My Favourite Byzantine (Ruthenian) Hymn
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How it feels to be Byzantine at the moment…
Byzantine Back and Forth: Slavonic
A while ago I wrote a post talking about the exchanges you’ll commonly hear in the Byzantine circles (e.g. “Glory to Jesus Christ/Glory Forever”). In the Ruthenian Catholic Church you’ll often hear greetings and responses in Slavonic. I couldn’t find anywhere on the Internet to help learn them, so here’s my best attempt to list them all out phonetically and record them onto MP3….
Glory to Jesus Christ/Glory forever (Download)
“Slava Isusu Christu” (SLA-VA EE-SUE-SUE KRI-STU)
“Slava na Veeky” (SLA-VA NA VyEE-KEE)
An alternative dialect has it as
“Slava vo V’iki” (SLA-VA VO VyEE-KEE)
Christ is born/Glorify Him (Download)
“Christos Razhdajetsja” (KRIS-TOS ROZH-DA-YET-SyAH)
“Slaveety Yoho” SLA-VEE-TE YEAH-HO)
Christ is risen/Indeed He is risen (Download)
“Christos Voskres” (KRIS-TOS VOS-KRES)
“Voistynu Voskres” (VO-EE-STEE-NU VOS-KRES)
An alternative dialect has it as:
“Christos Voskrese” (KRIS-TOS VOS-KRES-E)
“Voistinu Voskrese” (VO-EE-STEE-NU VOS-KRES-E)
Christ is among us/He is and will be (Download)
“Chrystos Posredi nas” (KRIS-TOS POS-RE-DI NAS)
“I yest i budet” (YEST EE BOO-DET)
I hope this helps! If anyone out there is a Slavonic expert and would like to correct my pronunciation or phonetic spelling, please leave me a comment! Also, if you’d like to teach the world the responses in Greek, Russian etc, please let me know 🙂
Byzantine Music
If you’ve listened to my recordings of the writings of the Early Church Fathers (an area of this website I plan to soon organize properly), you will recognise the first few seconds of singing from the video below:
This video is a bit of computer trickery to make it appear as though these men are singing in Hagia Sophia (“holy wisdom”), the former cathedral of Istanbul, widely acknowledged as one of the most beautiful churches in history. After spending 500 years as a mosque after the Ottoman conquest, today it functions as a Museum.
Byzantine Back and Forth
This week is Holy Week and as the LifeTeen band isn’t playing this weekend, it means I can spend Easter at my favourite church, an Eastern Rite (Byzantine) Catholic parish near to where I live. Alleluia!…well, almost 😉
One of the things I love about the Byzantine Rite is the standard set of greetings and responses which take place during the year. For example, when I first attended the parish I got there very early on in the morning and heard the priest greet a parishioner with the exclamation: “Glory to Jesus Christ!”, to which the parishioner responded “Glory forever!”. This seems to me like a wonderful way to begin any conversation! 🙂
These responses change throughout the liturgical year. At “Nativity” (Christmas) it becomes:
“Christ is born!”
“Glorify Him!”
We will shortly be entering the “Pascha” (Easter) season when it will change to:
“Christ is Risen!”
“Indeed He is Risen!”
And at certain blessings, such as at the end of Great Vespers or at the Kiss of Peace:
“Christ is among us!”
“He is and will be!”
These all seem wonderful ways of proclaiming the faith! Glory to Jesus Christ…
Three objections to Catholicism
Tonight I saw a post on Facebook and thought I would reply. The resulting threads were rather disappointing and messy, but I thought I’d share the original post and my replies in case they garner some reasoned responses here.
PWJ: S4E60 – TSL 30 – “Under Pressure”
The patient is about to be in a high-stress situation and Screwtape wants his nephew to exploit this. Richaél from the Clumsy Theosis podcast joins David to unpack this devilish advice.
S4E60: “Under Pressure” (Download)
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