Ecclesiastical Content of Byzantine Theatre (Antiphon, Trop)

This article precedes a number of publications devoted to the study of cultural and historical interaction of such different, fundamentally not coinciding, not reducible to each other, but not separate from each other phenomena of social life as art and religion, in particular, the church and theatre. This paper uses the material of Byzantine theatre to examine the validity of the hypothesis of the origin of European drama and theatre from liturgical drama through the church antiphon and literary trope. The tendentious categoricity of the erroneous statement, accepted in science as a heuristic hypothesis, about the influence of residual-rudimentary forms of ancient theatre on the formation of the Christian church rite (antiphonal singing) is considered. It is shown that the Christian antiphon cannot be connected with the ancient theatre because of the centuries-old absence of the chorus in the dramatic action. It is argued that church ritual develops from an “inner form” proceeding from the immanent properties and qualities of the divine liturgy. Since this formulation of the question is carried out for the first time, it represents the relevance and scientific novelty of the present study.

The version of the origin of Western European theatre from the literary trope, proceeding from the laws of drama as a literary genre, is established by philological tradition without taking into account the specifics of the dramatic event proper. The conclusion is made that the genesis of theatre does not come from the laws of literary processes, but is connected with them through internal interactions. Historically, Byzantine theatre, an integral and autonomous phenomenon of theatrical culture, ceased to exist in the middle of the 15th century, having failed to realize its dynamic potential of dramatic art. Nevertheless, the relevance of the prospective study confirms the facts of the Byzantine theatre’s indirect influence on the substantive aspects, as well as its direct impact on the formation of a new type of dramatic conflict — “internal”, in the development of Western European and, to a greater extent, Russian theatre.

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