EPISODE #10 of #TheNadimTarabayPodcast with two referential figures in the world of liturgical music, Mr. Johnny Kassis and Fr. Youhanna Geha, who will embark us on a journey to discover the genesis and the development of both Maronite and Byzantine liturgies.
حلقة 10# مع شخصيتين مرجعيتين في عالم الموسيقى الليتورجية ، السيد جوني قسيس والأب. يوحنا جحا ، كلاهما سيأخذنا في رحلة لاكتشاف نشأة وتطور الليتورجيات المارونية والبيزنطية
THE MARONITES:
The Maronite Church is a branch of the Syro-Antiochean Church and one of the earliest distinct eastern churches. The term “Maronite” derives from the monastery of Bayt Marün (House of Maron) built in the fifth centuryin the valley of the Orontes, near Apameus, in northern Syria. Maronites believe that this monastery was built in honor of Saint Maron (d. 410), an anchorite’ who lived on a mountain near Apameus; his austerity and miracles made him a celebrity.^ His followers took part in the doctrinal discussions ofthe period, which led to their persecution by other Christian sects. In 517, three hundred fifty monks from the monastery of Saint Maron were massacred on their way to a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Simeon Stylites in the Syrian desert. Later persecutions at the hands of their religious adversaries, and Persian and Arab invaders of Syria in 611 and 634 respectively, forced them to migrate for refuge to the inaccessible Lebanese mountains. The great majority settled in Lebanon and developed as an independent religious community, in which secular and clerical powers were combined; some fled to Cyprus. Their final exodus into Mount Lebanon occurred during the tenth and eleventh centuries.
BYZANTINE MUSIC:
Byzantine music (Greek: Βυζαντινή μουσική) originally consisted of the songs and hymns composed for the courtly and religious ceremonial of the Byzantine Empire and continued, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, in the traditions of the sung Byzantine chant of Eastern Orthodox liturgy. The ecclesiastical forms of Byzantine music are the best known forms today, because different Orthodox traditions still identify with the heritage of Byzantine music, when their cantors sing monodic chant out of the traditional chant books such as the Sticherarion, which in fact consisted of five books, and the Irmologion.
Byzantine music did not disappear after the fall of Constantinople. Its traditions continued under the Patriarch of Constantinople, who after the Ottoman conquest in 1453 was granted administrative responsibilities over all Eastern Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire. During the decline of the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, burgeoning splinter nations in the Balkans declared autonomy or autocephaly from the Patriarchate of Constantinople. The new self-declared patriarchates were independent nations defined by their religion.
In this context, Christian religious chant practiced in the Ottoman Empire, in, among other nations, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, was based on the historical roots of the art tracing back to the Byzantine Empire, while the music of the Patriarchate created during the Ottoman period was often regarded as "post-Byzantine". This explains why Byzantine music refers to several Orthodox Christian chant traditions of the Mediterranean and of the Caucasus practiced in recent history and even today, and this article cannot be limited to the music culture of the Byzantine past.