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Orthodox Church Music: A Retreat with Richard Barrett

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barrettOn March 3, 2012, a retreat on Orthodox Church Music was held at St. Paul’s, featuring Richard Barrett, Liturgical Musician and Scholar and Artistic Director of the St. John of Damascus Society.

You can download the audio by clicking on the titles below:

  • Psalterion as pulpit: The privilege, craft, and discipline of Orthodox liturgical song: The Byzantine rite provides a unique opportunity for the church singer to preach the Orthodox Christian faith in its fullness. In this talk, the practical and spiritual implications for the cantor and choir director are discussed, exploring how liturgical music is a responsibility to be honored, a skill to be learned, and a calling to be respected.
  • Mingling Prophecy With Melody: The Ethos of Orthodox Liturgical Music: St. John Chrysostom and St. Basil the Great both describe music as the sweetener that God has given us so that we will want to worship Him. How does music work in that way? What do we sing, who sings it, and why? How does Orthodox liturgical music “set the tone” for our worship? This talk discusses some fundamental musical concepts and explores how they interact with our liturgy and our faith.

Christianity and Ecology: Lessons on Sustainability from the Early Irish Sea

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alfred-siewersAn outreach seminar led by Prof. Alfred Siewers of Bucknell University (Assoc. Prof. of Medieval Literature, Coordinator of the Nature and Human Communities Initiative), originally presented on November 21, 2009.

Download audio: Part 1 (Introduction by Fr. Andrew, Prof. Siewers’s lecture), Part 2 (Q&A with Prof. Siewers and Fr. Andrew)

Handout: Download

Orthodoxy & Heterodoxy

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OrthodoxyAndHeterodoxyOrthodoxy & Heterodoxy is a 7-part lecture series examining the differences between Orthodox Christianity and other religions, presented by Fr. Andrew Stephen Damick. (AFR site, RSS feed)

The series was subsequently published as a book with the same name available from Ancient Faith Publishing (formerly Conciliar Press) (also available from Amazon.com, including as an e-book). The book form is both revised and expanded from the original podcasts.

The topics are as follows:

I. Heterodoxy & Heresy (introduction)– originally presented Sept. 27, 2009

  • Part 1: Understanding the Terms
  • Part 2: The Essentials of Christian Doctrine
  • Handouts: Outline (including Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy quick references)

II. Roman Catholicism– originally presented Oct. 4, 2009

III. The Classical/Magisterial Reformation (Lutherans, Calvinists, Reformed, Zwinglians, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Methodists, Wesleyans) – originally presented on Oct. 11, 2009

IV. The Radical Reformation (Anabaptists, Baptists, Brethren, Amish, Mennonites, Moravians, Restorationists, Adventists) – originally presented on Oct. 25, 2009

  • Part 1: “Believer’s baptism” over against infant baptism, anti-sacramentalism, the “invisible Church,” etc.
  • Part 2: Denominations that formed after the Radical Reformation, as well as two studies in ecclesiological inheritance (Restorationists and Adventists).
  • Handouts: Outline, The Trail of Blood

V. Modern Revivalism (Pentecostalism, Charismatics, Evangelicalism, Emergents) – originally presented on Nov. 1, 2009

  • Part 1: Personal conversion, individualism, and private biblical interpretation.
  • Part 2: Lecture continuation.
  • Part 3: Holiness movement (including Pentecostalism / Charismatics), mega-churches, dispensationalism, fundamentalism, liberalism, and the “emergent” church movement.
  • Handouts: Outline, Theosis in the New Testament

VI. Non-Christian Religions (Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Shinto, Sikhism, Wicca, Neo-paganism, Zoroastrianism, Modern Gnosticism, Scientology, Animism) – originally presented on Nov. 8, 2009

VII. Non-Mainstream Christians (Swedenborgians, Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Unitarian Universalists, Christadelphians, Christian Science, Unification Church (“Moonies”); also includes series conclusions) – originally presented on Nov. 15, 2009

Nativity 2012 Message of Bishop THOMAS

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nativityBeloved in Christ,

Greetings in the name of our incarnate God and Savior, our Lord Jesus Christ!

However great the heaven of heavens may be, or the upper waters which form a roof over the celestial regions, or any heavenly place, state or order, they are no more marvellous or honourable than the cave, the manger, the water sprinkled on the infant and His swaddling clothes. For nothing done by God from the beginning of time was more beneficial to all or more divine than Christ’s nativity, which we celebrate today. (St. Gregory Palamas, “On Christmas,” The Saving Work of Christ: Sermons by Saint Gregory Palamas, p. 1)

What a truly awe-inspiring gift we receive in the Nativity of the Son of God, our great God and Savior Jesus Christ! At the beginning of the homily quoted above from St. Gregory Palamas, he says that his festal address “must be exalted therefore in accordance with the greatness of the feast” so that we can “enter into the mystery… that something of its inner power might be revealed to us.”

So often in our increasingly secularized and trivialized world, we fail even to take note of such greatness, such glory revealed to us lowly creatures by our God. But our distractions actually prevent us from entering into this mystery, and it so often passes us by. Let us therefore pause during this blessed feast and take heed of what St. Gregory tells us: “Please strive, brethren, to lift up your minds as well, that they may better perceive the light of divine knowledge, as though brightly illumined by a holy star.”

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Yours in Christ,

Rt. Rev. Bishop THOMAS (Joseph)
Auxiliary Bishop, Diocese of Charleston, Oakland, and the Mid-Atlantic

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St. Paul Antiochian Orthodox Church

Planting the Seeds of Orthodoxy,
Cultivating Christian Community

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