Monday, April 28, 2014

Syriac in Georgian Chant

Here is an amazingly beautiful setting of the Trisagion in East Syriac sung Georgian-style. It seems that part of the Assyrian population of the Republic of Georgia who belong to the Georgian Orthodox Church still use some Syriac liturgically.



Here the same priest, Fr Seraphim, reading the Gospel in East Syriac.




15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually they are not *officially* in the Georgian Church. They are in Georgia as refugees from Iraq, they are officially under Metropolitan Constantine of Baghdad, Kuwait, the Arab Peninsula and Dependencies of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch

Samn! said...

Matthew,

Do you have more information about that? I was under the impression that they were from Georgia's longstanding and now mostly Georgian-speaking Assyrian community.

Samn! said...

After looking into it a bit more, Fr Seraphim is definitely under the Georgian Orthodox Church and not the Patriarchate of Antioch, which has no parishes in Georgia. His community of Assyrians has been in Georgia since at least the early 20th century.

Unknown said...

Greetings! While Assyrian Orthodox believers have been in Georgia at least since the 6th century (see Thirteen Assyrian Fathers at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteen_Assyrian_Fathers ), currently there is no "separate" Assyrian parish in Georgia. Fr. Seraphim is a priest in Georgian Orthodox Church. The chant is sung in ARAMAIC - the language of Christ.

Anonymous said...

Has the Patriarchate of Antioch re-introduced a token amount of Syriac, since it was your original liturgical language?

Samn! said...

Not to my knowledge. If anything, the Melkite Catholics have done a better job of being aware of their Syriac heritage.

Unknown said...

Please, could someone inform where in Georgia Fr. Seraphim and his choir are settled? In which city and church?
Thank you in advance!

Samn! said...

Fr Seraphim is in the village of Kanda in the Republic of Georgia.

jonathan greener said...

Are there any available recordings Fr. Seraphim and his choirs?

Samn! said...

To my knowledge, the only recordings are those that show up on youtube and social media periodically. I did once see on Facebook someone ask Fr Seraphim why he didn't have more arrangements (this was when I think he had only recorded his arrangement for the Trisagion), and he answered that the process of arranging the music is very slow and laborious. But, since the wider Georgian Church seems to now be promoting his talents, hopefully we'll be hearing much more of his work.

Anonymous said...

I love how he sings and has the choir coordinated. It's a heavenly music

Economos Romanos V. Russo said...

Is it possible to purchase a copy of the Georgian Orthodox Divine Liturgy in the Aramaic translation used by Fr. Hieromonk Seraphim.
Thank you!
Fr. Economos Roman V. Russo

Samn! said...

Fr Russo,

I honestly don't know. There is a printed edition of the Divine Liturgy in neo-Aramaic used by the handful of Antiochian Orthodox parishes in Iraq that converted from the Church of the East in the 1940s, but it's likely that Fr Seraphim is doing his own ad-hoc translations, since I believe that his is the only Aramaic-speaking Orthodox parish in Georgia.

frederickarton said...

¿Quién de ustedes, hermanos en Jesucristo, me hace el gran bien de informarme sobre nuestro reverendo padre Bit-Kharibi, sobre su angelical coro de hermanos y de hermanas que lo integran, acerca de sus nombres, de sus biografías, en lo más posible retratos de cada quién, dedicatorias, etcétera, para que muchos colombianos podamos saber de ellos y estrechar vínculos de profunda fraternidad? Soy historiador y de nuestra amada iglesia ortodoxa de Georgia NADA SABEMOS. Es nuestro infinito anhelo seguir conociendo de ustedes, de sus cánticos, del padre archimandrite, de los religiosos y de las encantadoras religiosas cantantes. ¿Con quién tendremos el inmenso premio de comunicarnos?

frederickarton said...


El comentario que acaba de publicarse, arriba, lo suscribe Jorge Taborda Restrepo desde San Pedro de Los Milagros, en la región de Antioquia, perteneciente a la república suramericana de Colombia.

Tengan la bondad de responderme al correo electrónico jotaresi@outlook.com