Rain patters down on the soaring A-frame roof, protecting the still air inside. Dozens of tapered candles tremble in the silence, until eight black-robed figures step onto the dais. A single tuning note echoes through the chapel, and the chant begins.

This chapel at the Good Samaritan Episcopal Church transforms into something harkening back to a medieval monastery at 7 p.m. on Sundays. For about 30 minutes, the choir intones Gregorian chants; a form of unaccompanied sacred song, most of which were written centuries ago.

“Chant has been around for as long as the church has existed,” said Zachary Duell, the director of music and organist at Good Samaritan. 

There is only one melody and no instruments in a Gregorian chant, lending them an atmosphere oscillating between solemnity, reverence and peace. 

“People have been singing this same thing, in this same way, at this same time of year for 1000 years,” Duell said. “To be able to connect to something that’s … over 1000 (years old), a lot of the singers find that really cool.”

Slotted into Duell’s office bookshelf are a number of hymnals that contain a calendar of chants. He opens the heavy book and it falls open to musical staffs hatched with neumes  — “a sign for one or a group of successive musical pitches, the predecessor of modern musical notes,” according to Britannica. 

The chants are even older than the modern musical idea of exact pitch.

This chanting makes up a Sung Compline service, also taken from monastic tradition. Monks were required to attend a small prayer service every 3 hours, and compline was the last of those before going to bed. Many of the songs, therefore, are about nighttime, safety and rest during sleep.

“It’s not usual for a church to have a compline service in the evening on a Sunday,” Duell said. “There are a couple of abbeys and monasteries in the state that do offer this, but as far as churches outside of that setting, we are the only one, as far as we know.”

Duell started the weekly Sung Compline with a slightly different goal in mind, though. While it is, at its core, a religious tradition, he wants it to be a space for anyone to use, whether in spiritual contemplation, escape, meditation — anything. As long as it doesn’t bother anyone else.

According to Duell, he wants to make the barrier to entry as low as possible into the experience. 

“There’s no ulterior motive here,” Duell said.

Members of the church attend the service and participate in the choir, but some members of the choir are also not part of the church. 

“(Non-religious choir members) don’t really resonate with that religious side of things, but they value it for sort of the meditative space and they have found benefit in the chanting even outside of their own personal spiritual lives,” Duell said.

The tagline Duell uses for the compline is “a space set apart,” which he and the choir seek to achieve several different ways.

“The music is set apart from daily life, right? You don’t walk around hearing ancient chants. The lighting with the candles — that’s not something we experience on a daily basis,” Duell said. “So we’re just looking at things that are set apart from daily life to create a space where people can escape stresses and all the things that go on in that daily life.”

Duell based this low-barrier compline service off something he experienced as a student in Rochester, New York. 

“There was a church right across the street from the school — this huge, old 19th century stone building,” Duell said. “They have a service basically just like this at 9 o’clock on Sunday nights … And when I went as a student, I mean, it was really eye opening, like, ‘Wow, this is so different and so cool.’”

According to Duell, the service in Rochester has been around since the ‘90s and has become so popular that attendees have to show up early, otherwise they will not get a seat. 

“I saw that as a student and I really appreciated it. I went very often and I saw how other people from all walks of life appreciated it,” Duell said. 

As Duell flipped through the hymnal pulled off his bookshelf, a ringed finger pointed to the Latin titles of the chants. While most Gregorian chants were originally penned in Latin, or sometimes Greek, Duell said that the majority of chants the choir sings at Good Samaritan have been translated to English.

However, as the church season moves out of ordinary time and into Lent — a major Catholic season — he will tune the chants accordingly.

“Lent being more introspective, I’m going to pick things that we sing more in Latin, because I think it brings sort of another layer of dignity or — to use the church term — solemnity,” Duell said, “which doesn’t mean solemn, like sad, but … reserved, more stately.”