The Troparion, Kontakion, Canon, Sticheron, and Theotokion

The genres of Byzantine hymnography: the short troparion, the great sung sermon of the kontakion, the multi-ode canon that succeeded it, the sticheron sung with psalm-verses, and the theotokion addressed to the Mother of God. This file describes each form, its structure, and its place in the services.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Byzantine hymnography)

The Troparion: The Basic Unit

The troparion (Greek tropárion) is the oldest and most basic unit of Byzantine hymnody: a short strophe of rhythmic prose expressing the theme of a feast or commemorating a saint, sung at fixed points in the services (Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1961, on the troparion as the elementary form). Its origins lie in the practice of inserting short refrains between the verses of the Psalms in the early monastic offices; from these interpolated refrains the troparion grew into an independent hymn. The word itself is of debated etymology — from tropos (“mode,” “manner”) or from a diminutive of tropaion (“trophy,” “monument”) — but its liturgical sense is settled: the troparion is the compact hymn that states what a day celebrates.

The most important troparion of any feast or saint is the apolytikion (the “dismissal” troparion, sung toward the end of Vespers and at other points), which gives the theme of the celebration in a single strophe. Every Orthodox Christian knows the Paschal troparion — “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life” — which is a troparion in exactly this sense: the whole feast of feasts compressed into one sung sentence (Pentekostarion, Paschal Matins). From the troparion as building-block all the larger forms are constructed: the kontakion’s oikoi, the canon’s troparia, and the stichera are all, structurally, elaborations and chains of the basic strophe.

The Kontakion: The Sung Sermon

The kontakion (Greek kontákion) is the great hymnographic form of the early Byzantine period — the sixth century above all — brought to its height by St. Romanos the Melodist (see The Kontakion and Romanos). In its classical form the kontakion is a long poem, effectively a verse sermon, of an introductory strophe called the prooimion (or koukoulion) followed by a series — often eighteen to twenty-four — of metrically uniform strophes called oikoi (“houses”), all built on a single melodic-rhythmic model, all closing with a shared refrain (ephymnion), and usually carrying an acrostic spelled down the initial letters of the strophes (Wellesz, 1961; Grosdidier de Matons, Romanos le Mélode, Paris, 1977). It was performed by a soloist chanting from the ambo, with the people answering the refrain, and the name is generally derived from the kontos, the shaft around which the parchment scroll of the long poem was wound (Metropolitan Cantor Institute, “Kontakia,” mci.archpitt.org). The kontakion is thus a dramatic, homiletic, participatory form: a sung meditation on a feast or a scriptural scene, unfolding over many strophes.

The kontakion’s classical fate was to be displaced. From the seventh and eighth centuries the canon overtook it as the principal hymn of Matins, and the great kontakia were progressively truncated in use until, of most of them, only the prooimion and first oikos survived in the services — the “kontakion” and “oikos” now sung after the sixth ode of the canon are these surviving stumps (see St. Romanos: The Surviving Fragments). The one great exception is the Akathist Hymn, which is a complete kontakion and the only one still sung in its entirety (see The Akathist Hymn).

The Canon: The Multi-Ode Hymn

The canon (Greek kanōn, “rule,” “measure”) is the principal hymnographic form of the developed Byzantine Matins, brought to its classical shape at Mar Saba in the late seventh and eighth centuries by St. Andrew of Crete, St. Cosmas of Maiuma, and St. John of Damascus (see Andrew of Crete and the Great Canon; John of Damascus and Cosmas). It is a composite hymn of (originally) nine odes, each ode attached to one of the nine biblical canticles — the two songs of Moses (Exodus 15 and Deuteronomy 32), the songs of Hannah, Habakkuk, Isaiah, Jonah, the Three Young Men (twice), and the Magnificat with the song of Zechariah — so that the new Christian poetry is sung as a meditation on, and fulfilment of, the Old Testament songs to which it is keyed (Lash, The Canon of Pascha, introduction, anastasis.org.uk; and see St. John of Damascus: The Paschal Canon). In practice the second ode, tied to the somber song of Deuteronomy 32, is omitted except in Lent, leaving eight odes in most canons; the Great Canon of St. Andrew is the great exception, retaining the second ode for its penitential weight (see Andrew of Crete and the Great Canon).

Each ode opens with an irmos (Greek heirmos, “link”), the model strophe that fixes the meter and the melody and “links” the biblical canticle to the strophes that follow; after the irmos come the troparia, additional strophes composed in the same metrical pattern as the irmos and sung to its melody (Lash, Canon of Pascha; Hymnology Archive, “The day of resurrection”). The odes close with strophes to the Holy Trinity (triadika) and to the Mother of God (theotokia), so that the canon’s meditation is repeatedly resolved into doxology. The canon’s collection of irmoi, gathered as models for singing, forms its own book, the Irmologion. Where the kontakion is a single sustained sermon, the canon is a suite of nine scriptural meditations — a different and more architectural way of building a great hymn, and the one the Byzantine rite finally preferred.

The Sticheron: The Hymn with Psalm-Verses

The sticheron (Greek stichēron, plural stichēra) is a hymn-strophe sung interpolated with verses (stíchoi) of a psalm — most characteristically at “Lord, I have cried” (Psalms 140, 141, 129, 116 LXX) at Vespers, at the Aposticha, and at the Praises (the Lauds, Psalms 148–150) at Matins (Wellesz, 1961; The Festal Menaion, trans. Mother Mary and Ware, Faber, 1969). The stichera are the changing hymnody proper to each day and feast, and they carry much of the theological and poetic weight of the offices: it is at “Lord, I have cried” that the great festal and dogmatic stichera are sung, and among them the dogmatika, the theotokia setting forth the dogma of the Incarnation (see Hymnography as Dogma Sung). A sticheron that has its own proper melody rather than being sung to a model is called an idiomelon; one sung to a borrowed model-melody is a prosomoion; the model itself is an automelon. The most famous idiomela in the tradition are the funeral idiomela of St. John of Damascus, arranged in the eight tones (see John of Damascus and Cosmas).

The Theotokion: The Marian Strophe

A theotokion (plural theotokia) is a troparion or sticheron addressed to the Theotokos, the Mother of God, appointed by rule at the “Both now and ever…” (Kai nyn) that follows the “Glory to the Father…” (Doxa) throughout the daily offices (see The Theotokia and Axion Estin; and St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns). The pattern is deliberate and constant: hymnody to the Trinity is answered, again and again, by hymnody to the Virgin through whom the Son took flesh, so that the Mother of God becomes the continual undertone of Orthodox prayer. The weightiest theotokia are the dogmatika already named, sung at Great Vespers on Saturday evening across the eight tones, which teach in song the union of the two natures in the one Christ born of the Virgin. The theotokion is thus not a separate genre so much as a function that troparia and stichera perform — the Marian close that the rule of the services requires at nearly every turning of the office, weaving the confession of the Incarnation into the whole fabric of the daily prayer.

References

Wellesz, Egon. A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961. (The troparion, kontakion, canon, sticheron; forms and definitions.)
Grosdidier de Matons, José. Romanos le Mélode et les origines de la poésie religieuse à Byzance. Paris: Beauchesne, 1977. (The kontakion’s structure, acrostic, and refrain.)
Lash, Archimandrite Ephrem. The Canon of Pascha of St. John of Damascus, annotated translation. anastasis.org.uk. (The canon form, irmos and troparia, the nine biblical odes.)
The Festal Menaion. Trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London: Faber & Faber, 1969. (Stichera, idiomela, theotokia, and the tones.)
Metropolitan Cantor Institute. “Kontakia.” mci.archpitt.org/liturgy/Kontakia.html. (The classical kontakion, its performance, and the kontax.)
“The day of resurrection.” Hymnology Archive. (The canon’s structure; cross-checked against Lash.)
The Pentekostarion. Standard English service text (Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston). (The Paschal troparion.)