This monastery is one of the twenty large monasteries of the monastic republic of Mount Athos, which occupies the easternmost projection of the Chalkidike peninsula. It dates from the tenth century and lies directly on the western coast of the peninsula. It takes its name from the first abbot, who founded the monastery about the year 1000.
As in all monasteries on Athos, the extensive buildings are designed to house a far larger number of monks than are at present housed there. Like them, too, the Xenophon monastery has flourished at some periods (notably the eleventh, twelfth, fourteenth and nineteenth centuries) while at other times it has been almost completely decayed - in 1744, for instance, there were no more than four monks. At the present time there are more than twenty monks, mostly very young, under the tutelage of Abbot Alexios. Their arrival here in 1976 initiated a new period of expansion in the history of the monastery.
More detailed information about Mount Athos and the Xenophon Monastery is to be found in Vol. 1: The Celebration of the Night before Easter.

The old ecclesiastical cycle of Easter celebrations hegins with Shrovetide and lasts until Whitsun; and it hinges round the Resurrection, which is celebrateil - or, in the minds of the faithful, given a new reality - on Easter Eve. Whereas the Western Church, with its fundamentally juridical conceptions, concentrates attention on Christ’s atoning death, it is the Resurrection that is the centre of Orthodox theology; for the Resurrection is the pledge of the redemption of the world from decay to new life and the regaining of paradise. The existential experience of this return to life is the foundation of the overflowing joy felt by everyone taking part in the traditional Orthodox Easter liturgy, especially in Greece, and expressed in the Easter poetry of the Bzyantine church. This outburst of joy must be seen and understood as a contrast to the equally intense experience of the events preceding the Resurrection. The Byzantine church is very far from ignoring the guilt of condemned humanity and its need for redemption. An awareness of this is very clear in the liturgical poetry; in fact it is remarkable that the special texts for Shrovetide are both longer and more numerous than those for Eastertide. The tension which begins in Shrovetide is gradually increased during the six weeks of Lent, culminates in the really heartrending liturgy of Good Friday and, after a momentary pause for the tranquillity and thoughtfulness of Holy Saturday, is suddenly released in the Resurrection, which is followed by a comparatively sudden lowering of intensity. Here in fact we find establishing itself on a large scale a dramatic principle that can be traced in many smaller units of the Byzantine liturgy. In the West an analogous attitude to the events celebrated in the liturgy found expression in the paraliturgical mystery-plays.
In the course of this “Easter on Mount Athos” an attempt has been made to trace this building-up and release of tension in the actual day-to-day life of the monastic community. The present recording contains four characteristic excerpts from the two last phases of the liturgical drama, immediately preceding the release of tension.

Good Friday
The liturgy follows the gospel narrative day by day, bringing each event to a new, concrete life. It is therefore natural that Good Friday is concerned entirely with the sufferings and death of Jesus, and there is hardly a reference -- such as are frequent in the Holy Week texts - to the resurrection and its redemptive power. Thus the day is the only day in Holy Week devoted to a grief that has no hope and no prospect and this is most marked in the opening “Ceremony of the Sacred Passion”, which takes the form of an extended Órthros (morning service) based on an ancient “Way of the Cross” procession in Jerusalem. At each of the “stations” passages from the gospel referring to the site were read; and almost all of these twelve readings are followed by hymns in which the spectator’s very different reactions to each scene are expressed. In some he is represented as identifying himself with the chief actors in the drama, primarily of course Jesus himself, but also his mother. In others the spectator expresses a deep awareness of his own human guilt, the cause of these terrible sufferings; and finally - in a gesture which is not without its dangers - seeks to rid himself of this oppressive sense of guilt by projecting it on to the Jewish people, who have been the proximate cause of the beloved redeemer’s sufferings.
In the seventh, eighth and ninth readings Jesus’ death on the cross is narrated in the three accounts of Matthew, Luke and John, thus bringing the tension to its peak. The ninth lesson is “answered” by the three stichirá of the Éni (Lauds psalms 148, l49, 150; Tone III) with their final verses (Tone VI). These make up the first band of the first side of the record.
The three great stichirá lead from subjective consideration put into the mouth of Jesus (stichirón 1) and the passionately personal words of the believer sharing the pain of his tortured master (stichirón 2), to a contemplation of the whole scene on Calvary, ending with Mary’s heartfelt lament over her son (stichirón 3). The two last verses return to Jesus himself, who is made to speak as in stichirón 1; and compared with the stichirá before they are notably reserved in expression. Thus the bitter passage in the doxasticón “they put a reed into my right hand, to dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” is drawn from only two biblical passages (Matthew 27, 29; Psalms 2, 9) and makes its effect by just this lapidary combination of suffering misery and the vision of the dominion of the Son of God.

Two evil deeds has Israel done, my first-born son. He has abandoned me, the source of living waters, and digged himself a foul cistern. He has nailed me to the cross, but chosen Barabbas and freed him. For this reason the heavens shuddered, and the sun hid his rays. But thou, Israel, wert not ashamed, no, thou handedst me over to death. Forgive them, holy father. For they know not what they did.
Every limb of thy sacred body bore profanation for our sake. Thy head endured the thorns, thy face the spittle, thy cheeks the blows, thy mouth the taste of gall and vinegar. Thy shoulders bore the robe of mockery, thy back the scourging and thy hand the reed. Thy whole body was stretched out upon the cross. Thy limbs endured the nails, thy side the spear. Thou who didst suffer for us, to rescue us from our passions, who camedst down to us in love for man and raised us up again, almighty saviour, have mercy on us!
When thou werst crucified, O Christ, all creation trembled at the sight. Earths foundations quaked in fear of thy might. For on this day, when thou wast raised up, the people of the Jews were cast down. The veil of the temple was rent in twain, and the graves opened and the dead rose from the vaults. The Roman captain saw the portent and shuddered. Thy mother stood there, and weeping like a mother cried out, "How should I not lament? how not beat my breast when I see thee hanging naked on the cross like a criminal? Glory to thee, Lord, crucified, buried and risen again!"
They took my clothing from me and cast a scarlet robe about me. On my head they placed a crown of thorns. And a reed they put in my right hand, to dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.
I bared my neck to the scourging. My face has not turned away when they spat on me. I took my place before the judgment seat of Pilate. And I bore the cross for the salvation of the world.

In the second band on this side we have a further excerpt from the same liturgy - the apósticha, four verses drawn from selected psalms (21 [22], 19; 68 [69], 22; 73 [74], 12; Tones I and II) once again with two final verses (Tone VIII) which follow John’s account of the taking-down from the cross and the burying of Jesus in the eleventh reading.

All creation was transfixed with fear at the sight of thee, Christ, hanging on the cross. The sun grew dark and the foundations of the earth were shaken. The very world suffered with him who created it. Glory to thee, Lord, who didst freely take this upon thee for love of us!
The people who know neither God nor Law, why does it imagine a vain thing? why did it condemn to death him who is the life of all? Strange indeed that the creator of the world should be given over into hands of sinners and that the friend of man should be raised up on the cross that he might lead to freedom those that lay bound in Hades, and who now cry - "Glory to thee, long-suffering lord!"
When on this day the unspotted virgin beheld thee on the cross, Thou Word, a bitter wound struck her heart and like a mother she lamented. And as she sighed sorrowfully in the depths of her heart, her strength was taken from her by pains such as she never knew in childbirth. Therefore she called out, loudly weeping - “Woe is me, divine child! woe is me, light of the world! why didst thou vanish from my eyes, thou lamb of God?" Therefore were the hosts of the disembodied spirits seized with trembling and called out - “Glory to thee, Lord beyond all understanding!”
Seeing thee, the creator and God of all, O Christ, whom she bore as a pure virgin, hanging on the cross, she cried out in her grief - "My son, where is the beauty of thy face vanished? I cannot bear to see thee unjustly crucified. Hurry then and stand upright, that I too may after three days see thy resurrection from the dead."
Lord, as thou didst mount the cross, fear and trembling seized creation. Yet hast thou hindered the earth from swallowing up those who crucified thee, and hast commanded Hades to yield up its prisoners for the rebirth of mortal men. Glory to thee, judge of the living and the dead, who didst come to bring life and not death! Friend of mankind, glory to thee!
The pen of the unrighteous judges is already dipped for the verdict and Jesus is judged and condemned to the cross. Thou dost suffer in thy bodily nature for love of me - glory to thee, kind lord!

In these verses it is the standpoint of the spectator that predominates. He reflects the contradictory events in the natural order, which accompany the flouting of that order in the death of its creator by the hand of his own creatures, as a reaction of horror (stichirón 1 and final verses). He rages against the godlessness of the Jewish people (stichirón 2) and shares the grief of Mary, into whose mouth he places heartrending laments for her son stichirá 3 and 4).

Holy Saturday
The Holy Saturday Órthros, to which the second side of the record is devoted, has an entirely different character. In contrast to the violent emotions characteristic of the Good Friday liturgy we find here a great tranquillity. The afflictions inseparable from the work of redemption are over, the saviour has completed his sufferings and his maltreated body is at rest in the tomb. His disciples gather to watch by the grave; and as they watch the consciousness steadily grows of an identity between the dead Jesus whom they are mourning and the triumphant Christ, who by his death has already broken the power of evil. Even now, while his body lies in the grave, he is continuing his work in the underworld and liberating the dead from the power of Hades. Before long he will rise again, finally victorious.
This train of thought is followed most characteristically in the Epitaphios (Song at the grave), a poem of 186 verses based on Psalm 118 (119). Since there seemed to be no point in picking out individual sections from this, which is in any case a rather monotonous part of the Holy Saturday liturgy from the musical point of view, we have left it undocumented.
The first excerpt on this side consists of the Evlogitária (Tone V) that follow the Epitáphios. These take their name from the verse of the psalm which recurs between them: “Blessed be thou, Lord, teach me thy commandments” (Psalm 118 [119], 12). These texts continue the train of thought already described well beyond the actual point reached in the gospel narrative; they do not only hint at the coming resurrection and point forward to it, but treat it as something that has already happened. After an introductory verse describing the angels’ amazement at Christ’s work of redemption in Hades, we hear (with much comment and dramatisation) the holy women tell how they went on the morning of the sabbath to anoint the body in the tomb but found, instead of the corpse, the angel who gave them the first news of the resurrection.

The angels were affrighted when they saw thee numbered among the dead, O Saviour. It was thou who didst shatter the power of death, raise up Adam and free all the souls from Hades.
Why do you mix ointments and shed tears of grief, women who followed the Master? The angel who stood shining by the tomb told the women who brought the ointments "Behold the grave and rejoice! For the Saviour has risen from the tomb".
Very early in the morning they ran lamenting to thy grave, the ointment-bearing women. But the angel went to meet them saying - "The time of mourning is past. Do not weep. Proclaim the resurrection to the apostles."
The ointment-bearing women came with ointments to thy grave, O Saviour, and wept. But the angel spoke to them, announced to them - "Why do you count the living among the dead? for he has risen as God from the tomb."
We pray to the Father and his Son and the Holy Ghost, the Holy Trinity in one nature, singing with the seraphim: holy, holy, holy art thou, O Lord.
Thou didst bear the giver of life, O Virgin, and hast freed Adam from sin and given Eve joy instead of sorrow. The god-man, who took flesh from thee, has led back to life him who turned away from life. Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia! Glory be to thee, O God!

The Kanón, not included in this recording - like the Kontákion and Íkos - expresses this anticipatory joy with rather more reserve. Its theme is again Christ’s redemptive activity in Hades while his body lay in the tomb.
Similar thoughts also predominate in the four stichirá for the lauds psalms of this Órthros (Tone VI and II) with both their concluding verses (Tone VI and II). These form the second excerpt on this side. Unlike the corresponding stichirá for Good Friday, these are distinctly reflective, or meditative, in character. He who holds all creation in his hand is
held within the narrow confines of the tomb, he who is life itself is sleeping (stichirón 1), the king of eternity is keeping the sabbath in the tomb, and it was for this sabbath that God ordained the sabbath rest (stichirón 2 and doxastikón) and hoping in the promises, the faithful call to their saviour “Rise!” (stichirón 3).

To-day he who holds all creation in his hand is himself held by the grave. A stone covers him who covers the heavens with his glory. Life slumbers, and Hades trembles, and Adam is loosed from his bonds. Glory be to thy design of salvation by which thou has accomplished everything, giving us as God the everlasting sabbath-rest by thy most holy resurrection from the dead.
What a spectacle is this! what is the meaning of this present rest? The king of the ages has completed his design of salvation by his sufferings and celebrates the sabbath in the tomb, bestowing on us a new sabbathrest. To him let us cry aloud - “Rise up, O God, and judge the earth! For thou dost reign from age to age, measureless in thy mercy."
Come hither and behold our life, lying in the grave to give life to those who rest in their graves. Come, let us cry aloud with the prophet to our God from Juda, who lies sleeping - “Thou hast laid thyself to rest, thou liest like a lion. Who will awaken thee, O King? Come rise in thy own strength, thou who didst give thyself to death for us. Glory to thee, Lord!”
Joseph begged Jesus’ body and laid it in his new grave. For he must come forth from the grave as he came forth from his mother’s womb. Glory to thee, who hast shattered the dominion of Hades and opened the gates of paradise to man.
This day was mystically foretold in an image by the great Moses, when he said “And God blessed the seventh day". It is the day of rest, the blessed sabbath, on which God’s only-begotten son rested from all his works: to conform to God’s design of salvation by his death he rested in the flesh and became once more what he was. By his resurrection he gave us eternal life, for he alone is kindly and a friend to man.
Blessed indeed art thou, Mother of God and Virgin! for it was by him who took flesh from thee that Hades was captured, Adam recalled, God’s curse abolished, Eve set free, death put to death and us was given life. Therefore let us sing and cry “Praised be thou, Christ our God, whom thus it pleased. Glory to thee”.

The nocturnal celebration of the Resurrection, documented in vol. 1, follows the dramatic situation outlined in these texts.

More detailed notes on the concept of music and imaginative world of Byzantine/Modern Greek church music are to be found in the commentaries to vols. 1 and 3. Only a few main points will therefore be recalled here.
The musical tradition of Byzantium has suffered, like the rest of Byzantine culture, from many misunderstandings. The reason for this is to be found in the different scale of values between the West, with its emphasis on the composer’s personal expression in polyphonic forms, and the purely linear conception of Byzantium. Despite their attention to musical shapes and forms the Byzantines themselves regarded music not as the product of subjective creative powers but as “divinely inspired” vision.
The attraction of this music and its effect lie in the dialectical relationship between love of melodic detail on the one hand and of the architectural span of the wide arches of melody on the other.
This music is monophonic and vocal, with only occasional use of bells, small jingles (attached to the thurible) and símandra (percussion instruments of wood or metal, as described in vol. 1).
The single line of melody is sung by a cantor (protopsáltis) against a drone-like bass (íson) sung by the choir. The íson is designed to make it easier for both singer and listener to orientate themselves in understanding the intervals of the melody and must be felt not as a kind of primitive polyphony but as an assertion of the fundamental “tonic” of the melody.
This interpretation of the melody’s structure is also made easier by the disposition of the main chorus, standing with the cantor on the right hand side of the church, while a second choir stands with its leading singer on the left hand side. This produces a stereophonic effect and acts as an additional formal element in the sonorous complex, assuring the balance of the musical architecture and a further emphasis on the time-dimension. This in fact accounts for the hearer’s impression of “breadth” when listening to this music.

Good Friday
In order not to disturb the overall architectural span of the music two unabbreviated excerpts from the liturgy have been recorded, each occupying one side of a record. As the texts make clear, the Good Friday liturgy represents a climax of emotional intensity, which is reflected in the music. The Éni begin with the cantor’s powerful hymn of praise (Tone III) in a slow, solemn tempo (1/4 = 72), which gradually increases (1/4 = 92) and reaches a climax of movement (1/8 = 168) in Mary’s lament. Unity is preserved by the symmetrical duration of the melodic spans (approximately 1’30”) and the identity of tone (III).
This makes the effect of “time standing still” in the doxastikón all the more sudden; the slow tempo (1/4 = 104), the persistent and unrepeated íson, the floating, melismatic melody with its free, unbarred rhythm, an impression emphasized by the duration of the music (3’30”). Musically speaking the central point of this architectural section is to be found in the vision of Christ’s suffering and his claim to dominion, as expressed in the text.
The second part of this side (Apósticha) is analogous in structure. After a slow opening (1/4 = 80) the tempo gathers speed with the incensing of the ikon of the Cross (the jingles on the thurible can be heard) and reaches an intermediate climax (1/4 = 120). Mary’s lament, with its freer rhythm, has a rather slow tempo (1/4 = 96), but the pace increases again with the response of the choir on the left-hand side (1/4 = 112). This section begins in Tone I and stichirá 2, 3 and 4 are in Tone II. Here too the melodic spans are very symmetrical (each approximately 1’30”) and they are followed once more by a wide-spaced doxastikón (4’15” long) in Tone VIII.
With the frequent change of íson and floating rhythm, this does not suggest “time standing still” but an exploitation of grief-laden emotion in every register, from the whole range of pitch-possibilities (rising from the depths to the extreme heights) to the microintervals of the florid ornamentation and exprerssive raising and lowering of the actual notepitchs (élxis). The tempo is extremely (1/4 = 66).

Holy Saturday
Like the liturgical texts, the music for this day is more restrained and more meditative in character. The anticipation of the Resurrection is clearly felt in the music of the first excerpt on this side (Evlogitária), composed on symmetrical melodic spans (approx. 1’30”) and marked by a clearly articulated rhythm, which only develops a freer pattern towards the end.
The last section of the record brings another gradual increase of tempo (from 1/4 = 76 to 1/4 : 116), and its musical-dramatic character is largely determined by the kanonárchis who, following an old Byzantine tradition, recites the text before the choir sings it. This musically dramatic interweaving of recitation and choral singing reaches its climax in a doxastikón of great length (4’40”), which starts from the deep bass and remains stricter in rhythm than the corresponding moments of climax in the Good Friday Órthros. Like the doxastikón in the first Good Friday excerpt, this is in Tone VI. It is solemn in character and has none of the emotional outbursts that mark the Good Friday liturgy and its music.