Let's Talk About Hymnals

[Commander Xenophon]

I am a Cantor. A Greek Orthodox equivalent of a choir director or precentor. I find hymanls fascinating. Recently I had a really interesting discussion with @MarkRohfrietsch about Lutheran hymnals, and I thought I'd post a thread here so we can talk about hymnals in general.

Now, Mark suggested I buy a copy of his denomination's Lutheran Service Book, and Inlove this hymnal. I had recently obtained a 1982 Episcopal hymnal, because I heard it contained several Eastern hymns, but I don't see it. On the other hand, two of the four Lutheran Sunday communion services began with our Great Ektenia. He also suggested I buy a specific hymnal used by a Lutheran ancestor of mine (my grandmother's cousin) who was a pastor in the Augustana; I am waiting for it to arrive.

So I'm going to kick of this thread by listing the hymnals I have, starting with the ones I use at my church. Because there are so many musical settings and variants of the Orthodox liturgy, and because we mainly use Byzantine Chant in my parish, I am not going to touch the music books hemselves, but just list out the hymnals that contain the text for the hymns, and describe their function:

• The Horologion - This contains, in addition to prayers, the Hymns of the Divine Office and the Divine Liturgy, as well as the prayers of the former (usually all of them, including those said by the priest, but usually an Horlogion does not contain the priests prayers in the Liturgy, or Mass / Eucharist).
• The Octoechos: contains the hymns sung throughout most of the year, on an eight week rotation (we have a "tone of the week" and the text of some of our hymns changes to that tone).
• The Triodion - this pargely supercedes the Octoechos starting on the Third Sunday Before Lent; the name is because in Morning Prayer, our longest hymns, the Canons, consist of Nine Odes or Canticles (which either are, or are hymns based upon, the Nine Biblical Canticles, like the Song of the Three Children and The Magnificat). The canons in the Octoechos usually only have two Odes, but those in Lent and until a week after Pentecost have three Odes. Hence Triodion. We use this book in Lent and Holy Week.
• The Pentecostarion, also known as the Flowery Triodion, we use from Easter Sunday until around the Second Sunday after Pentecost. It contains the hymns of Eastertide, the Ascenscion, Pentecost, and All Saints Day (the same day as Trinity Sunday in the West).
• The Menaion - This contains the hymns sung on fixed holy days throughout the year. There is a Festal Menaion translated by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware and Mother Mary, which contains English translations of the most important feasts, like Christmas, the Annunciation, the Transfiguration, and the Exaltation of the Cross. In my parish, on the chant stand we use the Monthly Menaion, twelve volumes, in Greek and English, with special notation "///" at the end of stanzas, to help us sing it in Byzantine Chant.

There is a book called the Typikon which regulates which hymns are said at which services. The name translates as "Rule." Similiar books existed at one time in the Western Rites, called "Customaries" or "Pies," which the English reformers were very critical of, not so much the idea. but the apparent complexoty of the Pie as used in the pre-Reformation Sarum Rite. Of course later high church Anglicans produced incredibly ornate guides to the services which are as complex as our Typikon, although not binding, like the famous Ritual Notes.

Now, I collect Protestant hymnals, because I love Protestant hymns. To me, they, and also Syriac and Armenian hymns and Coptic Tasbeha, have the same ethos Byzantine chant is meant to have, an ethos different from the beautiful, exquisite and inaccessible hymns of the Slavonic tradition, or of Renaissance era Roman Catholicism (like Byrd, Tallis and Palestrina) which require a trained choir. Imlove those hymns, and I believe there should be a place for both congregational songing and choir-led singing.

I have the following Protestant hymnals:

• A 19th century Moravian hymnal; text only, no music, sadly. The text is classically Moravian: sentimental, sweet, pietistic.
• A 1917 Lutheran hymnal, in electronic form, very beautiful
• A 1918-ish Methodist Episcopal hymnal, very beautiful, very traditional.
• A 1965 Methodist Episcopal hymnal. I like this one even more.
• A 1978 Augsburg Fortress Lutheran Book of Worship (the "Green Book). No opinion yet.
• A 1982 Episcopal Hymnal - I love the mix of traditional and modern language and the Phos Hilarion. However, it does not have "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna," one of my favorite Protestant hymns.
• A 1992 UMC hymnal. This is really bland and watered down. Not a fan.
• The new LCMS Lutheran Service Book - This is lively, has contemporary yet dignified language, and has Hosanna, Loud Hosanna and elements from the Orthodox divine liturgy. If the LCMS entered into full communion with the Ecumenical Patriarchate tomorrow, I would be thrilled, because this book is up to Orthodox standards.

I have on order the Lutheran Hymnal and Service Book (the "Red Book") and a 1940 Episcopal hymnal. I might also buy the 1940 Lutheran hymnal. Used Protestant hymnals are so cheap, each one costs $5 with shipping, and to me they are worth it

So what else am I missing? In particular, what are the historic hymnals of the Roman Catholics and traditional Baptists and Reformed Christians? I have heard the Southern Baptist historically made very heavy use of "square note singing" and a hymnal called the Sacred Harp or a variant called Southern Harmony.

With Roman Catholics, I have read the music to accompany the Missal is largely found in books called the Graduales, but that the main text for all the hymns historically used in the Tridentine mass is in the Breviary and Missal. And post-1969, most parishes are using Misalettes, published annually. which seem, from what I've seen of them, to not bevery good. I read the Bishop of Marquette is banning them and publishing a diocesan hymnal, which sounds like a very good idea.

So...lets talk hymnals!

 

[All4Christ]

My previous church before I became Orthodox used the Celebration Hymnal (on the occasion that hymns were sung).

Btw - I love going to library book sales, especially at the local Christian college, as they tend to have great older hymnals! I love getting ones from the 1800s, early 1900s, etc.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

So I also really like the Lutheran Book of Worship (the "Green Book" of Augsburg Fortress). I haven't had the chance to dig into it deeply enough to find out what infuriated the LCMS people, but the best part of the Lutheran Service Book it also features: liturgies that start eith the Litany of Peace or Great Litany from the Byzantine Rite.

@MarkRohfrietsch @ViaCrucis and other Lutherans:'Did that start with the "Green Book" or am I going to find that in older Lutheran hymnals?

In the Green Book, the three liturgies other than the Chorale Eucharist begin with it; in the Lutheran Service Book, the first two liturgies (or Divine Services, in Lutheran parlance) begin with it, whereas the others appear to begin with something more typical of the Roman/Western Rite tradition.

 

[All4Christ]

Have you checked out the St Ambrose Hymnal? The Western Rite Orthodox hymnal?

The Saint Ambrose Hymnal: A Collection of Hymns and Service Music for use with Western Rite Services https://www.amazon.com/dp/0971404690/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_-Ms.wb4FR0E8J

 

[Commander Xenophon]

Have you checked out the St Ambrose Hymnal? The Western Rite Orthodox hymnal?

The Saint Ambrose Hymnal: A Collection of Hymns and Service Music for use with Western Rite Services https://www.amazon.com/dp/0971404690/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_awd_-Ms.wb4FR0E8J

No, but I will. Alas I don't suppose its directly connected with the Ambrosian Rite, of which I am a fan. Fr. Aidan Keller translated the Ambrosian Rite ordinary of the mass if younare interested, although we will do that in another thread.

 

[All4Christ]

No, but I will. Alas I don't suppose its directly connected with the Ambrosian Rite, of which I am a fan. Fr. Aidan Keller translated the Ambrosian Rite ordinary of the mass if younare interested, although we will do that in another thread.

I'm definitely interested. The parish I attended that uses the St Ambrose hymnal uses a slightly modified version of the Tridentine Mass...beautiful service, though I like the Slavonic style St John Chrysostom Divine Liturgy most. I love seeing the universality of the Church with that.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

I'm definitely interested. The parish I attended that uses the St Ambrose hymnal uses a slightly modified version of the Tridentine Mass...beautiful service, though I like the Slavonic style St John Chrysostom Divine Liturgy most. I love seeing the universality of the Church with that.

I believe that the Orthodox Church has never had a uniform worship; remember, the Byzantine Rite, which the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is a part of, gradually replaced several regional rites like the West Syriac, Jerusalemite and Alexandrian Rites, and has always existed in at least two forms.

Historically, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is an adaptation of the ancient Antiochene Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles (the Syriac Orthodox and I think the Syriac Catholics have variants of both in their service books, amd the Maronites also have a variant of this Anaphora). The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil apparently is a recension of the bulkier Divine Liturgy of St. James, the ancient liturgy of Jerusalem, which we still use in Eastern Orthodoxy on special occasions, and which the Syriac Orthodox, Catholics and Maronites use heavily. The Copts also use a different, Alexandrianized version of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil. Our Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, which never completely died out in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, and which has in recent years been celebrated on some occasions on his feast, is the basis of the Coptic liturgy of St. Cyril.

The Islamic persecutions for a time forced all lf the Chalcedonian Orthodox Patriarchates to reside in Constantinople, and caused the liturgy of Constantinople, in particular, the three Divine Liturgies of St. John, St. Basil and St. Gregory (the Presanctified) to become the standard, based on the so called Sabaite Typikon, which was developed partially at the Monastery of St. Sabbas in Jerusalem, and partially by the holy icon-defending monks of the Studion monastery in Constantinople. The Cathedral Typikon was used in the Hagia Sophia and the other cathedrals; it lacked the kontakia, troparia and most other extra-Biblical hymns, focusing on the Biblical Odes and the Psalms.

There are, in the Byzantine Rite at present, three active varieties of the Typikons in use:

• The Sabaite Typikon, according to the use of Mount Athos, used in Russia since the Nikonian reforms, and in nearly all monasteries, and in most, perhaps all Slavonic Orthodox churches.
• The Violakis Typikon, which many scholars now believe preserve traces of the old Cathedral Typikon that had been preserved in the Greek parishes and never died out, which is used in the parishes of the Church of Greece, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria. I think the Albanians and Romanians also use this.
• The Pre-Nikonian Sabaite Typikon - an older recension of the Sabaite Typikon, used by the Russian Old Rite Orthodox, "Old Believers," both those in their own independent hierarchies, those in communion with other autocephalous churches, and Edinovertsy in communion with the Moscow Patroarchate Or ROCOR (lioe the Church of the Nativity in Erie, PA, which sells prayer books, their Horologion, which is very nice, and not really incompatoble in any sense with the standard ones; it also features the Troparia and Kontakia for every day in the hear), and Lestovkas (the leather prayer ropes used by the Old Believers). Technically the priestless Old Believers like the Pomortsy also use this Typikon, or portions of it, as they follow it when celebrating all lf the services one can do without a priest (the Hours, Orthros, Vespers, the Typika, which is the liturgy but with no Eucharist served, the Akathist, and Baptism).

So the Western Rite really does not contribute to disunity in Orthodox worship. I used to disagree with ecumenical reconciliation, and was close to being an Old Calendarist, but I think now we should try to restore communion first eith the Oriental Orthodox, then with the Assyrians, and then with Rome. And this means a diversity of liturgical rites.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his Introduction to Liturgical Theology, argues that absolute unity was never thought by the Church Fathers to be a neccessity. Indeed, remember it was St. Ambrose the Great, who created the Ambrosian Rite by recising the service books to elimimate Arian influences, establishing his own lectionary, and introducing Greek-style antiphonal singing, who famously counseled St. Augustine, who asked him what to do about liturgical observances on his upcoming trip to Rome, whose liturgy was then as now very different from the Milanese, "When in Rome, Do as the Romans."

My point is this: don't be afraid to enjoy the liturgies of the Western Rite Orthodox, or indeed of our Western Christian brethren. However, I do agree with you the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is the most beautiful in existence.

 

[All4Christ]

I believe that the Orthodox Church has never had a uniform worship; remember, the Byzantine Rite, which the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is a part of, gradually replaced several regional rites like the West Syriac, Jerusalemite and Alexandrian Rites, and has always existed in at least two forms.

Historically, the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is an adaptation of the ancient Antiochene Anaphora of the Twelve Apostles (the Syriac Orthodox and I think the Syriac Catholics have variants of both in their service books, amd the Maronites also have a variant of this Anaphora). The Divine Liturgy of St. Basil apparently is a recension of the bulkier Divine Liturgy of St. James, the ancient liturgy of Jerusalem, which we still use in Eastern Orthodoxy on special occasions, and which the Syriac Orthodox, Catholics and Maronites use heavily. The Copts also use a different, Alexandrianized version of the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil. Our Divine Liturgy of St. Mark, which never completely died out in the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa, and which has in recent years been celebrated on some occasions on his feast, is the basis of the Coptic liturgy of St. Cyril.

The Islamic persecutions for a time forced all lf the Chalcedonian Orthodox Patriarchates to reside in Constantinople, and caused the liturgy of Constantinople, in particular, the three Divine Liturgies of St. John, St. Basil and St. Gregory (the Presanctified) to become the standard, based on the so called Sabaite Typikon, which was developed partially at the Monastery of St. Sabbas in Jerusalem, and partially by the holy icon-defending monks of the Studion monastery in Constantinople. The Cathedral Typikon was used in the Hagia Sophia and the other cathedrals; it lacked the kontakia, troparia and most other extra-Biblical hymns, focusing on the Biblical Odes and the Psalms.

There are, in the Byzantine Rite at present, three active varieties of the Typikons in use:

• The Sabaite Typikon, according to the use of Mount Athos, used in Russia since the Nikonian reforms, and in nearly all monasteries, and in most, perhaps all Slavonic Orthodox churches.
• The Violakis Typikon, which many scholars now believe preserve traces of the old Cathedral Typikon that had been preserved in the Greek parishes and never died out, which is used in the parishes of the Church of Greece, the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and the Patriarchates of Antioch and Alexandria. I think the Albanians and Romanians also use this.
• The Pre-Nikonian Sabaite Typikon - an older recension of the Sabaite Typikon, used by the Russian Old Rite Orthodox, "Old Believers," both those in their own independent hierarchies, those in communion with other autocephalous churches, and Edinovertsy in communion with the Moscow Patroarchate Or ROCOR (lioe the Church of the Nativity in Erie, PA, which sells prayer books, their Horologion, which is very nice, and not really incompatoble in any sense with the standard ones; it also features the Troparia and Kontakia for every day in the hear), and Lestovkas (the leather prayer ropes used by the Old Believers). Technically the priestless Old Believers like the Pomortsy also use this Typikon, or portions of it, as they follow it when celebrating all lf the services one can do without a priest (the Hours, Orthros, Vespers, the Typika, which is the liturgy but with no Eucharist served, the Akathist, and Baptism).

So the Western Rite really does not contribute to disunity in Orthodox worship. I used to disagree with ecumenical reconciliation, and was close to being an Old Calendarist, but I think now we should try to restore communion first eith the Oriental Orthodox, then with the Assyrians, and then with Rome. And this means a diversity of liturgical rites.

Fr. Alexander Schmemann, in his Introduction to Liturgical Theology, argues that absolute unity was never thought by the Church Fathers to be a neccessity. Indeed, remember it was St. Ambrose the Great, who created the Ambrosian Rite by recising the service books to elimimate Arian influences, establishing his own lectionary, and introducing Greek-style antiphonal singing, who famously counseled St. Augustine, who asked him what to do about liturgical observances on his upcoming trip to Rome, whose liturgy was then as now very different from the Milanese, "When in Rome, Do as the Romans."

My point is this: don't be afraid to enjoy the liturgies of the Western Rite Orthodox, or indeed of our Western Christian brethren. However, I do agree with you the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom is the most beautiful in existence.

My husband and I at times have some contention regarding this (good-natured!). He is a very strong traditionalist, especially in regards to liturgy. I do think that Orthodoxy should not be limited by rites, though I recognize some complexity in it, especially when churches who were previously a different church (I.e. Evangelical to Orthodox, like the church I attended). There were some influences that did not seem authentic to Orthodox beliefs, such as keeping the Celebration hymnal in the pews (and singing their favorites from it), despite many songs being theologically different (directly conflicting) than Orthodox theology, especially in soteriology. I think having unified leadership guide the different rites would help a lot in easing transitions to additional rites while ensuring faithfulness to Orthodox beliefs.

 

[All4Christ]

These are a few of the ones I've gotten from library sales. They aren't from Traditional Churches (unlike the ones you currently have, from what you've said), but I enjoy collecting them and looking through them:

Songs of the Peacemaker

Sacred Songs

Children's Praise No. 1

 

[hedrick]

The newest PCUSA hymnal, Glory To God, 2013, is one of the better ones we're produced.

However if you're interested in liturgy, our source would be the Book of Common Worship, 1993. It's pretty traditional. The communion liturgy (specifically the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving) is based loosely on the Anaphora of the Apostolic Tradition. What actually goes on in our churches is usually briefer, though the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving is typically done pretty in a fairly full form.

 

[dzheremi]

I'm not even sure that my church makes a concerted effort in the modern day to produce hymnals of any kind. Granted, there's probably a lot out there in Arabic that I don't know about or have access to since that's not my language, but it seems more the case that the hymns of the liturgy proper are passed down orally (as is traditional; the tradition of favoring blind cantors, which has not died out in Egypt even to this day, makes a written hymnal unnecessary for the people who have been the primary transmitters of Coptic hymnody, such as Mikhail Batanouny of yesteryear, or Gad Lewis of today). As far as I can tell, the earliest attempts at writing Coptic hymns down with musical notation that could be followed by non-Egyptians came only in the 18th century or so when Western (particularly French) musicologists first took an interest in Coptic music. I know that Fr. Athanasius Iskander of St. Mary's in Ontario, Canada published a hymnal in English in 1990 (and has done several revisions of it since; now it's on the internet as a PDF) -- though its contents are not, strictly speaking, Coptic (mostly it is translations from Arabic popular praise songs, hymns for particular feasts or months, and even a few songs just credited to "Traditional" or other church's traditions...grumble, grumble) -- but still I don't think you will ever find a Coptic hymnal at a book sale or what have you. Usually when I see things labeled as "Coptic hymnal" or what have you a little of investigation reveals that what we have is a Westerner who found a liturgy book (these do have our liturgical hymns in them, after all) or Agpeya and assumed that it is a separate book full of nothing but hymns, for some reason (I have seen the Agpeya referred to as the "Coptic Horologion", but now that I read in the OP what the EO horologion actually contains, I don't think that's correct, because it does not have liturgical hymns in it). To my knowledge, we do not have such a book, or if we do I have never seen it or heard about it (and none of the deacons, priests, monks, or bishops who I have met have ever talked about it, which now that I think about it would be really odd if we have such a thing).

 

[Commander Xenophon]

The newest PCUSA hymnal, Glory To God, 2013, is one of the better ones we're produced.

However if you're interested in liturgy, our source would be the Book of Common Worship, 1993. It's pretty traditional. The communion liturgy (specifically the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving) is based loosely on the Anaphora of mthe Apostolic Tradition. What actually goes on in our churches is usually briefer, though the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving is typically done pretty in a fairly full form.

I am more interested in older hymnals; your 1993 Book of Common Worship is very similiar to the Methodist Book of Worship and Hymnal from that same timeframe, which I am not a big fan of; I don't really like the Anaphora of the Apostolic Tradition that much because it is extremely brief; its more of an outline of what an anaphora should contain (loosely following the Rite of Antioch) than an anaphora proper, although the Ethiopians do use it with their liturgy (albeit after a long and liturgically rich intro).

What I'd like to see are your hymnals and worship resources from the 1930s-60s. I tend to like material from this era, pre Vatican II; you still have traditional language (and not the awful modern English of ICEL, with the infamous mistranslation of et cum spiritu tuo as "and also with you," versus "and with Thy spirit" (the most accurate way of rendering it in English, although "and with your spirit" is the most accurate way of rendering it in modern English), which anyone familiar with the Greek, Slavonic or Syriac liturgy knows is a huge error.

My big regret about the Lutheran Service Book of the LCMS is that they didn't fix that, although in all fairness to them, most scholars had supported, for the wrong reasons, the flawed ICEL translation. Actually we have to thank Pope Benedict for pushing for that to get fixed; he really made sure the ball got rolling on a new translation and shook up ICEL, and as a result, the new English version of the 1969 Roman Missal is much better.

@MarkRohfrietsch , do you think in their next version of the Lutheran Service Book, the LCMS will fix that, so it reads "and with your spirit"? It seems to me doing so would be in accord with the LCMS traditionalist values.

@Hedrick1, moving on, the reason I like books from the 1950s-60s is that the Liturgical Movement was starting to really bear fruit, but the language is still traditional. I have a copy of the 1903 Presbyterian Book of Worship but would like to obtain one from the mid 20th century, along with a hymnal.

You also mentioned you thought the new hymnal is one of the better ones your denomination produced. Can you go into detail on that? Also, do you know if Eco is continuing to use PCUSA hymnals or if they are going to publish their own?

Also, the Trinity Hymnal is the main hymnal for the PCA and OPC, right?

 

[Commander Xenophon]

I'm not even sure that my church makes a concerted effort in the modern day to produce hymnals of any kind. Granted, there's probably a lot out there in Arabic that I don't know about or have access to since that's not my language, but it seems more the case that the hymns of the liturgy proper are passed down orally (as is traditional; the tradition of favoring blind cantors, which has not died out in Egypt even to this day, makes a written hymnal unnecessary for the people who have been the primary transmitters of Coptic hymnody, such as Mikhail Batanouny of yesteryear, or Gad Lewis of today). As far as I can tell, the earliest attempts at writing Coptic hymns down with musical notation that could be followed by non-Egyptians came only in the 18th century or so when Western (particularly French) musicologists first took an interest in Coptic music. I know that Fr. Athanasius Iskander of St. Mary's in Ontario, Canada published a hymnal in English in 1990 (and has done several revisions of it since; now it's on the internet as a PDF) -- though its contents are not, strictly speaking, Coptic (mostly it is translations from Arabic popular praise songs, hymns for particular feasts or months, and even a few songs just credited to "Traditional" or other church's traditions...grumble, grumble) -- but still I don't think you will ever find a Coptic hymnal at a book sale or what have you. Usually when I see things labeled as "Coptic hymnal" or what have you a little of investigation reveals that what we have is a Westerner who found a liturgy book (these do have our liturgical hymns in them, after all) or Agpeya and assumed that it is a separate book full of nothing but hymns, for some reason (I have seen the Agpeya referred to as the "Coptic Horologion", but now that I read in the OP what the EO horologion actually contains, I don't think that's correct, because it does not have liturgical hymns in it). To my knowledge, we do not have such a book, or if we do I have never seen it or heard about it (and none of the deacons, priests, monks, or bishops who I have met have ever talked about it, which now that I think about it would be really odd if we have such a thing).

You know, the Coptic Chant was never, to my knowledge, notated musically, unlike Ethiopian Chant; the Ethiopians and the Byzantines alone had musical notation; Coptic and Syriac music was based on oral tradition. But actually many famous early hymnals from the 18th and 19th centuries lack musical notation, and only have the words.

In my opinion, the hymnals of the Eastern Orthodox Church are our un-notated service books that consist primarily of hymns, like the Octoechos, the Menaion, and the Triodion/Pentecostarion, but since, like in your church, all our services are sung, even the Book of Needs is a hymnal insofar as it has what the priest chants at weddings, funerals and so on.

There is in the Russian Traditiom a book called the Obikhod, which is perhaps the closest thing to a modern Protestant hymnal in Orthodoxy; it is a book with the most commonly sung chants and hymns found in parishes set to music. It has not yet been translated into English, but a major Orthodox seminary in the US (St. Tikhon's, which publishes very good liturgical books) is working on such a translation and will be releasing it soon, if we're lucky, later this year. That will make it easier for me potentially to sing along if I visit a Russian/English bilingual parish, and it might also really go a long way towards improving the quality of music in the OCA; in a lot of English-only mission parishes this has really suffered due to simplistic one-off translations of the liturgy designed to facilitate congregational singing.

I think the Coptic hymnals are basically the books of the Annual Psalmody, the Khiak Psalmody and the Euchologion, and also various collections of the Praises written mainly in Arabic. The Psalmody is almost exclusively hymns, with very little rubrical content, whereas your Euchologion, unlike the Priest's Service Books in the Orthodox Church (the Liturgikon) doesn't contain just the priest's chant and the rubrics; actually, your Euchologion is notoriously vague when it comes for prescriptive rubrics regarding manual gestures and acts your priests make at thr altar, to the extent that there is some extremely slight variation in how the Coptic liturgy is served depending on where a given parish priest spent his "forty days" of monastic instruction before ordination. But even in the Byzantine Rite, our liturgikons stop short of describing everything, which is why formal training is always required in the Orthodox Church to do everything correctly, and our church also has a huge diversity of minor regional variations in manual acts (three vs. five prosphora. do we kiss the cross and chalice or not, et cetera).

What your Euchologion has that makes it, in my opinion, a hymnal, is it contains the words for all the hymns sung by the deacons and the congregation in the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, St. Gregory and St. Cyril, and in the Morning and Evening Raising of Incense (making it indispensable at Saturday Night Vespers along with the Khiak or Annual Psalmody), and also, the printed and PDF editions I have also have some seasonal proper hymns and praises; not a lot, but some.

There is another very expensive Coptic service book containing all the liturgies for Holy Week; I also believe we should classify this as a hymnal for the same reasons. It has all the congregational hymns starting with the Holy Unction service on the Last Friday of Lent, through Palm Sunday, the General Funeral, and concluding with Bright Saturday and Pascha. It also has all the scripture lessons in full. It's pricey, and some of the English translation is, to be frank, sloppy, but its very interesting. I don't have one; a friend of mine who is Oriental Orthodox who recently stayed with me showed me one.

He also showed me a book given to him as surplus by the monks at St. Anthony's, a very worn out, official publication called the Coptic Hymnal, which as far as I can remember mainly contained the congregational hymns from the Euchologion and Psalmody, and also a selection of praises.

I don't think the Agpeya is a hymnal; there is some congregational singing in it of the Kyries, and the Litanies are chanted by the deacons, when it is used communally, but, the service book is basically a Psalter, and the Psalms are read quietly even when in a congregation. This makes the Agpeya very different from an Eastern Orthodox Horologion; its much closer to a prayer book like our famous Jordanville Prayer Book, or a private Psalter (Being a fan of HTM, I like their Psalter for Prayer, which is based on traditional Russian Orthodox Psalters and has the Orthodox version of the Athanasian Creed).

Recently he suggested I buy for my collection (and I did) an app called the Coptic Reader, published by the Southern United States diocese. This app comes with the Agpeya for free. but for $35 you can get the texts for virtually every Coptic service, inclusing holy Matrimony, all the services of Holy Week, the Unction service, and a huge collection of the Praises, and most helpfully, it shows you what part of the Psalmody is proper for the day. This is something that really had me totally baffled with the annual Psalter. In the Eastern Orthodox Church we have something called the Typikon which specifies which hymns we are to sing, and when we sing them, which in my role as Cantor I use together with a liturgical calendar to prepare our chant stands and the priest for each daily service. This being Lent, for some reason we are doing the Canon of St. Andrew of Crete today; usually we would have done it on Tuesday, so sometimes the rubrics confuse even me. But at least I know where there are; in the Coptic Rite, I was completely stumped until I downloaded the Coptic Reader app.

I am sure there is a Coptic equivalent of the Typikon; I know the Armenians have a book called the Directory which serves the same purposes, and before the Tridentine simplification of the Roman Breviary, the Sarum Rite used in England had an infamous, extremely complicated book of this sort called the Pie. There were some polemics about the Pie written by the early Anglicans complaining that it took longer to find out what to sing than to actually sing it.

But the beauty of this Coptic Reader app is that it automates all that; I've been wanting something like that for the Byzantine Rite for years as it would eliminate about a quarter of my workload and help our parishes do a better job performing the divine services consistently and without the kind of mistakes that sometimes happen.

One final thing; my Oriental Orthodox friend was recently asked to do a formal study of the Coptic musical rite by the Church, and is being provided with a book comtaining the text of the Liturgy of St. Basil and corresponding Western-style musical notation. There are several books like this and they ramge in price from $40 to around $120.

 

[dzheremi]

You know, the Coptic Chant was never, to my knowledge, notated musically, unlike Ethiopian Chant

There have been attempts to do so by foreign musicologists since the 18th century, as I noted earlier. The Copts also have their own "hazzat" system since I don't know when, but that's not, strictly speaking, musical notation (it's sort of semi-there...it notes measure and pitch, but not anything like an actual musical note or the 'key' of the tune).

the Ethiopians and the Byzantines alone had musical notation; Coptic and Syriac music was based on oral tradition.

And yet the Syriacs at least have a type of hymnal in their chant treasury, the Beth Gazo. I don't know how they connect that to the actual tunes, but they've got the 8 mode system that would be familiar to any Byzantine (or Arab, for that matter, as the classical Arabic maqam system matches it exactly, from what I understand, though of course the names of each mode are different). Attempts to fit Coptic chant into the octoechos system were made quite late in the game, and mostly failed.

But actually many famous early hymnals from the 18th and 19th centuries lack musical notation, and only have the words.

True enough.

In my opinion, the hymnals of the Eastern Orthodox Church are our un-notated service books that consist primarily of hymns, like the Octoechos, the Menaion, and the Triodion/Pentecostarion, but since, like in your church, all our services are sung, even the Book of Needs is a hymnal insofar as it has what the priest chants at weddings, funerals and so on.

Oh, is that what you mean when you write 'hymnal'? Any book containing words for services which are sung? I took it to mean collections of hymns and only hymns (not hymns and priest's prayers and deacon's responses, etc.), which is what we lack. But if you mean essentially any book which has hymns in it, then we have lots of hymns: the liturgy books, the books for Laqqan and other special ceremonies, the books for Pascha, etc. Pretty much every book would be a hymnal, then. Even the Greek refrains between the litanies in every hour of the Tasbeha are sung (as are the litanies themselves, if you're talented enough).

I think the Coptic hymnals are basically the books of the Annual Psalmody, the Khiak Psalmody and the Euchologion, and also various collections of the Praises written mainly in Arabic.

Yes, this makes sense, given the above. I had misunderstood what you meant by hymnal. I had thought of the Psalmodies briefly, but of course those are for the structuring of the evening and midnight praises and other praises (such as the Kiahk praises), not the three liturgies themselves, so I didn't think they counted. Again, when I think of hymnals I think of Western Christianity where there are hymnal books in the church and everybody turns to page whatever for the day's hymns. We don't have anything like that. You can know which hymns are where by looking in the liturgy book, but that's not a hymnal, since it also has all the other parts of the liturgy like the priest's prayers, in addition to having rubrical content.

The Psalmody is almost exclusively hymns, with very little rubrical content, whereas your Euchologion, unlike the Priest's Service Books in the Orthodox Church (the Liturgikon) doesn't contain just the priest's chant and the rubrics; actually, your Euchologion is notoriously vague when it comes for prescriptive rubrics regarding manual gestures and acts your priests make at thr altar, to the extent that there is some extremely slight variation in how the Coptic liturgy is served depending on where a given parish priest spent his "forty days" of monastic instruction before ordination.

I don't know...they don't seem all that vague to me, but then I am used to them. I figure they must be pretty different than the Byzantine equivalent, though, since the times when we've had Byzantine visitors, they've seemed pretty lost. Haha. Besides, even though you are right about the variations, there is enough there that if you are paying attention you can follow along. And there also reference editions that go into more detail, though that's a relatively new phenomenon (e.g., there is a 'preparatory edition' of the liturgy of St. Basil edited by Fr. Abraam D. Sleman available on Coptic.net).

What your Euchologion has that makes it, in my opinion, a hymnal, is it contains the words for all the hymns sung by the deacons and the congregation in the Divine Liturgy of St. Basil, St. Gregory and St. Cyril, and in the Morning and Evening Raising of Incense (making it indispensable at Saturday Night Vespers along with the Khiak or Annual Psalmody), and also, the printed and PDF editions I have also have some seasonal proper hymns and praises; not a lot, but some.

See...to me, those are liturgy books. Yes, they contain the hymns of the liturgy, but all the other stuff that isn't hymns makes it difficult to directly compare them to the examples already given from the Methodists, PCUSA, etc. But if they're hymnals to you because they contain the hymns, then okay.

I have the first English edition of the Liturgy of St. Basil, c. 1992 (it's in storage along with all my other books at the moment). From what I remember, the back matter consists of doxologies to particular saints and for particular days, as well as alternate fraction prayers for given seasons or days (e.g., a fraction for the apostle's fast and feast).

There is another very expensive Coptic service book containing all the liturgies for Holy Week; I also believe we should classify this as a hymnal for the same reasons. It has all the congregational hymns starting with the Holy Unction service on the Last Friday of Lent, through Palm Sunday, the General Funeral, and concluding with Bright Saturday and Pascha. It also has all the scripture lessons in full. It's pricey, and some of the English translation is, to be frank, sloppy, but its very interesting. I don't have one; a friend of mine who is Oriental Orthodox who recently stayed with me showed me one.

Yes, the Pascha book is probably the largest of all the books. I don't know why it would be expensive, though. Maybe a hardcover edition, but the softcover ones we have are about $30, if I recall correctly. As for the English being 'sloppy', ehhh...it's Egypt-glish. People who make these criticisms often forget that the Coptic church is barely two generations old in most of the English-speaking world, and as a result is currently raising what would likely be the first generation of English-only worshipers (as opposed to those born to the first immigrants, who are usually bilingual), and doing this in a context where we are also still an active 'immigrant church' (i.e., there is still a steady flow of people coming in from Egypt who don't know English or know it very poorly, particularly in the wake of recent political events in Egypt, Libya, Sudan, etc). So that will conceivably work itself out with time. The same issue exists with the even more recently done translations into Spanish that I have seen for the churches in Bolivia and Mexico. They're pretty rough in some spots, though conceivably they will improve with time, as the church there is under one generation old.

He also showed me a book given to him as surplus by the monks at St. Anthony's, a very worn out, official publication called the Coptic Hymnal, which as far as I can remember mainly contained the congregational hymns from the Euchologion and Psalmody, and also a selection of praises.

Interesting.

I don't think the Agpeya is a hymnal; there is some congregational singing in it of the Kyries, and the Litanies are chanted by the deacons, when it is used communally, but, the service book is basically a Psalter, and the Psalms are read quietly even when in a congregation.

In congregation, yes. But there are standard tunes for the chanting of psalms as well as the litanies and the Thanksgiving prayer, so I assume someone is singing them somewhere (though I've never witnessed it, Coptic friends tell me that they chant the psalms alone; and psalm chanting was part of the ritual of baking the daily bread for the liturgy the one time I helped out with that).

This makes the Agpeya very different from an Eastern Orthodox Horologion; its much closer to a prayer book like our famous Jordanville Prayer Book, or a private Psalter (Being a fan of HTM, I like their Psalter for Prayer, which is based on traditional Russian Orthodox Psalters and has the Orthodox version of the Athanasian Creed).

An Orthodox version of the Athanasian Creed? That's pretty weird, given its roots as a Latin forgery placed into the mouth of our father St. Athanasius the Apostolic, and its apparent reference to the Filioque controversy...

Recently he suggested I buy for my collection (and I did) an app called the Coptic Reader, published by the Southern United States diocese. This app comes with the Agpeya for free. but for $35 you can get the texts for virtually every Coptic service, inclusing holy Matrimony, all the services of Holy Week, the Unction service, and a huge collection of the Praises, and most helpfully, it shows you what part of the Psalmody is proper for the day.

Yes, Coptic Reader is a very popular app. I had it on my old phone (someone from church put it there for me), though I haven't gotten it on my new one since I dislike the idea of looking at my phone at all during services, so I just shut it off. Better to learn by route.

This is something that really had me totally baffled with the annual Psalter.

Hahaha. Yes...I guess it is baffling to visitors from other traditions. I don't know...you just get used to it when you're in the Church, I guess. "Oh, it's such and such a day of the Coptic month? I guess we're doing this now."

I am sure there is a Coptic equivalent of the Typikon; I know the Armenians have a book called the Directory which serves the same purposes, and before the Tridentine simplification of the Roman Breviary, the Sarum Rite used in England had an infamous, extremely complicated book of this sort called the Pie. There were some polemics about the Pie written by the early Anglicans complaining that it took longer to find out what to sing than to actually sing it.

Well, from the perspective of a layperson, our responses don't really change all that much throughout the year. And to the extent that completely different hymns may supplant those of 'regular time' for a particular season, that's generally found in liturgy books themselves ("during such-and-such time, the people may chant ____ instead", and then you turn to the page where "_____" is, or just know it, and you're in). So I'm not sure that we would need something very involved, if we do in fact have a book like that. For deacons or other servants, that sort of thing is found in their training manuals.

But the beauty of this Coptic Reader app is that it automates all that; I've been wanting something like that for the Byzantine Rite for years as it would eliminate about a quarter of my workload and help our parishes do a better job performing the divine services consistently and without the kind of mistakes that sometimes happen.

One final thing; my Oriental Orthodox friend was recently asked to do a formal study of the Coptic musical rite by the Church, and is being provided with a book comtaining the text of the Liturgy of St. Basil and corresponding Western-style musical notation. There are several books like this and they ramge in price from $40 to around $120.

Yes, the American University in Cairo published one in 2006 with musical transcription by Margit Toth (who has done a fair bit of work in this area; if I recall correctly, I think she wrote the article on Coptic music the Coptic Encyclopedia) that could be paired together with a 4-CD set of the hymns chanted by Sadek Attallah, chief cantor of the Institute of Coptic Studies under the supervision of famous Coptic musicologist Dr. Ragheb Moftah. I'm pretty sure that's the most recent attempt, so that's probably what your friend has.

 

[MarkRohfrietsch]

I am more interested in older hymnals; your 1993 Book of Common Worship is very similiar to the Methodist Book of Worship and Hymnal from that same timeframe, which I am not a big fan of; I don't really like the Anaphora of the Apostolic Tradition that much because it is extremely brief; its more of an outline of what an anaphora should contain (loosely following the Rite of Antioch) than an anaphora proper, although the Ethiopians do use it with their liturgy (albeit after a long and liturgically rich intro).

What I'd like to see are your hymnals and worship resources from the 1930s-60s. I tend to like material from this era, pre Vatican II; you still have traditional language (and not the awful modern English of ICEL, with the infamous mistranslation of et cum spiritu tuo as "and also with you," versus "and with Thy spirit" (the most accurate way of rendering it in English, although "and with your spirit" is the most accurate way of rendering it in modern English), which anyone familiar with the Greek, Slavonic or Syriac liturgy knows is a huge error.

My big regret about the Lutheran Service Book of the LCMS is that they didn't fix that, although in all fairness to them, most scholars had supported, for the wrong reasons, the flawed ICEL translation. Actually we have to thank Pope Benedict for pushing for that to get fixed; he really made sure the ball got rolling on a new translation and shook up ICEL, and as a result, the new English version of the 1969 Roman Missal is much better.

@MarkRohfrietsch , do you think in their next version of the Lutheran Service Book, the LCMS will fix that, so it reads "and with your spirit"? It seems to me doing so would be in accord with the LCMS traditionalist values.

@Hedrick1, moving on, the reason I like books from the 1950s-60s is that the Liturgical Movement was starting to really bear fruit, but the language is still traditional. I have a copy of the 1903 Presbyterian Book of Worship but would like to obtain one from the mid 20th century, along with a hymnal.

You also mentioned you thought the new hymnal is one of the better ones your denomination produced. Can you go into detail on that? Also, do you know if Eco is continuing to use PCUSA hymnals or if they are going to publish their own?

Also, the Trinity Hymnal is the main hymnal for the PCA and OPC, right?

Divine Service 3 in the LSB has returned to this original translation; "and with thy spirit"; Matins and Vespers a wee bit more modern use "and with your spirit". DS1, 2, 4 and 5 use the "and also with you".

Gotta keep everyone happy; and since we are not big on legalism, if one likes one more than another, that is their preference.

 

[Shane R]

The hymnal I grew up on was Sacred Selections for the Church; commonly referred to as the red-book among Church of Christ adherents. There are a number of sites which list the content and it appears one might actually have the pages, but I offer this: http://www.asacredselections.com/

Anyhow, the hymnal used the shape-note system to encourage 'good' congregational singing. When I was coming of age in Churches of Christ, it was popular to have an expert come in and give a seminar on the shape-notes. This system was carried over into the early editions of Hymns For Worship, the successor of SACRED SELECTIONS in many Church of Christ congregations.

 

[Commander Xenophon]

Divine Service 3 in the LSB has returned to this original translation; "and with thy spirit"; Matins and Vespers a wee bit more modern use "and with your spirit". DS1, 2, 4 and 5 use the "and also with you".

Gotta keep everyone happy; and since we are not big on legalism, if one likes one more than another, that is their preference.

Well, I can understand that, although in my opinion, having correct translations of the service books is not legalistic. I don't think the Orthodox Church is legalistic at all, for example, either in its Eastern or Oriental flavors; our canons are advisory and we stress a forgiving God. But we insist on all services being performed correctly, according to the rubrics of their respectove traditions.

I don't want to put you on the spot at all Mark, but could we perhaps agree that having liturgical standards is not by itself
legalism or works righteousness? Martin Luther, I believe, specifically wanted to ensure the Lutheran churches retained the liturgy, unlike the more radical reformers, although I believe he considered specific forms of the liturgy adiaphora, and I think he was essentially right in that sentiment. He composed at least three settings of the mass: a basic Latin form edited to remove those accretions he felt were doctrinally problematic, the German Mass, and the Chorale Mass (I think; the Chorale Mass may have been the German mass, but I thought theynwere two distinct settings).

I just feel like the LCMS has such a beautiful service book in the LSB, and also in the 1940 Lutheran Hymnal; I wish the LCMS would just require congregations to use one or the other at least partially. You could avoid extreme legalism by prpviding the option of a "contemporary service."

 

[Commander Xenophon]

The hymnal I grew up on was Sacred Selections for the Church; commonly referred to as the red-book among Church of Christ adherents. There are a number of sites which list the content and it appears one might actually have the pages, but I offer this: http://www.asacredselections.com/

Anyhow, the hymnal used the shape-note system to encourage 'good' congregational singing. When I was coming of age in Churches of Christ, it was popular to have an expert come in and give a seminar on the shape-notes. This system was carried over into the early editions of Hymns For Worship, the successor of SACRED SELECTIONS in many Church of Christ congregations.

The Churches of Christ are the independent Mormon churches that broke communion with the LDS hierarchy, right?

 

[Shane R]

The Churches of Christ are the independent Mormon churches that broke communion with the LDS hierarchy, right?

No. They are a restorationist fellowship that traces its roots to the revivals of the early 19th century and specifically the "Stone-Campbell movement." They are non-creedal, in contrast with the Methodists and Presbyterians that they largely emerged from, semi-Pelagian (typically heavily influenced by Finney's theology), and practitioners of believer's baptism but with an emphasis on baptism and eucharist that would seem sacramental to an evangelical Protestant. They also typically have a unique cessationist understanding of the Holy Spirit.

 

[Shane R]

I like this topic. It has taken me down memory lane. As someone who has traveled a bit through churches I am acquainted with a number of hymnals. Lutherans have mastered incorporating a prayer book and hymnal in the same volume, and I think the LCMS book is at the pinnacle of the lot. It's too bad so many of their churches are dispensing with it in favor of a contemporary service.

As a continuing Anglican, the 1940 Episcopal hymnal is standard across jurisdictions. I will confess: I prefer the 1982 Episcopal hymnal. Interestingly, the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter tolerates usage of the '82 Episcopal hymnal.