Is the Liturgy sung at your parish?

[rciadan]

At Sts Cyril and Methodius all of the Divine Liturgies are sung from start to finish, except for the part, and I do not know what to call it, where we say roughly, "I believe that what we are about to receive is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ.
All the faithful sing. Not just the priest or the choir. It is like being in an abbey with the monks and chanting with them, though it is a different kind of chant, not Gregorian. It is “plain chant”. Even I, who am completely tone deaf, can join in! The sound is amazing. And to hear Father Sopaliga chant during the Anaphora is to witness a miracle. Truly the Holy Ghost is at work during the liturgy, in all who are present!

Yet, Father has told me that it is not actually common for the liturgy to be sung, though it should be…what is your experience?

 

[wynd]

I’ve never been to a Divine Liturgy that was not 99% sung or chanted.

 

[dzheremi]

Yes, of course it is! It is not possible to have a Coptic liturgy that is not chanted. I can’t conceive of what that would be. I would think that the same is true for the Byzantines. In the Coptic church, everything is chanted except for some of the readings and the sermon.

The part you refer to we sing as well, though of course it’s very short. “We believe that this is truuuuuuuue, aaaaaaaamiiiin!”, or “this is also truuuuuue, aaaaaaaaaaaaamiiiiiin!” Copts love to elongate their “amen”; probably if we shortened these things the liturgy would be over too quickly.

English

Coptic

Arabic (with blind cantor, according to Coptic tradition)

Spanish (in Bolivia)

Coptic, English, Arabic, and a South African language (in South Africa)

As you can see, we sing everywhere. It seems strange to me that your priest would say that it’s not the case everywhere. I thought it was, for all Eastern and Oriental churches.

 

[ConstantineTG]

Ours is sung but some parts are recited. The prayer before Communion and the Creed are recited. I personally pushed for chanting the tropars (plainchant and not in the proper tone) if none of those who knows the tones are present for Liturgy. We used to resort to reciting which I personally did not like. I tried doing it once in tone and failed miserably

Our weekday Liturgies are usually recited.

 

[rciadan]

I am glad to hear this, for I cannot imagine the Divine Liturgy any other way. We even chant the scripture readings, creed, the Our Father, etc.
In fact, I am beginning to learn to be a lector, which requires learning plain chant…

 

[5Loaves]

In my parish what isn’t sung is done in plain chant (the Holy gospel). The first reading is currently simply read in English and then in Russian. We simply speak the prayers before Communion. Occasionally a member of the choir plain chants the Symbol of Faith/Creed and the Our Father but most often we all sing both. So 99.9% sung.

 

[Domnall]

All three Eastern Catholic (2 Melkite, one Ukrainian), and the two Orthodox (one Ukrainian, one Greek) parishes I’ve attended, the liturgy has always been chanted.

Even better, the congregation sings their responses as well.

 

[twf]

Yes, of course it is! It is not possible to have a Coptic liturgy that is not chanted. I can’t conceive of what that would be. I would think that the same is true for the Byzantines. In the Coptic church, everything is chanted except for some of the readings and the sermon.

The part you refer to we sing as well, though of course it’s very short. “We believe that this is truuuuuuuue, aaaaaaaamiiiin!”, or “this is also truuuuuue, aaaaaaaaaaaaamiiiiiin!” Copts love to elongate their “amen”; probably if we shortened these things the liturgy would be over too quickly.

English

Coptic

Arabic (with blind cantor, according to Coptic tradition)

Spanish (in Bolivia)

Coptic, English, Arabic, and a South African language (in South Africa)

As you can see, we sing everywhere. It seems strange to me that your priest would say that it’s not the case everywhere. I thought it was, for all Eastern and Oriental churches.

I would love to experience a Coptic liturgy!
It was also my understanding that all Eastern/Oriental liturgies were sung - whether Catholic, EOrthodox or OOrthodox… certainly the divine liturgies I’ve been to at a local Melkite mission were 99.9% chanted - as was the Ukrainian Catholic divine liturgy I attended.

That being said…we must remember that chanted liturgies is the universal norm East and West. In the Roman Rite, a chanted/sung mass is also considered the “ideal”. At my Latin cathedral, the main Sunday mass (the “high mass” if you will) is always chanted. When I was in Rome a few years ago, all the masses were chanted, largely in Latin, as far as I remember… I know several Latin priests who will chant every Sunday mass - and it always warms my heart when they make that additional effort…

 

[BusterMartin]

In my experiences, my Ruthenian Catholic Church the DL is always sung/chanted. The same can be said for every DL I’ve been to for my nearby OCA and Serbian Orthodox Church. My nearby UGCC, though, has about half of the congregations responses chanted and the other have just spoken. That takes some time to get used to.