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So does this mean that the official Roman books for the "Ruthenian" recension (1942) include the "synodal" text? That means we Subcarpathians ought to also be singing now the same as the Russians?

(There's also a minor difference at the elevation of the gifts, where the priest says "...Tebi prinosim, o vsich i za vsja" in our way, or "...Tebi prinosjas~c~e..." in the other way. Is this also a pre-1942/post-1942 change?)

� otver�im pečal' � or � otlo�im popečenije' " ??

This question came up years ago when a member of parish choir noticed that the choral version of the I�e had slightly different words in Old Church Slavonic than the prostopinije version. The pastor was asked about this difference and he told us that it was common for the Russian composers to alter text and even add whole syllables that were not in the official Church Slavonic texts.

The article �Historical Synopsis of the Byzantine-Slavonic Chant (Carpatho-Rusyn Tradition)� suggests the practice of altering texts goes back to the age when the texts were being translated from Greek into Slavonic:

�Another custom of this era, that would sound strange to us today, was the custom of repeating vowels or syllables or even introducing syllables that didn't belong to the text at all. This was deemed necessary where there was music left over because the Slavonic text was shorter than the Greek. A classical example of such repetition can be found in a 12th century "Alleluja", in which the first vowel "a" is repeated thirty-two times. Syllables that didn't belong to the text at all were usually variations of the following: ne, ne, na; te, te, ren; to, to, to, ren;, or gel, gei, gel. This was also practiced whenever the cantor got through singing a given hymn but the priest was not yet ready to continue.�

The 1942 Rome Ordo Celebrationis follows the Synodal (Nikonian) practice of celebrating the Divine Liturgy, Vespers and Matins.

Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky allowed the full usage of the Old Rite at the 1917 Sobor for the Russian Catholics but was adamant about any admixtures of the two.

Does the utverdi/sobludi disctinction have the same origin as otveržim pečal'/otložim popečenije ? Can anyone give a literal characerization of the differences?

Is there a grammatical distinction in Tebi prinosim/Tebi prinosjas~c~e, akin to offering/we offer as discussed in previous liturgical threads?

I thought this very intriguing when I first read the link. In English, of course, we would use "fa/tra la la la". How much easier it would be to keep the distinctive idioms of our prostopinije in English translations if we just matched the texts by clever insertion of some fa la's And we would be restoring a lost tradition too!

Joj, Boz~e mij! As if the novel practice of some of our choirs now HUMMING in church wasn't bad enough!!! :rolleyes:

Administrator,

The problem with the above explanation being applied to the case in point is that these are "nonsense" syllables cited above. The differences in the Cherubikon (and other places) are not accounted for like that. Further, if the explanations that Russian composers changed the liturgical texts to fit their music then would there not be multiple liturgical texts for the various settings? Yet, AFAIK there are not. Further the choral arrangements that we often think of as "Russian Music" date from much later than NIKON and IIRC these texts date from his time.

On the other hand, the interpolations in the "Da ipolnjatsja" normally sung in BC (and I presume ACROD) parishes are meant, it seems, to fit the music.

If we recall that Church Slavonic has been "updated" on several occasions including as late as the 18th century and since the Union some of these updates maybe have not been implemented among ECs (or OTOH other "updates" were) such textual variations are not unreasonable.

Tony

Humming is with lips closed, but Fa La is with tongue firmly planted in cheek.
Maybe some lost traditions were actually lost purposefully and providentially?

Tony,

Thanks for the post. I am not a linguist but the way it was explained to me was that the changes were not as nonsensical as the excerpt I posted might suggest but purposeful and became standardized. � Pečal �, for example, became � popečenije' � and stayed �popečenije' � simply because it was really difficult to end the composition on a consonant rather than a vowel. I didn�t mean to suggest that there was an open assault against the language. As you note, it is certainly possible that such changes pre-date the time of the great Russian composers and happened much earlier.

As for "Da ipolnjatsja", I don�t get to sing it much in Slavonic these days but when I did I could never sing it from the text in the Levkulic Pew Book. If I was looking at that page the changes were severe enough to throw me off. If I closed the book I could sing it perfectly from memory. I also at one time had a marked up version taken from the Blue Sokol. Also, you are correct in your assumption that the ACROD parishes are the same as the Byzantine-Ruthenian Catholic parishes for these texts (at least the ones I�ve visited over the years).

Curiously, and as a side note, as much as I loved the Slavonic Divine Liturgy I grew up with (both prostopinije and choral), I love the English Divine Liturgy even more.

Admin

Dear Friends,

Whenever I see arguments over Slavonic liturgical terms among Byzantine Catholics that are supposedly Anglicized and want a single English-language Byzantine jurisdiction here - I say to you all - there is hope yet!

Alex

I wouldn't necessarily agree, the English translations of the Divine Liturgy have a lot to be desired, especially since both the plainchant Prostopinije and the great East Slavic choir compositions were written for the Church Slavonic
language. I have yet to be impressed by an all-English Divine Liturgy, especially with the new English choral and chant music being "created" for the Ruthenian Metropolia. :rolleyes:

Ung-Certez

I'm gonna sneak a look at the Meyendorff book when I can I think this is one of the "Nikonian reforms" but I wont trust my memory. Still the pre-Nikonian cherubikon is not the same as the one currently sung among the Ruthenians/Carpatho-Russians.

I am not correctly my previous typo...but I know it is ispolnjatsja...just sloppy typing on my part, sorry for the unintentional assualt on the language.

Alex, (as our president says) "make no mistake" -- I am not an Anglicized Byzantine Catholic. I wasn't arguing. And I couldn't care less about jurisdictions -- I would just as soon be under a bishop in Prjashiv, Slovakia.

Is there hope for me? Probably not!

Administrator,

According to Meyendorff in Russia, Ritual & Reform the change in the cherubikon was one of the Nikonian reforms. This is discussed on pages 128 and 129 and others more briefly. The pre-Nikonian text he cites has a slightly different form, it does not have podimem but pod"emliushche (academic transliteration), same verb different ending.

You may want to remember that the Nikonian reforms happened before the time of Peter the Great who reformed Russian church singing. Hence, the notion that this text was changed to suit music does not appear to hold up to this scholarship.

The words of the cherubikon are certainly repeated in order to accomodate music. Again, I refer you to the "Da ispolnjatsja" as an example of some other textual manipulation. Still it does not have nonsense syllables. I am not a musician but it seems that this addition of nonsense syllables is not possible in many instances. Further it seems to be not present in any contemporary Slavonic church music. It seems to be present in Byzantine music in a very limited fashion.

Tony

But how but me? I'm an American, not a Slav. I have Slavic blood in me but I was raised here in America and not in Europe. Why would I ever want to see my Church under the jurisdiction of a bishop in another country? I still say that the best thing is for us to have an independent patriarch (or at least major archbishop metropolitan) for all Byzantine Catholics, one that is completely autonomous and at the same time in communion with both Rome and Constantinople.

Tony,

Your points are very well taken. Using the evidence you have provided it seems that the great Russian composers used the texts from the Muscovite liturgical books. Is it possible that the texts were changed at an earlier date for musical purposes? I think that someone would need to do the etymology of the specific texts in question. Andrew Sokol and my former pastor were not quite of the same generation but both were certainly formed in the first part of the last century and had a similar opinion of the development of the various divergent texts. I wonder where it came from?

Admin