ABSTRACT
Orthodox Christian critics of Latin Christianity have rarely limited themselves to the complex theological and ecclesiological matters that have preoccupied official interchurch dialogues from the Council of Ferrara-Florence to the present. For the modern historian seeking to locate medieval Byzantine chant culturally, the task of creating narratives unburdened by such confessional polemics is further complicated by the very nature of music. Many of the positions held by Byzantine musicology's founders have been modified in the light of investigations of previously understudied repertories and increasingly frequent contacts between Greek and Western scholars conducted over the last half century. Not only was the adoption of Western polyphonic practices by some Byzantine cantors during the fifteenth century apparently accepted without official protests, but also tolerance by ethnic Greeks for their use within Orthodox worship extends into at least the seventeenth century.
