Saint Neilos
Saint Neilos
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Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus
About Saint Neilos
Saint Neilos of Rossano, also known as Nilus the Younger or Neilos the New, was an Italo-Greek monk, abbot, and founder of the Greek monastery of Grottaferrata near Rome. Born in Calabria c. 905-10 at Rossano and dead on 29 December 1005 near Rome, and formed within the Byzantine Christian culture of southern Italy, he became one of the defining figures of Italo-Greek monasticism at the turn of the first millennium. His musical importance lies in hymnography rather than in named melodic composition. On Cappella Romana’s Byzantium in Rome: Medieval Byzantine Chant from Grottaferrata, Neilos is credited as the author of texts for Benedict-related chant: Ode 1 of the Kanon for St Benedict, Ode 9 of the Kanon for St Benedict, and Three stichera prosomoia for St Benedict. The melodies are transmitted separately in medieval Byzantine chant manuscripts, including Grottaferrata and Vatopedi sources. Neilos’ presence on the recording is therefore double: he is both a saint honoured by later chant and a hymnographic author whose words entered the medieval Greek liturgical repertory of Italy. His legacy belongs to the borderland where Greek and Latin Christian cultures met, and where monastic poetry, manuscript transmission, and chant preserved the memory of Byzantine Italy long after its political world had changed. Discography note: the principal modern recording located is Cappella Romana’s Byzantium in Rome: Medieval Byzantine Chant from Grottaferrata, directed by Ioannis Arvanitis and Alexander Lingas, which includes the Neilos-texted Benedict chants and the Kontakion for St Neilos of Grottaferrata.
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