Week 6 – Ideal Orthros
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I’ve been brainstorming about this, and here are some of the things I’ve thought of:
Very practical stuff:
– Everyone arrives on time, and we start on time.
– All chanters have reviewed the service ahead of time and practiced as needed.
– If there are any decisions to be made about the service, they’ve already been discussed and settled.
– There are no restrictions on whose music we use.
– People are in the pews! (We actually have pretty good attendance at Orthros at our parish, compared to some others.)
– For me, it’s ideal to be at my own parish, because I love it and it’s home!
– We have enough time to do what we plan to do, with no set end time.
– I’m chanting with my favorite chanters! That could mean just one other person, or a group. One possibility is getting to chant with other women.The service:
– We do the first and third odes of the canon.
– We do the praises stichologia.
– All or mostly English.So I have a lot more practical stuff than service stuff!
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Without trying to sound like I’m copying Jamie, I agree with a lot of her points!
-I prefer that “Liturgy begins when orthros ends,” i.e. no time-cutoff for orthros.
-I would move the gospel back to its normal place–I think this would eliminate unnecessary confusion and difficulty. If we’re (presumably) not doing the canon anyway, it really doesn’t make much of a difference in what time the gospel is read (and therefore how many people are present), so then it just makes things weird and confusing.
-It would be nice to chant the Polyeleos when applicable.
-I doubt we would ever be able to do the whole canon, but it would be nice to be able to do at least part of it.
-We’ve been able to do the stichologia the last several years, and I would like to continue that.
-I would like to see the celebration of the American Saints included more. (And metered translations of their services!)
-We would have enough/skilled enough chanters to be able to do whatever we want without difficulty. Also no contention, competition, vanity, translation/music “wars”…
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In an ideal Orthros I would love to have two full choirs. Each choir having a protopsalties/lampadarios, a domestikos, at least 3 Isokrati, and at least 5 psalti. I think that Orthros or any service can be experienced in its full beauty when two full choirs are present.
-To prevent the “round robin syndrome” of Poetic kathismata, Anavathmi, etc. It would be nice, given the factor of having only one choir, to at least have a few people sing as a group that alternate with a separate small group to preserve the right and left choir rubrics.
-It would be preferable to have at least two priest and a deacon so as to smoothly be able to complete all the parts in a timely manner.
-I agree with Katie about the “no competition/no tension” while, thank God, we do not currently have the issue at our church, I have chanted many times with others in which this was the sad case. I believe that if, as chanters, we are leading the people in worship, we too need to be worshiping. If we are harboring anger against our brother then, I know at least speaking for myself, that worshiping the Lord in fullness is impossible.
-I agree that at least chanting a few odes of the canon would be a drastic improvement. With the hopes of building up to a full canon.
-If we could know that every chanter that presents themselves at the Analogion was completely prepared for every part of every service for the day it would make it a lot easier for the other psalti and it would provide a better musical quality.
-It would also be a true blessing if every person in the congregation knew of the great gift and treasure of theological wealth that is prayed in Orthros, to the point where they desired to make the extra effort to come at the beginning with no time limitations on the end.
-I haven’t really touched on many rubric “ideals” but the points listed above would open the doors and make it possible for every fine point of the Holy Typikon to be executed. -
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