Traditional instruments of your Liturgy?

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Yeah, I know … but it’s interesting that the GO seem to mange in spite of the pews. 😉
Yes. My Antiochian parish from when I was Eastern Orthodox had pews. My Melkite parish has pews as well. I sit up front so the pews don’t get in my way. 😃 I do have knee and back problems so I appreciate the pews during the homily (as I am certain that the elder people and such appreciate them also). 😉
 
Yes. My Antiochian parish from when I was Eastern Orthodox had pews. My Melkite parish has pews as well. I sit up front so the pews don’t get in my way. 😃 I do have knee and back problems so I appreciate the pews during the homily (as I am certain that the elder people and such appreciate them also). 😉
During most sermons, I think I might just prefer a cot so I could stretch out and and :sleep:😃
 
Except for the bells on the censor and saccos.
Bells were not quite what the Fathers had in mind when they spoke out against instruments. The same is true of the triangles which the Copts use to keep time during their chants. Being a musician myself, I suppose that if we really wanted to be pedantic, the common practice of Greek psalti tapping on the stasidi or analogion while chanting, accompanying their chanting with a faint rhythmic thumping could also be considered the use of an instrument, but I think we can all say that this is again not what the Fathers had in mind when they wrote against the use of instruments in liturgy. The Fathers were referring to the use of melodic instruments, which are unsuitable for the liturgy.
Noting that the Greeks and Antiochians sometimes permit instruments, mostly pipe organ… And pews…
It is an error, on their part to do so. But I would like to note that the Antiochians in my area do not, as Bishop Basil even told the choir director at one Antiochian Church in this city that he was even not to use an electronic keyboard to give his choir pitches.

The Greeks in America, I am aware, have destroyed their liturgical consciousness, existing in a state of stasis, as if they were stuck in time in the 1920’s when they first immigrated to the States. That they use the music of John Sakellarides, Desby, Zes, et al. is a travesty, not to mention the permission which the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Musicians (a body which should not exist) gives for organ to accompany these untraditional arrangements.

The situation, however, is changing rapidly, because the choirs are hemorrhaging members due to simple attrition, and while it is almost impossible to do Desby or Zes with seven people, it is possible to do traditional chant with just one person. Add to this the felicitous and timely decision at Holy Cross to begin a program for certifying psaltes (not to mention the wonderful work which has been done at St. Anthony’s monastery to set English translations of our liturgical texts to chant using nothing but the traditional theseis of Byzantine chant), and it seems that the situation is thankfully reversing itself, and that the Greek Orthodox in America are beginning a trend of returning their praxis to the praxis of their mother Church (both the official one in the Phanar, and the unofficial one in Greece).

Frankly, I am somewhat disappointed with this post of yours. Surely, most of you here, being in communion with the Latin Church should be able to sympathize with those of us Orthodox here in America who are adherents to the tradition of the Church, and who while surrounded by liturgical abuses put up the best fight they can to educate the faithful (and even sometimes the clergy) as to what constitutes real Orthopraxis. Were it up to me, the pews would be removed and replaced with one or two rows of stasidi against the wall, and the organ would be banned along with polyphonic corruptions of Byzantine chant. But why point out the flaws in Orthodox Churches here in the States, when this thread is not about liturgical abuses but about what instruments are traditionally (and this here is the key word, traditionally) used in our liturgies? It strikes me all as being unnecessarily mean-spirited.
 
Frankly, I am somewhat disappointed with this post of yours. Surely, most of you here, being in communion with the Latin Church should be able to sympathize with those of us Orthodox here in America who are adherents to the tradition of the Church, and who while surrounded by liturgical abuses put up the best fight they can to educate the faithful (and even sometimes the clergy) as to what constitutes real Orthopraxis. Were it up to me, the pews would be removed and replaced with one or two rows of stasidi against the wall, and the organ would be banned along with polyphonic corruptions of Byzantine chant. But why point out the flaws in Orthodox Churches here in the States, when this thread is not about liturgical abuses but about what instruments are traditionally (and this here is the key word, traditionally) used in our liturgies? It strikes me all as being unnecessarily mean-spirited.
Orthopraxis breeds further orthopraxis. And heteropraxis breeds further heteropraxis. The Greeks and Antiochians should be noted for their heteropraxis on a more general level as it explains in part why they are not evidence of what should be.
 
Orthopraxis breeds further orthopraxis. And heteropraxis breeds further heteropraxis. The Greeks and Antiochians should be noted for their heteropraxis on a more general level as it explains in part why they are not evidence of what should be.
But that is not the topic of this thread. This thread was about what is traditional, not about liturgical abuses. It was frankly quite off-putting when this thread was transformed into an opportunity to bash the praxis of the Greeks and Antiochians here in the States. It would be as if one said that the Roman Rite traditionally uses no instruments other than the organ, and then I responded by bringing up arrangements of Marty Haugen for synth and guitar. As a psalti, this is already a sore matter for me, seeing the shameful way the Greeks conduct their liturgy in the States, and it would have been nice had this tangent not come up.
 
My Antiocian mission has obeyed Bishop +Basil. We started out having Liturgy in a Presbyterian church, and then relocated to a Latin Catholic church, both locations have organs but they are never played by us.
 
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