Mount Athos is a mountain and peninsula in northeastern Greece and an important centre of Eastern Orthodox monasticism. It is governed as an autonomous polity within the Greek Republic. Mount Athos is home to 20 monasteries under the direct jurisdiction of the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
The Byzantine Rite, also known as the Greek Rite or Constantinopolitan Rite, is the liturgical rite used by the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Greek Catholic Churches, and in a modified form, Byzantine Rite Lutheranism. Its development began during the fourth century in Constantinople and it is now the second most-used ecclesiastical rite in Christendom after the Roman Rite.
Matins is a canonical hour of Christian liturgy.
Byzantine music is the music of the Byzantine Empire. Originally it consisted of songs and hymns composed to Greek texts used for courtly ceremonials, during festivals, or as paraliturgical and liturgical music. The ecclesiastical forms of Byzantine music are the best known forms today, because different Orthodox traditions still identify with the heritage of Byzantine music, when their cantors sing monodic chant out of the traditional chant books such as sticherarion, which in fact consisted of five books, and the heirmologion.
An Akathist Hymn is a type of hymn usually recited by Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic Christians, dedicated to a saint, holy event, or one of the persons of the Holy Trinity. The name derives from the fact that during the chanting of the hymn, or sometimes the whole service, the congregation is expected to remain standing in reverence, without sitting down, except for the aged or infirm. During Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Christian religious services in general, sitting, standing, bowing and the making of prostrations are set by an intricate set of rules, as well as individual discretion. Only during readings of the Gospel and the singing of Akathists is standing considered mandatory for all.
Stavropoleos Monastery, also known as Stavropoleos Church during the last century when the monastery was dissolved, is an Eastern Orthodox monastery for nuns in central Bucharest, Romania. Its church is built in Brâncovenesc style. The patrons of the church are St. Archangels Michael and Gabriel. The name Stavropoleos is the genitive case of Stavropolis. One of the monastery's constant interests is Byzantine music, expressed through its choir and the largest collection of Byzantine music books in Romania.
The Paschal troparion or Christos anesti is the characteristic hymn for the celebration of the Orthodox Pascha (Easter) in the Eastern Orthodox Church and churches that follow the Byzantine Rite.
Nektaria Karantzi is a Byzantine and traditional singer from Greece.
The kliros is the section of an Eastern Orthodox or Eastern Catholic church dedicated to the choir. It refers both to the general space in which chanters or singers assemble for the services, as well as to the actual music stand or shelves on which music is stored and read.
Chronis Aidonidis is a Greek singer born on December 23, 1928 in Karoti, a village now belonging to Didymoteicho, in Greece. His parents were Christos and Chrysanthi Aidonidis. He learned his first songs in his hometown and was introduced into the word of traditional music by his mother and the musicians who used to play at the local fairs.
Simonopetra Monastery, also Monastery of Simonos Petra, is an Eastern Orthodox monastery in the monastic state of Mount Athos in Greece. Simonopetra ranks thirteenth in the hierarchy of the Athonite monasteries.
In Catholicism, the cantor, sometimes called the precentor or the protopsaltes is the chief singer, and usually instructor, employed at a church, a cathedral or monastery with responsibilities for the ecclesiastical choir and the preparation of liturgy.
Xenophontos monastery is an Orthodox Christian monastery in the monastic state of Mount Athos in Greece.
Osiou Gregoriou monastery is an Orthodox Christian monastery in the monastic state of Mount Athos in Greece. The monastery ranks seventeenth in the hierarchy of the Athonite monasteries. The monastery is built by the sea, on the southeastern side of the peninsula. Its close neighbours are Simonospetros and St Pauls Monasteries. Gregoriou is very much a pilgrim friendly monastery with a strong pastoral sense. Pilgrim visitors are high and well provided for. The choir singing is very traditional Byzantine chanting and is one of the highest standards on Mt Athos, with perhaps only Vatopedi outdoing it. When one visits Gregoriou and stays there for a few days one can feel like the monastery is almost completely girt by the sea, built as it is on a corner of land jutting into the sea, with only steep craggy rocks backed up behind it.
Typikon is a liturgical book which contains instructions about the order of the Byzantine Rite office and variable hymns of the Divine Liturgy.
The Polyeleos, is a festive portion of the Matins or All-Night Vigil service as observed on higher-ranking feast days in the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Rite Catholic Churches. The Polyeleos is considered to be the high point of the service, and contains the reading of the Matins Gospel. Because of its liturgical importance, beautiful settings for the Polyeleos have been composed by Sergei Rachmaninoff and others.
The School of Ecclesiastic Music (SEM) is a school of Byzantine music in Matn, Lebanon.
Manuel Doukas Chrysaphes was the most prominent Byzantine musician of the 15th century.
Simon Karas (1905–1999) was a Greek musicologist, who specialized in Byzantine music tradition.
Divna Ljubojević, sometimes called by just her first name, i.e. Divna, is a Serbian singer and conductor of Orthodox Christian sacred music of various languages; she is a founder, the conductor and artistic director of the Melodi ensemble, a "choir and studio for spiritual music". Lykourgos Angelopoulos, professor at the School of Byzantine Chant at the Conservatory of Athens, founder and director of the Greek Byzantine Choir, has described her as having one of the purest voices he has ever heard.
