scholarly journals The Influence of Political Regimes on Romanian Psaltic Music in the Second Half of the 20thCentury

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-34
Author(s):  
Elena Chircev ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Church Music ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Religious Music ◽  
Original Works ◽  
Romanian Revolution ◽  
Difficult Times ◽  
The Church

During the second half of the 20th century, the Romanian society was marked by two events that had a profound impact on its destiny: the establishment of the communist regime after the abdication of King Michael I in 1948, and the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which marked the end of this regime. The Byzantine monody has had a millenary tradition in this part of Europe, and the contribution of the local chanters to the perpetuation of Orthodox church music – also through their own compositions – is evidenced by the numerous manuscripts written by Romanian authors and by the works printed in the last two centuries. In 20th-century Romania, the music written in neumatic notation specific to the Orthodox Church manifested itself discontinuously due to the historical events mentioned above. The church chant in the traditional psaltic style managed to survive, despite being affected by the Communist Party’s decisions regarding the Church, namely the attempt to standardize the church chant. This paper captures the way in which the preservation of tradition and the perpetuation of church music succeeded through the difficult times of the communist period, with special emphasis on the religious music written in neumatic notation and on certain peculiarities of the period, due to the political regime. The musicians trained before the establishment of Communism – by teachers concerned with the preservation of the good tradition of church chanting, in monastic schools and prestigious theological seminaries of the interwar period – were the binding forces who ensured the rapid revival of the music of Byzantine tradition in the last decade of the 20thcentury and who enriched the repertoire of the Romanian churches with valuable original works.

scholarly journals Communion songs not regulated by the typicon in the recent tradition of Serbian church singing

Muzikologija ◽  
2004 ◽  
pp. 121-152
Author(s):  
Vesna Peno
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Liturgical Texts ◽  
Historical Themes ◽  
19Th And 20Th Century ◽  
The Church ◽  
The Way

In notated collections of Serbian church hymns from the 19th and 20th century there are, among others, communion songs with texts that were not regulated by the Typicon. These so-called "arbitrary communion songs" have been very popular in the recent tradition of Serbian church chanting. They have been gradually pushing out the hymns that are regulated for singing on concrete days and feasts during the church year. Analysis of possible influences that determined the way texts and the melodies delved into the recent Serbian church chanting follows two possible directions. The first commenced from late-Byzantine singing tradition; more specifically, from a group of songs that although based on liturgical texts, were performed in extra-liturgical occasions. These are calophonic irmoi which were composed by a great number of known late-Byzantine masters of singing. The second direction had its beginning in Russian spiritual music that generated a new melodic genre kant, based on western models. The majority of those compositions have freely written spiritual texts, too, and not part of the liturgy. Kanti were, namely, singing numbers in liturgical dramas - theatrical pieces with Christian historical themes. The majority of arbitrary communion hymns from Serbian collections have texts from the psalms or use texts for irmoi of specific canons. There is only one text that does not belong to the output of church hymnography. In spite of that, the melodies of the analyzed hymns reflect the presence of traditional compositional procedures characteristic of late-Byzantine and Serbian traditions. On either side, they possess atypical musical phrases that relate them to the the kanti. The usage of paraliturgical songs instead of communion hymns is commentated upon from the liturgic aspect also. That song belongs to the central part of the Liturgy and most fundamental during the service of the Orthodox church. Therefore the deviation in Serbian practice from the rules that define its place and role demonstrate the distancing from the tradition, raises a fundamental question: is liturgical meaning being compromised.

Priest Peter Ilyinsky (1871-1938): Educator, publicist, confessor

2019 ◽  
pp. 286-292
Author(s):  
Николай Сергеевич Черепенин
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Pastoral Ministry ◽  
Russian Orthodox ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Chronological Order ◽  
Economic Activities ◽  
Crucial Point ◽  
Russian Orthodox Church ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Church

Изучение жизненных обстоятельств священнослужителей первой половины XX в. является важной составляющей изучения истории Русской Православной Церкви. Оно позволяет детально проследить некоторые процессы и явления, происходившие в Церкви того периода, на конкретных примерах. Данная статья посвящена священнику Петру Ильинскому, около сорока лет прослужившему на сельском приходе. Его служение раскрывается в статье в хронологическом порядке: педагогическая и хозяйственная деятельность пастыря дополняется описанием его публицистических трудов и заканчивается описанием его семьи и исповеднического подвига. Данная работа служит свидетельством незаурядного пастырского служения священника Петра в переломный момент жизни нашего государства и в достаточной мере иллюстрирует историческую эпоху конца XIX - первой половины XX веков на конкретном примере. The study of the life circumstances of clergymen in the first half of the 20th century is an important part of the study of the history of the Russian Orthodox Church. It allows us to trace in detail some of the processes and phenomena that took place in the Church in that period, using concrete examples. This article is about the priest Peter Ilyinsky, who served forty years in a rural parish. His ministry is presented in chronological order: his teaching and economic activities are followed by a description of his publicist writings and ending with a description of his family and confessional deeds. This work is a testimony to the extraordinary pastoral ministry of the Priest Peter at a crucial point in the life of our nation, and illustrates the historical era of the late 19th century and the first half of the 20th century with concrete examples.

Religious Diplomacy and Socialism

2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-43
Author(s):  
Lucian N. Leustean
Keyword(s):  
Western Europe ◽  
Church Of England ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
The West ◽  
Religious Persecution ◽  
House Arrest ◽  
Church Hierarchy ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
The Church

This article analyzes the relationship between the Orthodox Church and the communist regime during one of the most intense periods of religious persecution in the Romanian People's Republic from 1956 to 1959. The church hierarchy demonstrated its support for the socialist construction of the country, while, at the same time, the regime began a campaign against religion by arresting clergy and reducing the number of religious people in monasteries; rumours even circulated that in 1958 Patriarch Justinian was under house arrest. Seeking closer contact with Western Europe, the regime allowed the hierarchy to meet foreign clergymen, especially from the Church of England. These diplomatic religious encounters played a double role. The regime realised that it could benefit from international ecclesiastical relations, while the image of Justinian in the West changed from that of “red patriarch” to that of a leader who was genuinely interested in his church's survival.

scholarly journals THE CONTROVERSY ON THE JURISDICTION OF THE PATRIARCHATE OF CONSTANTINOPLE OVER THE ORTHODOX DIASPORA IN THE FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY AND ITS OUTCOME

2019 ◽  
pp. 16-28
Author(s):  
Pavel V. Ermilov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Relevant Document ◽  
The Church ◽  
Canonical Status

One of the crucial challenges facing the Orthodox world is the necessity to regulate the canonical status of the Orthodox diaspora. The Council on Crete, held in 2016, accepted a relevant document and stated the willingness of all Orthodox Churches “to resolve the problem of the Orthodox diaspora and its organization in accordance with Orthodox ecclesiology, and the canonical tradition and practice of the Orthodox Church”. A model of a compromise that could reconcile the competing approaches of various Orthodox Churches has been long searched for. However, less and less attention is paid to the fact that the theory imposed by the Church of Constantinople is purely arbitrary and devoid of any solid reasons. Throughout the 20th century, it has been more than once challenged as pseudo-canonical. It is clear that any consensus based on erroneous theological assumptions will be leading to failure. This article is intended to show that the repeatedly refuted approach of the Church of Constantinople cannot help in formulating a truly canonical decision of the problem of diaspora.

scholarly journals The Aiud “Prison Saints.” History, Memory, and Lived Religion

Eurostudia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica Grigore
Keyword(s):  
Central And Eastern Europe ◽  
The Other ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Lived Religion ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Recent Past ◽  
Extreme Right ◽  
Communist Society ◽  
Popular Devotion ◽  
The Church

After the fall of communism in 1989, Romania, as others countries from Central and Eastern Europe, had to deal with its recent past marked by two dictatorships, one on the extreme right, the other on the extreme left. However, it seems that the post-communist society is rather preoccupied by the consequences of the communist regime than the fascist one. As the anti-communist narrative has become mainstream since the beginning of the 2000s, the victims of communist prisons received more and more attention. Several voices asked for the canonization of those prisoners that distinguished themselves for their belief. The Aiud “prison saints” are part of this current. Their stories are not simple and neither is the history: some of those who died in communist prisons were affiliated to the extreme right in the 1930s and the 1940s. While the Orthodox Church avoids to discuss their canonization, the new “saints” became the object of a popular devotion, which gathers together not only believers, but also representatives of the Church and the civil society. This article explores what the devotion for “prison saints” represents in the lived religion. Following the pilgrims to Aiud monastery and narratives concerning the “prison saints,” it appears that their veneration is not “natural,” but rather the result of a construction. As it turns out, lived religion is a vehicle for values diverging from the official democratic discourse.

scholarly journals THE POSITION OF THE SOVIET POWER TO CLERGY DURING OF TOTALITARIANISM FORMATION

2020 ◽  
Vol 67 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
K.V. Dzhumagaliyeva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Political System ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
Communist Regime ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Soviet Power ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Soviet Government ◽  
Religious Policy ◽  
The Church

From the first days of the establishment of Soviet power, its attitude to religion was determined. The new government separated religion from the state, thereby initially determining its position to the clergy. Having come to power, the Bolsheviks repealed the laws, where peoples were opposed on religious-national grounds. The Orthodox Church took a frankly negative position regarding not only the church poly of the Bolshevik state, but also its entire internal and external poly. At the beginning, the Soviet government treated denominations differentiated. In comparison with the adherents of the Orthodox Church, Muslims were in a slightly more preferred position. The reason was that in Muslim society Islam was not just a religion but a way of life. Violent changes in the traditional way of Muslim peoples could lead to large-scale protests against the new government. But the national and religious life of Muslim peoples did not correspond to the class-political system of Bolshevism. As a result, the communist regime was forced, through aggressive ideological, coercive and repressive measures, to impose its line in the field of national construction and national-religious life. As the religious policy of the Bolsheviks intensified in the regions of the traditional spread of Islam, discontent among Muslim believers increased.

Hidden Histories of Religious Music in a South African Coloured Community

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marie Jorritsma
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Church Music ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
Religious Music ◽  
Contemporary Performance ◽  
Apartheid Regime ◽  
The Church

This chapter explores persistent traces of both indigenous and Euro-colonial music traditions in the church music of South African coloured people (a group of mixed racial heritage that was marginalized and oppressed by the apartheid regime). The author characterizes these persistent historical traces in coloured people’s performance style as “hidden transcripts” (following James Scott). Through the powerful historiographic tool of ethnomusicological listening, this chapter points to colonial as well as “African” traces surviving in contemporary musics and locates both encounter and resistance in contemporary performance styles, even those most closely related to colonial repertoires.

scholarly journals Serbian church chant in the service of national ideology

Muzikologija ◽  
2016 ◽  
pp. 135-150
Author(s):  
Vesna Peno ◽  
Ivana Vesic
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Church Music ◽  
Early 20Th Century ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Intellectual Elite ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Goals ◽  
National Ideology ◽  
Folk Church

In this paper we investigate the process of the creation and embodiment of the concept of Serbian folk church chant throughout the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century among Serbian intellectuals and scholars. In order to indicate its main dimensions we focused on church music narratives of that time. Due to a detailed analysis of discussions and writings in periodicals as well as the published chant collections themselves, we were able to assess the dominant interpretations of the historical development of church singing in the Serbian Orthodox church. Looking closely at suppositions made about the origins and formation of church chants through the history of the Serbian church we could unveil their character e.g. whether they were the result of previously done research or were just a product of speculative thinking. In addition, we formed assumptions on the embeddedness of the concept of Serbian folk church chant in influential narratives on national identity and culture developed among the Serbian political and intellectual elite. The aim of our investigation was to show that the concept of Serbian folk church chant was not only determined by socio-political strivings in the Serbian state but that it was also a product of the wider political and cultural goals of the Serbian elite. Finally, we sought to suggest the important role played by 19th and early 20th century Serbian church music scholars in the process of imagining the Serbian nation.

scholarly journals Church Music as Reflected in the Journal Biserica Ortodoxă Română [Romanian Orthodox Church] in the Second Half of the Twentieth Century

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 336-355
Author(s):  
Elena Chircev
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Church Music ◽  
Political Regime ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Musical Works ◽  
Romanian Orthodox Church ◽  
Romanian Orthodox

AbstractThe journal Biserica Ortodoxă Română [The Romanian Orthodox Church] was founded on November 17, 1873, at the initiative of Romania’s Primate Metropolitan Nifon Rusailă (1789-1875). The aim of the publication – whose first issue was launched on October 1, 1874 – was to inform the clergy and believers about the activity of the Holy Synod of the Romanian Orthodox Church. In the 146 years since the publication of its first issue, the journal’s contributors have included outstanding personalities of the Romanian Orthodoxy, such as Priest-Professors Dumitru Stăniloae, Ioan G. Coman, Ene Branişte, Liviu Stan, Mircea Păcurariu, Ion Bria a.o. Church music was present in the journal’s pages both through articles, studies and reviews, and through scores of choral or psaltic works written by Church servants among whom Bishop Melchisedec Ștefănescu of Roman at the end of the 19th century, or Deacon Grigore Panțiru, Professor Nicolae Lungu, Priest-Professor Gheorghe Șoima, Archd. Sebastian Barbu-Bucur, Ph.D., Priest-Professors Constantin Drăgușin, Nicu Moldoveanu, Alexie Buzera a.o. in the 20th century. This paper summarizes these contributions and shows how the change of political regime in mid-20th-century Romania influenced the topics of the articles and the religious musical works published in the journal of the Romanian Patriarchate.

scholarly journals Polityka rosyjskiej Cerkwi prawosławnej wobec cudownych obrazów katolickiej proweniencji na wschodnich terenach dawnej Rzeczypospolitej w XIX w. na kilku przykładach

Porta Aurea ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 71-90
Author(s):  
Volha Barysenka
Keyword(s):  
20Th Century ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
Orthodox Church ◽  
Sacred Art ◽  
Christian Art ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Catholic Churches ◽  
The Church

Due to the liquidation of the Union in 1839 and the transfer of Catholic churches to the Orthodox Church after the rebellions of 1830–1831 and 1863–1864 in the territories of the former Polish -Lithuanian Commonwealth which were incorporated into the Russian Empire, a great deal of sacred art pieces of western -Christian art became property of the Orthodox Church. As per directions of the Church authorities, the images of Jesus Christ, Our Lady and the Saints of the Undivided Church could remain in Orthodox churches, while those of Catholic and Greek -Catholic Saints were to be given back to Catholics. The images that were left in Orthodox churches were to be changed to meet the Orthodox rules. That usually meant addition of an inscription or repainting of the image partially or fully. The situation was different in relation to miraculous images. After being transferred to the Orthodox churches they remained unchanged, even in the cases when their iconography was unacceptable for the Orthodox Church or when they represented Catholic Saints, such as Ignatius Loyola or Anthony of Padua. This was related to the effect miraculous images had on local communities. The cult of miraculous images was above -confessional; believers of different Christian confessions went on pilgrimages to them. Leaving these images as is they were aimed at converting Catholics to Orthodoxy to strengthen the position of the Russian Empire on the land of the former Polish - -Lithuanian Commonwealth. To justify the functioning of western -Christian images in the Orthodox Church, both new legends were developed stating the images had Orthodox origins and were taken by Catholics, and attempts of theological rationale were made. These activities were successful: the images that survived through the disasters of the 20th century are still in the cult of the Orthodox Church along with the legends of their Orthodox origin developed in the 19th century.

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