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I thought about posting this thread in Traditional Theology, where I have posted collections of thrilling liturgical worship before, however, recently I have added to my collection several worship services which are not liturgical, even if they are broadly speaking liturgical, or are from denominations which do not precisely align with the SOP. Also, posting this thread here should allow some debate, and I am genuinely tired of seeing and hearing guitars and encountering people who think that worship consists of dancing to thinly disguised rock music with vapid lyrics that offer nominal references to our Lord but are utterly devoid of the deep theological meaning that characterizes traditional Christian hymnody.
I have elsewhere proposed that the loss of this traditional music is not only correlated with, but actively contributed, to the decline in church attendance, because this music works, whether the Protestant chorales composed by Martin Luther, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and others, the Gregorian, Renaissance and Baroque motets and cantatas composed by Bach, Palestrina, Morales, Byrd, and other composers, primarily Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and starting in the 19th century, High Church Anglicans, to lyrics dating back to St. Ambrose of Milan, the exquisite Byzantine Rite music whether in Greek or Church Slavonic, whose lyrics are of equal antiquity, with the average age of hymns in an Eastern Orthodox or Traditional Latin Mass being roughly a thousand years, and with both ancient chant settings according to Byzantine antiphony, Georgian triphony, or the Znamenny Chant of the Old Rite Orthodox, as well as newer music by Greek, Russian, and Ukrainian composers like Tikey Zes, Pavel Chesnokov and Dmitri Bortniansky, as well as fine, lesser known Serbian, Georgian and Romanian composers, and in the same category as the Byzantine music we have the traditional West Syriac chant of the Maronites and Syriac Orthodox, the East Syriac chant of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, beloved of our friend @Pavel Mosko, the Tasbeha, or Coptic chant, which our friend @dzheremi and I greatly enjoy, and the melismatic and percussive music of the Ethiopian Orthodox, composed in the ancient Semitic Ge’ez language, which closely resembles Hebrew and Aramaic, and from which the current vernacular dialects of Ethiopia are derived, and which has the oldest system of musical notation in continual use in the world, and thus contains the oldest surviving melodies of Christian music. And finally we have the original hymnal of Christianity, the Bible itself, which is traditionally chanted or sung rather than read, and parts of which are specifically intended for singing, such as the Psalms, the Song of Songs, and the three Evangelical Canticles at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, just to name a few. Indeed a Canticle most frequently refers to a song included in scripture, for example, Benedicite Omni Opera, the song of the three Hebrew youths kept alive by the presence of Christ or an angel representing Him typologically in the furnace in Babylon, despite Nebuchadnezzar’s insane desire to incinerate them (this incident is also one of many in Scripture which should give pious Christians pause about cremation).
The reason why this is relevant is of course because those churches which retain traditional worship in exclusivity, like Continuing Anglican parishes in the US, Traditional Latin Mass parishes worldwide, and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, are outperforming mainline churches which admit elements of contemporary worship. And while megachurches with rock bands are well attended, they represent a tiny fraction of the total Christian population and of the total number of parishes in existence, so for your average neighborhood Baptist or Presbyterian or Catholic church to try to compete with that will only alienate people (also, consider the mega churches with rock concert style worship have very highly paid “worship teams” and can afford to license from Nashville the most valuable IP; in contrast, the exquisite Mass for Three Voices by William Byrd was designed to be sung by a small choir in a small space, written during a time when “Popery” carried the death penalty in Elizabethan England and Byrd was able to survive only because his music composed for the court, including an exquisite setting of Anglican worship music for the Chapel Royal, earned him royal favor. And we know from the success of Traditional Latin Mass parishes from the time they were universally authorized by Pope Benedict XVI until the time that a great many were suppressed a year ago by his successor that using Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices along with the rest of the traditional aspects of worship is a great way to attract Catholics to worship. And likewise, every indication shows that the 1928 Book of Common Prayer outperforms the 1979 and 2019 editions in the United States, and the same pattern holds true for most denominations. By the time we reach Southern Baptism, in many cases, square note singing will draw congregations an electric guitar could never draw, and likewise the attendance levels of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland and its North American counterpart the RPCNA with its A Capella Exclusive Psalmody, and worship which is not substantially different from that instituted by John Knox, are impressive in comparison with the established Church of Scotland and the mainline PCUSA. And likewise, PCUSA parishes less political in their worship and more traditional, for example, the Waldensian Presbyterian Church, whose attendees are descended from the ancient Protestant ethno-religious group which later joined the Calvinists in Geneva, has beautiful traditional worship, is not blatantly political, and is well attended.
Enough theory for the moment, as there are beautiful church services to see, to delight the soul and the senses in Godly bliss:
To start out with, I had been given cause to lament the scarcity of Anglican parishes in Canada still using the beautiful 1962 Book of Common Prayer, but here is one doing a splendid job, St. Thomas Huron Street in Toronto, and also with ceremonial during their Eucharist on a par with the Tridentine mass:
More traditionally Anglican is their Choral Evensong, which along with St. Sepulchre in the City of London is one of only two Anglican parishes where I have recently heard Choral Evensong conclude with the traditional collects including the Prayer of St. Chrysostom, which is always a delight as that prayer is also the prayer of the Third Antiphon in the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy.
But if that is too high church for you, the Morning services of Congregationalist Park Street Church in Boston, the last traditional Congregationalist church in Boston, shows how low church worship can also be exquisite. Their Easter Sunday service and their service last Sunday show the breadth of their classical music program. Conversely, their contemporary Evening service is awful, although I still love Park Street Church and for a long time used a picture of their exterior as my profile pic om CF.com. But I wish their Evening service was more like that of St. Thomas Huron Street.
Easter service at Park Street:
Most recent Morning service:
Old South Church, a beautiful UCC parish with traditional worship, is hard for me to watch, because of the extremely political character of the clergy, not just their sermons, but even remarks made elsewhere in the service, which is a pity. Old North Church, of “Two if by sea” Paul Revere fame usually has an extremely nice, moderate young man as pastor and I have often linked to their services in Traditional Theology; he was on vacation until two weeks ago, and while he was away, they had an older Episcopalian priest who was not only political but abrasive and generally grouchy; I felt compelled to downvote their videos on YouTube while he was preaching. Fortunately, the regular priest has returned, and conducts the service in a manner inclusive and respectful towards Americans of all political views.
In my next post, I shall display three splendid services: a Syriac Orthodox liturgy, a Sunday worship service with traditional hymns of the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in a particular town in Kentucky, and a Salvation Army parish (called an encampment or citadel or something) in suburban London, UK on Palm Sunday, representing three tiers of churchmanship, maximum solemnity, traditional mainstream Protestant, and low church Evangelical, all done splendidly. And then later I think a Byzantine Rite liturgy, an Lutheran service, and a Reformed Presbyterian Church that uses A Capella Exclusive Psalmody should again show how worship can be exquisite regardless of what Anglicans call “churchmanship,” basically, the amount of ceremony and solemnity.
I have elsewhere proposed that the loss of this traditional music is not only correlated with, but actively contributed, to the decline in church attendance, because this music works, whether the Protestant chorales composed by Martin Luther, Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley, and others, the Gregorian, Renaissance and Baroque motets and cantatas composed by Bach, Palestrina, Morales, Byrd, and other composers, primarily Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and starting in the 19th century, High Church Anglicans, to lyrics dating back to St. Ambrose of Milan, the exquisite Byzantine Rite music whether in Greek or Church Slavonic, whose lyrics are of equal antiquity, with the average age of hymns in an Eastern Orthodox or Traditional Latin Mass being roughly a thousand years, and with both ancient chant settings according to Byzantine antiphony, Georgian triphony, or the Znamenny Chant of the Old Rite Orthodox, as well as newer music by Greek, Russian, and Ukrainian composers like Tikey Zes, Pavel Chesnokov and Dmitri Bortniansky, as well as fine, lesser known Serbian, Georgian and Romanian composers, and in the same category as the Byzantine music we have the traditional West Syriac chant of the Maronites and Syriac Orthodox, the East Syriac chant of the Assyrians and Chaldeans, beloved of our friend @Pavel Mosko, the Tasbeha, or Coptic chant, which our friend @dzheremi and I greatly enjoy, and the melismatic and percussive music of the Ethiopian Orthodox, composed in the ancient Semitic Ge’ez language, which closely resembles Hebrew and Aramaic, and from which the current vernacular dialects of Ethiopia are derived, and which has the oldest system of musical notation in continual use in the world, and thus contains the oldest surviving melodies of Christian music. And finally we have the original hymnal of Christianity, the Bible itself, which is traditionally chanted or sung rather than read, and parts of which are specifically intended for singing, such as the Psalms, the Song of Songs, and the three Evangelical Canticles at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, just to name a few. Indeed a Canticle most frequently refers to a song included in scripture, for example, Benedicite Omni Opera, the song of the three Hebrew youths kept alive by the presence of Christ or an angel representing Him typologically in the furnace in Babylon, despite Nebuchadnezzar’s insane desire to incinerate them (this incident is also one of many in Scripture which should give pious Christians pause about cremation).
The reason why this is relevant is of course because those churches which retain traditional worship in exclusivity, like Continuing Anglican parishes in the US, Traditional Latin Mass parishes worldwide, and the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox, are outperforming mainline churches which admit elements of contemporary worship. And while megachurches with rock bands are well attended, they represent a tiny fraction of the total Christian population and of the total number of parishes in existence, so for your average neighborhood Baptist or Presbyterian or Catholic church to try to compete with that will only alienate people (also, consider the mega churches with rock concert style worship have very highly paid “worship teams” and can afford to license from Nashville the most valuable IP; in contrast, the exquisite Mass for Three Voices by William Byrd was designed to be sung by a small choir in a small space, written during a time when “Popery” carried the death penalty in Elizabethan England and Byrd was able to survive only because his music composed for the court, including an exquisite setting of Anglican worship music for the Chapel Royal, earned him royal favor. And we know from the success of Traditional Latin Mass parishes from the time they were universally authorized by Pope Benedict XVI until the time that a great many were suppressed a year ago by his successor that using Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices along with the rest of the traditional aspects of worship is a great way to attract Catholics to worship. And likewise, every indication shows that the 1928 Book of Common Prayer outperforms the 1979 and 2019 editions in the United States, and the same pattern holds true for most denominations. By the time we reach Southern Baptism, in many cases, square note singing will draw congregations an electric guitar could never draw, and likewise the attendance levels of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Scotland and its North American counterpart the RPCNA with its A Capella Exclusive Psalmody, and worship which is not substantially different from that instituted by John Knox, are impressive in comparison with the established Church of Scotland and the mainline PCUSA. And likewise, PCUSA parishes less political in their worship and more traditional, for example, the Waldensian Presbyterian Church, whose attendees are descended from the ancient Protestant ethno-religious group which later joined the Calvinists in Geneva, has beautiful traditional worship, is not blatantly political, and is well attended.
Enough theory for the moment, as there are beautiful church services to see, to delight the soul and the senses in Godly bliss:
To start out with, I had been given cause to lament the scarcity of Anglican parishes in Canada still using the beautiful 1962 Book of Common Prayer, but here is one doing a splendid job, St. Thomas Huron Street in Toronto, and also with ceremonial during their Eucharist on a par with the Tridentine mass:
More traditionally Anglican is their Choral Evensong, which along with St. Sepulchre in the City of London is one of only two Anglican parishes where I have recently heard Choral Evensong conclude with the traditional collects including the Prayer of St. Chrysostom, which is always a delight as that prayer is also the prayer of the Third Antiphon in the Byzantine Rite Divine Liturgy.
But if that is too high church for you, the Morning services of Congregationalist Park Street Church in Boston, the last traditional Congregationalist church in Boston, shows how low church worship can also be exquisite. Their Easter Sunday service and their service last Sunday show the breadth of their classical music program. Conversely, their contemporary Evening service is awful, although I still love Park Street Church and for a long time used a picture of their exterior as my profile pic om CF.com. But I wish their Evening service was more like that of St. Thomas Huron Street.
Easter service at Park Street:
Most recent Morning service:
Old South Church, a beautiful UCC parish with traditional worship, is hard for me to watch, because of the extremely political character of the clergy, not just their sermons, but even remarks made elsewhere in the service, which is a pity. Old North Church, of “Two if by sea” Paul Revere fame usually has an extremely nice, moderate young man as pastor and I have often linked to their services in Traditional Theology; he was on vacation until two weeks ago, and while he was away, they had an older Episcopalian priest who was not only political but abrasive and generally grouchy; I felt compelled to downvote their videos on YouTube while he was preaching. Fortunately, the regular priest has returned, and conducts the service in a manner inclusive and respectful towards Americans of all political views.
In my next post, I shall display three splendid services: a Syriac Orthodox liturgy, a Sunday worship service with traditional hymns of the First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in a particular town in Kentucky, and a Salvation Army parish (called an encampment or citadel or something) in suburban London, UK on Palm Sunday, representing three tiers of churchmanship, maximum solemnity, traditional mainstream Protestant, and low church Evangelical, all done splendidly. And then later I think a Byzantine Rite liturgy, an Lutheran service, and a Reformed Presbyterian Church that uses A Capella Exclusive Psalmody should again show how worship can be exquisite regardless of what Anglicans call “churchmanship,” basically, the amount of ceremony and solemnity.
