service files jo hym.md

JOSEPH THE HYMNOGRAPHER

He is not to be confused with Joseph of Thessaloniki, brother of Theodore the Studite, who died half a century earlier, in 833. He was from Sicily, from where his family fled to Thessaloniki when Sicily fell to the Arabs. He moved to Constantinople and became a monk. He fled from there for Rome during the persecution of the iconoclast emperor, Leo the Armenian, but was captured by pirates and enslaved in Crete. He finally escaped and returned to Constantinople, where he founded a monastery. He is the most prolific of the hymnwriters; some 200 hundred of his canons are to be found in the *Menaia.* He is the major contributor to the weekday canons in the *Paraklitiki.* Of the 96 canons assigned to weekday Matins at least 56 are by Joseph. The canon of the Akathist is also by him.