PRAISING AND GLORIFYING GOD THROUGH THE SACRED HYMNS OF THE CHURCH

My beloved brothers and sisters in Christ Our Only True Lord, God and Savior,

CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

Praising and Glorifying God through the Sacred Hymns
of the Church.

Canon 75 of the Sixth Ecu;menical Synod states: "Those
who chant should offer their psalmodies with great care to
God, Who looks into the hidden recesses of the heart, i.e.,
into the psalmody and prayer that is done mentally in the
heart rather than uttered in external cries."

Saint Basil the Great cautions us: "While your tongue sings,
let your mind search out the meaning of the words, so that
you might sing in spirit and sing also in understanding."

"And suddenly there was with the Angels a multitude of
the heavenly host praising God and saying:
‘Glory To God in the highest,
And on earth peace, goodwill
toward men!" [Luke 2:13-14].

"But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns
to God and the prisoners were listening to them" [Acts 16:25].

"Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord"
[Ephesians 5:19].

"Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching
and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord" [Colossians 3:16].

Priest (intones) …singing the triumphal hymn, shouting , crying out,
and saying:
People: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord of Sabaoth, heaven and earth are full of
Thy glory, Hosanna to the highest! Blessed is He Who comes in the name
of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest!

Glorifying our Merciful God and Creator has been an integral part of our worship from Old Testament time with such personalities as King David and Prophet Moses, to that of the New Testament. and Christianity. Great Saints such Ierotheos, Ignatius, and Dionysius the Areopagite began composing melodies in the formation of the hymnology of the Church. Following the establishment of the New Capital, Constantinople, or, the city of Constantine, the Roman Emperor, this ecclesiastical music had taken a greater form and officially became known as the Byzantine music of the Church. Inspired and most talented men like Romanos the Melodos of the 5th century and Saint John Damascene of the 8th century enriched this music by composing the most beautiful melodies which are still in use in the Church today.

In the Old Testament the psalms became inseparable to the Hebrew tradition, life, worship and history. Just like the Psalms, the hymns of the Church had a greater purpose than the edification and inspiration of the faithful during worship. They also conveyed a specific significant message,
religious instruction, and information. The psalms are of many types, including; prophecies of the coming Messiah, prayers for the king, personal lamentations,, songs of praise, and hymns for special feasts.

Psalms continued their important role in the Christian Church. The psalms became for the Church, as for ancient Israel, a book of prayer and praise. All psalms find their fulfillment in Christ, the Son of God. Not only do the psalms predict specific events of Christ’s life, but in them He Himself intercedes for and with His people before the Father. The Psalms can also be seen as a dialogue between the Church, the body of Christ, and Christ her Head. Therefore, they make the most sense to us when they are prayed or chanted, not simply read.

The chanters and composers of this post-Byzantine era, with their years of experience and beautiful voices, represented the faithful in worship by chanting hymns composed in accordance with the Byzantine musical system. The Holy Fathers of the Church, through the Ecumenical Synods which took place over many centuries for the protection of the pure faith of Orthodox Christians use the ecclesiastical hymnology to convey the Orthodox Theology and Dogma of the Church to the believers. The hymns became a necessary tool and a useful instrument against the various heresies threatening the unity of the Church and the purity of the Faith. Religious illiteracy among the people was prevalent in the early Church, and there were hardly any resources to teach even the basic doctrine to the average Christian. Therefore the Church used both hagiography (holy icons) and hymnology to catechize its faithful. So through the ecclesiastical hymnology the Church (a) to worship, glorify and praise God (b) to educate them about the Faith (c) to strengthen their communion with Christ the Savior and God.

The triple invocation, "Holy, Holy, Holy," reveals the Three Divine Persons addressed, while the invocation "Lord Sabaoth" reveals the One Lordship and singly Deity shared by the Three Divine Persons. By the brief hymn we declare that, "God exists and is glorified without confusion in the Three [Persons], and the ONE DIVINITY IS EXTOLLED IN TRINITY."

In this hymn, for example, we also confess that God is the Creator of the world, since heaven and earth ARE FULL OF HIS GLORY. This form, along with other similar forms of confession, proclaims the existence of God through His Divine attributes: "Ever since the creation of the world, His invisible nature namely His Eternal power and deith, has been clearly perceived in the things that have been made" [Revelation 1:20]. "Hosanna" means "save now." "Help, we pray." The verse, "Blessed is He Who comes in the name of the Lord" [Psalm 117:26], was always interpreted in a Messianic sense. Therefore, when the crowds received the Lord during His Triumphant Entry into Jerusalem, they recognized Him AS THE EXPECTED KING AND MESSIAH. In the Eucharistic setting, Christ is revealed as the One Who was expected to come–the Coming One is here! He made His Triumphal Entrance and now He is sitting on the Throne of His Glory. "Sabaoth" is a plural form of a Hebrew word meaning "of hosts," of "powers." "Hosts" refers to the hosts of heaven, the Angels.

The mortals, elevated to heaven, sing along with the Angelic hosts. Heaven and earth are united, in their praise of the Triune God. As the people sing the "Triumphal Hymn."

Historically the Holy Fathers of the Church, through the Ecumenical Synods did not allow the use of musical instruments within the liturgical worship. They arrived at the conclusion that instrumental music has a worldly character and not at all an ecclesiastical one. It is for this reason that our music is only vocal in nature. The Church feels that the purpose of hymnology is to evoke an ecclesiastical spirit and to maintain an ecclesiastical atmosphere within the Divine worship services. Saint Gregory of Sinai, speaking of music in the Church, said, "Psalmody has been given to us that we may rise from the sensory to the intellectual and true." Sacred music is uplifting, and there is a decided transforming power in it. Saint John Chrysostomos expresses it best: "Nothing uplifts the soul so much and gives it wings and liberates it from the earth and releases it from the fetters of the body and makes it aspire after wisdom and deride all the cares of this life as the melody of unison and rhythm-possessing sacred songs."

Liturgical sacred music has a definite purpose and objective which is the worship and praise of our Merciful and Loving God. The early Christians continued the Hebrew tradition of chanting psalms, gradually adding new hymns which were Christian in content. The chanters who undertake to chant the hymns have a great responsibility before God and the faithful. They must be Orthodox Christians of good character, reverent, and humble. They must always realize that they are NOT performing and that it is NOT about themselves and their God-given talent or knowledge, but it is for His glory. They must believe that Our Lord Christ is present in every worship divine service and, therefore, they are there to serve the Lord Himself. Needless to say that there are some who think highly of themselves and capabilities and forget where they are and why they are there. Pride and ego take over and they seek the praise from their fellow Christians instead. Once they fall into the temptation of pride, the solemnity, the reverence, the sacredness of the moment is compromised; the value of their service is lost.

I recall a story about a certain monastery which faithfully followed the spiritual discipline to the letter. However, neither the geronda (abbot) nor the monks were very happy with their chanting and felt that they did not do justice to the divine services in glorifying God. One evening a travelling monk from another monastery knocked on the gates of the monastery and sought the gironda’s blessing to stay at the monastery overnight. He of course received the blessing to stay. It was now time for the divine evening service of Vespers to take place and the geronda asked if he would chant for it and the monk agreed. His voice was most pleasing and even angelic. Sometime during the night the Lord appeared to Geronda and scolded him for not conducting the evening service. But, Lord, said Geronda, not only did we conduct the Vespers but we have a visiting monk with the most beautiful voice to chant for it. Geronda realized immediately then that God is not impressed with a beautiful singing voice but by the humble, contrite and sincere heart of him who offers praises to Him. [Resource: The Heavenly Banquet]

_____________
"Glory Be To GOD
For
All Things!"
– Saint John Chrysostomos
+ + +

With sincere agape in His Divine and Glorious Diakonia (Ministry),
The sinner and unworthy servant of God
+ Father George