THE ANCIENT COMMUNITIES IN ASIA MINOR

Since its beginnings the Church has felt the need to preach its faith through song and music. “Those who sing, pray twofold”, said St. Paul to the faithful, thereby emphasizing its importance.

In the early community of Jerusalem, the apostles together with the first disciples had already started to meet to celebrate the holy mysteries and commemorate the figure of Christ by gathering in the synagogues and in private homes.

The original liturgy of the newborn Church was based on the reading and meditation of passages taken from the Old Testament and from prayers, hymns and spiritual chants. .

The types of psalmodies were codified as follows:

Responsorial psalmody, which has two alternating parts, with a soloist singing the psalm and a choir repeating a chorus acclaiming faith, after the reading.

Antiphonic psalmody, with the presence of a soloist singing the psalm and two choirs taking turns with the sung verses of the psalm. Direct psalmody, where an unsupported soloist sings to God The spread of this new religion, and consequently holy Christian music, to the cities of the Roman Empire was, as we know, due to the apostles and then by the disciples who were often from outside the Hebrew framework.