Andrew Mellas: Performing the Symphony of Salvation: Liturgical Mysticism in the Hymns of Romanos the Melodist

The liturgical performance of hymnography in Byzantium betokened the enactment of a sacred drama that interwove feeling and mystery in the hearts of the faithful. This affective and mystical encounter between humanity and the divine emerges in the hymns of Romanos the Melodist. Romanos’ hymnody embodies the thought of Irenaeus of Lyons who, a few centuries earlier, in Against the Heresies, proclaimed that it is God who harmonises the human race to the symphony of salvation. According to Irenaeus, the Creator sketched out the construction of salvation before the ages as a mystery that would only be revealed with the Incarnation and Passion of Christ. It is the death of God that redeems the faithful from the nightmare of history in the economy of salvation. This paper will explore how Romanos’ songs echo this theme and evoke a theology of performance where sacred drama dissolves the limits of history, breaks the bounds of Scripture and suspends the divide between the congregation and the poetic universe of hymnody. It will argue that the performativity of hymnody could open a liminal space where the faithful could glimpse Creation, Fall, Incarnation and Passion. In particular, it will examine Romanos’ second hymn on the nativity of Jesus Christ, which meditates on the events following Jesus’ birth but does so in a way that blurs time and place, inviting the faithful to become protagonists in the mystery unfolding before them.