STATE OF PROFESSIONAL EDUCATION OF GREEK CATHOLIC CANTORS IN HALYCHYNA AT THE END OF THE XIX CENTURY

Abstract

The study describes the role of cantors as an essential factor in the service to the Church and incarnates a mission by her to save the souls. Because of losing constant material support at the end of the XIX century by them this post was usually held by people without proper qualifications, endows, and principles. This was extremely negative to the level of service to the Greek Catholic church and its authority in society. Pointed out that clergy and activists of the clergy’s movement identified the issue of professional qualification of church singers as one of the keys within a complex of tasks for the revival clergy’s layer in the land. At the end of the XIX century functioned both eparchial professional clergy schools and private courses in Halychyna, and the list of them is given. Applicants for training at eparchial clergy schools had to meet the established criteria. Additionally, they had to have a good voice and complete primary school. Indicated that evidence of a singer’s professional qualification became a certificate that was taken as a result of a successfully passed exam in front of a special commission. Determined that as the factors for improvement of clergy’s education in the land the contemporaries named programs and methods improvement of study in professional educational institutions and widening of its net. Underlined the gaps in the educational program of clergy schools and the ways to solve them separately through laying special textbooks. Accented that the required component of the church singer’s education was named study of crafts as the mean for stable earning, organization of tighter communication with parishioners, and also to form clergy’s layer as a Ukrainian middle class. Pointed out that the task of clergy’s schools also should have been the education of people with a deep Christian and patriotic worldview. Based on statistics proved that at the end of the XIX century the vast majority of valid Greek Catholic clergy did not have a proper professional qualification. Determined that even after finishing professional institution, a significant part of graduates did not proceed to qualification exam. Contemporaries saw a solution for the situation in an obligatory professional exam for all unskilled singers and giving posts only to singers with certificates. Indicated that the relevant order was firstly issued by the spiritual authority of Stanislav diocese which became a push for qualitative changes in the level of Greek Catholic regency in Halychyna.