St. Romanos the Melodist (c. 490-556)

A Syrian from Emesa, a deacon at Beirut and then at the church of the Theotokos in Constantinople, who by tradition had no gift for singing until, on the eve of the Nativity, the Mother of God appeared to him in sleep and gave him a scroll to eat, and he rose and sang Today the Virgin gives birth to the One above all being. That hymn is still sung on the feast. He is the master of the kontakion, the long sung sermon in verse, with a refrain taken up by the people after every stanza, in which Scripture is dramatised with dialogue between its characters. Tradition credits him with a thousand; about sixty survive that are certainly his. The Akathist is sometimes attributed to him and the attribution is disputed. Feast: October 1.