Easter All-Night Vigil, Bana Monastery

Easter is here! I had the fortune to celebrate the feast with the small brotherhood of monks at the Bana Monastery. The monastery is located in the forests of Lower Kartli in a remote, nearly uninhabited valley. We started the service at midnight, in silence, under a moonless sky full of stars. Below are some video recordings of the service, posted in chronological order.

Abbot Basili reading the Gospel, Easter night, Bana Monastery

Monks with black hoods emerged from their cabins along the woods and made their way to the small chapel in the field. The moonless night was bright with starlight; the air was cold enough to need jackets; the only sounds were our shifting feet in the grass outside as one figure after another entered the chapel.

Around midnight, it was time to begin. After some prayers indoors, we all filed outside where Abbot Basili began the all-night Paschal vigil, reading from the Gospel in his lilting musical voice outside the East apse. We listened in silence, the flickering candles sometimes silhouetting the dark hoods of the monks, or revealing a cheek bone here, a strong nose there.

Around 4am, communion was offered, and shortly thereafter, at the conclusion of the service, we each retired to our cabins for some rest.

After chanting for hours, the brain is over-oxygenated. I took a moment to stand in the light-filled meadow and soak in all of the sensations that I was suddenly hyper-aware of. The absence of man-made engine noises. The tiny sounds of a nocturnal forest. The glistening on the grass, and on the distant peak. The moon had come out, clearly illuminating the monastery meadow and making the trees along the mountain top across the valley shimmer silver and black... silver and black.

The next morning, after our breaking-fast meal -trapeza- at 10am, we laughed and discussed pop culture and the world outside on a fallen log bench. At midday, I started back towards Tbilisi with four monks as passengers (going to visit their families). Along the way, we stopped at the Kintsvisi Monastery to see its famous frescoes and sing more chants.

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The Bana Monastery is about 2.5 hours drive West of Tbilisi. One drives through the broad valleys of Kartli that bound the Mtkvari river until the town of Kareli, where the highway ends and a dirt road climbs into the Dzamis kheoba - a small river gorge that winds into the Trialeti mountain range to the south. There are 12 monks and novices that live there in relative seclusion; the valley is sparsely populated, with few visitors. But the community is anything but hermetic. The monks are young, full of energy, and constantly working on various projects such as chopping wood, collecting mushrooms, conducting services, researching... some of them are active on social media as well with photographs and updates on the life of the monastery.

John A. Graham lives with his family in Tbilisi, where he leads custom-curated cultural tours throughout the Caucasus. He holds a PhD in historical musicology from Princeton University and regularly teaches and lectures on the history of Georgian traditional chant.

6 Responses

torrent

January 11, 2021 | Reply

Excellent pieces. Keep posting such kind of info on your page. Lenore Scarface Hey
Gloria Visel

April 8, 2018 | Reply

Thanks for sharing this on our last day of the octave of Easter. I rejoice with you!
- JohnGrahamTours
  
  April 22, 2018 | Reply
  
  Christ is Risen!
Samuel Gerstner

June 8, 2017 | Reply

Could you be as kind, to spell in latin letters the song “Angelozni ghaghadebs “. We would like to sing it, but we don´t know haw to read georgian Letters. So many thanks!
Group Harpa Dei
- JohnGrahamTours
  
  August 28, 2017 | Reply
  
  Angelozi Ghaghadebs [The Angel cried], refrain of the 9th heirmos for Easter. In the Eastern rite, this chant is sung from Easter until Ascension, combined with the text “Shine, shine O new Jerusalem.”
  
  Text: “The angel cried to the Lady Full of Grace: Rejoice, O Pure Virgin! Again I say: Rejoice! Your Son is risen from His three days in the tomb! With Himself He has raised all the dead! Rejoice, all you people!”
  
  a-n-ge-e-lo-zi gha-gha-debs
  mi-ma-dle-bu-lo ts’mi-i-n-da
  o kal-ts’u-lo gi-kha-ro-den
  da k’va-la-d gi-kha-ro-den
  dze she-ni agh-sdga me-sa-me-
  sa dghe-sa sa-pla-vit
  da mk’vdar-ni a-gha-i-a-dgi-n-na
  e-r-no gi-kha-ro-den
  - Harpa Dei
    
    January 10, 2018 | Reply
    
    Thank you so much!
    could you transliterate also the text of Ganatldi, Ganatldi (Shine, Shine the New Jerusalem)?
    We would like to sing it!!!