"Избави ме од нечистоте дела мојих..."
"Deliver Me From the Impurity of My Works..."

Summary/Abstract: Romanos the Melodist, the greatest poet of Eastern Church, inspired by metric forms of Syrian spiritual literature created the most perfect Byzantine poetic genre – a Kontakion. This is a highly complex literary form which belongs to tonal and syllabic versification, with a distinctive metric scheme. A Kontakion is characterized by vivid description of biblical events, with plenty of extremely dramatized situations and well-developed monologues and dialogues. The parts which depict human character, passions and suffering are particularly impressive. However, the implications and messages of a Kontakion are not dark, but optimistic, owing to the fact that they are oriented towards human salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance and hope for forgiveness. Romanos the Melodist’s hymns possess deep inner duality and apart from inspiring and motivating, they clarify, interpret and teach. As a knowledgeable and skillful interpreter of Holy Scripture, he gives an excellent exegesis through his heroes’ lines. The translated and analyzed Kontakion in this writing is one of the most successful and poetic Roman’s Kontakia. It is a masterpiece in respect of perfect metric units with a refrain and regular rhyme.

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