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Nayrouz
Hi Guys,
I was wondering what is the order for the verses of the cymbals for the nayrouz?
When do we stop singing hymns in a festive tune?
I was wondering what is the order for the verses of the cymbals for the nayrouz?
When do we stop singing hymns in a festive tune?
Comments
Until the Feast of the Cross. Thereafter it becomes the Hoshani tone for the three-day celebration. The Festal tune is used in conjunction with the Hoshani tone.
WOW...."Hoshani"........i know it's from the word "hasha'na"=hosanna=meaning "save us"....but I never saw it used in this way.
The tune is normally called "sha'anini tune" referring to "Hadd El-sha'anin" = "Palm Sunday"
The average person will call the Feast: Palm Sunday, whereas the official naming is: The Feast of the Entry of the Lord into Jerusalem.
In same manner: Christmas vs. The Feast of the Holy Nativity.
Epiphany vs. Holy Theophany.
Easter vs. The Holy Resurrection.
Until the Feast of the Cross. Thereafter it becomes the Hoshani tone for the three-day celebration. The Festal tune is used in conjunction with the Hoshani tone.
Who does the festive and hoshani tune be sung together? Is there any recording?
Does the doxology tune change? What would it sound like?
I really appreciate your help
[quote author=ilovesaintmark link=topic=9770.msg119768#msg119768 date=1285288453]
Until the Feast of the Cross. Thereafter it becomes the Hoshani tone for the three-day celebration. The Festal tune is used in conjunction with the Hoshani tone.
Who does the festive and hoshani tune be sung together? Is there any recording?
Does the doxology tune change? What would it sound like?
I really appreciate your help
well that's the thing...there are tunes on hymns of sha'anini only and than there is the general festive on the "short ppl responses"....but you just say sha'anini becuase 90% of the time they are together..
How does the festive and hoshani tune be sung together? Is there any recording?
Does the doxology tune change? What would it sound like?
I really appreciate your help
How does a cross between those two tunes sound?
Thank you soo much,
[quote author=Cyril97 link=topic=9770.msg119809#msg119809 date=1285357095]
How does the festive and hoshani tune be sung together? Is there any recording?
Does the doxology tune change? What would it sound like?
I really appreciate your help
How does a cross between those two tunes sound?
Thank you soo much,
you don't....there is no "new tune" mixing both tunes. they are both distinct. the RITE is festive-sha'anini.....but hymns are either festive or sha'anini.....mainly sha'ini
Food for thought maybe
[coptic]oujai qen `P[C[/coptic]
Are they really festive-sha'anini? Or have we at some stage lost the sha'anini tune for the "[coptic]vai etafenf[/coptic]", and the Psalm (which cantor Wagdi recorded in some tune, not sure if he was implying that was the sha'anini longer tune or what)?!!!
Food for thought maybe
[coptic]oujai qen `P[C[/coptic]
i doubt that. I haven't heard much about it from wagdi. He recorded the feast of the cross hymns....not sure if they online.
but personally, i doubt that we lost a sha'anini tune of fai etaf enf ebshoy. it doesn't make since. also not sure about what psalm you are talking about.
in general.....the reason that many, mostly priests, like to say farayhee-sha'anini is that in some other service we say hymns that have the sha'anini tune......but not festive. like for example, in a full tamgeed service, we say "o penshois" in sha'anini tune......that doesn't mean that the rest of the service is festive. also in many other service where we say paragraphs of hymns in sha'anini tune but not festive responses.
Cantor Wagdy blessed me sending his some of his latest recordings (actually on CD's shipped from America to the UK for free but that's beside the point), and I heard in his recording maybe for Palm Sunday rather than the feast of the Cross a long liturgy psalm and I wasn't sure if that was the long annual Alexandrian or a sha'anini one
That's a good point Mina... thanks.
Cantor Wagdy blessed me sending his some of his latest recordings (actually on CD's shipped from America to the UK for free but that's beside the point), and I heard in his recording maybe for Palm Sunday rather than the feast of the Cross a long liturgy psalm and I wasn't sure if that was the long annual Alexandrian or a sha'anini one
oh yeah......we talked about that. it's an alexandrian long annual way for the some....which makes sense since o-oinee afshai is the "molakhas" (summery i think is the best word to translate)....(even though it might not sound that legit since it's that close to the singary.....but it's accepted through a recording that goes back to M Tawfik).
there should be a LOOOONG version of the annual psalm ya3ny.
Was the last sentence a statement or a question? In either case my comment or answer is that Copts taught us to offer our Lord our worship in the form of art (in this case singing) and they followed the commandment of our Teacher to spend as much time in prayer without getting bored - a kind of war waged by the evil one. I guess we are so lucky to be called followers of the Coptic church, but are we worthy enough?
the last sentence was just an opinion.
decision of worthiness to be followers depends on the leader that we follow.....only the Coptic Church can say if we are worthy or not....and we will never find out tell the end of time where the "Coptic Church" (in a singular form) tell each one of us if we were worthy.
It is right and proper to preserve the heritage which has been passed down to us, but this a relative responsibility, not an absolute one. The responsibility to evangelise and allow converts to worship in a language they can understand is an absolute responsibility. It is not properly worship when we follow along with words in a translation. To worship the words have to become our own. And they are most naturally our own when we use them in our own language.
Before we are COPTIC Orthodox we are ORTHODOX. This is the gift we are to share with the world, our ORTHODOXY.
Father Peter
Thank you very much for taking the time to write your very concise post, which as I said before I keep learning from. Having said that, I hope I am allowed to disagree (hehe). There are some points that I have different opinion on (probably practically speaking, rather than essentially). Please all, forgive me if I come across again as being a pharisee putting heavy loads on people's shoulders without flicking a finger.
First of all, I don't agree that newcomers to any Orthodox church, or even the believers of that church at whichever stage, should be spoonfed the teachings period. Helping people to understand, on the other hand, and helping them to follow along (not only talking about hymns of course) is an crucial starting point, but then they should be encouraged to get actively involved and do their own self-teaching. I don't believe the Orthodox faith (or any type of faith for that matter) is a PASSIVE process, and we certainly don't wish believers to be passive believers. They should take part in what is going on, and part of what should be going on, is to learn hymns, rituals, patrology, church history, and comparative theology, according to each one's talents and gifts of course. Factually-speaking, those who start loving the Coptic Orthodox faith, will naturally immerse themselves, and occupy themselves with learning hymns, the Coptic language, patrology, church history, ... etc, and they will become actively involved, and I think that you are a very good epitome of that abouna.
The problem I came across in Egypt with servants I used to see in the Coptic church is that they lose the whole point of teaching, and start acting like at an even level with the young (talking specially of the young as an example for the newcomers, although may not depict the exact picture of course). What happens as a consequence is that the young in their somewhat stubborn mind, think they know it all, and don't need to come to church anymore, hence are attracted to protestant churches for other reasons (which is my second point actually).
My second point is that church authorities are happy with the numbers fullstop. I see this as a flaw in thinking. Numbers don't reflect faith. Certainly God is not happy with numbers. He is happy with true believers. In the olden days, as I pointed out in another thread, non-believers would go through a period of discipline lasting AT LEAST 3 years. Young children were not allowed to get baptised until the age of 12. Interestingly, the church in those days "APPARENTLY" and maybe only apparently, was stronger.
Thirdly, I am not sure if you abouna, or Minagir, or any other member, are aware of this: this is what happens in Cairo at least, and other bigger cities in Egypt (in reference to my first point). The young are drawn away from the Coptic church when servants lose the role of the teachers. When there is no discipline in our church, they go to protestant churches, because the latter obviously offer "new" stuff, and more liberty. Orthodox = discipline. God chose disciples. St Mark chose disciples. Our church hierarchy is based on discipleship. If you don't find this in the Coptic Orthodox church, there is no point in searching within - so search without. Are we really intending to send a message out to newcomers to come within to not be disciplined, nor taught, nor actively participate - I guess this way, not sending the message out may be even better.
Now about the Coptic language, and secondarily hymns. As I already alluded, our church is an edificational institute, educating and teaching all the time. Why don't we suppose that Coptic language and hymns are part of such?
I will tell of my experience; when I was in my teens, I wanted to practise English, and my father found out of a Roman Catholic church, in Zamalek, Giza, Egypt, who organise liturgies Monday evening, and Friday morning. Obviously I thought to myself, OK, I will go but not partake of the Communion, just try to make friends and new relationships; only to find out later that only a handful of people attend regularly - of those about 6 or 7 were Western, an Egyptian family, and myself. The priest was Australian, and the head-deacon, or sub-priest, or whatever (didn't really delve that much into their system) was Egyptian. They all spoke English; they prayed in English, and sang songs in English. I defy anyone to find a British-speaking Roman Catholic church in any part of the world that doesn't speak English, and speaks the native language. Culture and identity do still play a part; otherwise there wouldn't have been any differences between Greek Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, Indian Orthodox, British Orthodox, French Orthodox, and Italian Orthodox. I don't believer there are any differences in faith as such (but please all correct me if I am wrong), but we are not allowed to partake of the Communion in another church, but they still can, can't they?
Last point, symbolically speaking: God came down to earth (condescended) to take us up with Him (elevate), and He made it very clear that not all those who are chosen will pass through (strife). Church-wise, we condescend to the newcomers and the youth as a first stage, and then elevate them through requiring them to serve and teach themselves by themselves (whether A leads to B, or vice versa), and not forgetting to strive to learn other things and enclose their lives in the shadows of Christ. I am afraid I have to say this as an observation, and not a judgement, in many churches I see a failure in getting past the stage of condescending - therefore loss is guaranteed, more than anything else.
I am sure you all have experienced this very closely. The number of British people who join the Coptic church, and they are not just a few, become very keen and enthusiastic that the majority of them are "elevated" to serve as deacons. Not only that, they strive to learn Arabic (because the message that the church is "mistakenly for me" giving out is that Arabic is the language of the church [which of course shouldn't be]) and that also includes other posters on this forum who intend to do the same.
God bless you all and pray for us a lot
[coptic]oujai qen `P[C[/coptic]
I don't like commenting on the language issue but I think we have rather misunderstood each other.
I am not sure how you have come to think that I do not consider it absolutely essential that we recover an identity as an intelligent Church community with an educated, thoughtful and spiritual membership. One of the great concerns I have had in the 16 years I have been a member of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate is that we are not as educated as we should be. I found it very hard to find Copts who were knowledgeable about patristics and theology. Indeed I did have to undergo a process of self-education as you describe.
Things are a little bit better now, but still not acceptably so. It has seemed to me that there is little danger of the tradition of Coptic hymnology being lost since I know a great many who know many hymns in Coptic and can recall the tunes of the hymns most accurately. But I still do not know many Copts who know enough about our theology and our Fathers. I see this as a much greater danger to our Church.
In my own congregation I am preaching a continuing series of sermons on the teachings of the Church because I want my spiritual children to be intelligent and educated about their faith. We have organised a study evening together to also increase our knowledge of the faith, and the Council of Oriental Orthodox Churches has organised an Education Day in London on Saturday, October 9th, but presently no Copts other than converts have registered for the event.
I do not agree with you about it being Orthodox or reasonable that infants be kept from baptism. This did occur as a theological and spiritual error in some centuries. But it is not Orthodox. The Fathers of the Church teach us to bring infants to the waters of baptism. And even the catechism was not usually three years long. Indeed we know that those wishing to become catechumens would register their names at the beginning of Great Lent and would then be catechised during Lent. We have the teaching homilies of both St Cyril of Jerusalem and of St Severus. What is remarkable is how little was taught. Those approaching baptism were told nothing of the secret aspects of the Christian life and these were revealed only to those who were newly illumined.
I do not believe that a lengthy catechesis before baptism is necessary. What is required is that the person have faith and wish to commit themselves to living the Orthodox Christian life. Everything else comes afterwards. What is required is a continual education of those who are members of the Church. The problem with people wandering away from commitment to the Orthdoox Church and the Orthodox Faith does not seem to me to be so much a problem of catechumens, rather it is a problem of those who are members of the Church.
I do not believe that it is necessary for any Western convert to learn Coptic or Arabic. It is certainly necessary for the Coptic Orthodox in Egypt to preserve that heritage, but for those of us in the West our primary aim must be to live the Orthodox Christian life in the West, and to bear witness to the universality of our Orthodox Faith in the West. I am about to start some Arabic classes because as a priest it is helpful for me to have some Arabic, but it is not necessary for any of my congregation to learn any, unless it be some greetings. Likewise I cannot see there is any direct need for any convert to learn any Coptic. This is certainly not because I do not think the Egyptian Christian heritage is of value, but because I believe that what is of universal value is not restricted by language.
There are many Copts who know the hymns of the Coptic Orthodox tradition in Coptic, and this is entirely commendable and as it should be. But there are not so many who know anything of our dear Father among the saints Timothy Aelurus, or know very much at all about our brave hero among the saints Dioscoros, or who value the words of the light of the East, our Father Severus.
I take it as a natural process of history that the Copts living in Egypt will maintain the study of Coptic, together with the many emigrants to the West, and those secular and Catholic university faculties who have an interest in the language. It is not going to disappear in my opinion, and it will become easier for those who wish to learn Coptic to do so. But what are Copts in the West for? Why has God brought you here? Is it to preserve islands of Egyptian culture, or is to evangelise the West?
Let us imagine ahead 250 years when we are all dead. Let us imagine that there are only a trickle of immigrants from the Middle East, many essentially British Copts who have married British Christians, and a great majority of members who have no Egyptian blood at all. The Church will certainly still be associated closely with the wider Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate, but will it be seeking to preserve an Egyptian culture and language that few have any direct experience of? Or will it be an English language Church following Coptic traditions? What is the aim of the Coptic Church in the West?
I know for myself that if I moved to Finland for instance, and I did spend a lot of time in Finland with my last job and could speak a fair bit of Finnish. If I moved there I would want to translate the liturgy into Finnish as quickly as possible and start to evangelise Finnish people as soon as possible. Of course I would also meet with other English immigrants from time to time, and we would pray in English, but I would take it that God had brought me to Finland to share my faith with the Finns. I would remain English in my heart. I would read English books and would probably pray in my heart in English. But we are where we are to reach those around us who do not know Christ, and asking them to learn another language to find out about Christ is not Orthodox.
When the Gospel was brought to the Egyptians no-one was asked to learn Aramaic. The Gospel was shared in the Greek language that everyone understood.
At what point does a Copt who has moved to England become English? Should his children consider themselves English of Coptic descent, or still seek to be Coptic in culture above English? What about grand-children or great-grand-children? Where is the benefit in them learning Coptic unless it is for further and advanced studies? When does a community stop trying to preserve the culture of the place where it has come from, and start seeking to live for the sake of the new host culture? I don't know, and I don't need to answer. But I am sure that a British convert seeking Christ in Orthodoxy does not need to learn Arabic, Coptic, Syriac, Church Slavonic, Church Greek or any other language to become entirely Orthodox.
This does not diminish the value of all of these languages, but they are not of the essence of our Orthodox Faith. I am very glad to know some Coptic. I am very glad that there are many serious scholars of Coptic and that the heritage of hymns is preserved as much as it is. But I would rather that all of the Church was educated in our theology and in patristics and was strengthened by such knowledge to resist the attractions of errors such as Protestantism. I would rather that all of the converts coming into the Church were able to learn very clearly about our theology and develop a good grasp of the Fathers of the Church, as well as the riches of our spiritual teaching. We are still not spiritually educated enough. I am very glad that some of the younger men I have known for many years and who had a deep theological knowledge are now being priested. But we need many more such men and women.
I am not sure what you mean about not being able to receive communion in another Church. We are all able to receive communion in the Armenian, Indian, Syrian, Ethiopian, Eritrean, British and French Coptic Orthodox Churches. And to do so is to experience both the sense of the universality of our faith, that sense that it belongs to all languages, and also the sense that we need to worship in our own language (or a language we understand well) if we are to properly worship.
There are certainly ex-pat British communities in various cities around the world who worship in English, even in the middle of Senegal, for instance, where I have spent some time in the past. But it seems to me that though this might be fine if it was a ministry to elderly and even new immigrants from England, it is not fine if what is being established claims to be a Church. The Church does mission and is missionary, it reaches out to people in their own language and develops an authentic Orthodoxy in that language. Surely a Christian cannot say, 'I am just here for work', or 'I am just here to get an education'. Surely we are only in a place to serve God and others, and asking others to learn our language so that they can discover our faith is not the Orthodox way, otherwise all Copts would be struggling to learn Aramaic, or Greek.
When St Dioscorus, the beloved of God, the second Elijah, the second Athanasius, was sent to exile and almost certain death in Gangra, he evangelised those whom he found there. When St Timothy Aelurus whom I love dearly was sent into exile he evangelised all the way on his journey to exile and converted many from their errors. In my own country of England, when St Wilfrith was shipwrecked on the south-coast among the pagan Saxons he stayed put and evangelised them in their own language. When the godly king Alfred wanted to educate his own people he translated theological works into their own language himself. Caedmon the herdsman, who lived in one of our ancient monasteries, was first led to compose a hymn in the Old English language by an angelic visitor, and then would be taught the substance of the faith and the Scriptures by day and after a night of prayer would return with beautiful hymns which he had composed in Old English.
I am sure that on almost all points we are in close agreement. I do believe that we should be working hard to educate our people, and that it should not be permitted that the protestant groups draw them away. I believe that there should be a strict observance of the diaconal ranks and that progress in these ranks should depend to some degree on progess in knowledge and understanding of the Orthodox theology and spirituality, together with an appreciation of the Fathers. But I do disagree about the need for any convert to learn any other language unless they wish to do so for a variety of secondary purposes. I have been trying to learn Syriac so that I can read the writings of St Severus, but I am not learning Syriac so that I can worship God, I worship God in an authentically Orthodox manner in my own English language.
May the Lord bless your service and devotion, I do not believe that we differ so very much. Copts should learn Coptic, and it is a good thing. But mission requires English and Spanish and Dutch and French, and our Coptic Orthodoxy is as much at home in those languages as in Arabic and Coptic itself because above all else we are Orthodox. Indeed there is not mention of any group calling itself the Coptic Orthodox Church in the Fathers as far as I can see. There was only the Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, which was one in faith and life with all other Orthodox and together made up One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. This is why the name of the Patriarch of Antioch was always read out in the litanies for centuries and centuries. We were one Orthodox Church, not several local Churches. This is why there were Syrian monks and monasteries in Egypt, even Armenian communities and iconographers. Several of the Patriarchs of the See of Alexandria were not even Egyptian but were Syrian.
Father Peter