Biography
Theophanes Protothronos was a ninth-century Byzantine churchman and hymnographer associated with Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he served as metropolitan in the later 800s. His epithet Protothronos reflects the traditional senior rank of the Caesarean see within the Byzantine ecclesiastical hierarchy.
Before entering episcopal office, he is reported in modern scholarship to have held a senior administrative position at the imperial court in Constantinople. His surviving musical legacy is small but securely attested: he is credited with several stichera idiomela for the liturgy of Great and Holy Friday, including Πᾶσα ἡ Κτίσις (“All creation was changed”) and Λαὸς δυσσεβὴς καὶ παράνομος (“Impious and lawless people”), preserved through medieval chant traditions associated with Jerusalem. A further hymn, Πάλιν Ἰησοῦς, is attributed to him in an Athonite heirmologion manuscript.
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Theophanes Protothronos should not be confused with later churchmen of the same name. His reputation today rests on these few, intensely expressive hymns, which remain part of the living performance tradition of medieval Byzantine chant.
Biography text from Last.fm, available under CC BY-SA.