Towards a Liturgical Musicology for Greek Orthodoxy in America

Liturgical singing (psalmodia) is arguably an integral part of the lex orandi of the Orthodox Church, accompanying virtually every ritual action and providing the means by which nearly all texts are transmitted within common worship. Despite its centrality, liturgical music has lagged behind texts, icons, and rubrics as an object of systematic study and reflection, being taught mainly as a practical subject. For many years the only significant exception to this was a tradition of musical scholarship that began in pre-Revolutionary Russia and continued at a reduced level in such émigré foundations as the St Sergius Institute and St Vladimir’s Seminary. Thanks, however, to recent changes including the fall of Communism and the liturgical renewal movement initiated in Greece by the late Archbishop Christodoulos, one may now find significant efforts to reflect on the role of music in Orthodox worship also in the churches of Eastern Europe. The present paper outlines some of the ways in which a comparable ‘liturgical musicology’ or ‘musically informed liturgiology’ might contribute to ongoing discussions within the Greek Archdiocese of America regarding the limits of musical acculturation, proposals to revive the ancient practice of congregational singing, and the theological coherence of existing musico-liturgical practices. Furthermore, it will show how ignorance of patristic musical ontologies and the historical relationships observable between musical form and liturgical function have created conceptual voids that have been filled, by default, by ideas imported from such non-Orthodox sources as post-Kantian musical aesthetics