Romanos the Melodist

Romanos the Melodist was born into a Jewish or Syrian Christian family in Emesa (modern Homs). Serving as a deacon in Beirut, he moved to Constantinople during the reign of Emperor Anastasius I, where he became attached to the Church of the Virgin at Kyrou.

Romanos is universally hailed as the greatest poet of the Byzantine era and the 'Pindar of Christian poetry'. He pioneered the kontakion, a dramatic metrical sermon sung in verse that brought biblical narratives to life with vivid psychological realism and soaring emotional lyricism, composing more than one thousand hymns that remain central to Eastern Christian liturgical tradition.