Is this where I would post questions about the Byzantine rite?

[Symeon]

This is more of a choral, Russian Orthodox style.

If you want a truly special version, try the Christmas Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral in Mukachevo, Ukraine, our “Mother Church”. Its in Ukrainian and Church Slavonic, but that really doesn’t matter - the chant is divine!

youtube.com/watch?v=Kc3BGS87yLs&list=PL05997E294F95AFD9&index=5&feature=plpp_video

ByzCathCantor, you and I think alike, because I was going to suggest the very same video for William.

William, go listen to the Antiphons that begin around the 16:00 mark. The same melody (more or less) is used in the Ruthenian Catholic Church in the US.

Also, around 22:54 Are the troparion and kontakion of the nativity. Again, those same chants are also used in the Ruthenian Church in the US.
(Troparion of the Nativity,:

Your Nativity, O Christ our God, 
Has shone to the world the Light of wisdom! 
For by it, those who worshipped the stars, 
Were taught by a Star to adore You, 
The Sun of Righteousness, 
And to know You, the Orient from on High. 
O Lord, glory to You!

 

[ConstantineTG]

FYI - plural (ripidia) and singular (ripidion) forms, respectively

Really? I thought it was like the Qurbono/Qurbana thing

 

[ByzCathCantor]

ByzCathCantor, you and I think alike, because I was going to suggest the very same video for William.

Good choice, right?

We really have to get more videos out there. Fr. Sopoliga’s parish - Sts. C&M in Fort Pierce, FL - once had a lot of nice videos on YouTube, but I think they started a new channel and I can no longer find the old ones.

A good Hierarchical DL can be found on Rdr. Jack Figel’s site, OLTV.tv, celebrated by the late +Bishop Pataki, who took his chant rather seriously (trust me, I know, as I was at the Cathedral for the first few years of his episcopate in the Eparchy of Passaic). The HDL can be found here (OL II - Byzantine Divine Liturgy) as a series of 10 clips. The mens’ choir leading the responses is quite good.

 

[Symeon]

Heh… ehhhhh… okay, now I am confused again… I’ll just have to ask the Deacon about what we do…

In the meantime, I am listening to this:

youtube.com/watch?v=IxTGLbNMGVk&feature=related

Is THAT what it is supposed to sound like? It’s certainly very beautiful.

And can someone please tell me if that song to the guardian angles is a good piece to use for an impromptu novena to the guardian angels?

It isn’t exactly a song to the guardian angels - it’s from psalm 103, v 4
“who makes his angels spirits and his ministers (i.e. servants/attendants) a flaming fire.” - that is, it isn’t exactly guardian angels that are referred to there - more likely the seraphim. This psalm is always chanted at the beginning of vespers in the Byzantine rite

Nonetheless I don’t see why you couldn’t use this to aid in your personal prayer. It is very beautiful. Note that you won’t get a lot of responses regarding novenas here, since they are devotions belonging to the Latin rite, but not the Byzantine rite.
.

As others mentioned, the above is “Byzantine” i.e. “Greek” chant. The word “Byzantine” can be used in different senses. When used to refer to chant, it usually means the Greek style chant in your youtube video.

 

[Vico]

I just listened to some “Prostopinije” on YouTube, and, while I didnt find anything I recognized, the compositional quality of music sounds very similar to what I hear them singing.

I wish I knew the composers and titles because then it would probably be easier to find the music. They use a teal colored hardbound book - which is about all I can say about it.

I use that book. The Metropolitan Cantor website link has recording of it. (See earlier post.) For Youtube:

youtube.com/watch?v=JB6bPQGfQ5g

youtube.com/watch?v=c2CfISm__cA&feature=related

 

[Cavaradossi]

Really? I thought it was like the Qurbono/Qurbana thing

Pretty much all Greek nouns with the neuter ending -on, will take the ending -a in the plural nominative, a good thing to know since a majority of the things we do or use in the liturgy are nouns with an -on ending (like troparion, kontakion, orarion, epitrachelion, omophorion, sticharion, phelonion, sticheron, ripidion, epigonation, etc.).

 

[ByzCathCantor]

Pretty much all Greek nouns with the neuter ending -on, will take the ending -a in the plural nominative, a good thing to know since a majority of the things we do or use in the liturgy are nouns with an -on ending (like troparion, kontakion, orarion, epitrachelion, omophorion, sticharion, phelonion, sticheron, ripidion, epigonation, etc.).

Forgive me for saying so, but reading your list reminded me of the old Adam Sandler / SNL “Cajun Man” bit

 

[5Loaves]

Pretty much all Greek nouns with the neuter ending -on, will take the ending -a in the plural nominative, a good thing to know since a majority of the things we do or use in the liturgy are nouns with an -on ending (like troparion, kontakion, orarion, epitrachelion, omophorion, sticharion, phelonion, sticheron, ripidion, epigonation, etc.).

prosphoron/prosphora I never hear anyone however use the singular “prosphoron” including myself. “Can you help me finish eating my prosphora?” when holding up a single prosphoron.

 

[5Loaves]

The analogia sounds like the right description for the icon at the center. Its good to know how the changing of this icon parallels the changing of the Troparion and Kontakion… which can also be traced to the liturgical calendar.

I’m glad you actually connected those dots because I realized later that I had not actually said that the festal icon indeed changes with the saint or the event being commemorated. If you have been in this parish for a year then you have seen exceptions perhaps when it is not an icon there. For example at least in the Russian tradition we have the Cross decorated with many flowers on the analogion in the center for the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, and for Dormition the Epitaphios of the Theotokos in on a tomb structure in the place where normally the festal icon would be.

ByzCathCantor indicates a different means other than an analogion is used in the Ruthenian Church.

but in the churches self-styled as “Byzantine Catholic”, the festal icon is normally placed on a table called a tetrapod (as it is customarily four-legged). It sounds like this is what you have described.

Can you clarify which Eastern Catholic Church this parish is part of? It sounds like this parish is part of the Byzantine Catholic Church in America (Ruthenian Church in America).

 

[Vico]

prosphoron/prosphora I never hear anyone however use the singular “prosphoron” including myself. “Can you help me finish eating my prosphora?” when holding up a single prosphoron.

What is plural for Incense Censor?

Gk: λιβανιστήρι (Livanisteri)
Bulgarian: кадилница (Kadilnitsa)
Russian: курильница (Kurilnitsa)

 

[5Loaves]

Greek chant is actually metered in general. The texts are all metered, and the neumes have a base time value, which can be altered to make half value, third value, quarter value, double value, triple value, and quadruple value notes.

The use of the word “Byzantine” becomes so confusing. Not all Churches of the Byzantine liturgical Rite use Byzantine music. Byzantine chant (I will quickly get in over my head here) is quite different from music used in the Byzantine Church in America, and from that in my Russian Church which uses Slavic music.

Byzantine Chant is what one would hear for example in a Greek Orthodox Church. I am only present in the Greek Orthodox Churches other than Sundays, so not having the usual American Greek organ music. The music I hear in weekday services is a single cantor with a second man providing the* ison* drone. There is no harmony, unless you would call the* ison* a kind of harmony. This Byzantine Chant is what is sung at our local Orthodox Christian Fellowship Divine Liturgy and I must say there it is rather a mess, tho we sing with great heart. The style of the chant does not lend itself to a group of singers chanting it together. When the Metropolitan isn’t there to hold things together with his strong voice the timing becomes really bad. Luckily he is very often there.

edit:
I see later you address this

Your parish must not use Byzantine Chant. Somewhat counter-intuitively, the Eastern Catholic Church in America commonly known as the Byzantine Catholic Church (that would be the Ruthenian Catholic Church), doesn’t use Byzantine Chant, which is a chanting tradition foreign to the peoples descended from the Rus’.

 

[5Loaves]

What still throws me off is that the southern Slavs will use Byzantine Chant. How they manage to fit Church Slavonic/Serbian/Bulgarian into those melodies meant for Greek texts, I will never know.

Well, I’d add that chanting the Byzantine chants in English, not Greek, is a contorted jumble as well. We chant in English at Orthodox Christian Fellowship.

 

[5Loaves]

If you want a truly special version, try the Christmas Divine Liturgy at the Cathedral in Mukachevo, Ukraine, our “Mother Church”. Its in Ukrainian and Church Slavonic, but that really doesn’t matter - the chant is divine!

youtube.com/watch?v=Kc3BGS87yLs&list=PL05997E294F95AFD9&index=5&feature=plpp_video

That’s a very interesting video. In case OP William777 doesn’t know what is going on later in the tape, it is a heirarchial liturgy and the bishop is vesting in the presence of the people. He seems to largely be vesting himself. I don’t know if that is the tradition or if there just weren’t sub-deacons to do the dresser role. Here is some footage from the bishop vesting at the altar feast of the OCA I attend. (The priest of this parish is actually Carpatho-Rusyn himself. He’s directing the choir in the service, his preferred location when there are other priests who can do the serving at the altar.) I was standing right where the camera guys were so this was my view of it as well. I find this vesting of the Bishop a very moving thing. You can see ripidia in use in that film also. Fr Hopko has seven sessions on “Vesting for Liturgy” in his excellent Worship in Spirit and Truth podcasts where he goes into detail about the vesting of the bishop. Thanks be to God this Youtube doesn’t include me in the role Father forced me into, singing “seven swans a swimming” during the trapeza!

I’m curious-- what languages is the Carpatho-Rusyn bishop translating from/to with the Latin bishop in that video?

 

[Cavaradossi]

Well, I’d add that chanting the Byzantine chants in English, not Greek, is a contorted jumble as well. We chant in English at Orthodox Christian Fellowship.

This is why the books from the Holy Transfiguration Monastery are so widely used. Their English texts are metered to follow the Greek, except for things like the canons for Orthros, which aren’t typically done anyway in parish practice, so it’s easy for one familiar with Byzantine chant to pick up the translations from HTM and sing them without having to fiddle around with the text to try and get it to fit in the melody.

 

[Catherine_Grant]

Note from Moderator:

This thread has too many discussions for me to separate out. Please start a new thread for individual topics that have not been answered.

May God Bless You Abundantly,
Catherine Grant