International Scholarly Conference 'Byzantine-Slavonic Hymnography and Church Monody' Held at Ukrainian Catholic University

The 7th International Scholarly Conference “Byzantine-Slavonic Hymnography and Church Monody” was held at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv on May 17-19.

The participants of the event discussed various aspects of the Slavonic hymnography, the historic, musicological, translation aspects and practical matters, such as its formation, training of deacons and regents. Each year, experts from Germany, Poland, Canada, Russia, and the U.S. come to UCU to participate in such conferences.  

“Our Christian teaching follows from the divine service, but we often use liturgical translations that are not correct. On the other hand, we have good translations, but we cannot adjust them to church singing because of the conflict between the text and melody. Therefore, such conferences are very important,” said a teacher of liturgical studies at the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of St. Paul University in Ottawa, the Rev. Dr. Peter Galadza.  

According to the Rev. Galadza, the liturgical singing plays a tremendous role in the upbringing of children: “During catechization, liturgical singing might play a colossal role as children like to sing; they would rather learn a passage of the Holy Scripture set to music. It is not about superficial poems. If we teach children to sing nicely, the apologetics of beauty will be revealed to us,” noted the doctor.

It is this beauty that attracts people, therefore, the Slavonic Church singing is always beautiful. “People all over the world were delighted by the Ukrainian sacral singing. It is a proof of its power. This spiritual tradition is of the universal importance,” noted the Rev. Galadza.  

For the three days, the participants representing various denominations worked in the following sections: Liturgical and musical heritage of the Great Duchy of Lithuania, history and theory of church monody, questions of translation of liturgical texts into national languages, and deacon and regent education in the past and today.  

It was probably the first time in the history of the UGCC that the conference gathered representatives of all the institutions that train deacons and regents.

According to the Rev. Galadza, it is also important to encourage people today to create new compositions, as young composers already work in Ukraine, Poland, Canada, the press service of UCU reported.