Magnificat (Serbian Tone 2)

St. Mary's choir led by Dn. Gregory Ealy.
St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral in Minneapolis.

Until I began researching this series I was almost entirely ignorant of the Orthodox practice of singing The Magnificat.  One of the most important parts of that tradition is the insertion of a short hymn of praise for The Theotokos (The Mother of God) into the text from Luke

More honorable than the Cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim: without defilement you gave birth to God the Word: true Theotokos, we magnify you.

I don't know much of anything about the technical aspects of Orthodox systems corresponding to those of the Gregorian tradition so it's all new to me.   I will say that this performance in English is far more natural than most of those I've heard attempting to fit the Gregorian melodies to an English text.   Having been enthusiastic about using English in Catholic worship, as were both of my parents, I think that if they want to do something like that it would be better to write new melodies than to do damage to the old ones.

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Looking at the website of St. Mary's Orthodox Cathedral, I liked the short essay about St. Ambrose they had posted this month.  Especially this part:

St Ambrose is also known for standing up and speaking truth to the civil authorities. Not long after having ordered a massacre of 7,000 by his soldiers, the Emperor Theodosius I attempted to go to church, but Ambrose met him at the door and said: "You may not come in. There is blood on your hands." The Emperor was excommunicated, and forced to undertake a very public penance, and he swore that he would no longer order any arbitrary sentences of death, and introduced a forty day delay before any instance of judicial capital punishment. At other times Ambrose refused to hand over churches to the Arians supported by the Empress Justina.

It's a point that should be noted more often that even the last two arch-conservative popes in Rome, in a lot of their peace and social justice statements are far more radical than anything you'll find in the main-stream press in the United States or most other secular countries.