| Summary: | This is an interdisciplinary examination of the office of Sunday Matins as celebrated
in the Byzantine cathedral Rite of the Great Church from its origins in the popular
psalmodic assemblies of the fourth century to its comprehensive reform by Archbishop
Symeon of Thessalonica (fl429), Byzantium's last and most prolific liturgical
commentator. Specifically, it studies the influence of developments in liturgical music and
piety—notable among which were the advent of monastic hymnody and virtuosic styles of
chanting—on the order of service at the Constantinopolitan andThessalonian cathedrals of
Hagia Sophia. This is accomplished through reconstructions of the service of Sunday
matins as celebrated in the two churches from musical manuscripts, books of rubrics
(Typika'), and liturgical commentaries. In general, these demonstrate that the interaction
of cathedral and monastic elements in Byzantium's secular churches was far more complex
than is generally acknowledged.
The final two chapters of this study examine Symeon's revised version of the
Sunday morning office, which provides the context for an examination of broader
questions concerning the nature of developments in the ethos of Byzantine worship. The
focal point for this discussion is an evaluation of the liturgical reforms initiated by Symeon
to save the cathedral rite from the indifference of his Thessalonian flock. Symeon himself
describes these reforms in his liturgical commentaries as a selective "sweetening" with
popular monastic hymnody. The reconstruction, however, shows that in addition to
adding hymnody—itself the product of a previous revolution in Byzantine liturgical piety—
he updated the archaic service of cathedral matins by incorporating many of the central
works of the new repertory of florid chants. Taken together, these discoveries serve to
illuminate important differences in liturgical style between a rite originally conceived for the
great basilicas of Christian antiquity, and one formed by the fervent spirituality of
hesychast monks during Byzantium's twilight.
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