The Koinonikon Cycle of The Divine Liturgy in Orthodox Rites
According to Dimitri Conomos the Koinonikon (κοινωνικὸν), as it is sung as an elaborated communion chant during the Divine Liturgy, has derived from an early practice of psalm recitation similar to Western liturgies, when the Koinonikon served as a troparion. The oldest troparion which was used for communion, was "Γεύσασθε καὶ ἴδετε" ("O taste and see that the Lord is good", Ps. 33.9). It was supposed to symbolize the last supper celebrated on Maundy Thursday. During the 5th century, when the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts had established and this communion chant became associated with it, the custom spread over the Lenten period, presumably with the recitation of different psalm sections (staseis).
In the early Asmatika (12th and 13th century), the choirbook of the cathedral rite, this koinonikon is classified as echos protos (transcribed as a—α′) according to the modal signatures of the Octoechos, but its archaic melos does not finish on the finalis and basis of this echos, but with the one (phthongos) of echos plagios devteros (transcribed as E—πλβ′).
Read more about this topic: Communion (chant)
Famous quotes containing the words cycle, divine, liturgy, orthodox and/or rites:
“Only mediocrities progress. An artist revolves in a cycle of masterpieces, the first of which is no less perfect than the last.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“The Divine Vision still was seen,
Still was the human form divine
Weeping in weak & mortal clay;
O Jesus, still the form was thine!”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench....”
—Philip Larkin (1922–1986)
“If the jests that you crack have an orthodox smack,
You may get a bland smile from these sages;
But should it, by chance, be imported from France,
Half-a-crown is stopped out of your wages!”
—Sir William Schwenck Gilbert (1836–1911)
“As if the musicians did not so much play the little phrase as execute the rites required by it to appear, and they proceeded to the necessary incantations to obtain and prolong for a few instants the miracle of its evocation, Swann, who could no more see the phrase than if it belonged to an ultraviolet world ... Swann felt it as a presence, as a protective goddess and a confidante to his love, who to arrive to him ... had clothed the disguise of this sonorous appearance.”
—Marcel Proust (1871–1922)