The Byzantine chant is a unique adornment of the service to the Lord. Still, the work of the chanter does not end after the service officiated in the church, Assistant Bishop Nichifor of Botoșani said at the opening ceremony of the second edition of the Days of Romanian Chanters.
On Friday, May 13, the assistant bishop to the Iasi Archdiocese celebrated the Divine Liturgy at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iasi. In his speech, Assistant Bishop Nichifor explained the role of chanting in the service to God in the Old and New Testaments.
“When the prophet David thought of the Temple of the Lord, his heart rejoiced. And like the Temple of the Lord was built in the days of Solomon, every detail was made with generosity and abundance unthinkable until then. When they proceeded to build and adorn it, they did so generously. In the Temple were the books of the Law and the ark. Each pillar of the Temple, everything was designed with a special richness, in the smallest details. The people were poor, but they understood that it was an encounter with the Living God, whose blessing they knew,” the Assistant Bishop to the Archdiocese of Iasi said.
“This overwhelming adornment expressed a sense of gratitude and honour to God on behalf of the people. This honour was not limited to the beauty of the Temple but also an honour for the service and a special choice of His servants. In the New Covenant, the ministry was revealed by God to the Apostles, and to this day, preserved according to their teaching, recorded in books, and in documents. […] A special adornment of the service and the Temple is also that of singing,” the hierarch added.
His Grace Assistant Bishop Nichifor of Botoșani said that the event was an opportunity to commemorate Romanian Chanters culturally and liturgically, “asking the Lord to repay them for their hard work and sacrifice.”
“We honour them properly because the work of the chanter does not end when the service is over but continues when, from home or in peace, he bends down to study a hymn, to create another hymn, because the work of the chanter is a creative one – to please God and humans, in the name of God,” the hierarch noted.
Along with the Romanian chanters, Lykourgos Angelopoulos, the mentor of the Byzantion Choir, was also remembered at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Iași.
The Days of the Romanian Chanters continued on Saturday with an online scientific communication session broadcast on YouTube and Facebook.
On Sunday, May 15, from 19.00, the “Days of the Romanian Chanters” culminated with a church music concert entitled “Saint Paisius of Neamț and Psaltic Art.”
The Days of the Romanian Chanters was an event organized in Iasi by the Byzantion Cultural Association, the Metropolis of Moldavia and Bukovina and the National University of Arts “George Enescu”.
This year, in its second edition (May 13-15, 2022), the event aimed to evoke Psaltic Art’s personalities from the territories inhabited by Romanians.
Photography courtesy of Doxologia.ro
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