The tropologion is considered the earliest extant chant book that has preserved layers of hymnography and liturgy from Jerusalem during the fifth and sixth centuries and was in use until about the twelfth century. Tropologion is the Greek appellation of the book. Working with the sources in Greek, I have found more than fifteen manuscripts ranging from the eighth or ninth century to the twelfth century that bear the title tropologion either in their initial rubrics or in the inscriptions left by their writers. A greater number of these manuscripts were not labelled as tropologia: in the available catalogues, they are defined as other types of books – as menaia or triodia, according to their contemporary designations.Footnote ¹ It is already well known that the book is recognised in Georgian under the name iadgari.Footnote ² Working with the catalogue of William Wright of the Syriac manuscripts at the library of the British Museum in London, I have also come across some copies of the tropologion in Syriac, called tropligin. They display a structure similar to that of the Georgian iadgari.Footnote ³ According to the research of Gabriele Winkler, the tropologion was known in the Armenian Church by the term šaraknoc.Footnote ⁴ The origin of two early sources bearing a likeness to the tropologion in Glagolitic and Cyrillic is connected with Bulgaria. The two sources are, respectively, Sinai NE (Manuscript from the Library of the Sinai Monastery ‘St Catherine’) from the eleventh century, whose origin is linked with West Bulgaria, and Ilija’s book (Москва, РГАДА, ф. 381, Син. тип. № 311) from the twelfth century, which prototype is defined as the Old Bulgarian.Footnote ⁵ This gives reasons to believe that the book was known in Slavic or Old Bulgarian as well. The sources in Greek, Georgian, Syriac, Armenian and probably Old Bulgarian clearly show that the dissemination and use of the book were much greater than we had previously assumed. In what follows, I offer a new theory regarding the evolution of the book as well as a new interpretation of the formation of a separate Resurrection section and of the significance of the eight modes.

Close study of the content of the repertory, its arrangement and the liturgical calendar unquestionably confirms the antiquity of the compilation of the book, which might have been made in Jerusalem or in its outlying region.Footnote ⁶ One can also trace the uninterrupted development of the book from Jerusalem to the Studios monastery in Constantinople and beyond in a variety of different languages. Comparative study of the Georgian iadgari with the tropologion in Greek and tropligin in Syriac reveals the following.Footnote ⁷

The repertory of the content of the Georgian iadgari is arranged in several cycles.Footnote ⁸ The most important of them are: first, the yearly cycle of both the fixed feasts for the twelve months throughout the liturgical year and the movable feasts for the periods of Lent, Easter and Pentecost; second, the cycle of eight Sundays arranged in eight consecutive modes constituting an oktoechos; and third, the cycle of chants for the Resurrection, the Holy Virgin, classes of saints, martyrs, repentance, the deceased, and others, which are grouped together at the end of the book and used in the everyday services, known as Common. The chants for the fixed and movable feasts are interspersed in a single calendar sequence: the movable feasts for the time of Lent, Easter and Pentecost are placed between 2 February, the Hypapante, and 23 April, the feast of St George. It is this arrangement of the book that is called ‘global’ by Stig Froyshov.Footnote ⁹

The liturgical calendar starts with the feast of the Annunciation of the Holy Virgin on 25 March. Christmas, 25 December, and further feasts follow.Footnote ¹⁰ The placement of the Annunciation at Christmastime represents a tradition of an old calendar when the Annunciation had not yet become a separate festival.Footnote ¹¹

Research on the tropologion in Greek reveals that the core components of the book were preserved, but that its contents had increased dramatically: many new pieces were added to the book. Respectively, along with the names of the old poet-composers of John of Damascus’s circle, the names of ninth- and tenth-century writers are read: Theodore and Joseph Studites, Theophanes Graptos, Joseph the Hymnographer, and others.

The arrangement of the repertory in the tropologion in Greek also shows innovations. The ‘global’ repertory was gradually rearranged. The yearly cycle was preserved as a whole, but it was divided into two separate cycles containing, respectively, the fixed and movable feasts. The fixed cycle covers the feasts of all days of the twelve months of the liturgical year. The movable cycle covers the feasts from Palm Sunday to the Sunday of All Saints. The weekly cycle is enriched: along with the Resurrection cycle for eight Sundays, there is a new one for every day of the week, starting with Monday morning and concluding with Saturday morning.

There is a change in the liturgical calendar as well. The beginning of the church year starts not with the Annunciation but with 1 September. The date in all probability reflects the local liturgical calendar of Constantinople: early documents show that 1 September, as the beginning of the church year, had been generally accepted throughout the Byzantine Empire by the eighth century. It is almost certain that it was the Studios school of poet-composers that divided the ‘global’ content of the tropologion and compiled separate collections of books, each one containing a major liturgical cycle. The names of the Studite monks can be found in the sources. From the end of the eighth century onwards, the Studios monastery attained its first prominence and became one of the greatest centres of spiritual activity in the East, with a flourishing scriptorium and hymnography, replacing Jerusalem as such a centre. It is believed that Theodore the Studite, the first abbot during this flourishing time of the monastery, adopted the monastic rite of St Sabas for his community.

The newly formed collections of books seem to have been renamed according to the liturgical repertory included. The repertory for the fixed feasts of the annual cycle, starting now with 1 September and concluding with 31 August, was collected in a book called a Menaion;Footnote ¹² the repertory for the movable feasts, starting with the Sunday of the Publican and Pharisee and concluding with the Sunday of All Saints, was gathered in a book called a Triodion;Footnote ¹³ the repertory for the Resurrection Offices for Saturday evening and Sunday along with the Common Offices was gathered in the oktoechos;Footnote ¹⁴ and finally, the offices of the weekdays were collected into the New oktoechos according to Joseph Hymnographer, which was also known as the great oktoechos or paracletike (the ‘Book of Supplication’) and added to the Resurrection Offices. All the extant manuscripts that bear such designations in their initial rubrics are not earlier than the eleventh century, that is, we do not have books with the designations menaion, triodion and oktoechos before this time, as was pointed out by Robert Taft.Footnote ¹⁵

The study of the Syriac tropligin reveals both structures – ‘uninterrupted’ and ‘interrupted’ – that is, in the course of time until the thirteenth century, it went through the same development – from a ‘global’ structure to the ‘new’ one.

Several questions, especially about the oktoechos in the early Eastern Christian chant, are the most frequently discussed and I shall offer new insights below. First, some scholars ascribe the creation of the oktoechos to Severos, Patriarch of the See of Antioch between 512 and 518.Footnote ¹⁶ Others ascribe the oktoechos to John of Damascus.Footnote ¹⁷ In terms of the oktoechos as a modal system, to judge from the studied sources, the eight-mode system already existed at the time of John of Damascus. This is proven by some sources that contain modal designations going back to the fifth or sixth centuries. In terms of the oktoechos as a liturgical book, the facts are the following. By the time of Severos in the beginning of the sixth century, the poetic chant texts that were in circulation were gathered together and recorded in a book. According to an inscription in the oldest book of 675, copies of this book, though revised and corrected by Jacob of Edessa (d. 708), are preserved in the Syriac translation alone.Footnote ¹⁸ It was with regard to this collection that Anton Baumstark coined the term Oktoechos of Severos.Footnote ¹⁹ The comparison between this collection of Severos and that of the iadgari displays many principal similarities common to both. The Severos collection, like the iadgari, contains hymnic compositions, that is, non-biblical material. Further, like the iadgari, the Severos collection also includes chants for the Resurrection, the Holy Virgin, saints, martyrs, repentance, the deceased, and others, or for the Common services. Unlike the iadgari, however, this repertory is not arranged in a liturgical order but it follows what can be named a thematic cyclic order: the feasts of the Lord follow the order of the calendar from Christmas (or Epiphany, or the Annunciation) to Pentecost, then feasts of saints and of the Common services. Such an order seems to be that of the oldest compilations of the repertory used in worship. Hence, the Syrian manuscripts related to the time of Severos and before could be considered as examples of the earliest compiled service books with hymnography. The arrangement by thematic cycles is considered as very old practice in the history of Western hymnography as well: it was revealed in Western tonaries, the books listing chants in the eight-mode succession from 799 onwards. The thematic arrangement points clearly to a pre-notational practice of chants: they were dependent on a small group of melodic themes.Footnote ²⁰ Unlike the iadgari, the Severos collection does not contain an oktoechos, yet, as rightly pointed out by Aelred Cody, there are no modal designations and no chant cycles arranged in the consecutive oktoechal modal order. Cycles in such an order do appear from the ninth century onwards in copies of the same book with hymns by Severos. Obviously, after the time of Damascus the collection of Severos was brought up to date to follow some newly established compilations, and probably the modal designations in these copies gave reasons to some scholars to consider it an oktoechos.Footnote ²¹ Following the suggestion of Charles Renoux, the book of Severos could be called the hymnal.Footnote ²² Hence, the Severos collection appears to be the earliest known chant book with hymnody and might be considered as a kind of predecessor of the book of the tropologion. The book with hymns that emerged could be considered as a companion book to the Psalter. Given that the hymn book was already available in the sixth century, we may conclude that the following liturgical books were in circulation in Jerusalem between the sixth and eighth centuries: the psalter with psalms, the hymnal with hymns, and the lectionary that specified and regulated the liturgical performance of both the psalms and hymns.

Second, in all probability, it was John of Damascus who rearranged the existing book, editing the yearly and weekly cycles for the liturgical purposes of his time, filling them with the new themes and genres of the stichera and kanons, and arranging the Resurrection repertory for eight Sundays and those for the Common services in a consecutive modal order. This rearranged book might be the book of the tropologion as we know it according to its ‘global’ version in the Georgian iadgari: it contains chants dispersed in a single order for the fixed and movable feasts, and the cycles arranged in the eight modes are placed at the end. The latter constitute the earliest known oktoechos. The same structure is revealed in some copies of the Syriac tropligin and, according to the data of Gabriele Winkler, in the Armenian šaraknoc. On the one hand, introduction of the modal framework may have greatly enhanced the theological meaning of music, its impact and its transcendental mediating role in the performance of worship itself. On the other hand, it may have eliminated all pagan or non-Christian ecclesiastical worship. Hence, the oktoechos compiled by John of Damascus had to suggest some theological ideas and implement their semantic meaning in the eight-mode system. It could be assumed that the reason for the comprehensive application of the eight-mode system to the repertory of the Resurrectional and Common services was, in the first place, that these services were performed most often and were attended by the majority of people. In that way, periodically – by the performance of the ‘governing’ echos-ethos day by day and week by week – the necessary and desirable devotion of the community was achieved: people were introduced to Christian truths and to the values of Christian teaching. Hence, John of Damascus could be considered as one of the most distinguished hymnographers who gave a new ethical meaning to church music, linking it to the highest degree with the established theological ideas. His entire activity was directed towards an interpretation and explanation of the ‘true faith’ and education in its doctrines.

And third, it was the Studios monastery where the book of the tropologion was rearranged: the chant repertories were divided according to the fixed and movable feasts and compiled in separate collections. This book could be understood to be the ‘new’ tropologion, according to Stig Froyshov’s definition. First, it is important to note that all the volumes kept the old title of ‘tropologion’. Then, from the tenth century onwards, this title began to change. The books were renamed according to the repertory they contained. From the thirteenth century onwards, the title ‘tropologion’ is no longer encountered in the extant sources. In all probability, this title became unclear or incorrect with respect to the repertory contained, and so it fell out of use being replaced by the new titles of menaion, triodion and oktoechos, which are kept to the present day.

It could be said, in conclusion, that the tropologion was a universal hymnographic liturgical book that was used in the Eastern Church between the fifth/sixth and the thirteenth centuries. The book is known according to various sources in Greek, Georgian, Syriac, Armenian and, in all probability, in Old Slavic or Old Bulgarian. The fact of the wide dissemination of the tropologion and its dominant place in the early worship shows that the Slavic Apostles St Cyril and St Methodius and their pupils (at least to their arrival to Bulgaria after 885) should have known and used exactly this hymnographic book: another hymnographic book at that time is not known. In all probability, after the settlement of the pupils of the two Slavic Apostles in Bulgaria, they worked on filling out the festal services and their systematization according to the Constantinopolitan calendar in its Studite version, when the repertory of the tropologion started to be divided and compiled in separate collections of immovable and movable feasts and eight-mode Resurrectional and weekly successions.Footnote ²³ Over the course of time, the book was constantly updated with both newly established feasts that found their place in the church calendar of the Eastern Church and newly created pieces for these feasts. This dynamic updating of the book for more than five centuries witnessed the vitality of the liturgical hymnographic practice, as well as its ability to respond to the changes in the liturgy and its needs. At the same time, it witnessed the ability of Eastern tradition to convey many old layers over time, skilfully combining them with new ones – an ability that remains characteristic for the entire tradition of Eastern Orthodox culture and, in particular, music. The Eastern Church kept its roots and returned to them again and again bearing evidence of its major goal – to be true and orthodox, to preserve the ‘right faith’.