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With its roots deep within the context of the chanting of psalms, hymns, and prayers in ancient Hebrew worship and the subsequent communal worship and prayers of the first Christians, Orthodox Catholic worship has developed a profound aesthetic of the word, fostered and nourished by the richness of changing times, the refinement of the understanding of the Christian message, and the evolution of its practice in a variety of cultural settings. Thus, these divine services, always realized in a harmonious setting of sacred ritual, color, and sound, have employed the word to focus and direct minds and hearts toward a common and unified offering of praise: a veritable unbloody sacrifice of lives radically committed to Jesus Christ and the mystery of the new dispensation. This function and purpose of Orthodox worship has persisted throughout the centuries and in the midst of myriads of different peoples, cultures, and places, reaching right into our own day. Its message for us remains the same.
That message, the urgency of which is so often completely lost, is transmitted to us and every generation by a great creative artistry manifested primarily in the development and arrangement of the thousands of hymns sung throughout the year. These range form the all-inclusive prayer-event of the eucharistic liturgy to the collects of the morning and evening offices. They express and delineate in a myriad of ways and shades of meaning, the essence of the good news of salvation. For both singer and listener alike, they poetically but clearly announce in no uncertain terms the path we are to take in working out our salvation. They are so many sign posts, painted in different colors and letters and symbols, directing us through the wilderness of self-purification, on to enlightenment and understanding, toward that union with God to which we are all called, toward that ultimate integration of our total humanity in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit by means of our everyday experience of life in Christ.
With the present edition, therefore, we introduce selections from the Book of Eight Tones, or Oktoëchos, itself only one of the cycles of prayer in the vast collection of Orthodox hymnology. Composed and arranged to be served by the music of eight different melodic systems, these particular hymns form the basis of daily worship. They are sung during the course of thirty-seven weeks of the year, prescinding only from those weeks when the hymns of the lenten Triodion and the paschal Pentecostarion, respectively, are used.
The various editions of this volume, in different times, places, and languages, provide the hymnography of the day-by-day worship over an eight week period, the whole cycle to be repeated at the conclusion of every set of eight weeks. In 1837, this collection began to be styled The Great Oktoëchos to distinguish it from the original compositions for Sunday worship (only) that came from the pen of John Damascene; i.e., the original Oktoëchos. The latter volume had obviously been expanded gradually to serve the worship celebrated on the other six days of the week as well. By the fourteenth century, the entire collection came to be known as the Paraklêtikê because of the overwhelming tone of supplication and entreaty in the hymns to Christ as well as the Theotokos and the various saints assigned to each day of the week.
On the basis of this, we call our edition Hymns of Entreaty. But we have also chosen this title in preference to the more obvious Book of Eight Tones because our edition contains only limited selections from the whole, and therefore does not pretend to be a translation of the entire Oktoëchos. Our selections represent what our communities can reverently and profitably discharge daily, together with the hymns of the other cycles, in the midst of the many demands of life in our times and circumstances.
Accordingly, the most outstanding feature of this volume is the almost total omission of the innumerable canons which gradually came to replace the corresponding scriptural canticles. The extreme complexity of Byzantine morning worship has not been totally unraveled by scholars to date, and the extreme length of the office, coupled with lack of complete historical data, has made us perceive the value of suggestions made by the liturgical scholar, Juan Mateos, S.J. In accordance with his proposed restructuring of the matinal canons, we take the nine scriptural canticles over the period of a week, in their entirety, and with a short refrain, just as the reader will find indicated in this edition for each day of the week of each tone. The value of this restructuring we leave to history to decide; in the meanwhile, life must go on, and we have found this is the most sensible way of making matins serviceable for our situation. (Further reference to this usage will be found in the section of this introduction dealing with the terminology.)
Also, in accordance with our liturgical research and renewal over the past twenty-five years, we do not take the midnight office or the office slated for after supper (compline). Therefore, we do not include any of the hymns for those hours in this edition.
The preponderance of our edition, then, deals only with the morning and evening offices: matins and vespers. Thus, the present volume fulfills the requirement of our own usage. Yet, in spite of its limitation of texts, or perhaps because of that very limitation, we believe that this volume can well find a place throughout the church today, for it seems somewhat unrealistic to expect men and women today to live a rhythm, even in worship, possible only in another time and culture and place.
Traditionally, all Orthodox worship is to be sung. The implications of this are innumerable and are of inestimable importance in the total experience of liturgical prayer, but we can not delve into the matter here. Suffice it to say that the texts of the Oktoëchos are the work of many composers, individuals who not only could compose poetic works but could set them to music, for music was indispensable to the worship of God. As the years passed on, the church developed the present system of eight modes or tones whereby its prayers could be sung by the entire congregation. As a basis for the organization of these eight systems of tones, the texts of the Oktoëchos became the means par excellence, for the modal systems teach us that all sacred art is not an end in itself, but a means of carrying the whole person to deification. Thus, the music, in all cases, serves the texts. In view of this, it is not surprising that many melodies are nowhere to be found for they were never written down, again, because they were frequently composed on the spot for the text in question.
In conjunction with this, then, we must note that the present translations were made with a view to their being sung. By this, we do not wish to indicate some particular set of melodies, but rather that they are essentially songs. As such, our attempt has been to translate them into songs, employing the literary techniques of rhythm and language to server the singer in performing them, in a word, to make them singable. This is not small task. Our choice of words, for example, not only reflects the meaning of the original, but tries to harmonize with the context of the whole phrase, and each phrase, then, also attempts to be harmonious with the text as a whole. In view of this, we have opted to employ asterisks as signals to the singer for pauses, for cadences, etc., for the singer must recognize and apply the melodies he employs to fit and express the thought patterns in a manner that will make its mark on the listener's ear,--yes, on his total experience while at services.
Yet, in recognizing these texts first and foremost as songs, let us also remind the reader that the music of the catholic churches has been modal plainchant from the beginning. Therefore, the psychology and function of modal chant, in contrast to other forms of melodic expression, must be seriously understood. One of the characteristics of plainchant is that it totally, always and everywhere, serves the words and the meaning of the text. It is not an end unto itself as more modern forms of religious music are. Its whole tenor and atmosphere, so to speak, are subservient to the declaration of the word and the realization of the kingdom in every gathering of the people of God. For this reason, we eschew any form of rhyme or meter in our translations in general; the articulation of the thoughts should be free.
Our principles of translation have been amply expounded elsewhere [Troparia and Kondakia, New Skete, 1984]. We have worked out the englishing of the present volume from the various Greek and Slavonic editions, both Orthodox and Uniate. The reader who is familiar with all these various editions will readily understand what a great deal of divergency exists from edition to edition and will, therefore, understand why ours does not represent any one version completely.
We mentioned in passing that these texts represent the work of many authors, and so, they do. Thus, the texts reflect the personal piety, talent, and creativity of them all, a monument, doubtlessly, to their devotion and zeal for the good news Jesus left us. But, as in all things human, here, too, we must recognize the simple truth that in many instances, these hymns manifest little real creativity or talent, whatever the zeal! In this collection, we have tried to circumvent this by using hymns that recommend themselves particularly because of content or imagery, as well as the power of their expressiveness.
The translation of Greek liturgical terms used to designate the various hymns of the liturgy is fraught with many difficulties. Over the years that the Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic churches have existed on these shores, some terms have, in spite of everything, become common parlance among those who walk the halls of liturgy and worship. And even in Europe and the Middle East, in many instances, the Greek originals have simply been brought over into the local language in some form; thus, the Church Slavonic word for the Greek troparion is tropar, ending with a soft sign. Since this entire matter has not yet been definitively settled, and one wonders whether it can or will ever be, everyone seems to do his own thing. Accordingly, we have chose to keep certain "anglicizable" terms in the original, while others we translate, attempting to convey their use and/or meaning through a suitable American English word or phrase. The merits of our practice remains to be decided by history; in the meantime it serves us at least by its simplicity, if nothing else.
Our designation of each hymn, then, appears the same in all our editions, with minor exceptions, For the terms to be found in this present edition, we give the following list, in the order in which they appear in the text. After our designation, we indicate the original Greek, and then follow up with a short explanation of the meaning and/or function of the hymn in question for the benefit of those who may not be familiar with its role in the liturgy.
At the Incense Psalms: By this phrase we indicate the stichera (singular sticheron) or hymns that are sung between the last few verses of the group of psalms 141(140), 142(141), 130(129), and 117(116). In this volume, the stichera include the dogmaticon and/or other theotokion appointed to conclude this section of vespers.
Dogmaticon [plural dogmatica]: These are rather lengthy hymns found at the end of the incense cluster of psalms at Saturday evening vespers, and again on the following Friday evening. These hymns are so called because they celebrate the mystery of the incarnation; i.e., they contain the dogma or doctrine of faith on the incarnation.
Aposticha [singular apostichon]: These are hymns (stichera) sung between verses of selected psalms, thus the Greek meaning of hymns on the verses, found at vespers and weekday matins.
Theotokion [plural theotokia]: This hymn always celebrates the Mother of God, the Theotokos; hence, the name of the hymn. There are various kinds of theotokia. First, there are theotokia stichera; i.e., hymns in honor of the Virgin interspersed with the verses of various psalms at vespers and matins. Secondly, there are theotokia troparia (cf. below) that serve as companion hymns to the irmi of the canon and to the sessional hymns. In any case, the theotokion is almost always the last hymn of a hymn-cluster unless we are dealing with a feast of Christ (or of the Theotokos herself, in which case, all the hymns are obviously theotokia). All theotokia, finally, are designated as festal (for feastdays), or ferial (for weekdays and ordinary commemorations), or stavrosima (having to do with Our Lady at the cross: stavrotheotokia).
Troparion [plural troparia]: The essential function of these hymns, at least originally, was to serve as responses by the people to psalm verses declared by a chanter; in other words, as antiphons. This basic function may still hold today, but the usual reference is to the following: The final hymn of vespers, the dismissal hymn (in Greek apolytikion) is what is most familiarly known as a troparion. As such, it keynotes the theme or mystery of the feast just introduced by vespers and will be heard over and over again throughout the course of the offices of the day that follows; i.e., at matins, at Divine Liturgy, etc. The term troparion also indicates those short hymns that are modeled after and follow the irmi of the matinal canon. The origin of the word is Constantinopolitan, though some of the hymns from the Great Church have come to be termed stichera in our contemporary editions. The latter term, however is of Palestinian provenance and was not known in the imperial capital.
Jerusalem Troparion: This term, too, is of Palestinian origin, and is simply, the troparion in the liturgical uses of the Holy Land. In Greek, it was called the ypakoë, from ypakoein, to respond; it fulfilled the same function as the troparion, for it was sung as a response to verses by a chanter; thus, it is the hymn whereby one submits his voice to what one hears, the act of liturgical obedience, so to speak. This hymns is the thematic song of the office of the myrrh-bearers at Sunday matins for it responds to the message of the eleven resurrectional gospels.
Kondakion [plural kondakia]: This hymn served as the prelude, or opening verse, of a long and homiletic series of such stanzas, usually numbering twenty-four. Each member of the whole ended with the same refrain, the last phrase of our kondakia. The greater number of these are ascribed to Roman the Melodist, who seems to have possessed a genius for preaching and teaching in this genre.
Sessional Hymns: This refers to the hymns called kathismata in Greek (singular kathisma) appointed to be sung after the reading of each antiphon of the psalter and after the third ode of the canon. The Greek term derives from the verb to sit, for these hymns were sung seated.
Canticle Response: These represent either the short response indicated for each canticle of the scriptures taken at matins, or the longer hymn of the canons, called irmos in Greek, that served as a model for the troparia that follow. Through the centuries, these irmi and their companion troparia totally replaced the scriptural canticle to which they more or less refer by their content. In this edition, we employ First Canticle Response to indicate the hymn we use as a refrain to the chanting of the first song of Moses (Exodus, 15:1-18). Eighth Canticle Response refers to the irmos used as the response to the song of Daniel (3:57-88;56). Finally, the irmos used as a response to the song of the Theotokos (Luke, 1:46-55) is titled the Ninth Canticle Response.
The Praises: This term designates the hymns sung after the final verses of the psalms of lauds, 148, 149, and 150, at the conclusion of the morning office.
Gospel Stichera: These hymns celebrate the resurrectional theme of each of the eleven Sunday morning gospels. Their Greek name, eothina (singular eothinon) indicates that they were sung at dawn. In our practice, we take them right after the singing of the resurrectional gospel at vigil on Saturday evenings.
Exapostilaria [singular exapostilarion]: These hymns entreat the Lord to send forth (exapostellein) upon us his divine light.
The various types of stichera are not further differentiated in this volume. Those for the deceased, the martyrs, apostles, etc., are clearly so from their context, usually, and we have preferred for simplicity to omit the original Greek designations as too technical and, we think, not easily brought over into American English with the same genius of the Greek.
Finally, since our life is cenobitic, we have preferred always to underline the communal character of christian worship. Accordingly, we have taken the liberty of changing the first person singular so often encountered in these hymns to its plural counterpart. This would seem to highlight the truth, frequently overlooked, that worship is a social, communal, and choral action: liturgy, plain and simple. Furthermore, we think this also emphasizes the characteristic of christianity that calls us to pray for each other and all our brothers and sisters in the community of believers. In a similar vein, we have generally tried to avoid the tendency to dualism suggested by addressing "one's soul", rather than thinking in terms of the whole human person.
We trust that this volume will uncover some of the spiritual wealth of Orthodox Catholic hymnography for student and worshipper alike, and that each will grow in spiritual life, faith, and understanding through an ever-deepening reflection on the truths herein set forth so graphically.
New Skete
1987
Text copyright © 1987 by the Monks of New Skete