I confess that I have loved this hymn ever since I first heard it (it appeared in our circles in Worship Supplement, 1969). Brownlie based it upon an ancient Russian original (it appeared first in "Hymns of the Russian Church" in 1920), but I have no idea what that would be. Maybe an Orthodox reader might know? In any case, here it is:The King shall come when morning dawns
And light triumphant breaks,
When beauty gilds the eastern hills
And life to joy awakes.
Not as of old a little child,
To bear and fight and die,
But crowned with glory like the sun
That lights the morning sky.
Oh, brighter than the rising morn
When Christ victorious rose
And left the lonesome place of death
Despite the rage of foes.
Oh, bright than that glorious morn
Shall dawn upon our race:
The day when Christ in splendor comes
And we shall see His face.
The King shall come when morning dawns
And light and beauty brings.
Hail, Christ the Lord! Your people pray:
Come quickly, King of kings!
LSB 348
Our choir sang this last Sunday accompanied by flute and classical guitar (which my husband played *smile*). It was lovely.
ReplyDeleteI'll bet that was fabulous!
ReplyDeleteI have no clue why this hymn is ascribed to the Russian Church. It is a translation of a Greek Hymn. Russians don’t do “kings,” they are more into “Czar” and “Lord”. This website has more information:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.archive.org/stream/hymnsofrussianch00browiala#page/n5/mode/2up
Nevertheless, it is a mind-bogglingly beautiful hymn.
Peace and Joy,
George A. Marquart
God is so good! I myself have proven that many times.
ReplyDeleteGeorge,
ReplyDeleteThe Russians basically sings the same hymns as the Greeks; they just do it in Russian... The original volume in which Brownlie published the piece was a translation of hymns in use in the Russian Church.
Rev. Weedon: I wanted to respond earlier, but was busy making borshtch and cabbage cake for tonight’s supper. I’m serious, I’m not putting you on.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of problems with these hymns being “in use in the Russian Church.” First, because Dr. Browlie writes, on page 10 of the Introduction to the book of hymns, “The error has got abroad that the Russian Church is not really Greek, but only akin to it. This is a pure fiction, there is no Slavic Church, the Church in Russia has always been, and still is, essentially Greek.” I know practically nothing about the Greek church, but I do know a little about the Russian church and its service. First, the Old Believer movement began in the seventeenth century, because the Russian service books had not been compared with the Greek ones for a long time. One reason for that was that there were very few people in the Russian Orthodox church who knew Greek. This situation was briefly remedied during the time of Patriarch Tikhon and his reforms. But then the Patriarchate was abolished under Peter the Great, and I do not seem to remember much Greek scholarship coming out of Moscow since then. Besides, the Russians valued their hard won autocephaly very highly, and together with their traditional xenophobia, wanted to have as little to do with other churches as possible. As you know, with regard to the Greek language, a similar situation existed in the Western church, so that a number of misunderstandings took place between Rome and Constantinople around the time of the Schism.
Secondly, we all use the same hymns in the liturgy: Agnus Dei, Nunc Dimittis, Te Deum, and the like. But, as you know, in the Russian church the moment never comes when the priest says, “we will now sing hymn number CLV.” The people never sing (except that somehow, in the sixties, the custom developed for the people to join in singing the Creed, proving once more, that the Holy Spirit knows no obstacles); everything is sung for them by the choir. I have been present at countless Russian services, but I have never heard the choir sing, “The King shall come.” I don’t know in what part of the service they would sing it. I have a small collection of Russian Orthodox choral CD-s, but none has that song. I looked through the “Collection of Spiritual Songs,” published by the Baptists in Russian in 1968, and it is not in there. And I looked on the Internet, including Russian Orthodox sources – nothing.
The long and the short of it is that if someone can point me to a Russian or Slavonic version of, “The King shall come,” I will be ecstatic, because it must be beautiful in any language. Until, then I remain somewhat doubtful about what the good Dr. Browlie has to say on the subject. But I love the translations, regardless of where they come from.
Peace and Love,
George A. Marquart