6th century
Saint Romanos the Melodist
The greatest hymnographer of Byzantium, composer of kontakia.
Biography
Romanos was born in the late 5th century in Emesa, Syria, and according to tradition was of Jewish origin. He was ordained a deacon in Beirut and later settled in Constantinople, near the Church of the Theotokos.
Tradition says he was not at first known for talent as a reader; one night around 518, during the Christmas vigil at Blachernae, he dreamed that the Theotokos gave him a scroll to eat, and woke to chant extemporaneously the first kontakion, "Today the Virgin gives birth".
He wrote around a thousand hymns, of which fewer than a hundred survive, and became the greatest melodist of Byzantine hymnography.