saints – St Jacob Orthodox Church

October 30, 2024

St. John Kochurov service: Vespers, Vigil, Matins, Liturgy

St. John Kochurov was a priest who service in the missionary diocese of America under St. Tikhon in the early 20th century. He was mainly in Chicago, and besides being responsible for the building of the Holy Trinity Cathedral there, he also was influential in helping start up several parishes in Illinois, including in Streator, Madison, and Joliet, but also far to the east and north in Buffalo, New York, and way down in Hartshorne, Oklahoma.

That is where he caught my interest, being from Oklahoma myself. I wanted to commemorate him in the services, so, back in 2018, I found his full service available on the OCA Diocese of the Midwest website. At that point, I only converted it to traditional English, “thou/thy” wording. This year, however, in preparation for his celebration tomorrow, I went through and pointed the text to be sung with the tones. That includes a fair amount of editing, just to smoothly fit text and music together, and to allow the music to bring out the essential meaning of the text.

Feel free to use this full service to St. John Kochurov, including Vespers and Matins to do a Vigil.

September 9, 2024September 10, 2024

St. Tikhon visits Oklahoma

Visitation by His Grace Bishop Tikhon (Bellavin), Bishop of the Aleutians and North America

to the Orthodox parish in Hartshorne, Indian Territory (Oklahoma)

as related in the Russian Orthodox American Messenger, May 1904

Our Orthodox Visitor: On April 6 (19), Bright Tuesday, Hartshorne had the good fortune to receive His Grace, Vladyka Tikhon. Meeting the archpastor at the railway station were the rector of the church, Hieromonk Tikhon (Rostovsky); the church warden, Vasiliy Prokopchak; and the local brotherhood, led by their chairman, Ivan Kitchak; along with a host of children. Led by Hierodeacon Anthony, His Eminence was brought from the station to the church in a carriage, accompanied by the crowd gathered.

June 3, 2024June 3, 2024

Service for Martyr Grand Duchess Elizabeth

We will soon be commemorating the New-martyr Elizabeth, martyred by the Bolsheviks along with the Romanov royal family. This service to the Grand Duchess Elizabeth was obtained from with the website of St. Elizabeth Convent in Minsk, but some editing was needed.

Changes were needed, not because of any inadequacies in the original text, but partially to help the meaning of the words come through when sung to the melodies used here at our parish. I would assume that the original Russian/Slavonic wording was created “straight into” the Church tones. Once translated into English, it would again need a little “massaging” to really help the meaning shine through.

March 9, 2024March 9, 2024

The Monk Who Never Judged Anyone and Died Joyfully

Coming up on the Sunday of the Last Judgment, we might feel a stirring of some of those fears we have, deep down, of that Judgment Day. But there is a trick. We actually have a large amount of control over how we are judged.

Christ says, Judge not, and you will not be judged. And, he adds elsewhere, with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you. Meaning, if I am incredibly lenient with my judgment of others, the Lord will also be incredibly lenient with me. There is a beautiful entry of an unnamed monk in the Prologue of Ochrid:

November 30, 2023November 30, 2023

Zephaniah – Zechariah – same difference

In the process of preparing text to be sung in our services, I often run across questions about the meaning. I try my best to reword unclear passages so they will make sense to the hearer, who, in almost all cases, will only get one chance to hear that particular text, and that, sung by the choir, no less. It is a bit of a musical, poetic, biblical, historical puzzle.

Sometimes the unclear passage is a reference to something in the saint’s life: “thou didst offer an incense of sweet savor with thy martyr’s hand” (Barlaam, 19Nov). We understand the words, but it raises questions in our minds. Sometimes, it is an unclear combination of the saint’s life and and a particular scripture passage; the irmos portions of Matins do this fairly often.

This coming Sunday, we will be celebrating the prophet Zephaniah. Something about the kontakion hymn for him, and the quote from the prophecy included in it, caught my eye and I looked it up. I just copied the words into the search engine, and was a bit surprised to find the results listed as Zechariah…a different Z-prophet. This is a problem I have not seen before.