Letter #121, 2022, Thursday, December 8: Christmas Oratorio

    Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, 56, a Russian Orthodox bishop and musical composer. One of his musical compositions, Christmas Oratorio, is being performed tonight in the most prestigious concert hall in all of Hungary, in the capital city, Budapest. And today is the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Hilarion, a highly respected theologian who studied at Oxford and speaks fluent English, was for a decade was, arguably, the “#2 man” in the entire Russian Orthodox Church. His post was as the Church’s “foreign minister,” representing the Russian Orthodox Church to the world, in which capacity he met many times, along with other leaders of governments and religious groups, with Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis. Hilarion was removed from his post earlier this year, after the start of the Ukraine-Russia war, and demoted to the small diocese of Budapest which consists of only four parishes…

    “Our profession of faith begins with God, for God is the First and the Last, the beginning and the end of everything. The Credo begins with God the Father, for the Father is the first divine person of the Most Holy Trinity; our Creed begins with the creation of heaven and earth, for creation is the beginning and the foundation of all God’s works.” —the Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 198

    “The immunity from original sin was given to Mary by a singular exemption from a universal law through the same merits of Christ, by which other men are cleansed from sin by baptism. Mary needed the redeeming Saviour to obtain this exemption, and to be delivered from the universal necessity and debt (debitum) of being subject to original sin. The person of Mary, in consequence of her origin from Adam, should have been subject to sin, but, being the new Eve who was to be the mother of the new Adam, she was, by the eternal counsel of God and by the merits of Christ, withdrawn from the general law of original sin. Her redemption was the very masterpiece of Christ’s redeeming wisdom. He is a greater redeemer who pays the debt that it may not be incurred than he who pays after it has fallen on the debtor. Such is the meaning of the term ‘Immaculate Conception.'” —The Catholic Encyclopedia (link and link)    

    “The story of the oratorio is essentially a journey from darkness to light, from the painful waiting for the Messiah to the triumphant joy of the salvation of humanity through God incarnate. The singing of the angels glorifying Jesus is present in the singing of all people. This common exaltation is symbolized (in the concert) by the singing of the choirs.” —Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev, commenting on his composition, Christmas Oratorio, which will be performed tonight, December 8, 2022, on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, in the most prestigious concert hall of Hungary in the capital, Budapest, in the presence also of Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest, and Primate of Hungary, who confirmed to me that he plans to attend the concert

    Letter #121, 2022, Thursday, December 8: Christmas Oratorio

    Today is, for Catholics, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary — whose redemption, the Catholic Encyclopedia tells us, was “the very masterpiece of Christ’s redeeming wisdom.”

    And tonight, in the city of Budapest, Hungary, there will be performed a moving Christmas musical composition, composed by Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, 56, a Russian archbishop who, until his recent demotion in connection with the war in Ukraine, was the powerful “foreign minister” of the Russian Orthodox Church, entitled “Christmas Oratorio.”

    The essential message of this work is expressed in its glorious refrain, “Glory to God in the Highest.”

    Glory be to God in the highest.

    May glory be given to God, for He is both in the Highest, He dwells in the highest place, and yet also, and even more important, He is the Highest, he is the surpassing and incomparable reality of perfect and infinite holiness…

    Because this December marks the 15th anniversary of a December 15 years ago, in 2007, when I, along with Deborah Tomlinson, who is now leading our Unitas initiative for between relations between Catholic and Orthodox, worked “round-the-clock” for months to help Hilarion, who was then 41, to bring this same composition, Christmas Oratorio (link to a video excerpt of that 2007 concert; the conductor seen conducting in the 2007 video, Valery Khalilov, link, who was my friend, was, nine years later, in 2016, killed in a plane crash taking off from the city of Sochi, on the Black Sea, link), to:

    — the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. (the largest Catholic Church in America), then to

    —the Church of St. John the Baptist in Manhattan (New York City), then to:

    — the chapel of Harvard College in Harvard Yard, in Cambridge, Massachusetts (where I had attended college in the 1970s) (link)…

    …so, again today, I feel a sense of hope that…

    …through music, through the praise of God, through the remembrance of the wonder of that first Christmas in Bethlehem so long ago…

    …we may yet find it in our nature to listen to those “better angels” who bid us, speaking to our hearts, to build a civilization of love and justice, and not of hatred and cruelty and injustice…

    …a sense of hope that this concert in Budapest tonight is a sign that there may yet be, in God’s providence, a way to avoid the abyss of global war, if we can but glimpse the warning, and recognize the way…

    …a sign that the peace which Christ brought, of reconciling man to the divine, of creatures to their creator, which this concert joyfully heralds…

    …is not only possible — given repentance and forgiveness — but is the only hope for us to end the inexorable cycle of violence and fear and attack and counter-attack which threatens now to lead to new, unprecedented horrors…

    …a hope that is based in faith in Christ…

    …a hope that is in my prayer each day, even as the explosions and sorrows of war continue to take the lives of so many, and to cause incalculable suffering to millions, especially children, who are now homeless and wandering…

    …May this concert, then, be a first step toward a return of all of us to an attitude of repentance, for our own sins, and of forgiveness, for the tragic sins of others, in order to arrive at…

    …that peace which Christ offers always to mankind, even at the very darkest hour… —RM

    What is Mary’s “Immaculate Conception”?

    Today’s feast in honor of Mary’s “immaculate conception” is not shared by many other Christians, even the Orthodox, who are so close to Catholics in their understanding of the sacraments and so much else, but it is a sublimely beautiful feast.

     The feast deals with the coming into the world of that person, Mary, who was in turn to bring into the world Jesus, the Son of God, whose birth we celebrate each year at Christmas as, arguably, the most festive moment of each year…

    …because the meaning of Jesus’ life was to bring festivity, thanksgiving, joy…

    …because the meaning of His life was to redeem the world from unutterable sorrow, unutterable loss…

    …unutterable loss and the complete frustration of those sublime longings of the heart of man for… eternal life, and eternal love…

    …a complete frustration stemming from the evident impossibility of overcoming the wages of sin, that is… death…

    …and, not being able to avoid death, being forced to accept that actual sin and actual death would frustrate… permanently… and eternally… the deepest longings in the heart of man…

    …which are to live fully, joyfully, and to love fully, joyfully, and also to be loved, joyfully, filled with joy…

    …forever…

    So today we celebrate the anniversary of a glorious day that came, in the land we call, in a somewhat astonishing way, “the Holy Land,” about (we may estimate) 2039 years ago…

    I calculate 2022 years from Christ’s birth in or about the year 0 (the year from which we number the age of our world, so that now we are in the year 2022)…

    …plus (perhaps) about 16 more years to arrive at the year of Mary’s birth (estimating that she was about 16 when she gave birth to Jesus)…

    …and then adding nine more months to arrive at the day of her conception… which therefore was…

    about 2039 years ago…

    So we celebrate this day Mary’s conception, which was “im-maculate” (“without stain,” that is, “without sin”).

    Mary was, we believe, protected in a unique way by God from the otherwise universal condition of all humans, which is to be born within an ontological condition of “selfishness,” “self-orientation,” of “me first”…

    …which is, of course, means of being “selfish”…

    …and therefore not enjoying that perfect, selfless character marked by an undeviating love of God and neighbor which we were evidently intended to be born into…

    …but a way of being human which was — in a very mysterious way which exceeds the comprehension of our rational minds — tragically and forever lost by the fall of Adam and Eve…

    So it was that only by bringing about a type of “re-do” of creation itself…

    …only by the coming into the world of a “new Eve” and a “new Adam”…

    …would there be even a hypothetical chance for…

    …the brokenness of human nature…

    …the inward-turning-ness of that nature…

    to be healed and, as we say, redeemed. Restored. Renewed. Re-made…

    And that is what happened with Mary’s conception in about the year 17 B.C. — 2039 years ago, in the Holy Land…

    For this reason, we celebrate that day, even 2,039 years later, because that day that marked the beginning, as it were, of the Incarnation…

    …of the “enfleshment,” the entering into flesh…

    …of a member of the Triune Godhead…

    …that is, of the eternal Son…

    …light from light, true God from true God…

    …and so also, of the salvation of the whole human race from…

    …the tragic, unavoidable frustration caused by sin and death which would have otherwise been…

    …the pitiable condition of all men unto the end of all time…

    Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Cyril of Jerusalem developed the idea of Mary as the New Eve, drawing comparison to “Eve, while yet immaculate and incorrupt — that is to say, not subject to original sin.”(link) So too, Ephrem the Syrian said she was as innocent as Eve before the Fall.

    Ambrose says she is incorrupt, a virgin immune through grace from every stain of sin.

    It was John Damascene‘s opinion that the supernatural influence of God at the generation of Mary was so comprehensive that it extended also to her parents. He says of them that, during the generation, they were filled and purified by the Holy Spirit, and freed from sexual concupiscence.

    Consequently according to Damascene, even the human element of her origin, the material of which she was formed, was pure and holy. This opinion of an immaculate active generation and the sanctity of the “conceptio carnis” was taken up by some Western authors. The Greek Fathers never formally or explicitly discussed the question of the Immaculate Conception. (link)

The organ of The Liszt Zenekademia (Academy of Music). It is a concert hall and music conservatory in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875.

    A Special Christmas Concert in Budapest Tonight

    Here is my own translation of a November Hungarian language report (link) previewing tonight’s concert in Budapest (with the help of a translation program, but with the concern that some parts of the translation may be less than perfect…).

     Hilarion Alfejev’s Christmas oratorio (link)

    By Ágnes Bódi

    November 11, 2022

    The Hungarian Philharmonic is preparing to present a monumental piece of 21st-century music history. In 2022, the concert-organizing company launched classical music concert passes in a total of 15 cities, and tens of thousands of school children across the country are also provided with an unforgettable concert experience.

    This year’s concerts in Budapest stand out from the program offer. At the beginning of November, Michael Barenboim‘s chamber orchestra was brought to the capital’s music lovers, and on December 8, the Hungarian audience can hear Hilarion Alfejev‘s Christmas oratorio for the first time in the Great Hall of the Academy of Music, organized by the Philharmonic.

    The work debuts with the participation of one of Hungary’s leading big orchestras. The history of Concerto Budapest goes back a long time, but today it is characterized by dynamism, innovation and an innovative vision.

    In addition to their highly successful domestic concerts, they are also important players in the international music scene. The conductor of the evening will be Hungarian conductor János Kovács, winner of the Kossuth and Ferenc Liszt Prizes. The choral parts are performed by the Hungarian State Opera Choir and its children’s soloists, and Kriszta Kinga and Anatolij Fokanov take the stage as soloists.

    The composer, Metropolitan Hilarion, has been head of the Diocese of Budapest-Hungary since June 2022.

    In addition to his upbringing in the Russian Orthodox Church, he also learned to compose and play the violin, then at the age of 20 he became a monk and began to serve the Church. Besides his ecclesiastical duties, he was only able to deal with composing a little, but later he found his way back to composing in order to create such masterpieces as The Passion According to St. Matthew and the Christmas Oratorio to be performed at the December 8 concert.

    The Christmas Oratorio is a large-scale, hour-long work written for soloists, two choirs and a symphony orchestra. The loftiness and deep spirituality of Orthodox Church music is combined with Western classical music, so the duality of tradition and modern sound makes the piece so special.

    The world premiere of the work attracted enormous interest in Washington, where it was presented in front of thousands of people in December 2007. After that, he achieved similar success in New York, Boston and Moscow, and won the recognition of both the audience and the critics.

    The significance of the event is well exemplified by the fact that it was the first time in modern history that the work of an Orthodox bishop was presented in one of the largest Catholic cathedrals in North America.

    “The story of the oratorio is essentially a journey from darkness to light, from the painful waiting for the Messiah to the triumphant joy of the salvation of humanity through God incarnate. The singing of the angels glorifying Jesus is present in the singing of all people. This common exaltation is symbolized by the singing of the choirs,” said Bishop Hilarion about the work after the presentation.

    Another special feature of the December concert is that it starts with a discussion on stage, where József Bazsinka will ask questions of the composer (Hilarion).

    (…)

    More information can be found at www.filharmonia.hu.