Event

Hieromonk Antipas Agioreitis of the Iverite Cell of St. Anne on Mt. Athos offered a lecture in the Maliotis Atrium on Monday, February, 14, 2022 on “Ecclesiastical Music as the Love Language to God”.  

Fr. Antipas is a famous Athonite cantor and spiritual father. The lecture opened with the history of ecclesiastical music and explained that ecclesiastical music was first used to combat the Arian heresies and was incorporated into worship through St. John Chrysostom, being later developed by St. John of Damascus and other saints. Fr. Antipas explored discrepancies between agape, filial love, and eros, desiring love (“to dedicate oneself to the object of one’s love”), and the elder noted that the Church Fathers only use eros to describe the relationship between God and humans, never to describe the relationship between humans and other humans. Ecclesiastical music is the love language that man uses to communicate with God, and it must first be a prayer, then a hymn. This rare lecture, given by the esteemed elder who chanted for more than 40 years on Mt. Athos, and who personally chanted with St. Porphyrios and St. Paisios, shares the rich legacy of Byzantine music, making the art and worship more meaningful through his theological explanation. The lecture concluded with Fr. Antipas chanting ‘Open to me the Gates of Repentance’.

Listen to the lecture here.  

Listen to Fr. Antipas chant here.