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Symeon the Metaphrast

10th-century Byzantine historian and hagiographer

Summary

10th-century Byzantine historian and hagiographer

Field	Value
honorific_prefix	Saint
name	Symeon the Metaphrast
image	Symeon Metafrast.jpg
titles	Venerable, Hagiographer, Logothete
birth_date	886-912 (900)
birth_place	Constantinople
(modern-day Istanbul, Turkey)
residence	Constantinople
death_date	November 28, 987
death_place	Constantinople
feast_day	November 9/November 28
honored_in	Eastern Orthodox Church
canonized_date	11th century
canonized_place	Constantinople
canonized_by	Eastern Orthodox Church
attributes	Pen, Scroll, Religious habit
major_works	Menologium

(modern-day Istanbul, Turkey) Symeon or Simeon (died ), distinguished as Symeon Metaphrastes (Latin) or Symeon the Metaphrast (, Symeṓn ho Metaphrastḗs), was a Byzantine writer and official regarded as a saint in the Eastern Orthodox Church. His feast day is celebrated on 9 or 28 November. He is best known for his 10-volume Greek menologion, a collection of saints' lives.

Life

About Symeon's life few details are known. He lived in the second half of the 10th century. Ephrem Mtsire puts him at the peak of his career in the sixth year of Basil II (982). Yahya of Antioch also makes him a contemporary of Basil II and Patriarch Nicholas II of Constantinople (984–991). In the 15th century, Mark Eugenikos wrongly called Symeon a megas logothetes. The hagiographer actually lived a generation later than the historian Symeon Logothete.

Menologium

Works

Symeon wrote mainly hymnody and hagiography. He composed kanones, stichera and a hymn to the Trinity. He also compiled excerpts of the Church Fathers, particularly Basil the Great. His most important work by far, however, is the menologion, which Albert Ehrhard labelled "a revolution in the field of hagiography". According to tradition, it was commissioned by Basil II.

Symeon's menologion is a product of the encyclopedism characteristic of the Macedonian Renaissance. He did not merely collect and arrange pre-existing saint's lives, but also reworked them, standardizing their language and embellishing their rhetorical style to bring them in line with the Atticism of the day.

For his menologion, Symeon received praise from Nikephoros Ouranos and Michael Psellos addressed to him an encomium. It was widely read in monasteries. The standard edition came in ten volumes. Numerous illuminated copies were produced in the 11th century.

Some orthodox prayers of preparation before Holy Communion and prayers of thanksgiving after Holy Communion were composed by him.

Veneration

Venerable Symeon the Metaphrast is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church. Michael Psellos compiled Symeon's biography ( 1050) and he composed a liturgical office for him.

References

"Symeon Metaphrastes".
James Carleton Paget. (2010). "Jews, Christians and Jewish Christians in Antiquity". Mohr Siebeck.
Per Kazhdan and Ševčenko, his dates have generated some controversy. Mark Eugenikos places his birth in the reign of [[Leo VI the Wise]], which would give him an improbably long life. Some modern scholars have moved his life forward to the 11th century, but this contradicts both Ephrem and Yahya.
His nickname comes from this act of [[Metaphrase
"Каноны и молитвы для подготовки к Таинствам Исповеди и Святого Причащения - Молитвослов".
(2014-05-17). "Благодарственные молитвы по Святом Причащении - Молитвослов".
"Преподобный Симео́н Метафраст".
"СИМЕОН МЕТАФРАСТ - Древо".

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

10th-century-births year-of-death-missing greek-religious-writers christian-hagiographers byzantine-saints-of-the-eastern-orthodox-church 10th-century-christian-saints 10th-century-byzantine-writers catholic-monks logothetes philokalia

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