New Converts and Longtime Members Learn Byzantine Chant
NEW YORK — On a recent Tuesday night at Annunciation Greek Orthodox Church on the Upper West Side, six students gathered in a basement classroom to learn a skill integral to Orthodox liturgy: Byzantine chant.
The singers’ voices rose and fell in unison. They had no instruments, save their hands, which they lifted and dropped on their knees, creating a steady backdrop of a beat.
Byzantine chant is a type of religious music traditionally used by the Eastern Orthodox Church, characterized by singing with minimal or no background, and is typically sung in a religious context such as the Divine Liturgy, the main Sunday church service.
Christos, the teacher, is a cantor for the Sunday services. His students cover a wide demographic, from teenagers through elders, and all share the goal of engaging more meaningfully with the liturgy.
One student, a longtime church member named Margaret, said she knows what is happening in the liturgy based on the chanting. For her, the class is an opportunity to better understand the proceedings of the service, which are often obscured from view.
In class, Christos began by revisiting the prior week’s lesson on characters that add duration, signified by the number of dots under the symbol (. , .. , or …). Byzantine symbols are comparative — each signifies how many steps up or down, and in what way, the singer should adjust their tone compared with the prior note.
Christos then led the class in practicing hand motions and singing through samples of notation with increasing difficulty.
The students were all at different levels — some already understood Gregorian chant and others had just converted to the religion. Christos worked with each individually to construct attainable goals, giving a promising teenager, a young convert from Catholicism, the assignment of preparing a solo to be sung next month.
But for the most part, the students focused on learning the notes. They used “Ni Pa Vou Ga Di Ke Zo Ni,” which corresponds to the Western C major scale (Do Re Mi…). Only after extensive practice reading and singing along with the codification will they begin adding words.
Byzantine chant notation is a complex, arduous, aesthetically foreign form of music theory. Some students compared the symbols to Arabic, and all agreed that the skill was akin to reading a foreign language.
They began the course learning the basic symbols, which they reviewed at the beginning of class:
Afterward, they learned more complex multi-note symbols, the lesson of the day:
Each student seemed fully engaged with the teaching and asked questions throughout. Several students recorded the examples on their phones as they sang, to listen to at home. Their homework was to practice three of the examples on one of the pages daily.
At the end of the class, Christos opened the floor for questions. He explained the history and development of Byzantine chant and its use in modern churches.
Byzantine chant developed over centuries, likely originating from early Hebrew and Syrian music. During the Byzantine Empire, it was a method of sharing biblical texts and prayers during a time when many people were illiterate, especially in rural areas. Even for the literate, Byzantine chant was a helpful tool to memorize and engage with religious information.
In the early 19th century, the codification was refined and simplified to be more accessible to church leaders and participants.
Although the class focused on teaching technical skills, Christos described the chanting as “fully spiritual,” making sure not to undermine the tradition’s mystical significance.
The goal of Byzantine chant, he said, is to “match hymnography of text with the feeling.”
Suspend the Urge to Understand: Lessons from a Heart Sutra Book Club at the Korean Buddhism Jo-Gei Temple of America
On a frigid February afternoon, six students sat cross-legged on jade-colored cushions atop creaky wooden floorboards inside a Manhattan brownstone. They had come for a Buddhist scripture study group, advertised plainly as “Book Club,” at the Korean Jo-Gei Temple of America.
“I consider myself quite shy,” said Bosung, the monk who leads the weekly gathering. “I find myself much more comfortable talking to trees and growing plants than teaching a class,” he added with a soft chuckle. He wore a bell-sleeve mauvish robe, a white muslin scarf, clear cubic glasses and chestnut prayer beads. Behind him, a gentle glow emanated from an oversized Himalayan salt lamp, creating a roseate halo around his shaved head.
Pipes crackled. A finicky heater whirred. Each student clutched a canary-yellow piece of paper displaying words in English and Hangul (the Korean alphabet), which they scrutinized in silence. Some scrawled notes in the margins, perhaps preparing themselves for the monk’s cold-calling practice. The printed work in question: The Heart Sutra, a text dedicated to Avalokiteshvara — the Bodhisattva of Compassion — and considered by many the foremost piece of Buddhist scripture.
“The Heart Sutra speaks to a quality of knowledge which you already have,” Bosung said. “It speaks to something we can do without understanding.” According to Bosung, the Sutra asks and answers one simple question: “How do we do compassion?” Compassion, he clarified, is not a feeling, but a function — an action to be demonstrated rather than simply discussed.
A student raised her hand to inquire about the meaning of emptiness, a recurring concept throughout the text. At this, Bosung clicked his tongue, released a heavy breath and cautioned against the urge to understand.
“If a child were to run in here crying, what would you do?” Bosung asked the group. Silence. “Would you ask them about emptiness?” he added. Blank stares. A few stifled laughs. “No!” Bosung exclaimed, shaking the room with his bellow. “You would ask what’s wrong and try to comfort them.” Nods and hums of agreement. “It’s our capacity to not know that allows us to comfort the child,” he said.
The lesson might seem counterintuitive: Ignorance enhances the capacity for compassion. One student voiced confusion: Isn’t knowledge required for deeper understanding and empathy?
“There can be real wisdom in ignorance,” Bosung said. Ignorance, he explained, gives way to curiosity, a necessary ingredient for compassion. The sacred act of asking true questions requires first gaining comfort in a state of unknowing.
Before the class adjourned, Bosung emphasized the importance of experiential learning in Buddhist practice. “Don’t take my word for it. Experience it for yourself. And let that experience ripen into your own courage.”
Fashioning Wheat Stalks into Brigid’s Cross, An Imbolc Tradition
NEW YORK — On a chilly Saturday afternoon in February, a dozen people from all over New York City gathered in The Meadow, a creative arts studio under the Manhattan Bridge overpass in Brooklyn. The practitioners of Celtic spirituality sat around a wooden table littered with half-eaten cookies, teacups of wildflower tea and piles of long stalks of wheat.
They came together to celebrate the Irish holiday of Imbolc, based on the Celtic Wheel of the Year and the Druidic calendar. Julie Flynn, a woman known as the Keeper of The Meadow, provided each person at the table with a pile of damp wheat stalks, a couple inches of twine and a paper printout of a plaited pattern. For the men and women gathered at the studio, the creation of Saint Brigid’s cross connects them to an Irish tradition that’s been around for centuries.
Flynn soaked the stems in water for 30 minutes to soften them before the lesson and stood up at the front of the room to demonstrate the crisscross design. With one stem held vertically and the other horizontally, she folded the second stem over the first and turned the wheat 90 degrees counterclockwise. With each turn she added one more stem, over and over until a T-shaped cross with a diamond center began to form. As she weaved, she explained that the symbol of Ireland is usually fashioned out of rushes and hung above the front door of a home to ward off evil.
The sound of rustling wheat stocks filled the room as devotees began to build their emblems. A woman near the head of the table finished making her cross within minutes, and people at the table stopped to admire her handiwork. Eventually the other practitioners caught up and began tying the arms of their tokens with twine to hold their shape. Flynn then explained how Brigid’s cross is different in design from the Christian symbol because it is hung with the arms at an angle instead of parallel to one another.
Along with the lesson, Flynn played a video from Marisa Goudy, a local scholar of Irish mythology. “Imbolc is really associated with being the season of Brigid herself,” said Goudy. “It’s when the snowbells are beginning to emerge, and it feels as if spring is touching the island of Ireland again.”
Goudy appeared on Flynn’s computer screen, wearing a scarf around her neck patterned with Brigid’s cross. “You'll hear many people refer to Brigid as goddess and saint in one breath because they really are indistinguishable in the modern imagination,” said Goudy. She sees Brigid as more of a goddess, one associated with witchcrafts, healing and poetry.
Imbolc honors a long arc of history in which Brigid was embraced by both pagan and Christian traditions. Some historians believe the ancient Celtic goddess was syncretized with Saint Brigid of the Christian faith. It isn’t known for certain whether Brigid and Saint Brigid are one in the same, but the overlap of Druid and Christian belief continues to this day.