Japanese Church Singing

Church singing in Japan began 150 years ago when the Church was established as a result of St. Nikolai’s mission. People say Vladyka Nikolai was very fond of church singing, and was very strict about it. In his diary, we find many comments on church singing. Thanks to his great efforts, most prayers had been translated and hymns were musically noted, and we can easily celebrate the liturgy in Japanese. It is not an exaggerating to say he prepared almost all the necessary things during the Meiji Era and we are still benefiting from his work.
Being in charge of a choir in a parish church in Japan, I have been considering what we have received and what we will hand down. I have come across questions and difficulties. Some people say that no tradition should be changed. However, for untrained ordinary participants, complicated melodies and harmonization brought embarrassment. There are variations in translation when comparing the prayer book and the music book with each other.

Through this research, I would like to examing St. Nikolai’s work to establish Japanese singing, what traditions he aimed to establish here, and whether there is nothing to add to or revise in his work.

Originally, I wrote this paper in Japanese for the Seikyo Jiho (the official magazine of the Orthodox Church in Japan, and it appeared serially from February to June 2002). The current English version has been completely edited for English-speaking readers. I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me, in paticular, Fr. John who gave me a chance to write and to see the primary sources, Fr. David who showed very important materials at Church in Osaka. Ms. Marie Clappsaddle who checked my English, and my husband Fr. George who always encourages my studying.

The beginning
In 1853, Japan became open to the world after 200 years of isolation. The Japanese government signed a treaty of friendship and commerce with the United States, Britain, Holland and Russia. Russia established its Consulate General in Hakodate in Hokkaido, an island in the north of Japan. In 1858, the first consul-general Iosif Goshkevich arrived at his post. He was born and raised in a priest’s family and studied at St. Petersburg Theological Academy, where he participated in an underground activity of printing a Russian Bible translated by professor Archpriest Gerasim Packskii (History of the Russian Bible, Cistovich, Japanese translation:Eiichi Kato. After graduation, he joined the 12th Russian mission to China( 1840－1849: leader Policalp Tukalinov).

The first two chaplains sent to the consulate, Ivan and Vasily Makhov, soon returned home. Goshkevich requested the Holy Synod to send a young, gifted priest, emphasizing the great opportunities for missionary work in Japan. He had foreseen St. Nikolai’s apostolic work. (K. Nakamura, Archbishop Nikolai and Japan in the Meiji era, Iwanami).

A young 25-year-old hieromonk, Nikolai (Kasatkin), came to Hakodate on June 14, 1861. Besides celebrating the liturgy at a chapel in the consulate, he spent much time preparing for missionary work by studying Japanese, religion, culture, and Chinese classical reading and writing, which would prove to be a great help in his translation work. Still under the decree prohibiting Christianity, in 1868 he baptized the first three Japanese converts, Pavel Sawabe, Ioan Sakai and Iosiv Urano.

For worship in Japanese; translation-- an urgent task
The Orthodox Church generally uses the native language of the people for services. Japanese prayer books, including the Bible, were strongly desired. At first, Nikolai began to translate from Slavic and Chinese versions the minimum necessary texts for morning and evening prayer, Sunday Liturgy and Vigil.

Nikolai said in his letter to Bishop Innokenti[1] in October 1868 that he had translated “Gospels,” “Acts,” “Epistles, ” “Brief Church History,” “Teaching,” “Q & A on Dogma,” and “Morning and Evening Prayer Handbook” from the Chinese version, and “Liturgy of Catechumen” and “Baptism ” [2]from the Slavic ( op.cit..)
In the early days, the Chinese version played an important role. Most of Nikolai’s first disciples were from the samurai class, who understood Chinese classical reading and writing, so they could understand and translate Chinese text into Japanese with a special method (so-called Kanbun or Kanseki), which Nikolai also had mastered already.

As mentioned above, since Consul Goshkevich had been in charge of the mission in Peking, it could be assumed that some Chinese prayer books had been brought to Hakodate. Unfortunately, the Hakodate church was destroyed in a fire, and no evidence was left to tell how many and what kind of Chinese prayer books there were.

Later, Nikolai found the Chinese translation unreliable and re-translated, checking every text against the Russian, Slavic, Latin, English, and Greek versions and St. John Chrisostomos’ notes.[3]

Printing prayer books
On his first return to Russia (1869-71), Nikolai bought a lithograph-printing machine and then started publishing aggressively in Tokyo. Bound hardcover prayer books had to wait until “The Book of Hours” was completed in 1884, but simple booklets for daily and Sunday prayers, including music sheets in Japanese were printed. [4]

We can roughly divide Nikolai’s translation work into three periods. The first period is until 1880. During this period, he hastened to translate the minimum necessary texts for daily and Sunday services. The picture shown here is one of the oldest service book for Sunday vigil and Liturgy, “Kitou saibun” (Prayers for the service, 195 pages, at Osaka Orthodox Church. ) It contained minimum texts for Vigil and Sunday services with eight tone troparion, and is thought to have been published sometime between 1877 and 1880. [5]The texts in this book were different from the later versions and compiled on the abridged style with some psalms omitted. An old Chinese writing specialist, Mayama from Sendai, whose style seems simpler and rather colloquial compared with the later translations, supposed to help with this translation.

The second period is from 1880 to 1889. In 1880, Nikolai was ordained Bishop and his missionary work accelerated. In 1882, his lifelong partner in translation, Pavel Nakai Tsugumaro was called to Tokyo.[6] Texts were thoroughly checked and corrected. In 1894 and 1895, the first prayer books in hard cover were published, “Book of Hours”, “Abridged Octoechos”(1884) and “Psalmodie”(1885).[7] In this period, the basic style was decided. Later revision would be limited to details. This translation is more accurate, with full use of abundant Kanji (Chinese characters), which are ideographic.[8]

The third period is until his death in 1912. He published “Book for Service” (Liturgicon), “Psalmodie” second edition(1901), “Gospel” and “Epistles” (1905), three handbooks (1902) for the first week of Great Lent, the Passion Week and Paschal season, “Irmologion”(1909) complete ”Octoechos”(1909), “Festal Menaion”(1910), and “Lenten Triodion”(1911) and all the necessary books except “Pentecostarion” and “Menaion for Everyday.” Comparing the Psalms and other prayers from this period with those from the second period, the revisions were not so many. On the contrary, in case of hymns for the feasts, the texts were greatly revised from the first period.

The example shown is “the Prayer of St. Symeon” from Vespers in all three periods. They show Nikolai’s continuing improvement (cf. appendix). He might have been looking for a more accurate and better translation until his death.[9]

Comparing texts of the music books with those in the prayer books, we can distinguish the approximate dates of musical setting. The music books often preserved the old translation, which shows that Nikolai’s prayer book revisions were not fully reflected in the church singing. We can even find old translations from the first period still present the music books we use today.[10]

Singing in Japanese
As translation work was still going on, singing in Japanese was started in certain parts of the services. Pavel Sawabe, the first enlighter and the first priest later wrote in Church Magazine, that he first sang some hymns in Japanese in 1873 in Hakodate:

At that time, public services had not yet started in Tokyo, but we did it in Hakodate. ---Since there were no Russian trained singers, it was I playing both roles, a reader and a singer.--- At first, we sang only “Shu awareme yo”(Lord have mercy) in Japanese. As more texts were translated, we added Japanese songs one by one, so at last we became able to celebrate the whole service in Japanese. (the Seikyo-Shinpo, the Orthodox Church Magazine pp.318, 1894)

Following Hakodate, the other parishes started singing in Japanese. [11]

Effort to establish Japanese singing
Roughly speaking, three projects had to be accomplished. The first was translation, as mentioned above. The second was musical settings for the translated texts using Russian melodies. The third was an educational program to teach people how to sing properly. Before teaching Orthodox Church singing, primary western music method had to be taught. It may seem strange to hear, but 150 years ago, music was seen completely differently from nowadays. For Japanese people, Russian melodies seemed nothing but a kind of western music.

To solve the latter two problems, a Russian musician, Iakov Tichai, Fr. Anatoli’s brother, was invited to Japan. Little is known about Iakov’s personal history. One source said he attended the music course at seminary (Pozninev), the other said he was an alumnus of Moscow or St. Petersburg Conservatory (Oonuma). In either case, he had studied western music theory and was a musician. He used a violin to teach singing. He came to Hakodate in 1873, and soon moved to Tokyo to work under the direction of Bishop Nikolai. Sawabe said in the above report, “Then Iakov-san (Tichai) came. He set music to the texts and taught us real Orthodox church singing.”

Besides music class at seminary, Nikolai started “Church Singing School,” where Tichai served as dean.

Looking at Nikolai’s work concerning church singing, we could find two approaches; one for local parish churches and the other for the Tokyo Cathedral Church. Those two approaches reflected the concrete plans for musical setting and education. For local parish churches, teachers and music books for simple unison singing were planned, while for the Tokyo Cathedral, well-trained four-voice choirs were planned.

Before discussing these approaches, we have to regard the peculiarity of Russian Church singing in the 19th century which was brought to Japan. Originally, Russian chants had had a different musical structure and theory, but after the 17th century, they were eventually transformed by the strong influence of western music, at first Italian, later German chorale. In addition to that, the Westernization policy of the Russian Court strongly encouraged this tendency. The style of the St. Petersburg Court Chapel dominated church singing in Russia. In the areas of musical notation, scale structure, and harmonization, it had become much closer to western modern music than the traditional Znameny chants in unison.

Traditional Japanese music was completely different from western music, with unison singing tightly connected to words the same as other ethnic music. There are several modes, with which scales are based on 5 notes in an octave.

Thus, teaching people to sing “do” “re” “mi” using the western scale was quite a job. There is a story about a music lesson in Hakodate in the early days. (About Orthodox Church music, Yasuhiko Rakunai)

Tichai asked his pupils to listen carefully to the major scale and imitate his singing the notes with the vowel sound “a,” “a,” “a”, “a”…. Then he asked them to sing the scale with the sounds do re mi fa so… They kept silent for a while, and then they sang a---do, a---re, a---mi… They added “a?” to every note. They were not trying to be funny. They just could not understand what the teacher said and their ears were not trained.

There is another interesting example, supposedly taken from the melody by Fr. Pavel Sawabe and harmonized by Tichai. He might try to sing Psalm 103 in obichod but its melody was influenced by Japanese mode, and sounds like an old Japanese folk song.

Thus, considering the musical ability of parish churches, Nikolai decided simple unison singing was best in order to conduct services with a limited number of clergy. He sent graduates with music books from seminary and “Church Singing School” throughout Japan. They taught not only how to sing but also about Christianity. When he visited parish churches in north Japan in 1881, he wrote in his diary that the people sang well due to the efforts of Roman Chiba and other graduates.

On the other hand, in the Cathedral in Tokyo, where young seminary students’ musical skills were developed, four-voice choirs were organized, modeled after the Russian Church. Besides church singing, upon request they could take instrumental lessons like violin or piano, and also harmonics, musical theory and composition, which was the highest level musical education at that time. At the end of 1875, the girl’s school was started to train descant (soprano) and alto parts singers (Nikolai’s report, 1878). In Russia, before Alchangeliskii, descant and alto parts were traditionally sung by boys, mainly from serfs before their voices changed. As this became a social problem in Russia, Nikolai began to have girls sing the higher parts.

Musical setting
A series of music books published in the Meiji Era have been used until quite recently. They are generally called “Yokonaga,” which literally meant “long sideways” because of its shape (length 20cm x width 25 cm). They were lithograph printed and bound with a hard cover. We can still find copies of them in many churches.

In Russia, most simple hymns were not written down with musical notation, because they can be sung looking only at the texts, following osmoglasia rules, but in the case of Japan, all hymns, even litanies, were wirtten with musical notation.

Two kinds of music books were published.
(1) for unison singing (for parish churches):
1. sheet music was printed for separate occasions: Sunday Vigil, Liturgy, baptism, major feasts etc. (year issued unknown ).
2. for Pascha (40 pages) (estimated before 1877)
3. 1882, combined volume for Sunday Vigil (95 pages), Liturgy (23 pages), Service for the Dead (47 pages), [12]
4. 1891, for major feasts (120 pages)
combined volume book existed without mention of the date issued, (89 pages for major feasts 40 pages for Pascha).
5. date issued unknown, combined volume for Lenten (50 pages) and Passion week (72 pages)service.

(2) for four-voice choir, divided into four parts; descant, alto, tenor, bass:
1. Two-volume set, printed in 1893; vol.1 with 156 pages for Sunday Vigil, vol.2 with 136 pages for Liturgy including pontifical Liturgy and ordination.
Based on Livov-Bachmetev Obichod, new original composition by Tichai added.
2. Music book for Pascha, Ascension, Pentecost and other additional feasts, 1900. For the other major feasts, another music book is assumed to have been published, but I have not seen yet.
3. 1907 edition; new compositions (63 pages) [13]
Those music books became the foundation of church singing in Japan. In the 20th century, they would be rewritten in modern full score style but the melodies and texts were largely unchanged and some new songs were added.

Original melodies; “Osmoglasia” and “Obichod”
What kind of melodies or traditional melody group (rospev) are they based on? I think there were two pillars; “Osmoglasia” singing in the St. Petersburg tradition and “Obichod.”

“Osmoglasia” singing, which is almost unknown in Japan, has been a basic skill for church singers including the clergy. Usually Stichera, Tropari, and other simple hymns, Russian singers sing without sheet music, looking only at the texts in the service book. They sing putting words into simple melody patterns which they remember by heart. It is no doubt that Nikolai and other Russian clergy mastered osmoglasia singing. They could make tropari and stichera, putting Japanese texts with Russian melodies they remembered. Comparing with the melodies from the St. Petersburg tradition, ours are almost the same with a little change to simplify melodies and to avoid half tones unfamiliar to Japanese. In the case of Stichera tone 1, the Japanese melody consists of only three melody sets (upper), on contrast to the original St. Petersburg’s consists of five sets(below). And from the first pattern, two notes were omitted.

There were some other linguistic problems: Slavic and Japanese are very different languages in the number of syllables, the grammatical structure and intonation. In general, Japanese phrases consist of a lot of syllables. For example, in “С нами Бог” (God be with us) there are only three syllables, in Japanese, “Kami wa warera to tomo ni su” there are 11 syllables. Grammatically, in Slavic and other European languages, the word at the end of the phrase often performs an important role; on the contrary, in Japanese the last word is usually something unimportant like an auxiliary verb or a suffix. If one put Japanese text to a Russian melody, additional words like prepositions in English should be sung in melismatic. Another problem was how to manage “n.” Nikolai told Pozninev how to sing “n,” telling that in Japanese prosody, “n” was an independent syllable but Nikolai and Tichai could not agree to sing a long note with “n” as one syllable. (Pozninev, translated by K. Nakamura, Archbishop Nikolai and Japan in Meiji Era) .

Nikolai and Tichai made trial pieces, practiced them in the services, revised, and practiced them again and again. Compared to the songs for feasts, coming once a year, Sunday hymns which are sung weekly sound better. [14]

In the case of four-voice scores, it is no doubt they referred to Obichod. The “Yokonaga” music book published in 1891, on the colophon, said in its proviso, “Over half of these scores are based on the scores for four voice by the famous composer Livov and Bachmetev, translated (musically set) by Iakov Tichai.” Because of fires and disasters, we have not found the book that Tichai used, but another copy of the second volume of Bachmetev’s Obichod of 1869 was found in a church in Kobe. Observing this Obichod, some interesting facts appeared.

Looking at cherubic hymns by Bortnyanskii, the framework of the melodies and harmony structures are almost the same in Slavic originals and in Japanese, but the same notes happened to repeat many times to fill the number of syllables in Japanese texts and the original triple time rhythm disappeared.

In the case of Great Litany, the rhythm was maintained, but the harmony construction was replaced. Both the Obichod and Japanese take open harmony, whose interval between soprano and alto is a sixth. In the case of Japanese, the original soprano’s melody went to the alto one octave lower, the alto’s melody to the tenor, the tenor’s melody to soprano in one octave higher. In the Obichod of 1869, the first antiphon in Liturgy was in narrow harmony, however in Japanese, it is in open harmony. I do not know why Tichai made such a complicated change, but one conjecture is that he took into consideration the Japanese’ voice range.

As a result of these changes, the principal melody was moved to the inner parts, and original notes from other parts were moved to the soprano. Therefore people became to think four-voice and unison had different principal melodies.[15] In addition to the above, there are many cases where the unison’s melodies
were taken automatically from the alto part, which sound very strange to sung alone.

Another point worthy of notice is that these music books contained many of Tichai’s new compositions. However in Russia new composition had been strictly limited by censorship at that time. Finally censorship in Russia stopped and a new Obichod was published in 1901 and many new compositions were introduced. In Japan a new music book was published in 1907, which contained new songs by Tulchaninov, Orolov, Rostovskii etc. As Tichai had already left Japan, this edition was compiled by his successor, Deacon Demitrii Livovskii, and Japanese musicians, Tokairin, Kisu, and Obara. Russian Obichod 1901 used G-clef in notation for higher three parts, however Japan’s used C-Clef

Generally speaking, Tichai’s work was very successful. According to a report in 1878, Tokyo Cathedral had a well-trained four-voice choir consisting of the seminary and the girls’ school students. The beautiful chorus became famous in Tokyo and even students from Tokyo Music Academy often visited to learn polyphonic singing.

At that time, Japanese were earnestly absorbing western culture, and Orthodox church singing was accepted as expression of the high-level western music and culture. Church members tended to evaluate their church singing as good music.

Another unfortunate matter that hindered growing of real church singing was the low salaries for church-related work. Many graduates, not only from seminary and church singing school but also those who had had advanced study in academies in Russia, spent much time earning a living, and even worse, some left church work for government and companies. Generally speaking, many Japanese, even church members, misunderstood Christianity as a kind of developed culture from Europe. Nikolai reminisced his embarrassments for the gap with Japanese. Nikolai wanted to focus on bringing the true joy of the Gospel,but many Japanese people , even some clergy, became interested in Orthodoxy in order to receive western culture and its benefites. (Archpriest Prokl Ushimaru, “History of the Orthodox Church in Japan,” The Orthodox Church in Japan).

Nikolai's wish----True Japanese singing
Nikolai never wished to promote Russian tradition, but brought true Orthodoxy to Japan. There are some examples in his diary to show he was glad to see Japanized customs; April 6, 1901, he was so happy to see people taking blossoming cherry twigs for Palm Sunday; on June 4, 1892, when he visited Tokushima, he heard six girls sing in “very strange melodies in minor tone” and he loved it. He said, “It was clear unison. I wonder if I should send a singing teacher to correct their melodies…. No! How nice that an original melody has been born! Why do we try to make all music the same!”

They say Nikolai sometimes scolded bad singing. Looking at his diary, we see that he warned and advised when singing disturbed the service. However, he never criticized their skill or compelled them to keep the original Russian melodies. He was glad to hear Japanese melodies. He just wanted people to gather and sing in one voice in Japanese.

However, against his wish, melodies lost their flexibility for various reasons. First, the music was written in staff notation, so people thought they have to sing every note exactly as written, like western secular music, without concern for the texts. Also when Nikolai became a saint, people thought they must not change anything about the music that a saint had blessed. Another misunderstanding was that four-voice choirs had been praised too much, so many people felt bounded to keep Russian style choral singing as the only correct Orthodox traditional singing style. The kind of Japanese singing that Nikolai envisioned has not appeared yet.

Conclusion
Looking over St. Nikolai’s life, we recognize how earnestly he did his best to plant Orthodoxy in Japan. Because he knew the importance of singing in liturgy, he hastened to put Japanese singing into practice, and then, he added more step by step. Many of us imagine St. Nikolai accomplished this all at once by some kind of super power when, in fact, it required a lot of effort and revision. His biography says he continued translation until the very end of his life. In other words, I think he always thought his work was not yet finished but still in progress.

Thanks to Nikolai and his colleagues’ efforts, we can pray in Japanese. It is a great gift but there are still many problems to be solved. I think, he might ask us to succeed his work and to develop our own tradition. Orthodox Tradition should not be just keeping past monuments. Since I am grateful to receive such a great heritage, I never expect drastic revision or radical reformation. However, just a little adjustment seems to be necessary. For example, with a little effort to pay attention to the texts and phrasing, and to adjust the musical setting to arrange for easier harmonization, we can make hymns more understandable and easier to sing for church members.

In conclusion, I would like to introduce some words on church singing from St. Nikolai’s diary, which always encourages me:

“In Church, clergy and choirs must read and sing well. If people who pray listen carefully to them, the teaching of Christianity will come into their soul like the sea, teaching dogma and radiating wisdom. By the holy poems (in prayers), they give life to the heart, encourage their will, and make them into holy examples… Our liturgical songs are bright, living, God-authorized sermons and prayers. Through the mouths of the churches all over the world, we sing with the voice of the Fathers, filled with the Holy Spirit.”(December 24, 1904)

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1. St. Innokenti of Alaska. Young Nikolai met him in Kamchatska and received important advice.

2. In the book I referred to, they are mentioned as “converts.” However as Japan was a non-Christian country, I suppose this refers to their baptisms.

3. Christian Journal, Jan. 1869, St. Petersburg, Pozninev, translated by K. Nakamura, Archbishop Nikolai and Japan in the Meiji Era

4. According to the Book List of the Meiji Era complied by Rev. Jude Nushiro (Metropolitan Daniel of Tokyo)1974, “Songs for Pascha” with 17 pages, size 22 x 30 cm. And “Vigil” with 52 pages were printed around Meiji 10 (1877).

5. In Great Litany, Bishop Martian of Kamchatska(1877-85 at this post) was commemorated.

6. Pavel Nakai’s family had organized “Kaitoku-do,” a famous private school for Chinese classical reading, a predecessor of Faculty of Literature of Osaka University. At that time, Pavel worked for the mission around Osaka.

7.In addition to the above, Gospel in Chinese with special marks to show the word order and additional letters in order to read Chinese according to Japanese grammar, “訓点新約” was published.

8. More accurate translation was pursued but it was difficult to catch the meaning through the ears since much depended on ideographic letters.

10 For example, in the funeral service, the Trisagion is sung “Sei Tenshu, Sei Yuki, Sei Joseinaru mono yo….” The standard text in Liturgy is “Seinaru Kami, Seinaru Yuki, Seinaru Joseino mono yo…”, which causes misunderstanding that the song for Funeral is different from the Trisagion in the Liturgy.

11 In Sendai, in 1873, with musical scores in their hands, “the Trisagion” and “Only Begotten Son” were sung in Japanese (The Orthodox in Japan, “History of the Mission in Japan”, 1900)

12. For these two books #3 and #4, advertisements in Church Magazine, “Seikyo Sinpo”

13.Those books are owned by the Church in Nagoya. Besides the above, other kinds of music books may be found. Further research is necessary.

14. In case of irmos of the feasts, there are many complicated songs whose origins are unknown. It is supposed that someone brought scores from Russia and added words automatically without concern for intonation. Texts phrases and melody phrase often do not coincide.

15. It caused strange phenomena; soon other parish church in large cities wanted to sing in four-voice chorus like the Tokyo Cathedral. Some choir became so accustomed to singing in four parts that they were unable to sing in unison.

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Referenced books

• Обиход 1869
• Е.Кустовский и Н.Потемаина ≪Осмогласия≫ 1999 Православные Московскик Регентские крусы
• Text book for Osmoglasia of St. Petersburg Seminary, Regent course,
• J. V. Gardner “Russian Church Singing” vol. 1 SVS
• V. Morosan “Choral Performance in Pre-Revolutionary Russia” Musica Russica
• Orthodox Church Music, OCA

The Truth of Buddhism

As a teenager, I was, as many American teenagers are, very interested by Eastern religions. The picture of reality, of humanity, and of the divine that religious systems like Hinduism, Taosim, and Buddhism presented seemed to offer a much more agreeable alternative to what seemed the spiritual dryness of the West. As they were commonly presented, these Eastern religions encompassed great mystical traditions, lacked the judgmental tyrant-in-the-sky view of God stereotypical of American "Christianity," and were much more amiable to modern science. While Christianity was the home of the Crusades, the Inquisition, and the fire-and-brimstone Baptist preacher, Buddhism, Hinduism, Taoism, and other related religions were about a deeper view of the nature of the world and of mankind, about peace and gentle spirituality. That is the viewpoint commonly propounded by apologists of Eastern religions for Western audiences, and that is the viewpoint I held to until I started to look deeper and found the Holy Orthodox Church and the wealth of spiritual heritage that it carries with it.

The point of this post is not to try to refute these common assumptions about either Eastern religions (which, however, are not quite what idealizing Western converts would like to think) or about Christianity (though I've done other posts on some of those topics and I think such an understanding of Christianity refutes itself with any knowledge about the Apostolic Faith and the Orthodox Church). I only mention these common misunderstandings of Christianity and Eastern religions to give a little background information for this post and why I am writing it.

Amongst the Eastern religions, it was especially Buddhism which attracted me. The Buddha himself was, for me, a very impressive figure in many ways: his determination and nirvana-or-nuthin' attitude in his search for spiritual truth, his all-embracing compassion for the world, his systematic, scientific worldview and guidance for spiritual attainment -- all of this was moving and fascinating to me. And it still is. Here's an even bigger confession: I still think that the Buddha was right. That's right, I'm a Christian and I still believe that Buddhism is correct in its view of the world and of man. In fact, becoming a Christian brought me to appreciate the depth and truth of Buddhism even more than I had as a teenage spiritual dabbler. I'll explain.

Buddhism is unlike other religions in many ways; perhaps one of the most obvious and noticeable of these differences is that Buddhism, unlike nearly all other religions, has no "creation story." Instead of a story about the creation of the world, of man, and of how the world and man got to be the way they are, Buddhism tells the story of the Buddha himself, of this particular man and his realization of the world as it is.

As the story goes, the Buddha was raised intentionally sheltered by his father, a king. The Buddha was kept by his father from seeing any decay, death, illness, or ugliness; he was instead surrounded with the young, the beautiful, and the pleasurable. On several successive trips outside of the palace, however, the Buddha came across four sights that shocked him and changed his life forever: a sick person, an elderly person, a dead person, and a Hindu ascetic. As he encountered each sight, the Buddha turned to his trusted friend with him and asked what they were. His friends replies shook the Buddha's world: "that person is ill, all people suffer from disease;" "that person is old, all people will someday grow old;" "that person is dead, all people will someday die;" and finally "that person is an ascetic, he is searching for the way beyond sickness, old age, and death."

This story of the Buddha is not only the story of one man who lived 2500 years ago. It is probably not even historically accurate. It is, however, not intended to be. The Buddha's story is the story of every person who grows up and looks at the world around him. Children are generally unaware of what we might called the "hard facts of life." For them, everything is play and the play seems like it will never end. But as they grow up, they begin to see that life is not all fun and games. They see their grandmother sick and they see that they too can and will get sick; they see that their grandmother is old and frail and, eventually, they realize that they too will one day be that way; and, finally, their grandmother passes away and they see this thing called "death" and, eventually, they realize that they too will one day die. These realizations might not come in great "sights" and profound realizations as they did with the Buddha, but these are realizations that every human being has as they grow up.

The creation story of Christianity, in the opening chapters of the book of Genesis, provides much the same effect and could act just as easily as an allegory for what we all experience while coming of age. Adam and Eve, the first humans, having lived thus far in innocence and simplicity, eat of the tree of the "knowledge of good and evil." As a result, they are expelled from Paradise; suffering, decay, pain, and toil enter their world. Eve, the woman, is told that she will have children only with much pain and that her husband will have authority over her; she has become an adult woman. Adam, the man, is told that he will only be able to provide food for himself and his family with never-ending and hard labor; he has become an adult man. The final and profoundest curse pronounced against them is death: "you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Genesis 3:19).

The creation stories of Buddhism and of Christianity are very different in time, place, and setting, but the message is the same: now that we've grown up, we have to face facts: we're going to get sick, we're going to get old, and we're going to die. And yet in each of these creation stories there is also a ray of hope that shines through. In the Buddhist story, the Buddha sees the ascetic, the one who is looking for a way beyond illness, old age, and death. In the Christian story, God says to the serpent, the one who had brought all of this upon Adam and Eve by tempting them to eat of the tree, that he "will put enmity between your seed and her Seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall be on guard for His heel" (Genesis 3:15). God has promised a Seed to Eve, One to come who will crush the serpent, undoing what he has done and saving humanity from illness, old age, and death.

The respective foundational stories of Buddhism and Christianity continue, each retelling events that are very different from the other and which nonetheless seem to each point to the same truth. If there is one uniting element in the stories of the Christian Old Testament, one particular facet that can be found in each of them, it is that man constantly reaches for the divine and yet falls short every time. Each of even the prophets and other great and holy men of the Old Testament eventually stumbles; each of them is eventually shown to be a sinner. The overarching theme of the various Old Testament stories, which span a period of thousands of years, is man's inability to bridge the gap between man and God.

The moral of the continuation of the Buddha's story is nearly the same. After witnessing the four sights, the Buddha departs from his pampered life in his father's palace and retreats to the forest to take up the life of a Hindu ascetic, seeking an escape from illness, old age, and death. During this time, he studies under various revered gurus and masters nearly ever ascetic practice available to him. He achieves profound mystical states. And yet he is satisfied with none of this. He still suffers, he is still bound to grow sick, to grow old, and to die. He reaches a breaking point. He has nearly starved himself to death and tortured his body in various other ways; the Buddhist texts record that he had become so emaciated from his extreme asceticism that he could touch his spine by poking his stomach. Finally, he sits down under a tree, swears that he will not move from that spot until he either dies or achieves enlightenment (the state of moving beyond suffering), and he meditates.

As the name "Buddha" ("enlightened/awakened one") indicates, he did indeed achieve his goal; he reached enlightenment and experienced nirvana, the state of cessation of suffering. Having achieved this goal, he went off to teach others how to achieve it as well. His first sermon, given to a group of fellow ascetics who had been his friends, lays out the profound truths that the Buddha had realized, truths which also form the foundation of the Christian life.

These foundational teachings of the Buddha are called the "Four Noble Truths" and the "Eightfold Path." The first of the Noble Truths is that suffering is implicit in all aspects of life; even the greatest joy will eventually fade because everything on earth is temporal. According to the Buddha:

Now this, monks, is the noble truth of pain: birth is painful; old age is painful; sickness is painful; death is painful; sorrow, lamentation, dejection, and despair are painful. Contact with unpleasant things is painful; not getting what one wishes is painful. In short the five groups of grasping are painful.

This, as we have already seen, is similarly the starting point of Christianity. Turning again to the third chapter of Genesis, we find nearly the same content in God's words to Adam and Eve after their fall (Genesis 3:16-19):

To the woman He said: "I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception; in pain you shall bring forth children; your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you." Then to Adam He said, "Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, 'You shall not eat of it': "Cursed is the ground for your sake; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for dust you are, and to dust you shall return."

After establishing this fundamental and foundational truth, both Buddhism and Christianity then look for the source of this suffering and both find it in the same place. The Buddha's second Noble Truth is that this suffering is caused by, in Pali, "tanha." The literal meaning of the word is "thirst" but most English translations translate it as "desire." Desire, however, is not nearly a strong enough word to convey the Buddha's full meaning; a better word might be "craving." The equivalent word used by the Christian fathers and ascetics is, in Greek, "pathos," which is translated into English as the "passions." Both tanha and pathos refer to the cravings and emotions that overwhelm the souls of human beings.

The Buddha listed three forms of tanha:

1. Craving for pleasure
2. Craving for existence
3. Craving for non-existence

The early monastic saints of Christianity similarly compiled a list of the passions, eight in number:

1. Gluttony
2. Lust
3. Covetousness
4. Anger
5. Dejection
6. Despondency
7. Vainglory
8. Pride

As we can see, although the content of the lists is expressed differently yet again the message is the same. These pathos/tanhas are the underlying reason for human suffering.

The Buddha's third Noble Truth is that there is a way that leads beyond suffering, beyond illness, old age, and death. With this again Christianity is in agreement. It is with the Buddha's fourth Noble Truth that Christianity and Buddhism finally find disagreement, or so it seems. Rather, I think that the Buddha's fourth Noble Truth, in which he lays out the means by which suffering can be overcome, is not incorrect but incomplete. The Buddha's fourth Noble Truth is that the way to overcome the passions and end suffering is the Eightfold Path:

1. Right view
2. Right intention
3. Right speech
4. Right action
5. Right livelihood
6. Right effort
7. Right mindfulness
8. Right concentration

In all of this, the Buddha was correct. Following these precepts can lead to nirvana, the state of cessation of craving and so of suffering. But it cannot lead one beyond illness, old age, and death in themselves. The Buddha himself, in fact, died at 80 years old from a sickness resulting from eating a portion of spoiled pork; in other words, he got old, he got sick, and he died. But, almost 500 years after the Buddha's lifetime something remarkable happened, a key and essential ingredient was added, which the Buddha, because of his time and place, was unaware of: God became man. He was born, crucified, died, and resurrected -- freeing us all from illness, from old age, and, ultimately, from death. We must continue to struggle with our passions, our craving, our tanha, but there is a new dynamic: the grace of God.

Buddhism, then, is not incorrect, it is incomplete. The Buddha was a remarkable man and he attained to the greatest measure of understanding of the world, of humanity, and of the unique human predicament of any of the ancient philosophers and wise man. This is a truly astounding achievement on his part, given that he was entirely cut off even from the revelation of God given to Israel in the Old Testament. It is no wonder that even the early Christian Church Fathers gave recognition to the holiness of the Buddha; just as were many of the Greek philosophers and the prophets of Israel, the Buddha can undoubtedly be counted amongst those who were "Christians before Christ." Jesus Christ, however, is the completion of the great dilemma that the Buddha attempted to resolve; ultimately, Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of Buddhism.

"Every individual instinctively strives for happiness. This desire has been implanted in our nature by the Creator Himself, and therefore it is not sinful. But it is important to understand that in this temporary life it is impossible to find full happiness, because that comes from God and cannot be attained without Him. Only He, who is the ultimate Good and the source of all good, can quench our thirst for happiness." - St. Innocent of Alaska, Indication of the Way into the Kingdom of Heaven

Why A Chinese Buddhist Became an Orthodox Athonite Monk

On my last trip to Mount Athos I visited the Monastery of Simonopetra. It is a majestic monastery and the sky was fully blue. There I met a graceful novice monk from China. In truth, he surprised me by his presence. An Orthodox rason on a Chinese man? I was moved somewhat. I had never seen this before up close, only in pictures of missions. An inheritor of a great cultural tradition and for him to embrace Christianity? My friends and I got curious to ask him about this.

"Brother, how did you, a Chinese man, embrace Orthodox Christian monasticism coming from such a great cultural tradition? Were you a Buddhist?" 

"Yes, of course, I was a Buddhist." 

"What won you over to Christianity?" 

"Divine companionship!" 

"Excuse me?"

"Yes, yes, Father, hahahahaha!", he laughed, since with every three words the Chinese seem to laugh at two. "In Buddhism, my Father, you are very very much alone. There is no God. Your entire struggle is with yourself. You are alone with yourself, with your ego. You are totally alone in this path. Great loneliness Father. But here you have an assistant, a companion and a fellow-traveler in God. You are not alone. You have someone who loves you, who cares about you. He cares even if you don't understand Him. You speak with Him. You tell Him how you feel, what you would have hoped for - there is a relationship. You are not alone in the difficult struggles of life and spiritual perfection."

I realized things in those days. A severe cold bound me to bed. No doctor could find anything wrong with me. The clinical picture was clear, at least the doctors couldn't see anything. The pain was unbearable and there was absolutely no pain killer that could stop it. I changed three different pain killers and still the pain was not alleviated.

At this time I got the news that the brother of my father, whose name I bear, had an advanced form of cancer in the vocal cords and larynx. He had a largyngectomy. It was the result of chronic alcohol consumption and smoking. Generally he lived a bad life, without any quality.

Then I felt something a former Buddhist and now a Christian monk on Mount Athos told me, that you need to have a God you can talk to; to perceive and to feel someone besides yourself Who hears you.

I don't know if it's wrong or right. I only know it is a deep need of man. This is evidenced by life itself. Even these Buddhists, who are from a non-theistic religion, created various deities. Even in dream language and worlds. But they have a need to refer to someone, to something, someone beyond and outside themselves, even if it's dreamy. Besides, reality and truth is something very relevant and will always remain so. It is an enigma, a mystery."

At this I remembered the words of Saint Gregory the Theologian, who had a sensitive and melancholic nature, when he said: "When you are not well, or not feeling so, speak. Speak even if it is to the wind."

New zodiac signs 2011: Why astrology is even sillier than we thought

New zodiac signs 2011: Thanks to a wobble in the earth's axis, the astrological positions calculated some 2,000 years ago no longer apply. And even back then it was a big load of nonsense.

If you look to your horoscope for a preview of your day, look again: You're probably following somebody else's supposed fate.

Thanks to Earth's wobble, astrological signs are, well, bunk. (Or even more bunk than you might expect.) Astrological signs are determined by the position of the sun relative to certain constellations on a person's day of birth. The problem is, the positions were determined more than 2,000 years ago. Nowadays, the stars have shifted in the night sky so much that horoscope signs are nearly a month off.

"Astrology tells us that the sun is in one position, whereas astronomy tells us it's in another position," said Joe Rao, SPACE.com's skywatching columnist and a lecturer at New York's Hayden Planetarium.

The shift is caused by precession, the wobble in the Earth's axis caused by the gravitational attraction of the moon to the Earth's equator. Precession popped into the spotlight this week after Minnesota Planetarium Society board member Parke Kunkle told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune about the gap between the astrological and the astronomical view. The story spread around the Internet quickly, but it's actually old news, Rao said.

Very old news.

"The earliest known astronomer to recognize and assess the movement of precession was Aristarchus of Samos, who lived around 280 B.C.," Rao told LiveScience.

The attention triggered by his interview with the newspaper has been "astounding." Kunkle, who teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, told Livescience, He gave the interview at the request of the paper to discuss precession, and the science he described is centuries old, he said.

"Bombshell dropped?" Kunkle said. "Well, no, not really."

Here's what astronomers know: The Earth is like a wobbly top. As it rotates, its axis swings in a circle, pointing in different directions. As the Earth's position shifts, so does our perspective of the night sky.

For example, Rao said, we take the North Star, Polaris, for granted. It's the star most closely aligned with Earth's North Pole. But back when the pyramids were constructed, the star that aligned with the North Pole wasn't Polaris at all: It was a star in the constellation Draco called Thuban. In 12,000 years, Earth's North Star will be Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra.

The complete rotation takes 26,000 years, Rao said.

"Everything in the sky is in flux," he said.

Even if the astrological signs were stable, there's no evidence the stars have anything to do with people's day-to-day existence. One 2006 study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences used data from more than 15,000 people and found no relationship between date of birth and personality.

Despite the complete lack of scientific and observational evidence for astrology, 25 percent of Americans still believe in it, a recent Pew survey found. So here are the "real" dates of astrological signs, according to astronomers:

1. Capricorn: Jan. 20-Feb. 16.
2. Aquarius: Feb. 16-March 11.
3. Pisces: March 11-April 18.
4. Aries: April 18-May 13.
5. Taurus: May 13-June 21.
6. Gemini: June 21-July 20.
7. Cancer: July 20-Aug. 10.
8. Leo: Aug. 10-Sept. 16.
9. Virgo: Sept. 16-Oct. 30.
10. Libra: Oct. 30-Nov. 23.
11. Scorpio: Nov. 23-29.
12. Ophiuchus: Nov. 29-Dec. 17.
13. Sagittarius: Dec. 17-Jan. 20.

The list includes Ophiuchus, a formation the ancient Babylonians discarded because they wanted 12 star signs, not 13. That's yet another example of how astrologers cherry-pick and ignore astronomical observations, Rao said.

"It's crazy," Rao said. "Really, they have their own set of rules."

Nevertheless, maybe some good will come of the astrology-astronomy media blitz, Kunkle said.

"At the very least, I hope it makes people go out and actually look at the sky," Kunkle said. "That's the fun part."

No, your zodiac sign hasn't changed

Tattoo parlor owners must be salivating. An assertion in a Minneapolis Star Tribune article that our understanding of the zodiac is off by about a month - and that therefore people have been identifying themselves with the wrong sign - caught fire on the internet Thursday, and many folks are in an absolute panic on social media.

"If my zodiac symbol has been changed to a Libra, what am I supposed to do with my Scorpio tattoo?!?!," read one tweet Thursday.

Some vowed to get their tats removed. Others groaned about losing the sign with which they’ve identified themselves for years. The zodiac and related terms - including Ophiuchus, said to be a 13th and neglected sign - were trending Twitter topics much of Thursday.

But before astrology fans scrape the ink from their arms because they think they're now a Virgo instead of a Libra, they should consider this: If they adhered to the tropical zodiac - which, if they're a Westerner, they probably did – absolutely nothing has changed for them.

That's worth rephrasing: If you considered yourself a Cancer under the tropical zodiac last week, you're still a Cancer under the same zodiac this week.

That's because the tropical zodiac – which is fixed to seasons, and which Western astrology adheres to – differs from the sidereal zodiac – which is fixed to constellations and is followed more in the East, and is the type of zodiac to which the Star Tribune article ultimately refers.

Two zodiacs. That's nothing new.

"This story is born periodically as if someone has discovered some truth. It's not news," said Jeff Jawer, astrologer with Tarot.com.

The hubbub started with Sunday's Star Tribune article, which said the following: "The ancient Babylonians based zodiac signs on the constellation the sun was 'in' on the day a person was born. During the ensuing millenniums, the moon’s gravitational pull has made the Earth 'wobble' around its axis, creating about a one-month bump in the stars' alignment."

"When [astrologers] say that the sun is in Pisces, it’s really not in Pisces," Parke Kunkle, a board member of the Minnesota Planetarium Society, told the Star Tribune.

"Indeed," the article continued, "most horoscope readers who consider themselves Pisces are actually Aquarians." The article also asserts Scorpio's window lasts only seven days, and that a 13th constellation, Ophiuchus, used to be counted between Scorpio and Sagittarius but was discarded by the Babylonians because they wanted 12 signs per year.

True enough, Jawer says, the sun doesn't align with constellations at the same time of year that it did millennia ago. But that’s irrelevant for the tropical zodiac, codified for Western astrology by Ptolemy in the second century, he says.

In the tropical zodiac, the start of Aries is fixed to one equinox, and Libra the other.

"When we look at the astrology used in the Western world, the seasonally based astrology has not changed, was never oriented to the constellations, and stands as … has been stated for two millenniums," Jawer said.

People who put stock in astrology can ask whether they should adhere to the tropical zodiac or the sidereal zodiac. Jawer argues for the tropical.

"Astrology is geocentric. It relates life on Earth to the Earth’s environment, and seasons are the most dramatic effect, which is why we use the tropical zodiac," he said.