In the church it is not correct to say one thing and do another

"Nedostatki klirosnago Peniia." Sputnik Psalomshchika: Pi︠e︡snopi︠e︡nīi︠a︡ Godichnago Kruga Bogosluzhenīĭ S Treboispravlenīi︠a︡mi. Jordanville, NY, U.S.A.: Holy Trinity Monastery, 1959

Archbishop Arseny of Novgorod's Address to a Conference on Church Singing in the Novgorod Diocese (1911)

In most cases at the present time, uneducated readers (psalomshchiki) perform the singing in church. The usual contingent of reader candidates are subjects kicked out of seminary and other theological schools for “poor results, boisterous conduct and old age.” They perceive their work most often as a way of earning money to pay for their daily bread. Because of the lack of suitable candidates for reader duties [in parishes], the latter are often granted to unworthy people. If there is not an honorable reader candidate, it would be better for the Church and clergy to get by with a lay singer. I repeat that, generally speaking, unprepared individuals render church singing in the diocese.

In some places, amateurs take the place of readers in church singing. I need to say that they are most often guided by love for their labor. They wish to satisfy the needs of the people, who want to listen to good singing in their churches. I think that you are acquainted with the type. Often dropouts from a theological school, they assemble choirs and become masters of the kliros. They are haughty and do not want to consider the legitimate wishes of the priest with regard to singing. They are not satisfied with simple melodies, but try to keep pace with city choirs that sing with “parts”. Their ideal is to perform something a little more risqué. What they do with church hymns, perhaps nicely harmonized, ruins the taste of the people – it is sad and hurtful to speak of this.

What is the result of church singing being rendered by unprepared readers and amateur directors? The church singing from a musical perspective and, more importantly, from a theological perspective, does not satisfy the most basic needs. These blighters of church singing do not understand that church singing is a component part of the church service. The soul, which entreats God, praises, and gives thanks, is poured out in it.

They think about one thing – how to produce an effect. They come to church with the goal of impressing people with their artistic, and if true be told, illiterate singing. They absolutely must perform a complex thing. They do not sing simple melodies, but in parts. They let the old reader on the left kliros sing the simple melodies that, according to their ignorant opinion, do not have any significance.

They forget the goal of the church service, which is to teach and maintain the faith. The goal is obtained by chanting verses and other church hymns, which comprise a precious characteristic of our church services and their spiritual beauty. Look through all the verses of the Ochtoechos and Triodion written for feast days and days recalling holy events in the history of Christianity and you will see the rich treasury bequeathed to us from the great enlighteners of the Greek Church, the preservers of its dogmas and traditions, and the artistic creators of its liturgical rite. The people love to sing, read or listen to the hymns because the soul of the people derives from them lessons about the main dogmas of the Christian faith! During the first centuries of Christianity, these hymns served as the main weapon in the struggle against heretical teachings of sects, which also sought to spread their teachings among the people by means of hymns and songs in their prayer gatherings. Teachers of various mystical and rationalist sects are embracing this method in our day, compiling hymns in illiterate transpositions from a foreign model. Is it possible in our time to disdain this powerful tool to understand the faith and repulse every type of sect? We see this disregard in amateur directors who consider themselves called to every kind of “part singing”, leaving no attention for that which is fundamental and salvific for the soul. They do not consider it necessary to consult the church ustav, and each one cobbles together an ustav that fits his purposes. Unfortunately, such an ignorant director is given the right to lead on the kliros.

We forget the very foundation of church singing – the eight tones. Is it necessary to tell you how gradually the specific character of Christian church singing came about? When Christianity began to spread, freedom with regards to church singing reigned in the Church. Christians sang chants borrowed from Jews and pagans, along with their own authentically Christian ones. St. John of Damascus brought an end to this variance in church singing with the introduction of the eight-tone system. We who have inherited this heritage of the holy father should treasure it. Moreover, we have forgotten the beauty of Znamenny, Bulgarian and Greek Chants passed down to us.

From the beginning of the 19th century, the Holy Synod and certain diocesan bishops have struggled with the deterioration of church singing. However, the measures taken by the Holy Synod to extirpate concert singing unsuitable for church services have not been effective. Church singing continues to deteriorate. The same phenomenon that occurred with iconography in Russia is happening with church singing. There was a time when icon writers approached the images of the Savior, the Mother of God and the saints with fasting and prayer and did not view their work as handicrafts. Iconography in ancient churches dating from the 12-16th centuries has a particular character. It is true that the images written at that time had no subtlety or strict proportionality. However, they have one advantage, which elevates ancient over modern iconography: holiness is imprinted on them. Why are people now searching for ancient icons? Why are Saint Sophia and the Savior Church on Nereditsa especially valued? Because the iconography in them refers back to a time when icon paining was viewed as a spiritual struggle and a holy matter.

When in the 17th century we began to turn our attention to the West, we changed in everything. When foreign influences strengthened, the entire organization of our lives changes: iconography changed in the same manner as singing at church services. After the introduction of Christianity, we heard singing that was meaningful to the heart, intimate singing and therefore fundamental. With the strengthening of foreign influences, the goal of church singing became the creation of art. The singers, singing in the church, to their shame, thought about one thing – springing an intricate surprise. Russians little by little lost the taste for ancient chants, such as Znamenny and others. The vestiges of this singing are preserved only in a few ancient monasteries, not in the singing of monastery choirs, but in old hook books.

So the same thing that occurred with iconography happened with singing. Instead of the serious images of the Sofia Cathedral and the Savior Church on Nereditsa we find images of the saints written in a completely different style and icons of the Mother of God depicted in a décolleté. Some depicted their mistresses on icons, as Arakcheyev had the famous Nastasya Minkina portrayed. We forgot the beautiful Znamenny, Bulgarian and Greek Chants. Church singers imagined themselves as artists: they began to think that their singing, foreign to the character of church services, was pleasing to the Lord; they imagined themselves as masters of the kliros; they forgot the most elementary truth – that those standing on the kliros should be first of all prayerful, and not artistic. The more church chants were harmonized in a risqué and illiterate manner, the greater the delight it brought to such singers. Instead of performing, for example, the Cherubic Hymn in strict tones, they adopted vulgar melodies. They are prepared to introduce romance music fit for the stage into church chanting. They are ready to make a scene from the kliros. And this is during the time when the clergy are preparing for the culmination of the Christian Mystery of the Eucharist. Are we not ashamed! Don’t we find it sinful? We do not think about what kind of responsibility we will bear for this profanation of church services by their singing?

Recently, an interest in archaeology has come about in Russian society, and, in particular, in ancient Russian singing. Russian society is beginning to understand that a culture is durable only if it is founded on the firm foundation of the past. You know that there are already schools that have been opened and are functioning where ancient chants can be studied, for example the Moscow Synodal School. Composers are studying with interest examples of ancient Russian singing.

But we need to work in our own place in order to enliven interest in this new current of church singing. In the matter of the standardization of church singing, I still cannot count on the current readers and various amateur directors due to the above stated reasons. I can count on the theological school and seminaries in the matter of the restoration of strict church singing only when teachers are made aware of the importance of church singing and, not limited to classroom instruction, will lead the singing of the students in church, and not present their own muddled tastes: classroom instruction should have its appropriate application in the church services. The opening of a school attached to the Archepiscopal House in the ancient Likhudov building this fall, where most serious attention will be directed toward singing, should help in the matter of the restoration of strict church singing. And I am calling you to serve in this matter.

The goal of the present Conference is to compile а choice of uniform, specific church chants from the vast available church singing materials, which include synodal church service books using notes – the Training Obikhod, Octoechos, Irmologion, Triodion and the Feasts, along with their ancient chants: Znamenny, Kievan, Greek and Bulgarian. The absence of uniform chants in the churches of the Novgorod diocese, which is connected to the poor condition of church singing in the eparchy, makes this a necessity. The existing typical chant is a distortion of the melodies that are included in these books with notes, or it is the traditional concoction of singers, passing along melodies by ear from one singer to another. In the books that use notes, the same chant is transposed in a different manner depending on the year of publication. Therefore, there is a great “discrepancy” in the performance of church hymns. Such a phenomenon, which is not in accordance with the decorum of church services, should be eliminated. We need to select from the vast materials of church singing, check the chants that are most appropriate for use in church, and make their study compulsory for all readers and students in theological institutions and church schools.

The harmonization of church chants is too varied. It is the illiterate work of ignorant composers who make it hard to distinguish the foundational melody of the chant. In view of the necessity of forming church choirs, especially from among students, it is necessary to indicate the transpositions that would more simply and clearly preserve the melody of the chant.

Regarding the importance of resolving the issue of ancient church singing - on the one hand, it is in poor condition. On the other hand – I will not say much to you. You, of course, know why it is necessary to value our ancient church singing. It is the expression of the spirit of the people educated and brought up under the influence of the Church, which was its guide and loving mother. But if the Church rendered religious-moral influence on the people, then the people introduced much from its natural abundance and talent into the bosom of the Orthodox Church through its melodies, in which is expressed the depth and power of its religious feeling and spiritual characteristics. The people gave these melodies, some simple, serious and important, others soft, touching and full of feeling, as its best possession, to its mother – the Church. That is why these native sounds are dear to the people – they imagined and experienced them. They speak to the Russian person about much: about the past, the present, and what awaits them in the future. They arouse in the people the best, most noble impulses, holy feelings of love for the faith, for the Tsar-Father and the Fatherland. That is why it is necessary to value these native melodies, as memorials of religious-moral singing creativity. Unfortunately, we do not value them. True church singing is being forgotten. New melodies foreign to the soul of our people are being contrived. Concern with regards to the preservation and restoration of ancient church singing is one of the main concerns for those for whom the interests of the Church and people are dear. With this goal in mind, I have called the present Conference, which should work out measures for the appropriate organization of church singing in spiritual and second-class church schools. You should be guides of true Orthodox singing by teaching students. The Conference should indicate that there should not be phenomena in the church such as when the cleric exclaims the prokeimenon in the fourth or seventh tone and the kliros holds one and the same note. In the church it is not correct to say one thing and do another. When selecting hymns for church services, the members of the Conference should give preference to the melodic before harmonized settings: the latter delights, but does not arouse a prayerful mood. Church singing should be strictly prayerful. Have you noticed that during melodic singing prayerful silence is heard in the church? This is not the case with harmonized singing, especially when it is illiterate. In this case, the person standing in the church pays attention to how his part will be performed by one or another voice, to the director etc. But the kliros is not a stage for actors. Everything in the church should be holy.

Labour a little now, with God’s help, in the manifestation of the indicated objective of the current Conference of the Novgorod diocese. May God bless you.

translated by RWM