St. Joseph of the Studium

J. M. Neale calls S. Joseph of the Studium the most voluminous writer of Greek hymns, with whom the third period of Greek hymnology opens. He was a Sicilian who left his country when the Mahometans occupied it in 830, became a monk at Thessalonica and then at Constantinople, went to Rome during the second Iconoclastic persecution, was captured by pirates and enslaved for some years in Crete, and on his return stood high in favour with Ignatius and then Photius, whom he accompanied into exile. Recalled after Photius's death, he gave himself entirely to hymnology, and the Eastern Church commemorates him on 3 April. Neale gives no dates of birth or death.

Neale judges most of Joseph's saints' canons tedious and bombastic, but calls the Canon for Ascension Day the crowning glory of the poet, in which he must be pronounced superior to S. John Damascene. This file gives Neale's 1862 versions: the complete Ascension canon, with its alphabetical stanzas and the Catavasias, and four shorter pieces, among them 'Stars of the Morning' and 'And wilt Thou pardon, Lord'.