www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship The Kliros Ruthenian parishes with paid Cantors?

So, Ung-certez - do you serve your parish as a cantor, or not?

(Perhaps you would serve the Church better if you learned whatever you still need to learn to be a cantor, and volunteer to attend and help lead the singing at one parish regularly.)

Yours in Christ,
Jeff mierzejewski

Ungcertez,

I won't say there are parishes that don't recite the creed or other parts of the liturgy. I have attended liturgies in PA that were entirely spoken! :rolleyes: Except for the fact I was visiting, I desperately wanted to sing except that the priest ALSO spoke rather than chanted.

I too grew up with Slavonic and later, English liturgies (Levkulic settings and various choir arrangements). Initially, I had reservations with the M.C.I program, particularly being a very long distance student. Over time I grew to understand the mission. The best part of the MCI program has been the focus on liturgics and on the "being" of a cantor rather than just rote memorization of new material. One does not need to be a fan of the M.C.I. to appreciate it's benefits. (I know of some participants who have disagreements, but they keep coming back, so there must be something beneficial for them).

I sense that you are deeply concerned with the situation at your parish. My suggestion, to put it plainly, -step up- you may be the next cantor.

The first time I lead our congregation in Sunday Divine Liturgy, people could hardly hear me. I was a nervous wreck! After 5 years of chanting liturgies, baptisms, funerals, akathists, molebens, vespers I worry not about doing things perfectly, but about chanting prayerfully. I still make mistakes, sometimes big really noticeable ones.

I have visited many parishes literally from coast to coast. In all but very few has there been NO ONE to lead the congregation in chant. Some parishes have cantors with great voices, some with marginal voices, but they always try to chant. Almost all are volunteer (unpaid) cantors.

Steve Petach

P.S.
If I might ask, which parish do you attend?

I do step in and sing. We use Levkulic settings along with English Prostopinije music arranged by Mr. Jumba. It has served us well and do not see a need for other new settings.


Ungcsertezs

But we should be very wary of "survival mode". Quite often we get into survival mode, then get comfortable with it. We survive with bare minimums, then eventually get used to it. People then develope the attitude "we've done OK with (_____), why do we need to change?".

Just a thought...

Σώσον, Κύριε, καί διαφύλαξον η�άς από τών Βασιλιάνικων τάξεων!

At this point in time, many "elderly" parishes in the Ruthenian Archeparchy are beyond the survival mode, which would be "X" amount of time away from closings and mergers. With no cantors and the institution of new musical settings and different texts, people who are left in the pews just won't sing and the end result will be "recited" liturgies. It's only a matter of time.

Ungcsertezs

If it is only a matter of time before no one sings, then there is no need to know how many paid cantors we have. Seriously, change is coming to the music for a reason, not just because one or two people want it to happen. Settings were watered down from the original chants, and so, were less faithful to the oral traditions of the church than the new stuff is. The new stuff can restore much of what was lost.

It takes time for people to get used to new settings. They have been asked to do many things over the past few years that were the undoing of past errors, not just what they sing. Hopefully, patience will win out.

that would be a shame. at LatinMasses, hardly anyone sings, maybe they are illiterate and can't read the missalette. maybe the music stinks so bad that no one wants to waste their breath. anywhatever, I sing like a Protestant (and I did sing in a Presbyterian choir for a year, baritone, if you must know). St. Augustine said that when one sings, it is as if that personj pryed twice as much.
Much Love,
Jonn

that would be a shame. at Latin Masses, hardly anyone sings, maybe they are illiterate and can't read the missalet. maybe the music stinks so bad that no one wants to waste their breath. anywhatever, I sing like a Protestant (and I did sing in a Presbyterian choir for a year, baritone, if you must know). St. Augustine said that when one sings, it is as if that person prayed twice as much.
Much Love,
Jonn

UC:

While you may be comfortable with the grey book settings, that comfort didn't just happen, automatically. Adapting to those settings required work by people who taught it at your home parish, and by the small cohort there who first learned it. Fortunately there were people willing to do that work, rather than pointlessly objecting the new settings.

I have visited too many dwindling parishes (Central PA and Johnstown Deaneries) where only a few people sing other than the celebrating priests. No younger generation of laity around to step in and help sing. Some of these parishes will be closed. Those than remain open will be challenged to continue a cantorial tradition. While recited liturgies have been common in the Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic Churches of PA, they were never a practice in the Ruthenian Byzantine Catholic Churches. Without young cantors to take over, these remaining parishes will be reciting their services.

Ungcsertezs

Of course. How many folks still live in in old mining towns like Nanty Glo, South Fork, etc.? What fraction of the missing young people have simply moved away to find jobs? (If you look at the OCA website you will see churches in these parts that are priestless and doing only reader services.) The problem of dimnishing populations in these towns is a difficult one to solve.

The cantoring problem is easier. Folks in mid-life, who as youngsters received a tradition - passed to them by the work of others - need now to make the transformation from being receivers to becoming givers - to take up the work of maintaining and passing along that tradition.

In my own parish, most people sing as long as they are familiar with the words and music. Those who don't, have their own personal reasons for not doing so. Some have other issues in their lives that are manifested in stubbornly refusing to sing, others are not confident in their voices and need encouragement, still others are trying to manage their children and can't view the words at the same time. But, for the most part, everyone works at it, even when we have tried Slavonic. (The Slavonic takes longer to learn than the English, however.)

As far as I know, there are no parishes in this eparchy where people read the service instead of singing it even though we don't have paid cantors, but there is always room for improvement.

quote from Jim: "As far as I know, there are no parishes in this eparchy where people read the service instead of singing it"

Unless things have changed, if you go to St. Mary's Byzantine Church in Ambridge, PA they still say the responses. Also, they still had the podium on the Altar and the "reader" would come up and read the epistle and even use "The Word of The Lord" at its conclusion.

Again, if this has changed I do not know. I went to liturgy once down there over 7 years ago when I lived in Ambridge and never went back because of the "Greco-Roman Catholic" ceremonial Mass-Liturgy I experienced.

Um.....Arizona is in Van Nuys Eparchy not Pittsburgh according to the last map I checked.

I think Jim meant in the Eparchy of Van Nuys rather than the Pittsburgh Metropolia.

Steve

For those who love the Divine Liturgy in Old Slavonic, tune in on the internet every Sunday morning at 9:00am EST at
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