What does the Church focus on during the partaking of the Holy Mysteries?

While partaking of the Holy Mysteries, the Church is concerned with praise in the spirit of the Bible. The Church used to warn against the songs that heretics composed to spread their corrupt teachings. This is what Arius and his followers did. It was said that because the music of these songs was so attractive, the people liked it and used to sing it in public markets. This drove St. Athanasius and those who were working with him to compose alternative hymns, to preserve the true faith.

1561 Monastery of the Syrians, St. Basil the Great: His Life, Asceticism, and Church Canons (Arabic) (St. Mary’s Monastery (Deir al-Sourian), 2003): p. 544.

1562 Monastery of the Syrians, St. Basil the Great: His Life, Asceticism, and Church Canons (Arabic) (St. Mary’s Monastery (Deir al-Sourian), 2003): pp. 544–545.

1563 St. Jacob of Sarug, see mimrō 42 “On the Partaking of the Holy Mysteries—for the Week of White,” in Homiliae selectae Mar-Jacobi Sarugensis , ed., Paul Bedjan (Paris-Leipzig 1905, 2nd ed. Piscataway: Gorgias Press, 2006).

“Those who sing on the altar should not sing as to show off their voices, but in wisdom. They should not sing anything but the Psalms (or anything outside of Scripture). And if some of them sang something that they composed themselves or something that they heard from others that is not written in the Psalmody, let them be cast out. If the readers read from foreign books and defiled the ears of the congregation, let them be cast out.”¹⁵⁶⁴