On The Types of Christian Liturgical Music in Today’s Georgia

Rezumat

In Georgia located at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, other religions coexisted with the Orthodoxy from olden times. By the end of the 20th century Georgian-language, non- Orthodox groups had also became more active.

Socio-political upheavals, processes of globalization and democratization, accessibility to interdisciplinary (anthropological, historical-ethnographic, theological, ethnopsychological) approaches allowed to research different religions. Liturgical music – repressed in Soviet epoch – one of the most important markers of the Georgians’ ethnic and religious identity – has long been the object of Georgian and foreign scholars’ scientific research. As for the music of religious minorities, it is absolutely not studied.

My goal is to study Orthodox chant and liturgical music of some religious minorities (Pentecostalism, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Baptism). In this regard, western experience of research is of particular interest to me (T. Turino, 2008; M. Hood, 1960; T. Asad, 1982; C. Geertz, 1973, etc).

The paper sheds light on the issues of the expansion of society’s musical viewpoint from “bi/multi-musicality” angle; presents the results of the observations on different ritual music.
Liturgical music, as a symbol of religious concept, is directly related to believers’ outlook and dogmatism, original understanding and interpretation of the doctrine.

Acoustic space of the rituals researched by me unites the music of various styles, genres, epochs, which forms “presentative” and “participative” types.