The St. John Orthodox Church Choir

The St. John Orthodox Church Choir leads worshipers through prayers and worship during most services. It is currently under the direction of Margaret Elliott.

The choir has recently led the service in some ancient hymns translated from the Greek.

These "new" hymns, called "megalynaria" (sing. "megalynarion"), actually date back to the 8th century. St. Cosmas, the Melodist (or Hymnographer), who wrote the original megalynarion to the Theotokos, "More honorable chant the Cherubim..." for the 9th Ode of the Canon of Great and Holy Thursday. All subsequent megalynaria in Greek follow the same metrical pattern. The melody should should familiar to many, because it comes from the end of the Paraclesis service to the Most Holy Theotokos, where the megalynarion of a church's patron saint is chanted. From there, the magalynaria to various saints found their way into the Divine Liturgy, at the same place where the first one was chanted for St. Basil the Great on his feast day, January 1st.

Several years ago, at the request of Bishop Basil, parishioner Mickey Hodges began translating some 220 megalynaria for various saints and feasts from Greek into English. His Grace has given permission to St. John Church to "test chant," on the appointed day in the Church calendar, each megalynarion as it is translated and arranged to fit the melody by Mickey and our former choir Director, Reader Andrew Moulton. Most of these have never been chanted in English before.

Eventually, the hope is to make these available to other Orthodox churches, so that all can sing to those who have "fought the good fight and kept the faith."