The Studite Hymnographers

The ninth-century hymnographers of the Monastery of Stoudios in Constantinople, who gathered and ordered the Palestinian hymnody into the received books of the Church: St. Theodore the Studite and his circle, who shaped the Lenten Triodion, and St. Joseph the Hymnographer, the most prolific hymnographer of the tradition. This file treats their work and carefully distinguishes the two Josephs.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Byzantine hymnography)

From Mar Saba to Stoudios

The great creative age of the canon belonged to eighth-century Palestine — to Andrew of Crete, Cosmas of Maiuma, and John of Damascus at Mar Saba (see John of Damascus and Cosmas). The age of gathering, ordering, and transmitting that inheritance belonged to ninth-century Constantinople, and above all to the Monastery of Stoudios (the Stoudion), whose reform under St. Theodore the Studite drew the Palestinian hymnody into the liturgical life of the capital and gave the Byzantine service books much of the shape they still hold (Taft, The Byzantine Rite: A Short History, Liturgical Press, 1992, on the Studite synthesis; Wellesz, A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1961). The Studite reform fused the “cathedral” rite of Constantinople with the monastic office of Palestine into the hybrid that became the received Byzantine rite — and the Studite hymnographers filled that framework with new poetry, especially for the penitential and festal seasons the older Palestinian corpus had left comparatively bare.

Theodore the Studite and the Triodion

St. Theodore the Studite (759–826) was abbot of the Stoudion, one of the great confessors of the second iconoclast controversy, a reformer of monastic life, and a hymnographer (see St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns for the Marian context; OrthodoxWiki, “Theodore the Studite”). His hymnographic importance lies above all in the Lenten Triodion — the service book of the pre-Lenten and Lenten seasons, so named for its characteristic three-ode canons (triōdia, whence “Triodion”) sung on the weekdays of Great Lent. The distinctive weekday triodes of Lent are the work of the Studite hymnographers, Theodore and his circle, and the basic structure of the Triodion was assembled in the ninth century by the Studite redactors, “without altering the general pattern” through the additions of the following five centuries (as summarized in the standard accounts of the Triodion’s formation; and see The Liturgical Books Interlock). Theodore’s own most celebrated contribution is the hymnography of Meatfare Sunday (the Sunday of the Last Judgement) and of the pre-Lenten weeks — the great sticheron “When Thou, O God, shalt come to earth with glory” and the summons to repentance that opens the Lenten journey (The Lenten Triodion, trans. Mother Mary and Ware, Faber, 1978).

Here a source-critical caution is needed, because the Studite hymnographers include two figures often confused. Theodore’s own brother was St. Joseph the Confessor (also “Joseph of Thessalonica” or “Joseph the Studite,” c. 762–832), archbishop of Thessalonica, who worked alongside Theodore on the Triodion; the poems signed “of Joseph” in the Triodion are frequently his (OCA, “Saint Joseph, Bishop of Thessalonica”; and see below). This Joseph-the-brother is a different man from Joseph the Hymnographer, the Sicilian treated next — and the two are so easily conflated that the exact attribution of hymns “by Joseph” remains a genuinely contested question (Wikipedia, “Joseph the Confessor”; “Joseph the Hymnographer”). [Disputed: the attribution of particular Triodion hymns signed “of Joseph” — between Joseph of Thessalonica (Theodore’s brother, d. c. 832) and Joseph the Hymnographer (the Sicilian, d. 886); the two are frequently confused in the manuscripts and the scholarship, and the assignment of specific poems is not always secure (Wikipedia, “Joseph the Confessor”; standard accounts of the Triodion’s authorship).]

Joseph the Hymnographer

St. Joseph the Hymnographer (c. 816–886) — the Sicilian, distinct from Theodore’s brother — is the most prolific hymnographer in the whole Byzantine tradition, “regarded as one of the greatest liturgical poets” of the Eastern Church (Wikipedia, “Joseph the Hymnographer”; Synaxarion, at johnsanidopoulos.com). Born in Sicily, driven by the Arab conquest to the Peloponnese and then to Constantinople, imprisoned and exiled in the iconoclast troubles, he became a monk and priest and devoted himself to filling the daily service books with canons and lesser hymns. The scale of his output is staggering: the modern cataloguer Eutychios Tomadakes could clearly attribute to the Sicilian Joseph some 385 canons and 9 kontakia of the Menaion, 68 canons of the Parakletike (Octoechos), 6 complete canons and 34 triodes-tetraodes of the Triodion, and further material of the Pentecostarion (Tomadakes, as reported in Wikipedia, “Joseph the Hymnographer,” and the standard hymnological literature). Where the Mar Saba masters composed the great festal canons, Joseph filled the ordinary days: the canons for the saints of the Menaion, the weekday hymns of the Octoechos, the theotokia that answer the Trinitarian hymns throughout the offices. If the daily prayer of the Orthodox Church is saturated with hymnody to the Mother of God and to the saints, that saturation is in large measure Joseph’s work.

Among the works traditionally credited to Joseph the Hymnographer is the canon sung with the Akathist on the Saturday of the Akathist — the canon that accompanies the great hymn in the Lenten Triodion, distinct from the Akathist itself (whose own authorship is a separate and disputed question; see The Authorship Question). Joseph is also associated by tradition with a signal Marian devotion: the acathist-like canons and the propagation of the Akathist’s cult (Synaxarion of St. Joseph the Hymnographer, johnsanidopoulos.com). His feast is kept on 3/4 April.

What the Studites Accomplished

The Studite achievement was not, for the most part, the invention of new forms — the troparion, kontakion, canon, and sticheron were already fixed — but the ordering of the corpus into books and its filling-out for every day of the year. Before the Studites, the hymnography of the great feasts was rich but the ordinary days were comparatively bare; after them, and above all after Joseph the Hymnographer, every saint’s day had its canon, every weekday its proper hymns, and the four great books (Octoechos, Menaion, Triodion, Pentekostarion) were furnished to interlock across the whole year (see The Liturgical Books Interlock). The Studite reform is therefore the hinge between the creative golden age of Palestinian hymnody and the settled, comprehensive service books of the mature Byzantine rite. It is a less glamorous achievement than the Paschal canon or the Akathist, but without it the daily prayer of the Church would not have its present density of song. The Studites made Orthodox worship a place where, on any day of the year, one opens a book and finds the day already sung.

References

Taft, Robert F. The Byzantine Rite: A Short History. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1992. (The Studite synthesis of cathedral and monastic rites.)
Wellesz, Egon. A History of Byzantine Music and Hymnography. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1961. (The Studite hymnographers; the shaping of the books.)
The Lenten Triodion. Trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London: Faber & Faber, 1978. (Theodore’s pre-Lenten hymnography; the three-ode canons; the introduction on the Triodion’s formation.)
“Joseph the Hymnographer.” Wikipedia (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_the_Hymnographer), reporting E. Tomadakes’s catalogue of attributions. (The scale of Joseph’s output; the canon of the Akathist.)
“Joseph the Confessor” (Joseph of Thessalonica). Wikipedia; and “Saint Joseph, Bishop of Thessalonica,” Orthodox Church in America (oca.org). (Theodore’s brother; the two Josephs and the attribution problem.)
“Theodore the Studite.” OrthodoxWiki (orthodoxwiki.org/Theodore_the_Studite). (Theodore as abbot, confessor, and hymnographer.)
Synaxarion of St. Joseph the Hymnographer. johnsanidopoulos.com/2017/04/synaxarion-of-saint-joseph-hymnographer.html. (Joseph’s life and Marian devotion.)