The diversity of the liturgies of Eastern Churches is often expressed in details, namely in the different chant traditions of individual regions and congregations. Since the liturgy in the Byzantine rite is generally sung a capella, often according to tunes that are not written down but only passed on orally, some congregations have developed their own singing traditions, the diversity of which is part of the richness of the Eastern Church heritage.

One such community is located in a place where one might not expect to find it, in the small town of Cargèse on the French island of Corsica. The history of the community can be summarised like this: Rough times have always prevailed in the Mani, the middle finger of the Greek Peloponnese. When, in the 17^th century, a massive external threat by the Ottomans was added to the local feuds, the entire village of Itylo decided to take flight across the Mediterranean. And so, on March 14^th 1676, three Genoese galleys with 800 Orthodox refugees from Itylo landed on the island of Corsica, which at that time was under Genoese control. Thus began the history of the parish of St. Spyridon in Paomia or Cargèse which is still alive today. With their flight into the West, the Maniotes had to submit to the ecclesial hierarchy of Rome, but they preserved and still preserve to this day their Greek-Byzantine heritage in faithful remembrance of their origins.

This heritage also includes the orally transmitted patrimony of chants for the celebration of the Byzantine liturgy in Greek. Regrettably, due to the lack of priests and also the diminished church choir, many celebrations can no longer be practised with any regularity in congregational live and thus preserved. This musical heritage is therefore in danger of being forgotten, at least in part. With the support of the parish priest, Archimandrite Antoine Forget, the Endowed Chair for Theology of the Christian East is therefore running a research project which is being realised and financed together with the large French aid organisation for the Eastern Churches “L’Œuvre d’Orient”, which generously supports this project from its fund “Préservation du patrimoine d’Orient Chrétien”. The scientific direction is in the hands of Prof. Dr. Thomas Kremer, who for many years has been responsible for church services in Cargèse, and is therefore very familiar with the chants, as well as Fr. Jean-Marie Humeau, who, as Episcopal Vicar of the “Ordinariat des catholiques des Églises orientales resident en France”, is responsible for the parish. There is further cooperation with the “Institut de musique liturgique” of the Catholic Church in France.

The project includes several elements:

(1) First of all, the musical heritage is recorded and compiled in sound recordings. For this purpose, the historical sound recordings on old audio tapes and music cassettes available in private households of the parish are tracked down and digitised. Digital sound recordings of recent years are collected and copied, and new sound recordings of studio quality are produced, if this is still possible. The oldest recordings date back to the 1970s. Mr. Rostyslav Myrosh realises this work at the “Research Centre for the Christian East”.

(2) With the help of experts in Byzantine church music, the sound recordings will then be transferred into musical notation and edited in a professionally set score. Fr. Lic. Theol. Ruslan Stetsyk and Mr. Christopher Henk, members of the project team at the Chair for Theology of the Christian East, are responsible for this.

(3) On this basis, it will finally be possible to carry out an in-depth musicological study of this heritage, in which cooperation with experts from the University of Palermo (Sicily) in particular is envisaged, since here the question of the relationship with the musical tradition of the Italo-Albanese communities of Calabria and Sicily is to be investigated, since these have often provided the parish priests for Cargèse, and this registered Italo-Albanese cultural heritage. In addition, experts from Athens are consulted on the local musical traditions of Greece.

In addition to preserving an endangered cultural heritage however, the project is concerned above all with the wish that the scores created may be used in liturgical practice in the future, in order to preserve this valuable heritage of sacred music not only in books, but as a living heritage.