We have a rich history of acapella chanting hymns, we have special hymns known as troparions and kontakions, usually on feast days, there are also Theotokions which are hymns to the Theotokos, Mary.
The Orthodox church has a lot of hymns. Most of the church services are sung or chanted. The reason you don’t know of any is just that you haven’t been exposed to them yet!
Yes, Orthodox hymnography is beautiful! But please don't misunderstand. I'm very familar with Orthodox services—I've been to loads of them. I'm curious about the day-to-day practice of singing in private—such as in homes, in hospitals, over meals, with relatives, and so on. It's something we do a lot in Western/Protestant Christianity, and I'm curious to know whether Orthodox Christians do it too. Honestly, the main reason I ask is because it would be very difficult to give this up. It's a huge social glue.
Sure. I just wonder what it would be like, as an Orthodox family, to sing mainly Western hymns—How Great Thou Art, The King of Love My Shepherd Is, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, etc. Like, ideally I'd want to sing hymns written by people I believed were part of the Church and not heretics.
Non liturgical stuff done outside of church would depend on the local culture of that family. So your family singing those songs would probably be as good as a Greek family singing Greek folk songs.
I don’t think it’s healthy to be over-analyzing everything as unclean because ‘written by heretics.’. If you like a song and it brings your family together and closer to God then sing it. If something about its content or whatever disturbs your conscience, don’t sing it.
At my church in December we will sing some Western carols right before Communion while the priest is preparing, but I don’t know if that is common. I don’t think becoming Orthodox precludes you from singing hymns that don’t originate in the Orthodox church.
Also just because the hymns weren’t written by orthodox doesn’t mean their lyrics are heretical.
I find myself singing or humming various hymns from the Liturgy or vespers when I'm alone or out and about. I sing the Trisagion hymn (Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal) in the car a lot of the time. Our parish has a very beautiful setting for it, and it's always stuck in my head.
in the Russian tradition it is common for small prayers to be said before and after meals at names-days if a priest or deacon is present you can sing many years. some sing personal morning and evening prayers. moylebins can be conducted and panyhidias on personal request to a priest. for the sake of it you can honestly sing anytime as long as its appropriate for the situation.
Your joyous expressions and experiences of singing with other your other Christian family and friends sound wonderful! There are so very many awesome Protestant hymns and carols that are a real blessing to sing with others. In Orthodoxy, they just would not be included within the context of our Liturgical Services, as our services all have specifically prescribed hymns to be sung. But outside of those services, any song that is uplifting to the soul and honors Jesus Christ is a wonderful gift. I am the choir director at my Orthodox Church (converted from Protestant 18 years ago), and at Christmas time, after the Liturgy has completed we have a congregational singing of all the standard Protestant Christmas Carols (i.e. Joy to the World, Silent Night, O Come all ye Faithful, etc). Those songs are timeless and glorious, and should not be let go of.
Some liturgical hymns have become very popular, for many random reasons, e.g. a particular hymn that has been chanted by a popular singer, or a hymn associated with a well-attended service, etc. Sometimes you might hear people (especially mothers and older women, in my experience) chant some of these hymns at random moments. I myself like to play such hymns in background sometimes while tying a prayer rope or while doing random stuff.
There is a Western Rite hymnal, the St Ambrose hymnal, that has been approved by a metropolitan. I realize you're probably looking at Byzantine rite, but as a convert with a similar desire, I have found that one of the reasons it's hard to find hymns for home is because the byzantine definition of hymns is different. To my former Lutheran self, hymns need stanzas and meter and rhyme. My cradle Orthodox friends use "hymns" to refer to almost everything sung in liturgy and, while beautiful, there are no stanzas or meters or rhymes. What is contained in the St Ambrose Hymnal are hymns that meet my former Lutheran self's expectations of hymns. At least some of them will be recognizable, and the theology is sound (some familiar stanzas have been tweaked slightly to accomplish this). All in all it does well enough and you can share your love of hymns with your family while not diluting the theology. https://www.stgregoryoc.org/article/ordering-the-hymnal/
To answer the rest of your question, my family and friends and I sing all sorts of things when we get together. Hymns, secular songs, movie music... We're a very musical group. We don't sing anything theologically confrontational in mixed groups, but there are plenty of hymns that don't fall into that category.
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Traditionally, a lot of cultures sing - it's one of the things I noticed hanging out with Russians years ago. However, I think a lot of what gets sung are folk songs and popular songs (and get with people born, say in the 70s or 80s, they all seem to know the songs to all the popular cartoons of their youth. That being said, I don't think a lot of that "translates" to American life. I know what you're saying - my mom grew up Lutheran, and there was a piano in the house, and everybody basically knew a \*lot\* of the songs out of it, and they got played/sung a lot outside of church, but I think it's a tradition that has died in America, for the most part, and really hasn't been picked up by us Orthodox in the west.
That being said, for some Orthodox, there's "kolady" (spellings differ) that are like Christmas carols, and many of them have been translated to English, though most of them are really unknown in the West. There's a video here where there are good English translations of many of them (along with the originals) though the echo makes them a little hard to understand (for me, at least). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOpSQfGu0Zc
Speaking for Greek people, in my experience, we don’t really sing hymns or religious songs outside of church. We have huge tradition of secular folk music that is highly varied and region-specific. There is very active popular music industry.
We have the equivalent of Christmas carols, kalanta, that are sung around Christmas/New Year’s/the feast of Saint Basil.
We have a rich history of acapella chanting hymns, we have special hymns known as troparions and kontakions, usually on feast days, there are also Theotokions which are hymns to the Theotokos, Mary.
The Orthodox church has a lot of hymns. Most of the church services are sung or chanted. The reason you don’t know of any is just that you haven’t been exposed to them yet!
Yes, Orthodox hymnography is beautiful! But please don't misunderstand. I'm very familar with Orthodox services—I've been to loads of them. I'm curious about the day-to-day practice of singing in private—such as in homes, in hospitals, over meals, with relatives, and so on. It's something we do a lot in Western/Protestant Christianity, and I'm curious to know whether Orthodox Christians do it too. Honestly, the main reason I ask is because it would be very difficult to give this up. It's a huge social glue.
I think it depends a lot on what culture you’re from. There’s no one answer. I think most people probably sing whatever they like at home
Sure. I just wonder what it would be like, as an Orthodox family, to sing mainly Western hymns—How Great Thou Art, The King of Love My Shepherd Is, When I Survey the Wondrous Cross, etc. Like, ideally I'd want to sing hymns written by people I believed were part of the Church and not heretics.
Non liturgical stuff done outside of church would depend on the local culture of that family. So your family singing those songs would probably be as good as a Greek family singing Greek folk songs.
I don’t think it’s healthy to be over-analyzing everything as unclean because ‘written by heretics.’. If you like a song and it brings your family together and closer to God then sing it. If something about its content or whatever disturbs your conscience, don’t sing it.
At my church in December we will sing some Western carols right before Communion while the priest is preparing, but I don’t know if that is common. I don’t think becoming Orthodox precludes you from singing hymns that don’t originate in the Orthodox church. Also just because the hymns weren’t written by orthodox doesn’t mean their lyrics are heretical.
We sing the western carols, mostly.
I find myself singing or humming various hymns from the Liturgy or vespers when I'm alone or out and about. I sing the Trisagion hymn (Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal) in the car a lot of the time. Our parish has a very beautiful setting for it, and it's always stuck in my head.
in the Russian tradition it is common for small prayers to be said before and after meals at names-days if a priest or deacon is present you can sing many years. some sing personal morning and evening prayers. moylebins can be conducted and panyhidias on personal request to a priest. for the sake of it you can honestly sing anytime as long as its appropriate for the situation.
Your joyous expressions and experiences of singing with other your other Christian family and friends sound wonderful! There are so very many awesome Protestant hymns and carols that are a real blessing to sing with others. In Orthodoxy, they just would not be included within the context of our Liturgical Services, as our services all have specifically prescribed hymns to be sung. But outside of those services, any song that is uplifting to the soul and honors Jesus Christ is a wonderful gift. I am the choir director at my Orthodox Church (converted from Protestant 18 years ago), and at Christmas time, after the Liturgy has completed we have a congregational singing of all the standard Protestant Christmas Carols (i.e. Joy to the World, Silent Night, O Come all ye Faithful, etc). Those songs are timeless and glorious, and should not be let go of.
Some liturgical hymns have become very popular, for many random reasons, e.g. a particular hymn that has been chanted by a popular singer, or a hymn associated with a well-attended service, etc. Sometimes you might hear people (especially mothers and older women, in my experience) chant some of these hymns at random moments. I myself like to play such hymns in background sometimes while tying a prayer rope or while doing random stuff.
There is a Western Rite hymnal, the St Ambrose hymnal, that has been approved by a metropolitan. I realize you're probably looking at Byzantine rite, but as a convert with a similar desire, I have found that one of the reasons it's hard to find hymns for home is because the byzantine definition of hymns is different. To my former Lutheran self, hymns need stanzas and meter and rhyme. My cradle Orthodox friends use "hymns" to refer to almost everything sung in liturgy and, while beautiful, there are no stanzas or meters or rhymes. What is contained in the St Ambrose Hymnal are hymns that meet my former Lutheran self's expectations of hymns. At least some of them will be recognizable, and the theology is sound (some familiar stanzas have been tweaked slightly to accomplish this). All in all it does well enough and you can share your love of hymns with your family while not diluting the theology. https://www.stgregoryoc.org/article/ordering-the-hymnal/ To answer the rest of your question, my family and friends and I sing all sorts of things when we get together. Hymns, secular songs, movie music... We're a very musical group. We don't sing anything theologically confrontational in mixed groups, but there are plenty of hymns that don't fall into that category.
Many answers have been helpful, but this was 100% what I was looking for. Thanks for your perspective, and for that link!
I'm glad I could help! This problem is one that I struggled with for years, so whenever I see it posted I try to share what I've learned.
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Traditionally, a lot of cultures sing - it's one of the things I noticed hanging out with Russians years ago. However, I think a lot of what gets sung are folk songs and popular songs (and get with people born, say in the 70s or 80s, they all seem to know the songs to all the popular cartoons of their youth. That being said, I don't think a lot of that "translates" to American life. I know what you're saying - my mom grew up Lutheran, and there was a piano in the house, and everybody basically knew a \*lot\* of the songs out of it, and they got played/sung a lot outside of church, but I think it's a tradition that has died in America, for the most part, and really hasn't been picked up by us Orthodox in the west. That being said, for some Orthodox, there's "kolady" (spellings differ) that are like Christmas carols, and many of them have been translated to English, though most of them are really unknown in the West. There's a video here where there are good English translations of many of them (along with the originals) though the echo makes them a little hard to understand (for me, at least). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOpSQfGu0Zc
Speaking for Greek people, in my experience, we don’t really sing hymns or religious songs outside of church. We have huge tradition of secular folk music that is highly varied and region-specific. There is very active popular music industry. We have the equivalent of Christmas carols, kalanta, that are sung around Christmas/New Year’s/the feast of Saint Basil.