From the devolution of the Roman Empire, as time progressed into the early medieval period, the religion of Christianity, specifically of Catholic Christianity as opposed to the Arianism of the “barbarians,” was the era in which Europe became officially Christian in a nominal sense. The institutions of civilization that went back to the days of the Greek Empire were preserved mostly under the control of the Church. The art of music continued to develop from the ancient Greek modes, including the evolution of written notation. We see the development of music over many centuries going from the Greek modes, and going from simplistic notation for Gregorian chants, into the highly developed system of Tonality. This would reach its peak because of tempered tuning. It belonged both to the Church and to the secular world, both to the Catholic Church of Rome and to Protestants after the Reformation, and it became the property of the Orthodox Christians in Ukraine and Russia also.
The culture of Europe was unified in many ways heading into the Modern era, everything from fashions to the arts belonged to a very recognizable European culture. In time there was really only one royal family for all of Europe, nobility marrying only their own kind, in fact their own cousins. It is to this culture that the word “Christendom” rightly belongs. It is a word every bit as secular in meaning as any word can be, despite its association with the formal religion of Christianity. Christendom applied not only to this unified international culture, but also to the manifold division that was a constant source of wars throughout the entire history of the continent, and the British Isles. We must never, therefore, use the words, “Christendom” and “Christianity” as synonyms, for they are most certainly not synonyms.
In the world of music, specifically, we see grand and glorious expressions of nationalism, expressed in the works of composers whose names we know. Well into the nineteenth century composers created sounds that were meant to stir the national spirit of every country and of every empire or aspiring empire. More than any other composers, the music of Joseph Rheinberger and Camille Saint-Saens expressed an exciting, dramatic, and celebratory self-congratulation by western culture in the height of its power, colonialization, and wealth.
Contrasted against this was a very simple song that was the last dying gasp of any association between Christianity and Christendom. It was not the triumphant and glorious, indeed majestic, music of Rheinberger or Saint-Saens, music that involved full orchestra often with an organ, the famous Organ Symphony of Saint-Saens requiring full orchestra, two pianos and organ, that closes out the era of Christendom in history. It was, rather, a humble and pious song initially accompanied by nothing more than a guitar.
The words to Stille Nacht, Heilege Nacht (Silent Night, Holy Night) had been written by a Catholic priest named Joseph Mohr in the year 1818, and when flooding damaged the organ at the Nikolauskirche (Saint Nicholas Church), in the Obernforf village in Austria, Fr. Mohr called on the organist Franz Xaver Gruber, to set it to music so that something could be sung at the Christmas Eve mass. It became very popular all over Christendom, and was translated into several of the languages of Europe.
Almost a century later, in 1914, this most musically humble and simple of modern Christmas carols would be the last song of Christendom. It had been a chaotic year, one that demonstrated that the religious and cultural unification of Europe was at best a façade, something that had nothing to do with any aspect of what constitutes Christian faith. World War I involved all of the major branches of Christianity, the Orthodox Russians, and the various Protestant and Catholic nations, most of which had, if not national churches, prevailing religious identity country by country. Now they were fighting a war that was devastating all of Europe, and being felt all over the world, a war that to this day has never been explained as to its cause in any coherent manner. Indeed, there is no coherent explanation for what caused World War I, even though we know all of the historical details.
On Christmas Eve 1914, during a time when a shortage of provisions necessarily slowed down the fighting, from the German side of the western front British soldiers saw something to which most of them were not accustomed; they saw a Christmas tree. As far as Christmas trees go it was a humble little piece of pine with a few candles attached to it. It was being carried into full view of all of the soldiers on both sides by German soldiers singing the familiar Carol. Even English soldiers who could not understand the German words could, nonetheless, sing along in their own language Silent Night, knowing the tune from their own church services. This one gesture, the singing of a song about the holy and the good, resulted in a wonderful interruption to the war. The Christmas Truce of 1914, as it has come to be called, spread up and down the western front, though unofficially. The men on both sides ventured out of their trenches into “No Man’s Land” to remember together the birth of Jesus Christ. For a brief moment the sunlight of Christianity broke through the gloomy clouds of the façade called Christendom. All day long on Christmas there was no fighting. The German and English soldiers came to know each other on some level, playing football (soccer) games, having peaceful conversations, and eating together with what rations they had. But to high command on both sides this outbreak of peace could not be tolerated. So, on December 26 to break it up, a major in the British army was dispatched to restore “order.” Having arrived at the front to find only quiet and peace, he took aim at a German soldier with his rifle and killed him. Any one of the millions of actual devil’s advocates could tell you that he saved the day.
What a different world we would be living in if that one last song of Christendom had overpowered politics and war. As a result of World War I, the war to end all pretense, it is an absurdity to refer to Christendom in the present tense. It is a façade we can leave behind, a falsehood, a case of international hypocrisy. Nonetheless, the music of authentic faith goes on. That song cannot be silenced.
