About the book: year / Joseph the Songwriter (?—883) - Christian saint. Born and raised in Sicily, then entered the Thessalonica Monastery, where he plunged into the strictest asceticism. Ordained a presbyter, he moved to Constantinople. The Byzantine Emperor Leo the Armenian, an iconoclast, persecuted him and imprisoned him. Having received freedom, Joseph set up a monastery at the Temple of Chrysostom, but was again deprived of his freedom by Emperor Theophan and exiled to Chersonesos. Returned from there by Empress Theodora, he was appointed skeuophilax of the patriarchal see. Patriarch Photius called him “father of fathers”, “angel of God” and made him the confessor of the entire Constantinople clergy. Gifted with poetic talent and imbued with religious animation, Joseph devoted all his activities to the composition of liturgical chants, in particularly the canons. The Acta Sanctorum (April 4) says that he compiled up to 300 canons - more than any other church hymn writer. Not all of his creations are known in print or even in manuscripts. The best of them are the penitential canons.