Hamatoura (Fennesz Remix) - Kristo Rodzevski · Fennesz
Orthodoxia Kai Thanatos (2025)

Orthodoxia Kai Thanatos takes a linguistic, psychoanalytic, and anthropological approach to Christian Orthodox chants. The hymns, absorbed over time and recorded in a single take, draw from a wide range of traditions and languages, including Aramaic, Arabic, Coptic, Ethiopian, Greek, Macedonian, and Church Slavonic.

This record is neither academic nor strictly theological. Instead, it attempts to capture how an everyday person might experience these words and melodies. It meditates on the Orthodox understanding of solace and death, while also exploring the nuances of singing, storytelling, and expression within the Christian Orthodox communities of Southeast Europe, the Middle East, and Northeast Africa.

Born from extensive travels throughout these regions, the project seeks to unify, and it reminds us of the common ground shared across centuries. It offers a momentary space in which the fragmentation and acrimony of the present can be set aside, if only briefly.

Via Jakub Knera for The Quietus (Inner Ear: North Macedonian Music for September): Kristo Rodzevski - Orthodoxia Kai Thanatos

Divna Ljubojevic - Sticheron to Serbian saints - Serbian chant
Morgenland Festival Osnabrück, June 2020

Russian Orthodox singing from the Alexander Svirsky Monastery

Megaloschemos II (Bulgarian Orthodox Hymn)
From ‘Portraits of an Illustrative Mania’ by Fathomage  

Tchaikovsky - Hymn Of The Cherubim

Graindelavoix - Journe speciale Royaumont (Greek Orthodox Chant)