes to Editors
The Greek Byzantine Choir of Athens is the leading interpreter of Byzantine chant
in the world today. Its director Lycourgos Angelopoulos practised as a lawyer before
studying music under Simon Karas. He is presently director of music at the church
of St. Irene in Athens, where he teaches chant at the Athens, Philippos Nakas and
Skalkottas Conservatories. As a soloist he has premièred the numerous works
by contemporary Greek composers and has sung Western medieval music as a core member
of Marcel Pérès' Ensemble Organum. For his service to church music
the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I bestowed upon him the title of First Cantor
(Protopsaltes) of the Archdiocese of Constantinople.
Dr. Alexander Lingas is British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at St. Peter¹s
College and Visiting Fellow at the University of Oxford¹s European Humanities
Research Centre. He is also conductor of the American ensemble Cappella Romana (
http://www.cappellaromana.org), which
is celebrating its 10th anniversary with the release of its second CD on the Gagliano
label.
Ioannis Arvanitis is one of the younger generation¹s leading scholars and performers
of Byzantine Chant. In addition to teaching chant performance practice at the Ionian
University in Corfu, he frequently presents scholarly papers at international conferences
and has appeared abroad with the Ensemble Organum of Marcel Pérès
and Cappella Romana.
Question:
I would be interested in knowing how the order
of this vespers differs from the way we serve it today. Why did it change after
1453?
A. Lingas:
VESPERS (LYCHNIKON) ACCORDING TO THE RITE OF THE GREAT
CHURCH FOR THE EVE OF
THE FATHERS OF THE 1ST ECUMENICAL COUNCIL AT NICAEA
[Procession of the Hierarch from his residence to his throne by the Beautiful Doors
(at the West of the nave) with acclamations]
I - INTRODUCTORY PSALMODY
Blessing: Blessed is the Kingdom...
Litany of Peace
Prayer of the First Antiphon
First Antiphon (Ps. 85 with refrain 'Glory to You, O God))
Little Litany
Prayer of the Final Antiphon
Final Antiphon (Ps. 67) with refrain 'Alleluia'
II - LUCERNARIUM
Ps. 140 with Refrain (Kekragarion) 'We glorify your saving resurrection, Lover of
humankind'.
Entrance of the Hierarch into the Sanctuary
(conclusion of Ps. 140)
Prokeimenon: (The Lord is King)
Ektene
The Three "Little" Antiphons:
1. Little Litany/Prayer/Ps. 114 with refrain 'At the prayers of the Mother of God...)
2. Little Litany/Prayer/Ps. 115 with refrain 'O Son of God, risen from the dead...'
3. Little Litany/Prayer/Ps. 116 with the Trisagion as refrain
Litany of the Catechumens w/ Prayer
2 Little litanies with Prayers of the Faithful
Litany with Aiteseis (Let us complete our supplication)
Prayer of Dismissal
III - Descent to the Lower Throne at the Western (Beautiful)
Doors of the Nave
Festal OT Readings from the Ambo
Festal Troparion with Psalm Verses
Prayer of Inclination
Dismissal (Deacon: Let us depart in peace!)
[Procession of the Hierarch from his throne by the Beautiful Doors (at the West)
to his residence with acclamations]
-----
The service follows the rubrics of the so-called 'Typikon of the Great Church' edited
by Mateos, with the exception that we have added the normal ending to cathedral
rite vespers because we will not be following Vespers with readings and Pannychis
(cathedral rite compline).
As for why it changed after 1453: the answer is complex, but part of the answer
is that all the big city ancient basilicas were turned into mosques and their choral
foundations dissolved. According to St. Symeon of Thessalonica (d. 1429), it was
actually the Latin conquest of 1204 that disrupted the cathedral rite's celebration
in Consantinople. Following that city's recapture by the Byzantines (Romans), the
cathedral rite was apparently not fully restored at Hagia Sophia. Perhaps this was
due in part to the monastic party's takeover of the patriarchate during the Paleologan
period, as well as what St. Symeon indicates was the greater popularity of
the Palestinian monastic rite's Divine Office. At all events, the cathedral rite
was celebrated daily in Thessalonica's cathedral until that city's second and final
fall to the Ottomans in 1430. Both according to St. Symeon and the evidence available
in musical MSS, cathedral rite vespers continued to be celebrated occasionally elsewhere,
particularly on Saturdays and the eves of feasts.
For more information, see my article:
'Festal Cathedral Vespers in Late Byzantium', Orientalia Christiana Periodica 63
(1997): 421-455.
Comment:
It seems not unlikely that in the not-too-far-distant
future some bishops will give their blessing to a revival of the old choral
service in some places. The difficulty, as Symeon of Thessalonika already
notes, is that they require a rather considerable group of singers and other
servants of the Church to perform as prescribed, and it would require a deal
of effort a no doubt some expense to achieve such a revival.
A. Lingas:
The issue of liturgical personnel is somewhat of a red herring, as I pointed out
in my OCP article. One needs to read between the lines of Symeon's rhetoric, for
the 14th/15th-century Athonite All-night Vigil is musically and textually more complex
than the old asmatic office, which featured mainly psalms with refrains.
As for the revival of these services, in a limited way it has been going on in Greece
for a while. In the 1970s Prof. Ioannes Phountoules of Thessalonica published practical
editions of two minor cathedral offices: Trithekte (an afternoon service sung during
Lent) and Pannychis (cathedral-rite compline). His colleague Prof. Alygizakes has
published some original musical settings of the refrains for these services in
a volume of music for students at their university chapel, which suggests that they
have been performed.
More recently, Prof. Gregorios Stathis of the University of Athens wrote a complete
setting of Pannychis that was first celebrated (if I remember correctly) in 1994
and published--by no less than Apostolike Diakonia, the official publishing house
of the Church of Greece--in 1999.
What makes the Oxford event different is 1) that we are the first to revive one
of the major offices; 2) we are the first to do a cathedral rite service with chant
from the medieval manuscripts, rather than newly composed music in the received
Byzantine style.
Question:
From the outline, I noticed a heading of "LUCERNARIUM"
but no mention of "Fos Ilaron." Was/is Fos Ilaron sung in the cathedral rite?
A. Lingas:
Not as far as we can tell.