Choral chant in the strict sense is monophonic melismatic church chant, to which, according to Byzantine practice, a fundamental tone, the so-called ison, is added. The choral melos develops from the holy word borne by the Spirit (biblical text, prayer text), which relates both to the accentuation and syntax of the language and to the attitude of worship in spirit and truth on the part of the melodist, and ultimately to Christ Himself, the eternal Word of God (John I, 1-8).

Chant and ritual form a central “field of work” of spiritual exercise in all traditional religious cultures of humanity. The task is to initiate and cultivate spiritual perception beyond external doctrine and emotional movement. In many Orthodox monasteries of the Holy Mountain Athos and elsewhere, this practice has been cultivated for almost 2000 years. Byzantine chant is for the Greek language what Gregorian chant is for the Latin language.

For the German language, attempts were made from the 19th century onward, in connection with the liturgical movement and proceeding from Latin Gregorian chant, to gain an ancient church choral chant. Today, by including the other ancient church choral traditions, one can better recognize the basic principles of choral chant and understand it as a musical “primordial language.” This takes on its own proper form only in the languages of the peoples. The choral traditions of the Christian peoples (Byzantine, Latin, Georgian, Syriac, Old Bulgarian, etc. chant) are, as it were, dialects of this one primordial language of choral chant.

German Choral Chant is such a choral dialect on the basis of the German language. It has been developed since 1977 by Elder Johannes, following the model of Gregorian chant and the Byzantine choral traditions. Since 1990 it has been practiced and taught in the Holy Trinity Monastery in Buchhagen.

Russian church chant, which for more than 100 years has here and there been provided with German texts, is strongly shaped by the Romantic musical culture of the 19th century (Bortniansky, Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff, and others), and is therefore not “choral chant” in the strict sense. The older Old Slavonic chant traditions (znamenny rospev and others), by contrast, are pure choral traditions and likewise serve as a model for German Choral Chant. For example, every evening in Vespers at Buchhagen the Hymn of Symeon is sung, the “Now lettest Thou …”, which is a contrafactum of the Old Slavonic ninje otpuschtschajeschi. Recently there have also been analogous efforts elsewhere for German-language church chant. By now the Holy Trinity Monastery has the entire ordinarium of the daily office and of the Divine Liturgy, as well as the hymns of the great feasts and a number of psalm compositions. In addition, there are various models for psalmody in all 8 church modes. All services are sung in German Choral Chant.