Theophanes, the Confessor › Recommendations

Theophanes, St. The third in rank among the Greek ecclesiastical poets called Melodists, circa 800-850. He was a son of pious parents, and a native of Jerusalem. He may have been educated, as his elder brother Theodore was, in the Laura of St. Sabas, and thence have imbibed his taste for the composition of hymns. He was sent, with his brother, by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, to Constantinople, to remonstrate with the Emperor Leo the Armenian (reg. 813-820), against iconoclasm. They were scourged and banished from Constantinople. After the murder of Leo they were allowed to return, but were again banished. In the reign of Theophilus (reg. 829-842) they were again at Constantinople, and were then branded on their faces with some opprobrious Iambic verses (from which they were afterwards known as "Grapti"), and a third time banished. After 842 Theophanes was recalled, on the triumph of the defenders of the Icons at the accession of Theodora, and was made Archbishop of Mida, where he died. The brothers are commemorated in the Greek calendar on Dec. 27. The sketch here given will be found quite different from that prefixed to the translations from Theophanes in Neale's Hymns of the Eastern Church. Dr. Neale mistook the poet for an earlier saint, Theophanes of Syngriana, who continued the Chronicon of George Syncellus. The identification of the poet with Theophanes Graptus is however universally attested by the Greek writers, and the Canon of Theophanes of Syngriana is written by Theophanes Graptus. [Rev. H. Leigh Bennett, M.A.]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology (1907)