Prostopinije

Prostopinije (meaning Plain Chant in Church Slavonic) is a type of monodic church chant, closely related to other East Slavic chants such as Galician Samoilka, Kievan Chant and Znamenny chant. Prostopinije is used in the Ruthenian Greek Catholic Church, Slovak Greek Catholic Church, Hungarian Greek Catholic Church, and by the Carpatho-Russian Orthodox.

The tradition of Prostopinije chant is used in the lands of Galicia, Volhynia and Ruthenia.[1] The Prostopinije traces its roots to the Slavic traditions of Old Kievan chant and Bulgarian chant, both stemming from the ancient Byzantine chant tradition. It was also affected by the local folk Carpathian music.[2] The Prostopinije chant is purely monodic, lacking ison or any other support, as well as folk choral polyphony.[2] Melodically, Prostopinije resembles Znamenny Chant and is closely related to it historically.[3] Compared to Znamenny chant, however, most prostopinije sources feature much more chromatic movement.

  1. ^ David Drillock. "LITURGICAL SONG IN THE WORSHIP OF THE CHURCH" Archived 2011-02-21 at the Wayback Machine in ISSN 0036-3227 VOLUME 41 NUMBERS 2-3, 1997 ST. VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY pages 204-205]
  2. ^ a b Article about Prostopinije Archived 2011-08-12 at the Wayback Machine at patronagechurch.com. Published in the Byzantine Leaflet Seriess No. 23, November 1981, Byzantine Seminary Press, Pittsburgh, PA 15214
  3. ^ Prostopinije at the page of Metropolitan Cantor Institute (www.metropolitancantorinstitute.org)