Hymns from the East: Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the Holy Eastern Church — John Shaqi
Hymns from the East: Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the Holy Eastern ChurchBrownlie, John
Religion
Hymns from the East: Being Centos and Suggestions from the Office Books of the Holy Eastern Church
Brownlie, John
Hymns, Greek -- Translations into English; Orthodox Eastern Church -- Hymns
What, then, is the net result? To an unpractised eye, if no indication of
the source of these hymns had been given, could anything about them have
suggested their source? To the unpractised eye, nothing. But no one who
knows the Greek Offices will travel far before he overtakes well-known
landmarks. This is just as it should be. It is sufficient that a fertile
source of suggestion has been found--of theme, thought, form, colour--and
that from this ancient source it is possible to procure much that is
beautiful for the adornment of the worship of God's house to-day. And
this gratifying fact is made plain, that the themes of Greek Church
praise are the grand themes of the praise of the Church in our land and
in all Christian lands;--The Christ in all the Might and Glory of His
Person and Work: the need of our humanity, and the way in which Christ
met it: His miraculous birth, which is not shorn of any of its mystery,
and the embellishments of the event, which are never toned down, but, in
true oriental fashion, made, if possible, more dazzling: His Passion and
His Death, and the fulness of their atoning efficacy. But, as is to be
expected, the grand theme of the Greek singers, as became those who, more
than we have done, caught the first inspiration of their praise from the
apostles, is the glorious Resurrection of our Lord from the dead. Here,
the praise of the Greek Church touches its highest note, and pours forth
its most enchanting melody. "Christ is risen," and the glad response, "He
is risen indeed"--these words constitute the keynote of all that is best
and most beautiful in Greek worship. The Knowledge and the Wisdom of God
are everywhere extolled, and the attribute of Light is continually and
cordially applied to the Deity.
One cannot acquaint himself with the Church of the Apostles, with its
glowing service, and with the noble stand it has made, and still
maintains, for the truth of God and for the Kingdom of Christ in the
world, and not feel pained with the fact, so little to the credit of the
Church of the West, that, of our sympathy it has little or none. This is
largely due to our ignorance. But is ignorance in many cases not
culpable? Is it not so in our case? A little more acquaintance with the
Eastern Church would vastly alter our attitude towards it, and speedily
remove most of our prejudices.
More than once have we listened to depreciations of the Greek Church, and
the epithet "stagnant" has always been incorporated as a first-rate
misdemeanour of the Orthodox Church of the East. The assumption in the
epithet is that the Greek Church is not missionary and aggressive, and
the implication is that it has been so from earliest times. Until men
acquaint themselves with the history of this Church, and open their eyes
to facts which are readily accessible, it is useless to attempt to lift
them out of their prejudices.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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