The historically young chant tradition of the Holy Trinity Monastery is archaic in spirit and essence. It builds on the oldest Christian traditions; its roots lie mainly in Byzantine chant, but also in Gregorian chant and further chant traditions of the Christian peoples. The melos and rhythm of these chants unfold directly from the word, concretely from the linguistic structure of German. Behind this stands the primordial Word, the Eternal Word itself (John I, 1-18). Beyond history, modernity, or postmodernity, the archaic character of German Orthodox liturgical chant is grounded in eternity. The fascinating immediacy of the word, however, is grounded in the German language.

Already during his music studies in the 1970s, Elder Johannes had sought an archaic church chant in the German language. Originally he started from the efforts toward a “German Gregorian chant,” pursued in the liturgical movement of the 19th and 20th centuries in both Western confessions and continued, for example, in Ernst Pepping’s Spandau Psalter. With his conversion to Orthodoxy, the concrete goal of this work crystallized as the task of finding a chant tradition for Orthodox worship in the German language. Through engagement with Old Russian chant (znamenny rospev), but above all through the encounter with Byzantine chant in 1979, his view widened considerably, and with it the possibilities for creating a choral tradition from the holy word. This approach was deepened by monastic life on the Holy Mountain Athos and received additional impetus with the founding of the German Orthodox monastery. Ultimately, of course, all accessible authentic chant traditions of the Christian peoples can serve as models for German Choral Chant. Thus, from about 2008 onward, Georgian church chant, with its archaic three-part singing and its entirely different musical system, also came into view. For Elder Johannes, however, the word of God has always stood and still stands at the center of this work, not least in its metaphysical dimensions. The archetype of choral chant is the song of the angels. To come near to this archetype is the highest striving of the Orthodox monk.

The melos and rhythm of these chants unfold directly from the word, concretely from the linguistic structure of the holy texts of the Bible and the liturgy of the Orthodox Church. The musical structure arises, on the one hand, from immanent musical structural principles such as are generally present in ancient church chant (church modes, tetrachord structures, circling movements around fixed central tones, symbolic gestures and intervals), and, on the other hand, from the structure of the language itself. Accent, syntax, and word melody of German determine the formation of the choral melos. In choral chant, word and melos are one. To place another text under a choral melody is therefore not simply possible, but always requires musical adaptation and reshaping from the new word-form.

The liturgical place, that is, the position of the chants within the course of the theurgy, also influences their form. The movement of the praying human being before the face of the living God, arising from the revelatory content of the holy texts and from the liturgical situation, naturally resonates as a kind of sensor of the mystagogical progress of the liturgy. It is divine mystagogy itself, the leading toward the Mystery, spiritual ascent through supratemporal spaces and rapt abiding and communication there, that is reflected in the level of tension, ambitus, and mood of the choral chant and determines the overarching musical architecture of the divine service. Thus, for example, the Prokeimenon, the liturgical introduction to the readings from Holy Scripture, is musically formed as a gate, both block-like and flowing: in the contrast between the polyphonic homophonic refrain (ephymnion) and the freely melismatic flowing psalm verses of the cantor, the Prokeimenon becomes boundary and passage at once. The Cherubic Hymn at the beginning of the mystery part of the Divine Liturgy, by contrast, is pure mystery chant, highly melismatic, lifting toward the heavenly sanctuary through the overtone-tuned Phrygian mode. Purification, crossing of boundaries, and elevation lead in several stages toward spiritual vision. The liberated, elevated spirit proceeds with the priest, who carries the holy gifts into the Holy of Holies, to the upper altar.

Behind all this stands the primordial Word, the Eternal Word itself (John I, 1-18). For language, especially holy language, is image and echo of the all-creating Eternal Word, which is with God and at the same time is God, in the mystery of the divine Trinity. This Word is the actual “primordial word,” before all words. It also appears as proportion, harmony, sound, and melos. Thus choral chant is not a mere “addition” or “setting” of the text, but is itself an analogous and immediate expression of the primordial Word, filling, enlivening, and elevating the words of earthly language as the soul does the body.

German Choral Chant knows different rhythmic genres which, just as in Byzantine chant, are assigned to specific liturgical text genres. Most pieces are monophonic over the ison; larger ones may occasionally unfold into three-part writing at the end or at text passages to be emphasized. Since AD 2008, three-part, lightly polyphonic chants in modal harmony have been added, which, however, differ clearly from familiar polyphony through their natural tuning. These are above all the responses to the intercessions (Kyrie eleison; Grant, O Lord; All-holy Mother of God, save us; To Thee, O Lord; Amen), the Prokeimena (the antiphonal psalm chants before the readings), and festal chants such as “Christ is risen” or “We bless thee."