Orthodox Christianity has an amazing tradition (by the way, “tradition” can be a good thing, even in the Bible!) of sacred music.
Sacred music a completely biblical idea, and even the last book of the Bible (Revelation) mentions “the new song” that those who worship God know and sing.
An interesting (and little known) feature of the sacred music of early Christian is that only the human voice was used: no instruments! In fact, for more than a thousand years, no Christian anywhere in the world even thought about adding instruments to the human voice!
At any rate, Orthodox music exists in two broad forms (not counting Latin chant from before the schism): the Byzantine tradition (which sounds more oriental) and the Slavic tradition (which sounds more Western and symphonic). We will provide some amazing samples below.
Locally, Saint Innocent’s in Eureka is blessed to have a very good choir, but the idea is that everyone attending should sing the responses and the main hymns. As Saint Augustine once said, “to sing is to pray twice.” Please let us know if you would like to join the choir! We have a choir with mixed voices (men and women) and would love for you to join us!
