Church Hymns Research Articles

“Psalmen in den Nacht”

“Psalmen in den Nacht”: 200 Years of Church Hymns created and sung in the Cape of Storms and the Cape of Good HopeJan van Riebeeck brought the Genevan Psalms with him to the Cape, setting the scene for the DRC’s church music development. By 1824, various faith groups have congregated in the Cape Colony, each introducing their religious music and practices. For the next two hundred years the officials connected to the Cape Synod would diligently collect and store the thousands of documents, hymnbooks, even musical instruments and technology relating the story of the DRC’s church music. In 2024 a comprehensive process of establishing an inclusive DRC Church Music Collection has been launched, requiring a re-focus to acknowledge influences and contributions from people and sources. This article highlights a few of the more unexpected findings, such as the contributions made by the fictional “Oom Willem Smit”; the “pastor of the Richtersveld”, Eerwaarde JF Hein; “ziekentrooster” Mother Machteldt Smit of the Cape and the revival singer Ira D Sankey and ABW-prisoner Willie Louw. Lastly, a few examples are given of the DRC’s pioneer missionaries’ influence on African indigenous music, such as the Chechewa Hymnbook.

Church music of Kyivan Rus in the formation of religious-aesthetic ideals and mental-ideological attitudes of Orthodoxy

In 2024, the church music of Ukrainian Orthodoxy requires a thorough analysis of its impact on cultural identity and spiritual development over the centuries. Church hymns, through the synthesis of arts and sacraments, facilitated the interaction between music and liturgical text, enriching liturgical practice and the spirituality of Kyivan Rus. In 2024, the problem of the spiritual revival of the nation, its cultural identity through the involvement of hesychast traditions in Orthodox church practice acquires new relevance and expediency. The purpose of the article is to carry out a comprehensive analysis of the religious-aesthetic, theological, and cultural ideas of hesychia, which were manifested in the church-musical practice of liturgical services and influenced the spirituality of the Orthodox person over the course of a thousand-year history. The study applies art history and cultural studies approaches, uses methods of analysis, synthesis, comparison and interaction of cultural affiliation and spiritual progress of the nation. It has been scientifically proven and substantiated that the musical art of the Kyivan Rus became the personification of spiritual transformations, formed the mental and ideological constructs of Eastern Christianity in its ancient Old Rus form thanks to Orthodox liturgical music. According to the results of scientific analysis, it appears that the adoption of Eastern Christianity in Kyivan Rus became a fundamental milestone in the development of its musical culture, which was significantly influenced by the patristic doctrine and spirituality, in particular hesychast views and customs that came to Rus from Athos. It is proved that church music in Kyivan Rus was filled with God’s light, spiritual “energy”, peace-making harmony, balanced tempo-rhythm and soulful melody, it was a manifestation of “sonorous” divine silence, “singing with thoughts”. This research will be appropriate in curricula on the history of music, on the history of sacred art, on Christian ethics and aesthetics, for further scientific and educational research of church Orthodox chants and their relationship with Byzantine hesychast practice in the context of mutual influence on mentality, worldview, religious and aesthetic ideal

Church Music, Community, and Faith Formation

Abstract Has there ever been a time in history when the status of music in worship was as high as it is now? From the early church to the present, the Word and the Lord’s Supper have formed an important framework for worship. This is an emphasis that transcends denominations and is found in any liturgy. However, after the praise and worship movement evolved in the 1960s, music in worship came to occupy an important place no less than that of the Word and the Lord’s Supper. Regardless of the denomination’s theology and liturgical traditions, it is no exaggeration to say that the first half of the service is dominated by the band-leading praise and worship style music. Believers of this age are looking for a church that longs for good quality of preaching, but at the same time, they are searching for a church that provides good worship music. While music ministries are in the spotlight, pastors and leaders have a fundamental question: Is church music necessary in worship? Would not the negative function of music be greater than the positive one in this era? What hymns will churchgoers sing in worship? What kind of music is suitable for worship? Why are church hymns important? Humans are created as homo musicus beings who love and use music. It expresses a person’s inner feelings and emotions and it shapes as well a person’s character and thoughts. Not only does the melody of music stimulate people’s nerves and bring about psychological changes, but the lyrics woven into the music also convey thoughts that become ingrained knowledge in the mind. Above all, music contributes to the togetherness of the community, its formation, identity, and transmission of its traditions. This study, due to space limitations, does not delve into the diverse views of theologians regarding church music or the historical controversies surrounding it. From a liturgical theological point of view, I will discuss why church music is important, which church music could be used, how church music forms personal faith identity, and how it affects community faith formation will be analysed. In the end, this article will demonstrate that the music people sing shapes the character of their faith.

Գրիգոր Սկևռացու աղոթքները

Grigor Archimandrite Skevratsi, a follower of the famous clergyman and theologian Nerses of Lambron, was one of the outstanding public, political and cultural figures of medieval Armenia, who in his literary, cultural, religious, social and pedagogical activities was a worthy disciple of his teacher and carried on the traditions establishedby him. Grigor Skevratsi is a multi-genre author. He wrote in practically every genre of spiritual literature and left a legacy of odes and Church Hymns (sharakan), orations and sermons, exhortations and prayers, interpretations and translations. The current paper presents the prayers of Grigor Skevatsi. His theory of prayer is directly derived from the teaching of the school of Narek Monastery which is evidence of a continuity of tradition. Grigor Skevratsi expressed his views on prayer as the highest moment of spiritual life in a number of works, in the theologicalpoem “Instruction on the true Faith and the Virtuous and Pure Life” (“Khrat” (exhortation) «Բան խրատու վասն ուղիղ հաւատոյ և մաքուր վարուց առաքի-նութեան» («Խրատ»)), sermons, several small and large prayers. Skevratsi's prayers testify to his deep faith and high spiritual level.

Архивные материалы В. Ф. Одоевского: Ф. 73 РНММ

This article is dedicated to the materials of the archives of Prince V. F. Odoevsky, a remarkable Russian musician-researcher, author of the first publications on the theory of znamenny chant. Talking about the manuscripts of V. F. Odoevsky, the author dwells in more detail on those that are in the Russian National Museum of Music and makes a general overview of the fund and its history. The collection of V.F. Odoyevsky's RNMM includes the Prince's musical compositions, materials for the study of folk songs and church hymns, theoretical works on harmony, acoustics, Odoyevsky's letters, notebooks, bills, receipts, photographic materials, handwritten notes from Odoyevsky's library, printed materials and programs, as well as literary manuscripts and other materials by various authors. In general, most of the completed works on Old Russian art by V.F. Odoevsky have been published. A huge number of different drafts and excerpts often represent different versions of the same works. The article goes on to describe the manuscript "Russian Ancient Church Hymn" (f. 73 No. 219), it was not completed by Odoevsky and was not published. It touches on most of the provisions expressed by Odoevsky in published articles, in particular, articles for the Archaeological Congress in Moscow.

Orthodox Poets of the Soviet Era: Aleksandr Solodovnikov, Vasily Nikitin, Sergey Averintsev, Elena Pudovkina

The article explores the work of Orthodox poets during the Soviet era, particularly focusing on Aleksandr Solodovnikov, Vasily Nikitin, Sergey Averintsev, and Elena Pudovkina. It formulates a general principle of the poetic style of these authors as the principle of soul, word, and world transformation, realized through prayerful and confessional expressions. The distinctive feature of the resurging Orthodox poetry in the 20th century primarily lay in its pursuit of maximum immediacy, simplicity, and originality, deliberately transcending “literariness,” which was particularly burdensome for individuals of the 20th century. In turn, the analysis reveals that due to this aspiration for the primacy of the word, it unexpectedly proves to be far more complex than it appears at first glance. It carries not only profound meanings of Orthodox faith but also the deep tradition of Christian “literariness” in the best sense of the term—an active continuity with the texts of predecessors, reaching back to ancient Russian and Byzantine heritage. Moreover, it strives to reproduce the spirit of the Gospel’s word, as far as it is humanly possible. Literary creation for an Orthodox person is justified and beneficial only when it constitutes a part of their spiritual self-improvement and transmits the experience of this work to others. It represents the work of soul transformation by the grace of God, captured in the word. Spiritual poetry is traditional not only in content but also in form, oriented toward classical poetry of the 19th century as its model. In cases when it diverges from this model, it does not tend toward the modernism of the 20th century but, conversely, delves into the deep archaism of the early centuries of Christianity, sometimes directly aligning with the structure of the Gospel’s word and canonical church hymns. This is logical since the breakdown of classical poetic structure in the 20th century was a consequence of secularization—the despiritualization of the world and language. Accordingly, the reverse process inevitably led to the revival of the style of classical poetry and even its earlier form—the church poetry.

Low Complexity Deep Learning Framework for Greek Orthodox Church Hymns Classification

The Byzantine religious tradition includes Greek Orthodox Church hymns, which significantly differ from other cultures’ religious music. Since the deep learning revolution, audio and music signal processing are often approached as computer vision problems. This work trains from scratch three different novel convolutional neural networks on a hymns dataset to perform hymns classification for mobile applications. The audio data are first transformed into Mel-spectrograms and then fed as input to the model. To study in more detail our models’ performance, two state-of-the-art (SOTA) deep learning models were trained on the same dataset. Our approach outperforms the SOTA models both in terms of accuracy and their characteristics. Additional statistical analysis was conducted to validate the results obtained.

Pedagogical activity of Zakaria Paliashvili and compositional creativity

   Zakaria Paliashvili is the greatest and outstanding figure in the history of Georgian music, whose work is based on Georgian musical folklore. He is considered the founder of Georgian classical opera. Paliashvili is the author of three different types of opera: Monumental opera-tragedy - "Absalom and Ether", lyrical-dramatic opera - "Dais", heroic-patriotic opera - "Latavra".      Zakaria Paliashvili perfectly combined his compositional work with successful expedition trips, public activities, and engaged in active teaching, performing and creative work. He was a teacher in Georgian gymnasium and music school. Paliashvili was a successful professor and director of the Tbilisi Conservatory, who trained a whole host of talented musicians. Zacharias taught church hymns and arranged them in four-tone arrangements. He sang hymns for a six-part choir. In connection with the 150th anniversary of Paliashvili, UNESCO announced 2021 as the year of Paliashvili.           &nbsp

Russian double annexation and the issue of religious consciousness in post‑soviet Georgian music

The article is dedicated to the сonsequences of Russian double annexation in post-modern and post-avant-garde Georgian music. As a result of the research, it was determined that Russian annexation changed the natural path of development of Georgian music. It is a well-known fact that in order to establish a national composition school, first of all, it is necessary to rely on the roots of national professional music (which in any case originates from the church music of a particular nation) from a stylistic point of view. As Georgian Orthodox chanting was chased from the Georgian Сhurch, they were completely unknown to first generation of Georgian composers. That is why the first Georgian composers were not honored to be the founders of the national composition school, and this became a historical misfortune of the first Georgian patriotic artists. During second annexation, due to the regime’s rejection of the Christian religion, Georgian composers were unabled to address the stylistic-intonational characteristics of Georgian chants. During the Soviet period, the regime banned music with religious content, and the use of church genres, as well as religious themes or church hymns in any genre of music. After the collapsing regime, the requirement to ban church genres or religious music was canceled, and it turned out that composers are often interested in religious themes and intensively refer to the stylistic and intonation, and mode characteristics of Georgian chants. Compositions of Maka Virsaladze and Eka Chabashvili are clear examples of it.

INTERPRETATION OF LITURGICAL TEXTS OF IRMOS IN THE WORK OF HRYHORII SKOVORODA

This work is dedicated to ancient collections of chant books of the Kyiv church. Written records of sung liturgical texts remain poorly researched. This determines the special relevance of this study. This work is an attempt to trace the influence of these texts on the formation of the philosophical outlook of Hryhoriy Skovoroda - the Ukrainian philosopher and cultural figure of the 18th century. It is realized by the method of comparative analysis of the creative work of H. Skovoroda with the texts of manuscripts and old editions of church hymns. The publication of Hryhoriy Skovoroda’s works, edited by Leonid Ushkalov, became the basis and major auxiliary material for the work. Therefore, this work is to some extent a creative reinterpretation and addition of this edition, in particular, the liturgical-sung aspect is revealed in more detail. In Skovoroda’s creative heritage, the most frequently cited of the sung works are irmos, although other genres are also mentioned. The theme of images from the canon is predominant, namely the image of the sea through which Moses passed and the sea in which the prophet Jonah drowned, echoes the author with the sea of life. In addition to quoting, the author also uses resinging of liturgical texts. Especially revealing are the ‘Garden of Divine Songs’, ‘The Battle of Archstrategist Michael’, ‘Lot’s Wife’, ‘Dialogue. Its name is serpent’s flood’, as well as separate letters. Specifically notable is the texts of the Christmas Irmos and the ‘Irmos of the Golden Image’: the first is re-sung in the work ‘Garden of Divine Songs’ (song 5), the second is retold in the memoirs of Mykhailo Kovalinsky, as a philosophical reflection. The philosopher also addresses the following topics: the Holy Trinity, both through the liturgical text and through the explanation of the trinity of the Godhead; to the image of Light, the image of the Mother of God. The study of plots, themes, images, and the structure of genres of sacred liturgical poetry, in particular irmos, added to the understanding of H.Skovoroda’s work. Therefore, we can conclude that the sung liturgical texts are organically woven into the works of Hryhorii Skovoroda. In addition, it can be confidently asserted that the lexemes of church hymns were organically included in the vocabulary of the thinking of our church, cultural and public figures, who were also often authors of poetry and prose works.

Woman Hymns and Christian Songs: Analysing women’s marginalisation in Kidung Jemaat

Singing is a tool used by Christians to worship. The song forms the attitude of its adherents by following the verses contained in the song. This paper aims to analyse the Kidung Jemaat song used by Christians in Indonesia using the lens of feminist theology. The dominance of the patriarchal concept causes an imbalance in relations between society and the church. The research was carried out by qualitative research, observing and carefully reading the poems used by the church in general, especially Kidung Jemaat. The study found that church hymns mention very little about women's stories, whereas the Bible talks about women's ministry in the community. The people's attitude was formed over the years, causing women to be marginalised in Christian singing. As a result, women are also marginalised in worship in the church and community. The church needs to encourage church musicians to create women's songs in the church.

Congregational singing in St. Petersburg diocese at the turn of the 19–20th centuries

In the Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th – 20th centuries, there is a great interest in the practice of congregational singing. The documents of the Russian Local Council of 1917-1918, choir congresses, reports on the activities of church brotherhoods and societies, as well as publications in the press allow to judge to what significant extent the congregational singing at divine services was organized. Definitely, the support of the higher church hierarchy played a special role, as it is demonstrated by the Decrees of the Holy Synod, issued back in 1804 and 1847. At the beginning of the 20th century a solid foundation which enabled a broad participation of the people in divine service through singing and reading church hymns in the St. Petersburg diocese, where for a long time professional church singing and author's liturgical music were actively supported and developed, as well as in other large dioceses (Moscow, Tambov, Kazan, etc.) was built. These were special church orders that dispose the clergy to new parish activities, teaching parishioners and students of parish schools church singing, publishing materials for nationwide liturgical singing (Liturgy, Vespers, Matins, Moleben, Panikhida). Priests Mikhail Dubensky, Konstantin Lorchenko, Nikolai Kurlov, as well as the Alexander - Nevsky Temperance society were active organizers and leaders of the congregational singing at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in the St. Petersburg diocese.There is no doubt that the study of the history of the congregational singing and the accumulated rich practical experience is of high importance precisely today, when this ancient tradition, which remains a powerful means of not only uniting people in the church, but also of enlightening and educating them in the Christian faith, is reviving and expanding.

The Chant of Russian Pilgrim Singers and its Role in the Russian Folk Music Tradition

The article characterizes the musical tradition of Russian singers-wanderers, recorded by collectors in the north-western, northern and central provinces of Russia. For the first time, a comparative study is being carried out of the variants of memorial and zazdravny chants performed by the crossing kaliks and beggars. The study summarizes various sources – auditory recordings of the XIX century, publications of the XX century, unpublished folklore materials. The author draws attention to the little-known recordings of memorial and health chants recorded in the Novgorod, Yaroslavl, Tver, Pskov regions. The objectives of the article are to conduct a comparative study of the tunes of the "poor brethren", to identify their typological properties and intonational origins. The author considers the health and memorial chants as a special phenomenon of Russian folk music culture. The core of this tradition was a chant, which served as a musical formula, to which the calics of the transition sang various texts. On the basis of the facts given in the article, it can be concluded that the main version of the tune of the kalik of the transients is characterized by a one-verse composition and a 10-time basis of small-scale construction. In Russian folklore, the existence of this musical-structural type is limited only to the health and memorial songs of Kalik, spiritual poems and the ballad "Prince Mikhailo", and is not found in other genre spheres. However, the close intonation, rhythmic, compositional relationship of the tune with a wide range of folklore genres indicates that it was formed on the basis of compositional and melodic techniques developed in the practice of peasant song culture. The intonational affinity of the chant with church hymns, especially with the forms of liturgical reading, is an indicator of the closeness of the singing culture of the Kalik of the transients and the church musical tradition as a whole, and also reveals those properties that can be attributed to the category of universals of the Old Russian musical language based on speech intonations.

Folk ballad "Prince Mikhailo" in the context of the Russian musical and epic tradition

The article for the first time carries out a comparative study of variants of the Russian folk ballad "Prince Mikhailo" about the mother-in-law-destroyer. The study summarizes various sources of folk tunes – auditory recordings of the XIX century, publications from folklore archives of collectors of the XX century, previously unpublished folklore materials. Among them are tunes recorded in the Tver, Nizhny Novgorod, Vologda, Murmansk, and Arkhangelsk regions. The author draws attention to a little-known recording of the ballad made in the Novgorod region, and designates the role of this fact as an important evidence of the involvement of Novgorodians in the hit of "Prince Mikhailo" in the Northern Russian territories. The purpose of the study is the need to give a typological and historical assessment of the ballad tunes. A special perspective of the work is aimed at finding related musical forms in other genres of the Russian musical epic. The analysis showed that the ballad tunes recorded in various regions of Russia belong to the same musical type. It is based on a single-verse line of 8-complex composition with a choreographic ending, covering 10 or 12 musical-time units. The melodic features of the tunes testify to their fret unity associated with the narrative orientation of intonation. During the study, it was found that "Prince Mikhailo" is performed only with the melodies of the described structure. Moreover, it is the only proper ballad text assigned to this model. In Russian musical folklore, a structural type with a choreic ending was revealed (in addition to the ballad "Prince Mikhailo") in spiritual poems, tall tales, and some church hymns. The article suggests that it has developed among the Russian professional singers – buffoons and kalik pererozhikh. The role of Ancient Novgorod in the formation of a special cultural environment that contributed to the formation of these social institutions and the musical repertoire of its representatives is indicated.

Nuns Epiharia Moisescu and Magdalina Nicolescu, authors of church hymns in 19th – 20th centuries

In an attempt to substantiate the translation and transcription of liturgical works from the Romanian space of 19th century, besides Maccarius Hieromonk, Anton Pann and one of his labour continuers, composer and psalm book teacher Stefanache Popescu, his apprentices, Nuns Epiharia Moisescu and Magdalina Nicolescu can be mentioned with honours. The monastic life where they were active turned them towards the thorough study of church music and only increased their wish, issued from their reverence to the Mother of God and the saints, to follow the not so easy path of composition. Their songs enriched the liturgical heritage with the Vespers and the Matins for the Services dedicated to celebrate the Dormition of the Virgin, the Protection of Our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos, Saints Gregory Deccapolisen, Demetrius Bassarabov and Saint Martyr Philophteia, pages that facilitated the continuity of service, achieving in those times the link between the treasure of the past and the heritage to be left for the future.

SEMANTIC AND ANTITHETIC PARALLELISM AS POETIC DEVICES FOUND IN HYMNS OF THE METHODIST CHURCH OF SOUTHERN AFRICA AND SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCH

Ponte Academic JournalNov 2022, Volume 78, Issue 11 SEMANTIC AND ANTITHETIC PARALLELISM AS POETIC DEVICES FOUND IN HYMNS OF THE METHODIST CHURCH OF SOUTHERN AFRICA AND SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST CHURCHAuthor(s): Miss Gcinile Beuty ThwalaJ. Ponte - Nov 2022 - Volume 78 - Issue 11 doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2022.11.2 Abstract:Stylistics is significant in literary works because each artist has a unique style of writing and it is concerned with the use of linguistic methods to study the concepts of style in a language. This study aimed at examining the use of semantics parallelism and antithetic parallelism in the Methodist Church of Southern Africa’s hymn book titled Incwadi Yenkonzo Nezingoma and the Seventh-day Adventist Church hymn book titled UKrestu EsiHlabelelweni. Aspects of poetry such as semantic parallelism and antithetic parallelism have been discussed by many in different poems, while they seem to be not recognised, particularly, in the isiZulu hymns of the two churches. The key poetic aspect that is examined is parallelism. Findings reveal that poetry and music are more related than one thinks, as much as poetry is about rhythm, flow, deeper emotions and meanings, and expressions, as is music. Attesting to this is Crosson (2008: 17) who suggests that “music and poetry have often been viewed together as both are considered “auditory, temporal and dynamic art forms”. It has also been discovered that the composers of the hymns of the above two churches mostly used parallelism in their hymns as their style to convey the message to the people of God. This paper hopes to contribute to the knowledge of how music and poetry are related and serves as a point of reference to scholars who intend to research more about hymns and poetry. Download full text:Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution Username Password

Jenő Ádám’s Church Music Compositions

"In the present study I intend to present the church music compositions of Jenő Ádám. I will analyze the choral works of the composer that were based on the melodies of Protestant church hymns. The composer was also active as a conductor, but his name is primarily known in the field of music pedagogy. He played an important role in the elaboration and implementation of the Kodály method. In his works pertaining to church music, he adapted the melodies of the most representative church hymns of different ages. He uses both homophonic and polyphonic approaches with his works that have strophic structure or are through-composed. Keywords: Genevan Psalter, Protestant hymn, Kodály method, strophic form, through-composed works, homophonic and polyphonic approaches in composition."

Die bepaling van ons mees geliefde Afrikaanse kerklied - 'n metodiese ondersoek

In hierdie artikel word 'n uiteensetting gegee van die proses en die resultate van die gebruik van 'n self-geadministreerde aanlyn opname en vraelys om die mees "geliefde" kerklied in Afrikaanssprekende gemeentes in Suid-Afrika te bepaal. Daar word aandag gegee aan aspekte soos die keuse van metode, steekproefneming van respondente, vraelysontwerp en die statistiese ontleding van response. Sommige van die risikoverminderingstrategieë wat die navorser gebruik, word ook uitgelig. Uit die ontleding van die data is dit duidelik dat gemeentes 'n voorkeur toon vir kerkliedere uit die Liedboek en Psalmboek, maar dat daar duidelik ook 'n liefde is vir liedere uit beide die VONKK- en FLAM-genre. Dit is verder ook duidelik dat die Psalms (al is dit net 'n paar) in die amptelike Afrikaanse Liedboek steeds 'n belangrike rol speel in die spiritualiteit van baie van die Afrikaanssprekende gemeentes in Suider-Afrika. Hierdie artikel dra by tot die metodologiese debat in die navorsingsveld van kerkmusiek.

THE CHURCH HYMN “CHRIST RECEIVETH SINFUL MEN”: ITS RELATIONSHIP TO THE GERMAN ORIGINAL AND ITS ADAPTATION BY AMERICAN AND KOREAN HYMNALS

In the 19th century, German Protestant hymns were translated into English and have been sung in its language area. By evangelizing Korea, Western – including some German – church hymns were introduced. However, it is noticeable that content as well as linguistic and musical differences between the German and Korean versions could occur in the translation process. This paper examines one particular church hymn, namely “Christ Receiveth Sinful Men”, that was included in the Korean hymnals at the end of the 19th century. This church hymn has an interesting history; its text is originally from Germany, whereby the origin of the music is the United States. This paper explores the questions of how the text and the music were combined and how changes took place in their transmission. Methodologically, sources were compared that were relevant at the time of adaption. The intercultural relationships between the hymns of other countries would be of interest not only to hymnological scholars, but also to missiologists and musicologists, as well as church musicians.

Пасхальный рассказ С.Н. Дурылина «На чужой могиле»: обновление жанра

The article explores poetics of the unpublished Easter story by S.N. Durylin “On an unrelated grave” (1922). The story is important mainly because the author manages to renew the genre not only by returning to the original spiritual meanings, but also presenting the unique ontological project. Taking into account the experience of the predecessors-classics, first of all, A.P. Chekhov and his story “Holy night” (1886), the writer expands possibilities of the biblical subtext by creating an intertextual evangelical plot that unfolds in parallel with the main one. Using modernist experience of L.N. Andreev and M. Gorky, the symbolist writers, Durylin disputes it, disagreeing with travesty and fantastic versions of the interpretation of Easter story. The author depicts the plot of the resurrection of the soul of the main character Andrei Omutov, who, experiencing the tragic death of his mother, thinks about eternity for the first time. The author’s ontological concept, affirming infinity and the absence of boundaries, is expressed by the special construction of the temporal triad “past — present — future”. The idea of transcendental reality, suggesting Absolute, is formed by alternating passages in present and future tense: these are descriptions of mother’ existence and church hymns quotations. In the past tense, the story of hero’s childhood and his mother’s death are given. The spiritual path to the eternal “to be” represents the inner plot of this story. The milestones of this plot are intertextually indicated by Easter exapostillarium, which is quoted three times: in the epigraph, at the time when it sounds at Easter services and, finally, on a grave of a stranger during matin service, conducted by Father Alexander, when the hero’s spiritual resurrection occurs.