In 1844, Serbian patriarch Josif Rajacic served two central annual Liturgies,
at the feasts of Pasha and Penticost, in the Greek church of Holy Trinity in
Vienna; these were accompanied by the four-part choral music. The appearance
of new music in several orthodox temples in Habsburg Monarchy (including this
one) during the first half of the nineteenth century, became an additional
problem in a long chain of troubles that had disturbed the ever imperiled
relations between the local churches in Balkans, especially the Greek and
Serbian Orthodox. The official epistle that was sent from the ecomenical
throne to all sister orthodox churches, with the main request to halt this
strange and untraditional musical practice, provoked reactions from Serbian
spiritual leader, who actually blessed the introduction of polyphonic music,
and the members of Greek parish at the church of St. George in Vienna, who
were also involved with it. The correspondence between Vienna and
Constantinople reflected two opposite perceptions. The first one could named
?traditional? and the other one ?enlightening?, because of the apologies for
the musical reform based on the unequivocal ideology of Enlightenment. In
this article the pro et contra arguments for the new music tendencies in
Greek and Serbian orthodox churches are analyzed mainly from the viewpoint of
the theological discourse, including the two phenomena that seriously
endangered the very entity of Orthodox faith. The first phenomenon is the
ethnophiletism which, from the Byzantine era to the modern age, was gradually
dividing the unique and single body of Orthodox church into the so-called
?national? churches, guided by their own, almost political interests, often
at odds with the interests of other sister churches. The second phenomenon is
the Westernization of the ?Orthodox soul? that came as a sad result of
countless efforts of orthodox theological leaders to defend the Orthodox
independence from the aggressive Roman Catholic proselytism. ?The Babylonian
captivity of the Orthodox church?, as Georg Florovsky used to say, began when
Orthodox theologians started to apply the Western theological methods and
approaches in their safeguarding of the Orthodox faith and especially in
ecclesiastical education. In this way the new cultural and social tendencies
which gripped Europe after the movements of Reformation and
Contra-Reformation were adopted without critical thinking among Orthodox
nations, especially among the representatives of the Ortodox diaspora at the
West. Observed from this extensive context, the four-part music in Orthodox
churces in Austria shows one of many diverse requirements demanded from the
people living in a foreign land, in an alien and often hostile environment,
to assimilate its values, in this case related to the adoption of its musical
practices.
"Rosyjskie Wilno" Andrzeja Murawjowa
