Ancient Christian Witness

"A fresh look at ancient faith, Orthodox harmonies
on Web.

I got hooked on it three weeks ago.

Ancient
Faith Radio is an Internet station (http://ancientfaith.com) filled with
allusions to people with names like Methodius, Basil the Great and Ephraim the
Syrian.

There's lots of mentions of someone called the Theotokos, which
I've since learned is Greek for "Mother of God."


Julia Duin's
Stairway to Heaven column on faith runs on Thursdays and Sundays.

Unlike
contemporary Christian radio fare, the station airs sonorous chants and
breathtaking harmonies that soak into the soul. Lyrics, some of which date from
the second century after Christ, are in Greek, Romanian, Russian, Serbian,
Arabic, English, French and Spanish.

Patrick Reardon, an Orthodox priest
and friend since my seminary days, clued me in on the station, originally
sponsored by his Chicago church. During the
evenings, I click on iTunes and voila - heavenly music like a Gregorian chant on
steroids: minor scales, major scales, pentatonic scales, the works. My toddler
likes it too.

There is a theology behind this music. Greek Christians in
the Byzantine Empire, dating back to 330 AD, believed that sacred chant united
believers with angelic choirs. Byzantine music has this unusual component of an
"ison" - a base drone that sounds like a bagpipe - that gives an unearthly feel
to the monkish choirs.

The station breaks feature a "saint for the day,"
someone who has been martyred, has suffered greatly or has kind of a somber
teaching for the chastisement of the soul. St. John Chrysostom is a regular
here.

And there are the crystal-clear reading voices of the volunteer
announcers.

"Professional people kind of came out of the woodwork when
they discovered the station," says John Maddex, who founded the
station in his Chicago-area home in late 2004. At the time, he was the division
manager of Moody Institute's 35 broadcast stations. A convert to Orthodoxy, he
also has done radio for the mega-evangelical ministry Focus on the
Family."