Romanos The Melodist - Works

Works

Romanos wrote in an Atticized literary koine— i.e., he had a popular, but elevated style— and abundant Semiticisms support the view that he was of Jewish origin. Arresting imagery, sharp metaphors and similes, bold comparisons, antitheses, coining of successful maxims, and vivid dramatization characterize his style.

He is said to have composed more than 1,000 hymns or kontakia celebrating various festivals of the ecclesiastical year, the lives of the saints and other sacred subjects, some 60 to 80 of which survive (though not all those attributed to him may be genuine).

Today, usually only the first strophe of each kontakion is chanted during the divine services, the full hymn having been replaced by the canon. A full kontakion was a poetic sermon composed of from 18 to 30 verses or ikoi, each with a refrain, and united by an acrostic. When it was sung to an original melody, it was called an idiomelon. Originally, Saint Romanos' works were known simply as "psalms", "odes", or "poems". It was only in the ninth century that the term kontakion came into use.

Among his known works are kontakia on:

• The Nativity of Christ
• The Martyrdom of St Stephen
• The Death of a Monk
• The Last Judgment
• The Prodigal Son
• The Raising of Lazarus (for Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday)
• Adam's Lament (for Palm Sunday)
• The Treachery of Judas

His Kontakion of the Nativity is still considered to be his masterpiece, and up until the twelfth century, it was sung every year at the imperial banquet on that feast by the joint choirs of Hagia Sophia and of the Church of the Holy Apostles in Constantinople. Most of the poem takes the form of a dialogue between the Mother of God and the Magi, whose visit to the newborn Christ Child is celebrated in the Byzantine rite on 25 December, rather than on the 6th of January, when Western Christians celebrate the visit (in the Orthodox Church, January 6, the Feast of the Theophany, celebrates the Baptism of Christ).

Of his other Kontakia, one of the most well-known is the hymn, "My soul, my souls, why sleepest thou..." which is chanted as part of the service of the "Great Canon" of St. Andrew of Crete on the fifth Thursday of Great Lent.

Romanus is one of many persons who have been credited with composing the famous Akathist Hymn to the Theotokos which is chanted so often as a devotion by Orthodox Christians.

Prof Krumbacher published in Munich several previously unpublished chants of Romanos and other hymnographers, from manuscripts discovered in the library of the Monastery of St John the Theologian in Patmos. There exists in the library of Moscow a Greek manuscript which contains kontakia and oikoi for the whole year, but does not include all compositions of Romanos.

Professor Krumbacher says of his work:

"In poetic talent, fire of inspiration, depth of feeling, and elevation of language, he far surpasses all the other melodes. The literary history of the future will perhaps acclaim Romanos for the greatest ecclesiastical poet of all ages."