www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Kliros Ruthenian setting for "Eis Polla Eti Despota!"

Dear Alice,
Evloyia Kyriou! The pleasure is entirely mine.
Incognitus

Well, I have successfully located a copy of "You Have Entered, O Noble Archpriest" in English. It is not easily sung by a group without preparation, and is written somewhat peculiarly- key signature of E-flat Major, but actually sung in A-flat Major. It includes an octave leap which is not a friendly thing to have for unison singing, but is full of late 19th century-style nobility. I am not so sure it would go well for a single service, because of its difficulty. Perhaps if the words were set to a frequently used tone. I'll have to look into that.

Incognitus has already pointed out that "Voshel jesi archijereju" is nothing less than a Church-Slavonic paraphrase of "Ecce Sacerdos Magnus". Since it is a latinization pure and simply I recommend allowing it to fall into disuse (unless, of course, your bishop asks you to sing it).

The more authentic custom among Slavs is to sing �It is truly proper� / �Dostonjo Jest�. Most people know it in English and Slavonic and will sing it with gusto. Singing it during the entrance of the hierarch helps prime the singing pump and sets a qualitative baseline for the singing during the Hierarchical Divine Liturgy itself. Other choices include a Marian Hymn that is a particular favorite of the parish or a pslam set to Kontakion 8 (I have a lot in my collection).

Jim:

If you can PM me your e-mail address I can send a 4-part setting of the prostopinije melody for Voshel Jesi that appears in the Sokol Blue Book.

We sang this maybe 25 years ago, when Bishop Steven visited my home parish. Before the liturgy my grandfather, then about 90, took me aside and asked if we knew to sing that hymn - and we proceeded to chant it together.

Actually the more authentic custom for a hierarchal procession is to sing "Ton Despotin". This is the practice of the Great Church which fell out of use post-Zamosc and was replaced with various other hymns, such as "Vosel jesi".

The Melkites, Ukrainians and Romanians have restored this in hierarchal celebrations in some places(or have never lost it, as the case may be). Nothing wrong with just doing it "the way we used to".

The settings I have will need to be reviewed by my parish priest prior to use. What our bishop would like to have used will likely need to be factored in. However, I think it is important to be prepared with as many alternatives as possible. Once I know how far we can go with special music for His Grace's visit, I shouldn't have to revisit the issue again, until there is a new bishop. That way I'll know I did my best, even if we wind up using none of them.

At present , I have settings of "Eis Polla Eti Despota" from Binghamton, which I downloaded; "You Have Entered, O Noble Archpriest" from a printed English collection from back in the 70s, and one I put together using one of the resurrection tones; some Slavonic and English settings from our administrator; and a single line setting of Ton Despotin.

I'm hoping at least one or more will be ok for use.

"Ton despotin" as a processional? By "Great Church" I'm assuming you mean Constantinople; I've served at two Greek hierarchical Liturgies and I don't recall it being used when the bishop entered the church (it was sung v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y as he said his kairos, however). Also, I don't recall seeing it as the entrance hymn in the "Archieratikon" from Rome (as found online). If memory serves me right, it appoints "Blessed be the name of the Lord" or "It is truly meet."

Dave
Who Thinks "Voshel Jesi" Is Fun To Sing

Just waxing romantic, Dave...bring back the Emperor.

You are right that this is not "officially" in the Rome Archieraticon. Why, I don't know, as it has certainly been used in Rome for Byzantine hierarchal liturgies and with some Greek Catholics you can certainly find it in use. Some things such as specific processional hymns have certainly varied in use over the last 500 or so years.

This is one of those curious practices from Constantinople that was in some places dropped by the Greeks (they do it on Athos) but kept by some Slavs and the Melkites. Worthy of yet another research and dissertation topic for some young industrious liturgy student.

What do we want? A Christian Byzantine Emperor!

When do we want him? Thirteen days from now!

Somewhere in my collection of oddments I have a recording of a male choir in Greece singing the Polychronion for the Emperor. It's fun. A bunch of us once sang it in front of the Royal Palace in Athens, long after the fall of the monarchy.
Incognitus

Well, I didn't say it was not in the Archieratikon from Rome. I only said it wasn't used as the entrance hymn. It is placed after the Entrance Prayers, as can be seen here:

http://www.patronagechurch.com/Archieratikon/18-19.htm

The book also gives the provision to sing "Mnohaja Lita" as an alternative to this, which I believe is quite common among the Ruthenians.

How do the Melkites and others use it as the entrance hymn? Can you give a basic run-down of how it fits together with the other liturgical elements? I'm a bit curious.

A few months back I made an English rendition of "Ton despotin" to a Rusyn popular melody "Zhivite l'udije." I heard the melody on a CD that was graciously given to me by a friend, and it just wouldn't get out of my head. I don't think it will really be used (at least not until I am long dead), but it was fun to arrange and sing in the shower.

Dave

Diak,

Actually, at Archbishop Cyril's enthronement, we used "It is truly meet" as the entrance hymn for the procession.

Many years,

Neil

"Greek Catholic" as an official designation is an invention of the Hapsburgs. When they acquired a big Rusyn/Ukrainian population by the partitions of Poland, they coined this to give equal status with the Roman Catholics. In Galicia, the government was Austrian and the Latins who thought it disgraceful that all those illiterate peasants spoke Rusyn and had services that were not in Latin and not at all the same as what the Pope did in Rome, those guys were Polish bishops. The Austrians distrusted them a good deal more than they did the illiterate peasants, so they supported the latter against the Latin bishops--even the German-speaking Austrian bishops did not want to encourage Polish nationalism.

In the Kingdom of Hungary, the government was Hungarian (never mind that the king happened to be the same Hapsburg who sat on the the throne of Austria), and the bishops who didn't want to put up with the unwashed Rusyns were--Hungarian. So on that side of the mountains the government supported the Latin bishops against the Rusyns. So it came about that the Galicians were better off than the brethren in Carpathian Rus'. But the designation "Greek Catholic" applied to both.

"Byzantine Catholic" of course means "Byzantine Rite," but in that sense it would apply to the Melkites and the Italo-Albanians just as much. Nevertheless, it has pretty well supplanted "Greek Catholic" (at least in the US) among Carpatho-Rusyns, as "Ukrainian Catholic" has replace "Greek Catholic" among Galicians. "Byzantine Catholic" becomes a problem, or at least a nuisance, when one encounters collections of "Byzantine Chant" that turn out to be Prostopinije.

Stephen,

On the use of Greek in Rusyn churches: the older manuscript Irmologia frequently contain some Greek pieces, not only Eis polla but Holy God (Agios o Theos) and the Cherubic Hymn (I ta kheruvim), with the text written in Cyrillic letters. I doubt that these were much used in village churches, but they must have been heard in cathedrals and monasteries. So this is quite traditional, and not an innovation resulting from ACROD's connection with the Ecumenical Patriarch. These items do not overlap wiht the Russian "Grecheskii Rospev," which, despite what 20th-century music historians claimed, were not borrowed (as the Kievskii Rospev and Bolgarskii Rospev were) from the Ukrainian and Bielarus'ian churches, but were learned by the Muscovites directly from visiting Greek psalts, as the Russians have traditionally said). The fine anthology from old irmologia recently published by Oleksandra Calaj-Jakymenko does, it is true, contain "Da ispravitsja" in the Grecheskii Rospev, but the irmologion she took it from was written by a Ukrainian in Moscow, part of the brain-drain of those days, and he must have learned it there. The Nikonian text indicates that he did not take it from the Irmologion traditon.

Stephen

Have asked for this topic to be moved to Kliros, in case anyone has additional information on settings to add.