Rev. José Mario O. Mandía
jmom.honlam.org
In his series of Catecheses on the Fathers of the Church, Pope Benedict XVI spoke about “a little-known figure: Romanus the Melodist.” Romanus is one of the Fathers who shows the splendor of the truth in beauty. He employed poetry and music to express and transmit the faith. He reminds us “of his compatriot, St Ephrem the Syrian [cf. Church Fathers 38], who lived 200 years before him. However, we can also think of Western theologians, such as St Ambrose [cf. Church Fathers 33], whose hymns are still part of our liturgy and still move hearts; or of a theologian, a very rigorous thinker such as St Thomas, who gave us hymns for the Feast of Corpus Christi…; we think of St John of the Cross and of so many others. Faith is love and therefore creates poetry and music. Faith is joy, therefore it creates beauty (General Address, 21 May 2008).
Born around 490, he was born in Syria of Jewish parents. He learned Greek and Syrian culture in his hometown, and perfected his education in Beirut. He was ordained deacon around 518.
He moved to Constantinople where Romanus became a church sacristan in the temple of Hagia Sophia (“Holy Wisdom”). This church was the principal church in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople (now Istanbul). It was built between 532 and 537 and is an excellent example of Byzantine architecture and art. It became a mosque after the Ottoman Empire occupied the city in 1453.
Originally, Saint Romanus was not really gifted in either reading or singing. It is said that he was given the task of reading the kathisma verses (a portion of the Psalms) during one Christmas Eve. He did it so badly that someone had to be called in to replace him and the clergy ridiculed him because of his poor showing. But the Theotokos (“Bearer of God” – referring to our Lady) appeared to him. She gave him a scroll (a kontakion) and commanded him to eat it. That gave him the gift of understanding, composition and hymnography.
This great poet and composer reminds us of the whole treasure of Christian culture, born of faith, born of the heart that has encountered Christ, the Son of God.
Pope Benedict XVI
The next day, Christmas Day, he was asked to proclaim the birth of Christ from the pulpit. Extemporaneously, he chanted the first Kontakion (a hymn in metric verse) of the Nativity: “Today, the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One….” Everyone, including the emperor and the patriarch, was amazed at his words and his delivery. All the hymns that he would compose would eventually be called kontakia. There are 89 of these that are attributed to Romanus.
Romanus’ style of homily was special: employing simple Greek that the people could understand, he would refer to the murals or icons in the church, he made use of dialogue, and sing it in the form of a kontakion. His preaching was effective above all because he lived what he taught. He prayed: “Make my language clear, my Saviour, open my mouth and, after filling it, penetrate my heart so that my acts may correspond to my words” (Mission of the Apostles, 2).
The themes of his preaching covered important points of Catholic doctrine. “A fundamental subject that recurs in his preaching is the unity of God’s action in history, the unity between Creation and the history of salvation, the unity between the Old and New Testaments.” Pope Benedict XVI remarked (General Address, 21 May 2008).
In his teaching on Christology, he avoided controversy and simply taught: “Christ was a man, but he was also God, yet he was not divided in two: He is One, the Son of a Father who is One alone” (The Passion, 19).
He also spoke of the missionary action of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
He showed great devotion to the Blessed Virgin, ending most of his hymns with a reference to her and dedicating some of the kontakia to Marian themes: the Annunciation, the Birth of Jesus, the Divine Motherhood, the New Eve.
When speaking of the moral life, he referred to the Last Judgment (cf. The Ten Virgins II), making use of “this moment of truth in our lives, the appearance before the just Judge, and therefore exhorts us to conversion with penance and fasting. The positive aspect is that the Christian must practice charity and almsgiving. Romanus accentuated the primacy of charity over continence in two hymns – The Wedding at Cana and The Ten Virgins” (General Address, 21 May 2008).
Pope Benedict XVI concludes his talk on Romanus with the following words: “This great poet and composer reminds us of the whole treasure of Christian culture, born of faith, born of the heart that has encountered Christ, the Son of God. Culture, the whole of our great Christian culture, is born from this contact of the heart with the Truth who is Love. Nor, if faith stays alive, will this cultural inheritance die; rather, it will remain alive and present. To this day, images still speak to the hearts of believers, they are not relics of the past. Cathedrals are not medieval monuments but rather houses of life in which we feel ‘at home’ and where we meet God and one another. Nor is great music – Gregorian chant, Bach or Mozart – something of the past; rather, it lives on in the vitality of the liturgy and in our faith. If faith is alive, Christian culture can never become ‘obsolete’ but on the contrary will remain alive and present. And if faith is alive, today too we can respond to the imperative that is ceaselessly repeated in the Psalms: ‘O Sing to the Lord a new song’ (Ps 98[97]: 1). Creativity, innovation, a new song, a new culture and the presence of the entire cultural heritage are not mutually exclusive but form one reality: they are the presence of God’s beauty and the joy of being his children” (General Address, 21 May 2008).
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