Joseph the Hymnographer
Our Venerable Father Joseph the Hymnographer
Venerable · b. c. 816 — d. 886
Commemorated 4 April — Commemoration of the great hymnographer of the Church
Joseph the Hymnographer (c. 816–886) was the most prolific poet of the Byzantine Church — the author of many hundreds of liturgical canons that fill the service-books to this day, above all the great cycle of the Paraklitiki (the Octoechos of the weekday saints) and canons to the Theotokos, the angels, the apostles, and a vast company of the saints. A Sicilian by birth, a monk of Thessalonica and then of Constantinople, a confessor exiled and enslaved for the veneration of the holy icons, he received (the tradition says) the gift of hymnography from the Apostle Bartholomew himself. His name closes hundreds of the last troparia (the akrostichis) of the canons he composed.
From Sicily to Thessalonica
Joseph was born in Sicily about 816, of pious parents. When the island was overrun by the Arabs, his family fled to the Peloponnese, and from there Joseph, drawn to the monastic life, came in his youth to Thessalonica, where he entered a monastery and was in time ordained priest. His virtue and learning brought him to the notice of the holy Gregory of Decapolis, who took him to Constantinople; there the two lived together in ascetic labour, and Joseph shared in Gregory's confession of the Orthodox faith against the iconoclasts.
Captivity, and the gift of hymnody
When the persecution of the icons pressed hard upon the capital, the Orthodox determined to send a messenger to Rome to seek the help of the Pope, and Joseph was chosen. But on the voyage his ship was taken by Arab pirates (Cretan corsairs), and Joseph was carried captive to Crete and held in prison. There, the tradition relates, on the night of the feast of St Nicholas, the Apostle Bartholomew appeared to him in glory, laid upon his breast a scroll of the Gospel, and bade him "Sing praises to God" — bestowing upon him the grace of sacred song; and that very hour Joseph, freed by a wonder from his chains, found himself again in Constantinople. From then he poured out canons and hymns without ceasing.
The hymnographer of the Church
Restored to the capital, Joseph founded a monastery, gathered the relics of many saints, and was made skeuophylax (keeper of the sacred vessels) of the Great Church of Hagia Sophia under the Patriarch Photius, whose confessor and fellow-labourer he became. He shared again in exile when the iconoclast reaction returned, and again was restored at the Triumph of Orthodoxy. But his enduring work was his hymnody: he composed canons for almost every day of the year — for the Theotokos (the moving canons of supplication and the Theotokia of the Octoechos are largely his), for the bodiless powers, the Forerunner, the apostles, the martyrs and the venerable — so that the Church has drawn on his labours in her daily prayer for eleven centuries. He is distinguished from the earlier melodists by the sheer scale and range of his output; where others gave the Church a handful of masterpieces, Joseph gave her a treasury.
He reposed in peace in 886, foretelling his own death, having lived some seventy years.
Feast and commemoration
April 4 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 17), within Great Lent. He is kept universally, honoured as the great hymnographer of the Church.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8 (common of a venerable)
In thee, O Father, was preserved unimpaired that which is according to God's image; for taking up the Cross thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach us to despise the flesh, for it passeth away, but to care for the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Joseph, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Original translation from the Greek
Kontakion — Tone 4
Thou didst enrich the whole Church with divine songs of praise, O all-blessed father, unfolding the treasures of the Spirit; for the Apostle Bartholomew gave thee the grace of song, and thou dost gladden them that keep thy memory.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Joseph is shown as a monk-priest in the schema, holding a scroll inscribed with the opening of one of his canons, or a book; sometimes the Apostle Bartholomew appears above him bestowing the scroll of song. No pre-1900 icon of him alone has been identified for this collection.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused with Joseph of Thessalonica (Jan 26), the archbishop and brother of Theodore the Studite, who was also a hymnographer — a distinct saint of the same craft and age, with whom Joseph the Hymnographer of Sicily is easily confused.