MEANINGS OF THE SACRED IN THE CULT SINGING RITUAL OF UKRAINIAN ORTHODOXY

Abstract

The author of the article analyzes the cult choral music in the coordinate system of the ritual of Ukrainian Orthodoxy from the point of view of its sacred feature, which is manifested: on the one hand, by the complementary effectiveness of the literary, poetic and musical fables of the phenomenon, and on the other hand, by a fairly wide spectrum of religious symbolism and its rich genre palette. First of all, it is proved that the musical component of the studied phenomenon, on the same level as its literary and poetic plot, are equal bearers of the meanings of the sacred, because in this syncretism they form a complete, aesthetically attractive image of the sacred, as a bearer of the inviolable meanings of the Divine. It is further argued that the cult music of the Ukrainian Orthodox tradition is an indisputable carrier of sacred meanings, designed to symbolically reproduce the "mountain world" – that sphere which, through the synthesis of the formal-logical (verbal basis of action), as well as the sung and figurative-plastic (artistic reproduction of the plot) becomes a prototype of the perfect world. Attention is also drawn to the fact that the entire content-semantic essence of the phenomenon, without exception, is full of artistic imagery of the most diverse genres of Byzantine church hymnography, «grounded» in the ancient Jewish synagogue musical practice, as evidence that the Ukrainian Orthodox singing tradition is a historical-evolutionary, clearly expressed in the East – the Christian national model of cult music making, the origins of which lie in the autochthonous meanings of the storylines, reinforced by the ancient melodic variation of that Byzantine singing melismatics. At the same time, certain manifestations of a secularizing nature characteristic of the cult singing ritual of Ukrainian Orthodoxy, which manifest themselves at the level of the latter's musical thinking, can be understood. It is asserted in this context that at one or another historical stage of the development of Ukrainian Orthodox cult singing music, connections with secular art are strengthened, a new quality of musical imagery appears with a brighter reproduction of human emotional experiences. However, this did not mean that such music became secular, because its figurative world remained religious.