PSALMODY IN OUR WORSHIP
The Book of Psalm (The Psalter) arose first as the Hymn Book of the Old Testament Temple and then of the Christian Church. The structure of daily services of the Church comes from the Psalter. Psalms were used at every gathering of the people in praise of God. Along with the psalms arose short refrains that all could sing in-between the verses of the psalms. One of the earliest refrains was “Alleluia”, meaning “Praise the Lord”.
Sometimes these refrains became a part of the psalms themselves as we find in psalm 136. Here the refrain, “For His mercy endures forever”, is a part of the actual psalm although it continually breaks the sentence flow and has no direct connection with the verses. Later in the Church’s development and growth there came longer refrains that became hymns (troparia) in their own right. These troparia were refrains between the verses of a psalm. Singing psalm verses with a refrain is called Antiphonal singing. And the whole text and refrain combination is called an Antiphon. READ MORE
