the song is beautiful, it sounds catholic, is it?
no, not catholic-- the Russian/Bulgarian church is united with the Greek religion and is known as "Eastern Orthodox," although some of the churches used to be called "Russian Greek Catholic Church." "Catholic" just means "universal," but is now mostly used to describe the Roman Catholic Church. The Greek church and Roman church are separate churches called "East" (Greek) and "West" (Roman), and are now called, "Greek Orthodox Church," and "Roman Catholic Church."
You may have been thinking of the "Byzantine Catholic Church," which is similar to these churches, but is blended with the Roman Catholic Church. I think the Byzantine Catholic music has it's own style or sound, just like the Greek Orthodox Church music is very different than this Slavonic hymn, but, the Greek Church and the Russian Church use the same "Liturgy" which is called the "Mass" in the Roman church, which comes from the word "liturgical," but, I don't want to look it up right now! As you can see, it's not as simple as it seems, the many divisions in Eastern churches.
The two churches, Roman Catholic Church, which has the Vatican in Rome as it's headquarters, and the Greek/Russian Orthodox Church, which used to have it's headquarters in "Constantinople," had a "schism" or a separation (division) in the year 1054 over different beliefs. The Roman Church and the Greek Church both have some similar beliefs, but, one major belief is that they do not believe in the "Reformation," which was started mainly by the Roman monk/priest Martin Luther. Martin Luther was distressed over some of the beliefs of the Roman Catholic Church at that time, which had become very "legalistic," or like the Pharisees in the Bible, that Jesus and John the Baptist called a den of snakes, because they put rules and church laws over God's love for people.
When you read the bible, you can see how distressed both John the Baptist and Jesus were over the Religious leaders then who were very treacherous, controlling, and abusive, and when Jesus healed people on the Sabbath day (Saturday-Sunday), even though it was a miracle before their eyes, they wanted to put Him to death, because they said He broke the "church rules" of "not working on the Sabbath." When churches put rules and traditions over the well-being of the people, it can become an "idol," which means that it takes the place of God in their lives.
This is a lot of information here, but, it is very important to know how Christians have believed and worshiped over the years, especially how the Protestant Reformation started, mostly by Martin Luther. The term "Protestant," comes from the people who were "Protesting Rome," and things like not being allowed to read the Bible, people paying money to the church to "buy" their friends and family out of the flames of "purgatory," which was supposed to be a place between Heaven and Hell.
The main issue that still divides Protestants and Catholics/Greeks, is the teaching of the Reformation, much of which comes from the writings of the Apostle Paul in Ephesians and Romans, about that salvation (being saved from hell, spiritual death, and spiritual bondage), must be received as a free-gift, because only Jesus was worthy to restore fallen people of the earth to heaven--no human being can possibly earn their salvation, because only Jesus had/has both a divine nature and human nature.
ONLY His perfect offering for the sins of the world can "atone" (take the punishment for) the sins of the world, and renew the fallen world. When we put our faith in His perfect offering, we are united to His Life, death, and resurrection, and so have a humble assurance of salvation (not an arrogant entitlement, where people think they can reject the ways of the Bible and still be saved) It is God who declares us saved, and who confirms us through our faithful lives as Christians.
This is what the many debates in this forum are about-- faith and good works. Are we saved by faith alone? or must our faith be confirmed by true repentance in our lives? We are saved by faith alone--and those who are, will be born-again in the power of the Holy Spirit, and will love God and want to live according to the Bible, because they have a real relationship with Jesus in Spirit.
I'm well over age 50, and what I've heard all of my life is that most Christians agree, we are saved by faith--born-again as sons and daughters of Heaven (children of God as John says). But, that this must be a real relationship, like any relationship, and that the Bible clearly supports this. Anything less is gambling with eternity-- I believe I felt the Lord saying to me recently to tell people, and for myself as well--
"BE CERTAIN!!" If our life doesn't reflect this, then we may need to make even dramatic changes in our lives to get right with God, since it is possible that there will be people who will be told by the Lord, "depart from Me, you who have not honored the Gospel ("ye who work iniquity")--for I never knew you." This is referring to people who may have heard Jesus speak, or even were sent out to do miracles, but then fell away and did not repent. Judas was one of those.
It may not be an issue of losing salvation. But, that a person was never truly a Christian to being with, as Martin Luther said, "Christians in name only."
But, we shouldn't despair if our lives seem to be spinning wheels. The Lord said, "ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find; knock and it shall be opened unto you." This means persistence-- not just "fast-food" religion, like my life was for many years. There are many, many reassurances in the Bible for God's chosen people, such as we were chosen before we were born, and Jesus said, "I have not lost even one" of those God gave Him.
There's a difference between "justification" which means becoming a member of the family of faith, and "sanctification," which means becoming more like Jesus every day, not just saying a few haphazard prayers and giving up. You see? advice, advice, advice---that's all I do is write about religion. Jesus said, "now, go and see what that means in real life," that He desires Mercy, not sacrifice-- love, not empty works, or empty words.
Someone said it best in the chat room a while back-- as Christians we want to hear the Lord say, "well done, good an faithful servant," not just "well said."
The Roman Catholic Church used "Latin" for a church language. The Russian Orthodox Church used, and still uses "Church Slavonic," for a church language, which is used in sacred music as in this hymn. This composer is unusual being Bulgarian, since most of the composers of Slavonic/Slavic? music were, or are Russian. I hope I have most of that right! It sounds a lot like the Russian composers, but, I'm not an expert on music differences.
