Ann Arbor Prepares for Convention

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1 PAGE 1 The BYZANTINE ECHO - A News Publication MAY of the 2011 Mid-Eastern Federation of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians MAY 2011 Ann Arbor Prepares for Convention As we reported in the last BYZANTINE ECHO, the St. Nicholas parish of Ann Arbor, Michigan is busily preparing for the annual MEFGOX Convention to be held July Ann Arbor, home of the University of Michigan, is one of the most interesting cities in the Midwest. There is a thriving business district with many fine restaurants and cafes, shops, and bookstores. The university has many architecturally appealing buildings, and there are several museums and other points of interest. The convention promises to be a point of interest as well, with new music, educational workshops, youth activities, a talent show, folk-singing, and local tours. Registration costs are $170 for adults and $50 for students on or before June 17. After June 17, costs are $200 and $75 respectively. This includes all meals and activities. Hotel reservations must be made with the Clarion Hotel and Conference Center, (734) , before June 17 to secure the special rate of $67 per night for a room with a single king-sized bed or $72 per night for two queen-sized beds. Copies of the convention music book must be purchased in advance from Chris J. Zervos, (419) Come join us to meet new and old friends in the fellowship of our Church music ministry. Registration forms are available on line at mefgox.org under the Annual Conference tab. GREEK INDEPENDENCE DAY COMMITTEE HONORS GEORGE RAPTIS by Fran Kontos and Elaine Charalambopoulos This year found five pillars of Detroit s Hellenic Community honored for their lifetime achievements. The recipients were recognized for their exemplary efforts in promoting Orthodoxy and Hellenic Culture. The honored were Tula Athens Georgeson, a steward in the dissemination of Greek culture, education, and service to the community; Dr. Harry N. Kotsis, for a remarkable career encompassing community, medicine, morals and faith; Dr. Mike Syropoulos, for representing the Hellenic Community with extraordinary accomplishments in education, Church, and heritage; Ernest Zachary, Greek-American visionary diligent in the preservation of our heritage, our city and for his dedication in reshaping the future; and our own George Raptis for dedication to the development and growth of Orthodox liturgical music in America. George s legacy is an amazing one. He was first introduced to liturgical music at the age of twelve when he sang in the Sts. Constantine and Helen Church choir. Although he studied violin and played in the All-City Orchestra, his formal training began in 1949 after being discharged from the U. S. Army. His musical education took him to Wayne University, the Detroit Institute of Musical Arts, and the Detroit Conservatory of Music. His directing included the Sts. Constantine and Helen Choir in Detroit, St. John Church choir in Sterling Heights and Saint Nicholas Church choir in Troy, Michigan, where he is presently Associate Director. George s career as a composer and arranger of Greek Orthodox liturgical music began in the 1950 s. The most significant composition of his career is the recently completed Divine Liturgy of Saint John Chrysostomos, which was chanted for the first time as a hierarchical Liturgy at the 2003 MEFGOX Convention with Metropolitan Nicholas of Detroit officiating. As an active member of the Mid-Eastern Federation of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians since 1956, George served as president of the Federation for eight terms and as Editor of the Byzantine Echo for nine years. He was also responsible for the Federation s Golden Anniversary Album, serving as its editor. George has also been a member of the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians, serving as editor of Musica, the Forum s educational publication. (Continued on page 4)

2 PAGE 2 The BYZANTINE ECHO - MAY 2011 CHRISTOS ANESTI! A MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT I hope that all of you experienced a beautiful Pascha. I am always a little saddened when the extra services have ended, but the journey ends so perfectly with the reliving of Christ s passion and glorious Resurrection! We must now resume our MEFGOX responsibilities as the convention is fast approaching. On March 19, we held an Executive Board meeting and were hosted by the convention city in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Niki Wardner, her committee, and the Executive Board are preparing for what promises to be another outstanding convention. The Governance Committee (primarily Barb Minton and Vicki Pappas) completed a large part of the reorganization of our Constitution and By-Laws. It is a work in progress and requires still many hours to complete. I thank Barb and Vicki for all their dedication and hard work. Please remember your Federation Stewardship and Friends of the Federation donations. At the end of March, I was privileged to attend the National Forum meeting of Federation Presidents in Indianapolis. It is always a rich experience to hear what other federations are doing. We are, after all, faced with the same issues and have the same mission. There seems to be a wide variety of approaches that are used to reach the same end. Our National Forum Chairman, Vicki Pappas, attended a recent Synod meeting of our Metropolitans at which our music ministry was discussed. While the Metropolitans were supportive of our work, they raised some concerns they felt needed to be addressed by our choirs. We were assured that a uniform translation of the Divine Liturgy is in committee. Some of the inquiries related to the involvement of youth, the education (or lack of education) of some of our choirs, e.g. proper hymns, Metropolitan s Fimi, Order of Service, etc. What they would like to see is a closer relationship and collaboration with the clergy. Some of our Metropolises have choirs that have a hiatus over the summer, and timeliness is an issue for others. So we have received a directive of sorts from our Hierarchs. And we need to take to heart their observations and constructive criticism. What is remarkable is that the National Forum representatives were asked to attend a meeting with the Synod and that there was a beginning dialogue. The Federation Presidents did some brainstorming to create an action plan, but each federation will need to work with its own Metropolitan and clergy to develop their own plan. It is our hope that we will also be able to develop a closer working relationship with the Metropolis Youth Directors and Church/Sunday School Music Programs. You will hear more of the details from the National Forum in the coming months. Our next MEFGOX Federation meeting will be in Cleveland at St. Demetrios Church in Rocky River on June 4. I hope that you will make an effort to attend so that we may address some of these pressing issues and continue our valuable work and mission. With Love in Christ, Irene Georgantas MEFGOX President EDITOR S NOTE Christos Anesti! This is my last issue of THE BYZANTINE ECHO as editor. I want to say to all our readers how much I have enjoyed being your editor. I ve learned quite a bit over the last five years, and it has been a valuable experience. I hope that the issues of THE BYZANTINE ECHO under my care have been informative and useful to everyone who read them. If I can ever be of any kind of assistance to any one of you, please do not hesitate to contact me. THE BYZANTINE ECHO is published by the Mid-Eastern Federation of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians, Please send all correspondence to the editor: Stan Takis, 1900 Burkley Rd., Williamston, MI takistan@yahoo.com

3 PAGE 3 The BYZANTINE ECHO - MAY 2011 National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians Meets with the Holy Eparchial Synod of the Archdiocese of America This article comes from National Forum president, Dr. Vicki Pappas report on the historic meeting of members of the Forum with the Archbishop and the Metropolitans of America. The complete report is available on the Internet. See the last paragraph. Archbishop Demetrios issued an invitation to the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians to participate in an unprecedented meeting with our Holy Eparchial Synod on March 16th. He presented us with four agenda items that the Metropolitans wished to discuss with us: 1) development of choirs and recruitment, 2) youth choirs, 3) the process of preparing the Liturgical Guidebook, and 4) cooperation between choirs and chanters. In addition, there was also discussion on the topics of translations, practices of choirs, sira, and liturgical music for congregational participation. We were pleased to accept, as we saw this as another indication that our Hierarchs are wanting to become more dynamically involved with church ministries, and this meeting about church music seemed to be part of that. The first topic of discussion was the development of choirs and recruitment. The Metropolitans talked with us about how choirs play an important and vital role in praying with the clergy and the congregation. They believe that choirs have a great impact on how the congregation and the clergy pray and that nothing should detract or pull people away from praying. They pointed out that singing in the choir is a ministry that must achieve the highest levels of performance, but performance in the sense that it is elevated to artful prayer as the Archbishop put it, not simply elevated musical performance. Another Metropolitan put it this way: The choirs should pray with us as we all pray together. Also, others shared: The congregation should not simply be an audience; rather we should all be praying together. The choir represents the congregation. There is great interest in the choirs presenting familiar melodies so that the congregation will recognize them and even be able to sing along with them. The Synod feels that some of the music that is being sung is outstanding for concert performances, but not for the average congregation and choir. They want to see music that enables and supports prayer, that creates a flow with the other aspects of the services, and that is not jarring to either priests or congregations. The Metropolitans would like to see us sing the traditional melody for Aghios O Theos and the Vimatos for hierarchical services. This enables them to respond easily and allows for the proper flow of the service. We discussed the need for further, continued, and deeper education of choir directors and choir members. The Metropolitans noted instances where choirs did not know the correct sira, and some, not even their own Apolytikion of their parish, and one example of a choir singing the old Fimi for their Metropolitan! One Metropolitan noted that only once had a director come to him before the service asking for a blessing and checking the order of service. There was also concern expressed about choirs not holding rehearsals and members not attending them so they are well prepared for services. Another expressed that choirs seem to take long summer vacations, implying that being in choir was similar to a job, and the perception that members were not even attending church during those vacation times. We suggested a way the Metropolitans could help us, noting that there was an important role for local clergy in the education of choir directors and members. We requested that the Metropolitans discuss in their Clergy Syndesmos meetings, the opportunity clergy have to use their choirs as a venue for religious and liturgical education and to urge them to discuss best practices with their church musicians, the need for attendance at rehearsals, education about liturgical order, the meanings of hymns and prayers, proper sira, and the like. The Metropolitans seemed quite supportive of this type of cooperation between parish clergy and their choirs. While attention to youth choirs and Church School hymnology programs are very important, we noted that attention also needs to be given to the recruitment of year olds to fill the gaps in choirs today. The Metropolitans strongly agreed, and noted that this is not only a need for choir recruitment, but also a need in the parishes as a whole. We requested clergy support to help ameliorate this gap in choir recruitment and participation, as the choir is an excellent venue for stewardship for adult parishioners. Youth choirs were another topic of discussion. The Metropolitans are seeing very few young people participating in choirs. They asked if we had numbers and data, which we do. We were able to briefly share that on average, singers over (Continued on page 6)

4 PAGE 4 The BYZANTINE ECHO - MAY 2011 Some Interesting Quotes from the History of Orthodox Church Music EDITOR S NOTE: Do you think that some of the debatable issues about Orthodox Church music that are being discussed today are new? This collection of quotes proves that many of the issues we are discussing today in fact have been discussed for a long time! On singing versus reading: "Woe to us, my son! The days have come when monks turn away from the enduring nourishment which the Holy Spirit gives them and surrender themselves to singing. What kind of contrition is that? How can tears come from the singing of troparia? How can a monk possess contrition if he stays in the church or in his cell and raises his voice like the lowing of the cattle? For when we stand in God's sight we must be most contrite and not presumptuous. Monks have not come into this desert to place themselves before God in pride and presumption, to sing melodic songs and make rhythmic tunes, to shake their hands and stamp their feet. Our duty is to pray to God in holy fear and trembling, with tears and sighing, with devotion and diligence, with modesty and with a humble voice. See, I tell you, my son, the days will come when Christians will destroy the books of the holy Evangelists, the holy Apostles and the inspired Prophets, and they will rip up the Holy Scriptures and compose troparia in their place." (St. Pambo, Abbot, 4th Century) On how to sing: "One must sing with a manner and melody befitting holiness; it must not proclaim theatrical distress but rather exhibit Christian simplicity in its very musical movement; it must not remind one of anything theatrical, but rather create compunction in the listeners. Further, our voice ought not be dissonant but consonant. One ought not to drag out the singing while another cuts it short, and one ought not to sing too low while another raises his voice. Rather each should strive to integrate his voice within the sound of the harmonious chorus and not project it outwardly in the manner of a kithara [guitar] as it to make an immodest display... And for him who is not able to blend and fit himself in with the others, it is better to sing in a subdued voice than to make a great noise, for thus he performs both his liturgical action and avoids disturbing the singing brotherhood." (Bishop Niceta of Remesiana, 4th Century) On harmony and the use of the organ: "We do not censure either monophonic or polyphonic singing as long as it is proper and decent... As for the noise or droning of animate organs, Justin the Philosopher-Martyr condemns it; and it was never accepted in the Eastern Church." (Metropolitan Meletious Pigas, 1590) On the use of Westernized music in the Orthodox Church: "The works of many foreign kapellmeisters have in our time been adopted as compositions of the Greek-Russian Church...the truth must be stated that either because of their unawareness of the power and the expressiveness of the texts of our church poetry, or because of a prejudice only for the laws of their music, they have often disregarded the sanctity of the place and subject of their compositions, so that, generally speaking, it is not the music which is adapted to the sacred words, but instead the words are merely added to the music and often in a contrived manner. Apparently, they wanted more to impress their audience with concert-like euphony than to touch the hearts with pious melody, and often during such compositions the church resembles more an Italian opera than the house of worthy prayer to the Almighty." (Metropolitan Eugene of Kiev in 1799) On simple versus complex music: "Of late [church music] has tended to become complex. To disregard the difficulty of performance for the sake of effective sonority, to choose harmonic and melodic means without discrimination, provided only that they be new and beautiful, and if this tendency continues to develop, church music will end in becoming like any other, except that it will have a religious text. This would be extremely unfortunate... I should like to have music that could be heard nowhere except in a (Continued on page 8) GEORGE RAPTIS HONORED (Continued from page 1) His guest conductor appearances are too numerous to fully list. However, among the more notable are nineteen choir conventions or conferences, a number of Hierarchical Liturgies and a Patriarchal Liturgy with His All-Holiness, Patriarch Bartholomew celebrating. On July 7, 1976 at the 23 rd Biennial clergy Laity Congress, George was one of the first three church musicians to be honored with the title Archon Lambadarios and Knight of the Order of Saint Andrew the Apostle by Archbishop Iakovos. This title is in recognition of outstanding contributions to the development of Greek Orthodox liturgical music in America. The five honorees of the Detroit Greek Independence Day Committee. In 1985, the National Forum of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians awarded him their highest honor, the Saint Romanos Medallion for exemplary service. In addition in 1996 he received the Medal of Saint Paul for his 50 years of diocesan and archdiocesan service as a church musician. Most recently, the National Religious Music Alliance presented George with its Award of Distinction for many years of church music ministry Congratulations, George, for being honored at the Fourth Annual Hellenic Heritage Awards presented by The Detroit Greek Independence Day Committee!

5 PAGE 5 The BYZANTINE ECHO - MAY 2011 Mid-Eastern Federation of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians Scholarship Program The Mid-Eastern Federation of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians (MEFGOX) recognizes the importance of education and training to its church musicians. Education develops a higher level of musical expertise in music theory and composition, voice, choral music, Byzantine chant, choral conducting, piano and organ accompaniment and music education. To encourage its Church musicians in its Federation Parishes to seek musical education and training, the MEFGOX offers financial assistance through its Memorial Scholarship Program. To accomplish this, the Federation established a Memorial Scholarship Fund designed to grant scholarships to parishioners of the Greek Orthodox Metropolises of Detroit and Pittsburgh in the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America. Scholarships are to be used for private lessons, classroom instruction, tuition, books, and instructional materials in the areas of music noted above. It is expected that scholarship recipients will one day utilize this training of their talents, in part, in service to the Greek Orthodox Church and its ministries. If you are interested in contributing to the Scholarship Fund, please contact program director Dan Packis at (440) or at dpackis@roadrunner.com. If you are interested in applying for a scholarshop, you may find the application form at the mefgox.org website. Just click on the Forms and Files tab for a link to a PDF document of the application. Print it out and follow the directions on the form. Patriarch Athanagoras I Award The last issue of THE BYZANTINE ECHO contained the nomination form for the Patriarch Athanagoras I Medal for service to the Federation. If you have lost your issue and would like to nominate somebody for this honor, you may also aquire a nomination form from mefgox.org at the same Forms and Files tab. There were no nominations last year, yet there must be several people who are worthy of receiving this recognition. If you know someone who does, please fill out the form and follow the directions on it for sending it in to Ted Niforos and our Executive Board. The deadline for nominations is June 15.

6 PAGE 6 The BYZANTINE ECHO - MAY 2011 Become a FRIEND of MEFGOX For most of its 64-year existence, the Mid-Eastern Federation of Greek Orthodox Church Musicians relied on two sources of income: its share of annual Convention proceeds and the contributions from each of its members, currently the stewardship from each MEFGOX parish. However, and apparently in stride with the general economic downturn of recent years, and accompanied by increased operations costs (travel, communications, dues, programs, contributions, etc.), these sources of income began to be insufficient to fully support the Federation. Consequently, in the spring of 2009, the MEFGOX Executive Board approved an expansion of a Friends program that until then had sought contributions only from the Philoptochos Chapters of the Detroit and Pittsburgh Metropolises. With the expanded program, we decided to seek individual contributions from each of our Church Musicians, family members and friends throughout the Federation, as Friends of MEFGOX. Of course, we continued to ask for assistance from our wonderful Philoptochos Chapters. Becoming a Friend of MEFGOX is easy. You can go to our web site, mefgox.org, under the Forms Menu, and a Friends contribution form can be downloaded from there. If that is not available, your contribution simply can be sent to: Peter Vatsures, MEFGOX Treasurer, 68 West Cooke Road, Columbus, OH However, if you do not use the form, please include your telephone number, address, Church affiliation (including its city and state), and your position as Church musician (clergy, choir director, organist, choir member, chanter, youth music director, etc.) or not. Finally, if you are attending our annual Convention in Ann Arbor, July 14-17, 2011, you can designate a Friends donation on the Registration form. How much to contribute is up to you. As with Stewardship, we appreciate any donation level. One suggestion was to ask each choir member of a parish to contribute $10 and then send in these combined contributions. Whatever you do will help us to continue the Federation s important work for our Church. Please become our Friend. Anna Niforos, Friends Program Chair NATIONAL FORUM MEETS WITH HOLY EPARCHIAL SYNOD (Continued from page 3) 60 years of age comprised more than half of most choirs, but percentages of younger members were also growing. We also shared that 65% of the choirs welcome and support new younger members into their ranks, which allayed concerns expressed by some of the Metropolitans as to whether entrenched choir members would accept younger singers. The Metropolitans and the National Forum are on the same page about the importance of teaching our young people the hymns of our faith not only, however, in youth choirs, but also in Church School hymnology programs, retreats, and the camps. We shared examples of programs that were occurring in each of the Metropolises to assure the Metropolitans that we were attending to these issues. We discussed the need for stronger collaboration between church musicians and the Youth Directors and Camp Directors of the Metropolises to bring hymnology into their programs. The Metropolitans saw this as a natural and desired collaboration. Other topics of discussion were the process of developing the Liturgical Guidebook, relationships between Choirs and Chanters, and a common English version of Christos Anesti. The National Forum has already begun to formulate a list of "next steps" for the consideration of all Greek Orthodox Church musicians. The complete report of the Meeting with the Holy Eparchial Synod can be read on line at the National Forum's web page,

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8 PAGE 8 The BYZANTINE ECHO - MAY 2011 (Continued from page 4) church, and which would be as distinct from secular music as church vestments are from the dress of the laity." (Composer Alexander Kastalsky, 19th Century) On using the vernacular language: Worship is a powerful means of influence which the pastor has on his flock, and it has a religious, moral, and educational meaning. However, it will fully reach its goal only when it will be celebrated in a language which is understandable for all...holy Scripture says, Sing to God with understanding. The apostles preached and prayed with the believers in all languages...the sectarians [Protestants] lead some astray precisely because their worship is simple, comprehensible and served in [the vernacular]. The church building ought to be a school for the Orthodox layman, and the worship celebrated within it ought to be a series of individual lessons in Christian life, since here a man learns not only what he must do, but also what he must think and feel. (Bishop Ioanniky of Archangel, 1905) On choir directors: The diocesan councils must discuss how to adorn the divine worship to God by its correct performance, how to manage the chief regulators of our present worship, that is, the choir directors, and generally, how to change its present and confused state. The order of each festal service is dependent not upon the priest or even on the psalm-reader but upon a hired expert from a secular background who is completely ignorant and often a disgrace. During the service there is almost nothing that remains the same, but everything is abandoned in favor of two or three disgusting concert numbers that are not appointed by the Typikon. (Bishop Antoni Khrapovitskii of Volhynia, 1905) On congregational participation: Orthodox worship is a great treasure if we compare our church's chants with the rather shallow Lutheran hymns and someday all the Orthodox will take advantage of this. Nevertheless, at present this is still a treasure concealed within the village walls, while the people are spiritually starving and impoverished having no prayer within reach of their understanding, except the litanies and to some extent the akathists, which the people love so much just because they are somewhat understood. It is necessary to educate the people so that they will consider not just the bows and the sign of the cross, not just mechanical readings or the hearing of the incomprehensible words of the psalter, troparia and sticheras as forms of prayer. What can be done so that the corporate worship, in the church, which in Greece was once such a perfect way of satisfying the spiritual needs of prayer, should again be turned into a truly prayerful attitude of worship? We must restore singing to that state which it should and formerly did have. It is necessary to renew in the minds of the people the notion that congregational singing is the norm, and that choral singing is only a substitution for this." (Bishop Constantine of Samara, 1905) St. George Greek Orthodox Church Dix-Toledo Highway Southgate, MI NON-PROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE P A I D WYANDOTTE, MI PERMIT #68