“Ne riday Mene, Mati” (“Do not mourn Me, Mother”): poetics, liturgics, hymnography

Abstract

Introduction. The meaning of the Holy Saturday is a transition from Passion week to the Easter, from the greatest grief to jubilation, from death to life. It focuses different ontological extremities in a single point: death of the Immortal and resurrection of mortal body. This engenders maximal concentration of liturgical events, exceptional saturation of the services, revealing ample hymnographic material, diversity of stylistics, ways of incarnating of different senses, approaches to the events happening. One of the most interesting chants of the Passion Cycle is “Ne riday Mene, Mati” (“Do not mourn Me, Mother”), with its wonderful poetics, profound images and lapidary structure. Vividness and theological deepness of this chant provide inexhaustible material for research. Theoretical Background. In modern theological literature “Ne riday Mene, Mati” is mention in the context of special traits of the Holy Saturday services (I. Karabinova (1910), A. Kashkin (2010), M. Krasovitskaya (2014), G. Shimanskiy (2002) etc. It was characterised in more details in the researches on the Byzantine singers, among them the most important are works by archbishop Filaret (Gumilevskiy) and nun Ignatia (Puzik). Describing the personality and works of St. Kosma Mayumski, archbishop Filaret notes concentration of his style. Nun Ignatia studies images of this author’s works, their foundation in creed, links with dogmas of the Church; stresses features of poetics as well as dissects canons for Epiphany and Christmas. She pays special attention to the canons dedicated to Holy Mother, and she mentions “Ne riday Mene, Mati” as one of the most touching work by St. Kosma. Unfortunately, detailed analysis doesn’t follow this statement, that makes given paper relevant. Objective of this article is to study location of chant “Ne riday Mene, Mati” in service, specifics of its content, influence on later hymnography and iconography. Methods. Given that this research addresses theology, corresponding terminological system has been used, including special concepts as well as Church Slavonic words and expressions. Results. “Ne riday Mene, Mati” is an irmos of the ninth chant of the canon sung at the morning service on the Holy Saturday and devoted to suffering and death of Jesus Christ, interpreted as a culmination of the salvation of humanity. It has a distinctive feature of personal appeal of the Son to the Mother, answering her grief and closing a dialogical form in a spacetime of the whole service and Passion week, defining specifics of the poetics of its services. Several levels of content can be defined in a chant: 1) personal, describing relations between the Mother and the Son; 2) soteriological, revealing Lord’s plan of the salvation of humanity; 3) dogmatic, presenting dogmas of Christ and Holy Mother; 4) celebratory, establishing praise of the Mother of God. The structure of the irmos is defined by a triad thesis – antithesis – synthesis. Thesis is imperative expression (addressing “Ne riday Mene, Mati”), antithesis is justification of this reaction (“zrjashhi vo grobe, Ego zhe rodila esi Syna”). Not only does the synthesis resolve appearing contradiction, but also transfers the relations between the Son and the Mother into sphere of God-man relations. In this context the initial imperative can be understood as a demand for silence and tranquillity of soul, for absolute concentration in the situation of the contact with Godly essence. The same demand is situated in one of the crucial moments of liturgy of the Holy Saturday, in the time of The Great Entrance: “Da molchit vsjakaja plot chelovecha”. For the second time “Ne riday Mene, Mati” is sung in the final part of Eucharistic canon of the liturgy. In this context it brings out completely different facet, reincarnation of the God in a human through Resurrection. Thus, due to changes of context and place in the service, “Ne riday Mene, Mati” undergoes modulation of meaning. For the third and last time, “Ne riday…” appears in the Eastern Midnight office, that is a threshold between the Holy Saturday and The Easter, accompanying appearance of the shroud with the image of Jesus Christ. Thus, “Ne riday…” ends all the Passion cycle of the service. The profoundness of the images and dogmas as well as structure exceptionality of “Ne riday Mene, Mati” is reflected in later hymnography. Irmoses of the canons sung on Eves of Epiphany and Christmas are constituted in a way, similar to irmoses of the Holy Saturday. They preserve images, poetic devices, genre traits (irmos of the canon), glas (voice), usage of acrostic, thesis – antithesis – synthesis principle of composition. Besides for hymnography, “Ne riday Mene, Mati” influenced iconography of the stated image. All the most vital aspects of it have found their incarnation in iconography: Birth from the Virgin (iconography “Eleusa”), Crucifixion (the Cross, pierced rib), death and burial (crossed hands, closed eyes of Christ, stone tomb), Resurrection, appeal to the Mother (leaning of the Saviour’s head) as a sign of a dialogue; and every aspect from the abovementioned is a separate edge of multidimensional meaning of the Holy Saturday. Conclusions. Through analysis specifics of content and composition of “Ne riday Mene, Mati” is revealed. Dialogue is defined as a crucial principle, causing peculiar poetics of this chant and all the services of the Holy Saturday. Role of silence as one of the factors of the reception of the content is stated. Logical principle of structure thesis – antithesis – synthesis is brought out. Connections are drawn between this chant and its “podobnas” in texts of Menaion and Octoechos. Perspective of the further research lies in studying of dialogue in service of the Holy Saturday on micro- and macrolevels. Specifics of influence of chants on the iconography seems to be worthy of attention.