Thomas Arentzen: The Dialogue of Annunciation: Germanos of Constantinople versus Romanos the Melodist

The narrative exposition of the Archangel Gabriel visiting the Virgin Mary was popular among early hymnographers and homilists. In the sixth century, the Annunciation was established as a separate feast in the Constantinopolitan calendar, and Romanos the Melodist (ca. 490 - 560) is the first author we know of to write a hymn for this new spring festival. Patriarch Germanos I (ca. 634 - 740) later wrote a strikingly dramatic homily for the same feast. What is conspicuous, however, is that even though Romanos and Germanos are counted among the giants of liturgical writing, their Annunciation works are both poorly transmitted in manuscript traditions, and scholars generally assume that these texts went out of use at an early date or were rarely performed. How can this be?
The paper will ponder this conspicuity by a comparative reading of the two compositions asking what traits they share and what may distinguish the texts as less suitable for liturgical use. Common features seem to include certain dramatic and even erotic tension. The Annunciation feast was usually celebrated during Lent. Can Romanos's and Germanos's liturgical works simply have been too amusing for public performance in a period of fasting?