Troubles in the Greek Church

[starlight]

For those who don't believe me, here's a video with ample examples:

I can share more if you wish. To untrained ears many might not notice. I have background with Byzantine chant, however, and I'm very familiar with what the isokratis (electronic ison in English) is (many chanters use it to practice). The sound is unmistakable to anyone familiar with it.

So, one parish (or even a random handful in a concentrated region) can condemn thousands of parishes across the country, the world? It doesn't help that your "realities" of GO worship were attained through gossip which led you to post a spiteful comment against the Greek Orthodox Church...

So GOARCH is basically having robot Liturgy now? No wonder young people can't take these parishes seriously and are abandoning the faith.

In my area, the GO church has grown significantly and they don't use any of those technologies.

 

[Cornelius V.E.]

It's rather strange to see protestants and Roman Catholics coming out so passionately for the Greek church. I love the Greek church and have spent time on Mount Athos, for which I'm very grateful. In any case, the defenses that have been offered here don't hold water. If it's excusable to have robot Liturgy because the area is "liberal" then that is enough to justify robot liturgy in every single city in America, because every city is blue. Through direct experience over the past couple of weeks, I have reason to believe that almost all Greek churches in the DC area (the nation's capital) are using these isokratis during the Sacred services. I've heard it's similar in NYC as well. So the two most major cities in the country are plagued by this (at the very least) and that's OK because these are liberal cities? We Orthodox can and should do better than that. Either way, I'm happy to hear reports from others that there are Greek churches in the US that aren't using the isokratis. May they continue!

 

[KomnenAl]

If you have a problem with a digital ison (and you should) you should also have a problem with the Russian un-Orthodox inovation of westernized orchestral polyphonic choirs. And their "iconography" also.

 

[Cornelius V.E.]

I'm not Russian and have no relationship with the Russian church (I was baptized in the Republic of Georgia and when I'm in the US I either go to the Antiochians, the Georgians, or the Ephraimites). Among the ROCOR and OCA parishes in the US, I find the style they use to be not very beautiful or sacred (it's always an irritating 1960s/70s setting of Obokhod chant that for some reason became dominant across all ROCOR and OCA parishes in the US). They can definitely do better, no doubt. From the recordings I've seen in Russia (eg, at Valaam Monastery) it seems much more beautiful and sacred than what I've seen in the US. And yes, the 18th/19th century trying to be realistic/Western iconography I find uninspiring and non-canonical--it's also in Greece as well (and Romania, Serbia, and many other places).

All of this being said, we're downgrading to a significantly lower level as Orthodox if we accept robot chants during the Holy Liturgy.

 

[Cornelius V.E.]

Ah yes, now I remember. It's the Lvov-Bakhmetev setting for Obikhod. It sounds very unsacred and very unserious--and it's hard for me to pray when I hear it because I find it so irritating. It's even worse when paired with English. I have no idea how this became the dominant chant setting in ROCOR and the OCA. It's like the leadership one day decided that there's no other possible chant that could ever be used in the Russian tradition except for the Lvov-Bakhmetev setting.

As bad as I find the Lvov-Bakhmetev setting, however, I find electronic ison significantly worse.

 

[NSOE]

It's rather strange to see protestants and Roman Catholics coming out so passionately for the Greek church

If it's excusable to have robot Liturgy because the area is "liberal" then that is enough to justify robot liturgy in every single city in America, because every city is blue.

I just remarked in passing when I saw the thread. The implication is that in an ultra liberal area you can expect to find lax attitudes. That whole state is blue, people coming to services from the burbs can be Democrats, you shouldn't be shocked to see some unorthodox liturgical practices, even though it's not what you should expect. It's just one community.

In my church, maybe in March, the closing hymn was Blessed Assurance, I hear it sung a few times a year, and it mentions Rapture, and that's a Protestant idea, considered heretical, yet someone who edited the missalette missed it, they could have just remove one line, but it's left as written, I'm not sure many even notice. No big deal for me at all, Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine, it won't hurt me spiritually, though I can see how some purists/traditionalists, all those full of themselves pharisees, would be horrified. But I'm OK.

I've been to church in a parish with a lot of rich white Democrats a few times, at 5 in the afternoon, the city's mayor and family would be in attendance regularly, they're involved in Haiti and have incorporated and use some Haitian ways of singing some parts of the mass at times. Their parish their choice, whatever people like they can find it, it's not monolithic in the Catholic Church.

 

[El Dorado]

I love the Greek church and have spent time on Mount Athos

Incredible! Would you care to share your experiences with us?

 

[Moderately Lethal]

The Greek Orthodox Church? You mean the Greek Culture Club in the West with a few icons thrown in the middle? Where the young Eleny turns up a few times at age 29 (She has not been there since the day she was baptized as a baby). She turns up on a few Sundays (dressed in a nightclub attire). She has never read the Bible and has lead the life of immorality - but wants to marry the young Nicolos (also has ethnic Greek parents on both sides) - and the family wants a church wedding. Of course , the priest welcomes her and so is the "congregation" (98% of them are mustached Greek grannies above the age of 65).
Meanwhile John, a genuine Orthodox inquirer are met with death stares from both the priest and the congregation for simply daring to invade the Greek safe place and turning up on a Sunday service as a non-Greek.

On a more serious note guys : if you insist on Eastern Orthodoxy- try The Georgian, Ukrainian and Albanian Orthodox churches- slightly (but not significantly) friendlier with prospective converts than the rest. (The former two are plentiful in the US and the UK, the latter mostly in Albania)

(PS Sammy, can you please stop telling people the Ukrainian OO are "schismatics". They are not. The Ukrainian OO is older than the Russian. it was Ukrainian missionaries that spread the gospel in Russian-speaking territories.
You calling them schismatics is like John Gotti , head of the Gambino crime family in NYC in 1987 trying to tell Salvatore Riina (head of the Sicilian mafia at the time): "We are the real Mafia, you guys are just posers". That would have been ridiculous, wouldn't it?
Do you get my point?

"Patriarch Kyrill " is not an "Orthopope" - Putin's ex-KGB buddy only has authority over the Russian OO. Not over anything or anyone else. Moscow is not an "Eastern Orthodox Vatican". There is no central leadership in Eastern Orthodoxy, only national jurisdictions. That's kind of the whole point of it.

Told, you, I am ex-Orthodox. (Between 2004 and 2006). I know more than pretty much anyone else on this forum.

If you usher people towards Eastern Orthodoxy , at least don't give them false information.

Peace be with you all.

 

[Aboulia]

Ah yes, now I remember. It's the Lvov-Bakhmetev setting for Obikhod. It sounds very unsacred and very unserious--and it's hard for me to pray when I hear it because I find it so irritating. It's even worse when paired with English. I have no idea how this became the dominant chant setting in ROCOR and the OCA. It's like the leadership one day decided that there's no other possible chant that could ever be used in the Russian tradition except for the Lvov-Bakhmetev setting.

As bad as I find the Lvov-Bakhmetev setting, however, I find electronic ison significantly worse.

The basics are all very simple melodies, there's a tutor course for all the tones available on the internet which makes it easily accessible to anyone who wants to learn, and English speakers want to hear the services in a tongue that's intelligible to them, because understanding what you're doing is important. A highly technical chant is of little value if it cannot convey meaning to people. Being from Georgia perhaps you take Orthodoxy for granted as it's absorbed in the culture, which isn't so in the West. We're not even fully agreed on all the translations, and we lack priests, so there's far more pressing things at hand than a beautiful sounding chant.

 

[NSOE]

I don't endorse modernism, but I don't fret about it. Many newer Catholic churches in the US have art that's hard to consider beautiful, but it's not for ever, it may not come in my lifetime, but everything will pass and change, every good thing of old is still with us to enjoy. People can engage their priests and cantors. maybe the guys are not confident in their singing yet.

I once walked into a Greek church during Easter around 2010-12 to see the interior, and the usher startled me when he yelled from the other end of the hallway, after two attempts he switched to the Easter greeting in English and I could reply with relief. At first I thought oh man they're vigilant, I got caught.

It could be worse, people here remind me about father Martin (last name), whom I've never heard of before (Roosh reviewed one of his books). I don't dispute that it's a serious matter when a priest withdraws admonishment, and won't call sinners to repentance. But I have better Jesuit priests to look up to starting with saint Ignatius, or Stanislaus Kostka and Andrew Bobola from Poland. And I'm not going anywhere.

You could have it a lot worse. My Catholic grandfather, as a bachelor, attended an Orthodox wedding in Poland before the war. While the Sunday liturgy lasts the standard three hours, a wedding takes about five. Women and babushkas were threshing beans inside the church during liturgy, while the guys were downing shots of vodka and waved him over to enjoy some too, when they had spotted him. All that bustled in the corner areas in the back I presume, somewhat inconspicuously. Of course at the front, towards the iconostasis the atmosphere had to be very worshipful. That was under the auspices of Holy Russia, the New Byzantium. And when we factor in the general greater piety of regular people in those days, this mixing of the profane with Orthodox liturgy looks that much worse.

My grandmother, his future wife, would go with other kids and sneak up to the nearest tserkov (a Russian church) where they would be glued to the walls under the windows listening to 'the Russkies', who sang 'so beautifully'. She remembered some fragments all her life, and could sing it back to me.

Eventually, the Polish authorities forced the local Russian Church to separate from the NKVD anointed patriarch in Moscow, and elect their own.