The Choir, the Chanters and the Deacon -- the Four of Us

Tonsuring by His Grace, Bishop Nicholas, of Reader John Childs,
Reader John (Franklin) Tait, and Reader Joseph Schmitt (reading the Epistle),
pictured with Father Andrew Moore, August 19, 2018

It has been a while since we all served together at the same time.  When I became Orthodox, Joseph was already at the chanter stand, but not yet a tonsured reader.  He taught me most of what I know about how to put a service together.  He also sponsored me for my chrismation.  For whatever reason, likely mere necessity, Father Andrew asked me to be tonsured first.  On November 11, 2012, I was.  It took another six years for Joseph to be tonsured, almost exactly.  He, our friend Franklin and our friend John, were all tonsured together on August 19, 2018.  As an interesting aside, at the time all of us were "Reader John," except "Reader Joseph."  Franklin, John and I all shared a patron saint.  John and I still do, but the rest of that story is coming below.

Even before they were tonsured, we had all served together pretty regularly.  Joseph, Franklin and I served together at the chanter stand from very shortly after I was tonsured.  Franklin and I also served in the choir together, with that service preceding his arrival at the chanter stand.  John came along around 2014, and almost immediately began serving in the choir, and eventually at the chanter stand.  He was the choir director by the time he was tonsured, or at least very shortly after that.  The time runs together after this many years.  

The day of my own tonsure, November 11, 2012,
by His Grace Bishop Antoun (also pictured at the altar)

Later on, Franklin was ordained a deacon and is now Deacon Stephen.  Shortly prior to that he began serving at the altar rather than the chanter stand and choir.  That became sort of a "new normal."  His ordination to the diaconate was in December of 2021, the day after the Nativity.

About a year after his ordination some things happened, some of which I've touched on before, we all eventually got scattered from one another, and we no longer served together very much.  John and I continued to serve together once the Mission Effort was formed many months later, but for various reasons my service alongside John was more as a choir helper than as an actual reader for much of that time.  Joseph stayed on at our old parish about another year and then ended up attending a local Greek parish where he doesn't serve at all.  Deacon Stephen also stayed about another year, but ended up in flux because the Archdiocese he served delayed his request for a canonical release.  I won't go into the reasons for all of that, but I will say the Metropolitan of that Archdiocese was kind to grant him a leave of absence to serve at the same parish where John served in the choir and as a reader.  So he and John also got to serve together, albeit in different roles.  Eventually Deacon Stephen began attending the Mission, which by then had become a Mission Station, but like me, more in a "choir helper" capacity.  He was not blessed to serve as a deacon there until much later.

Ordination of Deacon Stephen Tait, December 26, 2021, 
pictured with Father Andrew Moore, His Grace, Bishop Nicholas,
Father Jacob Andoun, and Deacon Ray Ralston

Time continued to pass, and eventually this little Mission Station began serving Sunday services.  That was, as noted in a previous post, about a month ago.  Deacon Stephen had finally received his release, and once informed by Metropolitan Tikhon that his reception was formalized, was blessed by Father Gabe to serve at the Mission as well.  Joseph had also began visiting the Mission along the way, and he and I served together a few times when John was out of town.  It had been a long time since it was just me and him at the chanter stand.  But even with the four of us attending and serving disparately, all four of us did not have a chance to serve together, all at the same time.

Until yesterday.

Father Tom, the priest who serves our little mission, was unable to hold liturgy yesterday due to prior commitments.  Father Tom is a retired priest, and in addition to being kind enough to serve us every other week, he also provides coverage for other local priests when they are out of town or sick or otherwise unable to serve their parishes.  He had prior commitments before we decided to begin holding Sunday services, and so we have to serve Typicas for a few Sundays until he can return.  That left Deacon Stephen to lead the services, and John, Joseph and I to serve as readers.  It felt like the old days.  Even though Deacon Stephen was serving as a deacon and not as a reader or choir member, the intimacy of a small space with fewer people, combined with the fact that it was Deacon Stephen who coordinated the service with us, gave the entire service a closeness we had not really had in a long time.  Even though we are in a Slavic liturgical tradition now, we are an American church.  As such, we are encouraged to use the full depth and breadth of Orthodox liturgical music.  So we even did a few things we had all chanted together for well over a decade, like the Evlogitaria in Byzantine Tone 5, and some of the canon, which we did from memory in Byzantine Tone 4.  

It was the four of us again.  And while we all have continued to serve faithfully in our respective roles since the days when we shared a chanter stand, it felt like home.  For the first time in a very long time.  

The Church does not cater to our feelings of nostalgia or familiarity.  We have all learned that hard lesson over the past three years or so.  We should have known before then.  I was tonsured under a different bishop than the other three, and under a different Metropolitan.  Now, we are all serving under yet another bishop and Metropolitan, and different priests.  The Church doesn't stop to wait for our feelings.  The Church doesn't care if we feel comfortable.  We serve where we are called, and we are thankful for that calling.  Back when I was tonsured in 2012, I was the only reader in the parish, and I was ill equipped to do the basic functions of the office.  Comfort is not something God often provides to those He calls to serve His Church.  Service is often a chore, and a thankless one at times.

But it can be a joy as well, and ideally it should be.  Because that lonely service in 2012 was made less so by Joseph's patient help and teaching, and our priest's granddaughter, our friend Ruthie, who taught me literally everything I knew about Orthodox music up until the time she left for college.  Eventually I had to teach the the others how to properly do Byzantine chant, as Ruthie had so patiently taught me, and Joseph was still teaching me and began teaching them how the Typikon works, how the services are put together, and how to fulfill our service to the Church.  So it wasn't like the four of us all started together.  In a very real sense, we grew up together, simply expanding the family as more members were added.

The four of us, and Ruthie, August 19, 2018
(Joseph is wearing my cassock because his had not yet arrived)

We did so in the simplest of ways.  We loved and respected one another.  I was patient, using the lessons I learned from Ruthie and Joseph to help John and Franklin along.  Before long, they were teaching me things I didn't know, each of us using our gifts to improve the whole.  We deferred to one another, and we still do. Joseph still knows more about the Typicon than the rest of us.  He knows the rules and the parts of the service and what goes where as well as anyone I've ever met.  John knows music better than the rest of us.  We each know our part.  John knows everyone's part.  Deacon Stephen doesn't get to sing with us as much as we'd all like anymore, but we do a reader's Vespers and a reader's Matins when the priest isn't there, so there are times he gets to step in and provide us with a tenor part.  These days, the interaction is more broad, liturgically speaking.  He leads the service, so he is singing with us, but he is also the one leading us.  There is still a lot of deference, but more of it goes from us to him.

The Church is conciliar.  So, too, should our service be.  In the OCA, and in the Russian tradition generally, the choir is more the centerpiece of the service.  Readers are typically appointed to intone the Epistle or any portions of the prayer offices that need to be "read" instead of "sung."  But they are not chanting the tones.  So there is, appropriately, less conciliarity than there was when we all served as readers together.  John is our choir director, and in a choir, there can be only one head.  It is appropriate, and comforting, that he is our head.  

But a Mission Station is often chaotic.  We start services a little before 9:00 to ensure Matins is done before time for Typica or Liturgy.  Sometimes everyone isn't there.  I started Matins yesterday because John had some things to do.  Joseph and I kept the service moving while John handled the business of getting the nave and sanctuary ready for the service.  Then he came to the chanter stand and there was no need for discussion.  He stepped in and it was his to lead.  Deference and conciliarity require that those who are not the head always recognize and cede control to the one who is.  As our head, John established what he expected when we got to the Canon, and we rotated between one of us chanting the verses and the other chanting the refrain. When he needed something done differently, he let us know.  We followed his lead, and did the appropriate parts as he directed.  We didn't have to do much pointing or directing ourselves -- Joseph and I knew what to do.  Over a decade of conciliar deference had taught us that.  So too did the fact that John leads from the front, demonstrating how he wants things done rather than simply telling us. The comfort and familiarity in that was borne of many years of deferring to one another.  

As noted above, that comfort and familiarity is not a requirement for service in the Orthodox Church. If things are uncomfortable, or even hostile, it is still the Church.  I have been blessed to serve in choirs that ran very differently, but were all a great joy to serve in.  The choir director at our former parish, Matushka Gabrielle, taught me a great deal about liturgical chant and how the services go together in the OCA's tradition.  It was a joy to serve in her choir, and to learn from her. John served most recently under Matushka Rebecca, who taught him a great deal about organizing a service.  I have only served in her choir on one occasion, specifically to learn a particular set of litanies we planned to use at the Mission, but it was also a great blessing and I know John learned a lot from her.  We both served in the same choir together, sometimes with Ruthie as the head, sometimes John, and sometimes me.  Even just the three of us have very different leadership styles, but it always managed to work. Love goes a long way to ensure peace in a choir setting.  

We've learned lessons along the way.  John is very intentional about the music he selects.  As a very small Mission Station, we have a lot of people who would like to sing, but not as many who are already received into the Church.  We have some chrismations yet before we can actually have a full choir.  So a lot of the music he chooses is set for two parts.  Eventually that will change as we add people who can sing the other two parts.  We've all had to learn the intricacies of the Slavic Typikon, which in many ways is fuller than what we used before, and certainly different in some of the particulars.  But Sunday, we were together again.  It was a blessing, and it brought back a lot of very fond memories.  It won't be the last time, and for that I am thankful.