Holy Mount Athos... According to legend, she asked Jesus for this mountain under her protection Holy Mother of God while traveling to these lands. Now it is a special unit of the Greek Republic, governed by a community of 20 Orthodox monasteries, located on the Chalkidiki peninsula. Mountains and rich vegetation create a beautiful landscape that pilgrims admire. According to the charter, only men can visit Holy Mount Athos. The story associated with Yuri Kuznetsov’s painting “The Singing of Angels” happened just a few years ago.
One young man, who arrived on Athos on a pilgrimage, stayed at a hotel at the monastery. He woke up at night, sounds came to him through the window, as if a service was going on in the temple. The young man was surprised and decided to find out what was happening. Looking through the windows of the church, he saw angels. They sang. The pilgrim rushed to his room, took a tape recorder and returned to record the wonderful sounds.
This is how an amazing recording appeared, which then spread throughout the world. Many people listened to her, admired her, doubted, believed and did not believe. In any case, singing does not leave anyone indifferent who has heard it at least once. Despite the fact that there is noise in the recording (remember that it was made on a household tape recorder through the window of the temple), it is impossible to tear yourself away from it. On it we hear the Cherubic song performed by the ancient canonical Byzantine chant.
Even non-specialists can notice what distinguishes this singing from human singing. There are no breaks to breathe. Only angels can sing like that.
They, having personality and mind, are free from the laws of our physical nature. For angels there is no time and space. People cannot feel their presence. But sometimes angels become visible to us. They are free in their actions, we can only guess what this or that phenomenon means.
Thus, answering a journalist’s question in an interview on the Orthodox channel “Soyuz” about singing on Mount Athos, the priest correlated this phenomenon with the situation in church culture. It concerns, in particular, liturgical singing. Currently, partes singing is being introduced in Greece, when the melody is divided into several voices. Each of them performs his own part, which significantly distinguishes this singing from the traditional one that developed in ancient times. It is possible that the angels singing in the Byzantine chant indicate to the church ministers what to choose: partes or ancient Byzantine chant.
For us, the singing of angels can become an impression that awakens the soul. It gives light in days when we believe less and less in miracles. Wonderful sounds awakened the painter’s talent, now you can not only hear, but also see the singing of angels on Mount Athos as the icon painter Yuri Kuznetsov perceived it.
Stories about Mount Athos being visited by angels could only recently evoke a skeptical smile in many. However, in last years Evidence has emerged that turns the legend into an actual miracle.
Oddly enough, the concept of what angels are is still quite vague: it is not known for certain whether they are an energetic entity or a humanized image designed to protect the population of the planet and preserve faith in people. Even professional theologians argue about the angelic essence, let alone ordinary people!
The only thing that scientists agree on is that angels are divine messengers who carry the will of the Lord to mortals and have supernatural powers. Actually, the word “angel” translated from Greek means “messenger” or “messenger”.
The belief that came to us from distant pagan times and subsequently used by Christianity relates these wonderful creatures to distant human ancestors who once lived a righteous life and therefore received the opportunity to protect their descendants and help them where they themselves could not cope.
There is also a hypothesis according to which, for the sinlessness of souls, children who die in early age. The same kids can see them, although over time they lose this ability. However, whoever these mysterious creatures are, eyewitness accounts indicate that their abilities are truly amazing.
On own experience A woman from a small English town was convinced of this. The bus on which she went to work in the morning was going down a high hill and suddenly its brakes failed. Below the turn was fenced off by a brick wall, and the bus was rushing towards it, picking up speed. The woman realized that an accident was inevitable, but suddenly she saw amazingly beautiful creatures in light clothes moving behind the window glass.
They found themselves in the path of the bus, and it suddenly stopped right next to the wall, and as soon as this happened, the unknown saviors disappeared. The participant in the miraculous event immediately thought that angels had saved her. The mechanics of the bus fleet also considered that a miracle had happened to the passengers: the bus’s brakes did not work, and how it managed to stop on the descent remained unknown.
However, sometimes there are apparitions of angels that cannot be explained by the urgent need to save human life.
The Mystery of Angels' Singing
Such an incident occurred about 10 years ago on Mount Athos. The young pilgrim stayed at the hotel of one of the Athos monasteries. In the middle of the night he woke up to the sounds of church singing of extraordinary beauty. The young man thought that he had missed the beginning of the service and hurriedly went to the temple. To his surprise, the temple door was locked. And looking out the window, the young man saw light inside, although its source was unclear - not a single candle was burning.
Moreover, there was no one inside the church, and the singing seemed to float through the luminous air. Wonderful voices, not at all similar to human voices, uttered an ancient Byzantine chant - the “Cherubic Hymn”. The pilgrim realized that he simply had to preserve the wonderful singing.
He rushed back to his room, grabbed the tape recorder and ran back to the temple, where divine music was still playing, performed by an invisible host of angels. The recording made by the young man ended up on the Internet and caused real battles between those who believed in the singing of angels and skeptics who denied the very possibility of such a “concert.”
The debate about whether the pilgrim brought a fake from Mount Athos would have lasted endlessly if experts had not intervened in the matter. The audio spectrogram of the recording obtained as a result of analysis showed the inhuman nature of the performance of the ancient chant. The timbre of the mysterious voices is exactly halfway between male and female. The chant sounds so smooth and strong that it is generally impossible to compare it with the human voice.
In addition, the increase in amplitude sound wave It does not happen gradually, as it happens in people, but with incredible speed, almost instantly. An indirect proof of the angelic nature of singing can be considered the following: the chant in the recording ends before the words “let us now put aside every care of this life.” The angels do not and cannot have any earthly, everyday worries (“cares”), and therefore they stopped singing precisely at this part of the chant.
No less unique was the impact of heavenly voices on each listener. Someone, after listening to the singing, noted how light and joyful it became in their souls, while others, on the contrary, said that the angelic voices made them feel anxiety and sadness. It even happened that from repeated listening to the recording, people’s blood pressure rose and their heart rate increased.
Facts and hypotheses
Having studied in detail the sound of amazing voices, theologians wondered about the reasons for the appearance of divine messengers to people. If angels usually appear to save their lives, then the miraculous church service must have brought some important news. Which one exactly remained to be seen.
First of all, it was necessary to exclude any possibility that it was not angels who sang on Mount Athos, but, on the contrary, messengers of Satan. Theoretically, it was as if demons could take on the appearance of cherubim in order to seduce listeners. The chimeras they create are sometimes capable of driving the weak in spirit into mental or physical disorder, and even taking the life of some. On the other hand, the demons did not have to use church singing for this - after all, they unwittingly once again confirmed the truth of Orthodoxy.
Theologians from several countries held an extensive discussion, during which they established that the machinations of the evil spirit had nothing to do with it. There is no distortion of Christian singing in the recording. And the servants of the devil are deprived of the divine gift of singing and are only capable of disgustingly mocking sacred chants, emitting sounds that are most similar to cacophony. Thus, the film recorded on Mount Athos actually preserved the voices of the Lord's messengers.
As for the purpose of the appearance of angels in the Athos temple, opinions differ. Some scholars believe that part of the service, sung in the ancient Byzantine manner, was supposed to remind believers of the need to observe the ancient canons of church singing. Such a reminder is timely, since Christianity is increasingly leaning towards a new, polyphonic style of performing Christian services. And there is a chance that these innovations will not be liked in heaven.
There were also adherents to a more general version: with miraculous singing, the angels once again announced their existence to the world. And since they really exist, then not only churchgoers, but even inveterate atheists will receive protection and patronage in cases where only a miracle can save them.
However, to this day there are those who call the singing of angels on Athos fake. Opponents of the “angel theory” claim that the voice of the Greek singer Dimitrios Surlandzis, who has a rare beautiful timbre and is known for performing Orthodox chants, is heard on the tape. True, the singer himself never confirmed that his voice was heard on the recording of “Cherub Song”. So the phenomenon of angelic singing continues to be considered one of the most wondrous Athos phenomena.
According to your faith may it be done to you
The list of such phenomena in the monastic republic is much more extensive than one can imagine. Unfortunately, only men will be able to see them with their own eyes - since the 7th century, when the first ascetic monks came to Athos, women have been prohibited from appearing on the Holy Mountain (even pack animals there are only male). According to legend, this is what the Mother of God commanded, providing the monks with her heavenly protection.
As if confirming the constant invisible presence of the Mother of God, a cloud constantly hangs over the very top of the mountain: it increases or decreases, changes color, but never disappears.
Each of the 20 monasteries contains holy relics and miraculous icons. In the Vatopedi monastery alone there is a particle of the Life-giving Cross of the Lord, a belt of the Virgin Mary, particles of the relics of Dmitry Thessalonica, Panteleimon the Healer and other saints. In the monastery of Simonopetra the fragrant right hand is preserved incorrupt Mary Equal to the Apostles Magdalene. Any true believer who touches the relic can confirm that the saint’s hand is still warm.
A few meters from the sea, a spring gushes right out of the rock, which the monks were able to find by the Lord’s direction. Not far from the spring grows a grapevine that is more than 700 years old. One berry from this vine can cure infertility in any woman who dreams of offspring.
The angelic voice that sounded on Mount Athos is just one of the endless list of miracles of the Holy Mountain. Believing in them or doubting them is everyone’s personal choice, but it is much more joyful to realize that we live in a world where real miracles still occur.
A pilgrim to Mount Athos stopped in one of the monasteries. At night, he heard singing coming from the temple. He thought that the service had begun and went down to the temple. But the temple doors were locked. Then he looked out the window and saw singing Angels. Running to get a tape recorder, he recorded the voices of Angels through the window. The type of chant is slow ancient Byzantine in the first tone.
From the point of view of rational verification, I think it is impossible for a person to sing such long chants in a full voice and, moreover, at the same time take such short pauses as are necessary for a person to inhale air. An assessment of this event from a spiritual point of view can be foundin the commentary of Master of Theology Archpriest Dimitri Predein.
(18 MV)
There is a discussion of this performance on the Internet. It's supposed to be singing teacher of Byzantine singing Dimitrios Surlandzis. Here is the website: http://www.ieropsaltis.com/psalt_Sourlantzis.htm - third from the bottom “Τριάδι, τον τρισάγιον...”. In my opinion, the voice is completely different. Here are some comments from http://m-kleopas.livejournal.com/7995.html:
“The chant is the same, but the range is not at all the same. Far from it. I showed that recording of the “original” to people with a conservatory education, the verdict was the same: a person cannot sing like that, since there is absolutely no attenuation on weak lungs, at the moment when the air in them runs out. This can only be done in one case, when there are 2 vocals that are absolutely identical in voice and the second vocal picks up the first. But in that case there is only one vocal. ΔΗΜΗΤΡΙΟΣ"A has a similar voice, very much, but it is not the same voice . A person with a little bit of hearing will determine this. God bless you for the version of such a beautiful chant ΣΟΥΡΛΑΝΤΖΗΣ"a
orthofox
Today I tried to increase the frequencies and change the playback speed using Jet Audio. It turned out almost one to one with the “original”.
But in my opinion, anything can be faked on a computer now, this is absolutely no argument. So there will be no faith in anything at all. In addition, any version of this Byzantine performance, even a female voice, can be “pulled up” to the original on a computer, since this is a standard chant, you only need to change the pitch of the voice and speed. Moreover, to what “original” was the original itself “pulled up”? And the word “almost” in a computer experiment clearly indicates that the experiment was a failure and that it is not Dimitrios Sourlandzis who sings. Of course, whether there was any processing on a computer at all can only be shown by an expensive examination, but in my opinion, the conclusion of people with a conservatory education is correct (see discussion), there was only one verdict: a person cannot sing like that, that is, there was no processing and the chant was not falsified .
Archpriest Nikolai Barinov