I'm working on applying the text of the Our Father to the Eight Tones as used in the Romanian Catholic Church where I am a cantor. Question is, whether to use the stihera tones or the tropar tones (those are the only tones which appear to have survived intact, at least from the region in Romania in which this church has its roots).

The Ruthenian Our Fathers use the Stihera tones. Is there a particular reason for that, or do they just work better for this? I wonder, also, if a mix would be acceptable, since some of the tones lend themselves better than others.

The "Lord's Prayer" is not governed by the eight tones, so any setting of them to the tones should be considered as optional and for the purpose of variety. Perhaps one of the older cantors will remember if this was also the tradition in the Romanian Church? In the end, do what works. Eight melodies for the "Lord's Prayer" would probably be too many for most parishes.

EJS, we have introduced the Samohlasen tones in my parish specifically for the Our Father- all 8 of them. The Byzantine Catholic church hanging calendar mentions which tone number to use each Sunday, so we follow that sequence. There is an exception made from Pascha to Pentecost, when a Festal Tone is used, which for us is Podoben Tone 4. Starting last Sunday we resumed the use of the Samohlasen settings with Tone 8.

Introducing all 8 tones can be difficult, but not impossible. So, we use it twice at Vespers instead of using the psalmtone version, twice at Third Hour before Divine Liturgy, then during the Divine Liturgy itself. That way worshippers have had a chance to familiarize themselves with it before the Liturgy.

I don't have them on-line, but if you are interested in copies via snail-mail let me know.

Jim,

Your offer to share the Our Father in the 8 samolahsen tones is an answer to my prayers. I'm trying to put together my own cantor's liturgy book rather than borrowing from our other parish cantors. I downloaded and printed a 120+ page book (shared by J Michael) last night, but it only has one version. Could you please email to me?

If you have them, could you please also share any downloads Holy God, Holy and Mighty; the Cherubic Hymn; We Praise You, We Bless You, We Worship You.

Thanks.

Sophia, I sent you a PM for a mailing address for the Our Fathers. I would be glad to share other materials with you as well. You are local. Maybe we can meet somewhere, and I can show you other materials? Let me know via PM. The other pieces you mention are in older booklets that I have, but can be copied.

Jim Sprinkle, Cantor
St. Thomas BC Church, Gilbert, AZ

The samohlasen melodies work fine, but if it is convenient to sing it to the troparion melodies, why not? Come to that, you could use the Bolhar melodies . . . . And remember that it is often sung to the podoben "Joseph was amazed."

Stephen

Tone 5 for the Our Father is rather nice.