04 — The Hymnographer

Andrew not only as the author of one great poem but as one of the founders of an entire hymnographic genre: the kanon, the multi-ode hymn built upon the nine biblical canticles, which he developed alongside John of Damascus and Kosmas of Maiouma and which became the dominant form of Byzantine liturgical poetry. This section treats the genre, the nine odes and their scriptural canticles, and Andrew’s festal canons and idiomela.

This section sets the Great Canon within Andrew’s wider output and within the history of the kanon, explaining the form’s structure (nine odes, the biblical canticles, the omitted second ode) and surveying his festal compositions.

Files

File	Description
the-kanon-form.md	Andrew as a key developer of the kanon genre alongside John of Damascus and Kosmas of Maiouma; the nine odes and the biblical canticles; the second ode
the-festal-canons-and-idiomela.md	Andrew’s canons for the feasts and Holy Week, his idiomela and stichera, and the scale of his attributed corpus

See Also

• The Great Canon — the supreme example of the genre treated here
• The Sermons — Andrew’s prose counterpart to his hymnody
• St. John of Damascus — the co-founder of the kanon and Andrew’s great contemporary
• St. Romanos the Melodist — the master of the older kontakion form
• Orthodoxy: The Divine Liturgy — the services in which the canons are sung