Holy Cross Kliros is the musical web-project of the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, established with the blessing of the Liturgical Music Commission of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. The purpose of this site is to make available for Liturgical use Orthodox Hymnody in the English Language, based on the best traditional sources of Orthodox Chant.

Most of the Chant on this site is based on the melodic vocabularies of the Synodal Chant books of the Church of Russia, published between 1772 and 1900. Unless other sources and regional traditions are noted, you may assume that the Chant you are viewing is based on the Znamenny Chant as found in these books. Of course, the Znamenny Chant is not so much a set of melodies per se as a vast vocabulary of melodic phrases, which are applied to a given text in conformity with its specific prosody. Therefore what you will find here are not carbon copies of Slavonic melodies but rather pious attempts to adapt the idiom of the Znamenny Chant to the English Language.

The majority of hymns on the site are presented in unison, although some are provided with a simple bass line, and still others are set in 3 voices. The nature of the presentation is indicated on the download pages.

In addition to the Znamenny Chant, you will also find a significant number of hymns based on Georgian Chant. The sources for these hymns were taken from the works of Georgian musicologists Edisher Garaganidze and Malkhaz Erkvanidze, as well as from recordings (in Slavonic) by the Russian chanter and musicologist Igor Sakhno.

Much of the music on this site has been engraved with Lilypond, a completely free (both open-source and gratis) music-engraving software package. Labourers in the field of Orthodox Hymnody will do very well to explore the use of Lilypond, which is highly adaptable to the needs of Orthodox Church Musicians and produces an output clearly superior to that of standard commercial music programs.

May the Lord reward all those who glorify His holy name in song.