Cherubikon (the Cherubic Hymn)

The story

The Cherubikon, or Cherubic Hymn, is sung at the Great Entrance of the Byzantine liturgy, the procession in which the gifts of bread and wine are carried to the altar. It was added to the Divine Liturgy under Emperor Justin II (565–578), when the room where the gifts were prepared had been separated from the room where they were consecrated. The second part of the service, from which the unbaptised were excluded, now had to begin with a procession from the prothesis, a room north of the central apse, through the altar screen into the sanctuary, and the hymn was sung to cover that long way. Its idea was older: at the end of the 4th century John Chrysostom had already described the chant of the liturgy as joining the congregation to the eternal choirs of angels. The hymn draws those present into the presence of the angels gathered around God's throne.

In the cathedral rite of the Hagia Sophia there was a single melody, in the E mode, preserved in the choir books (asmatika) and complete in books of the 14th and 15th centuries. The leader of the right choir, the domestikos, sang an intonation and ornamented passages on wordless syllables, the choir sang the opening, and a soloist, the monophonaris, sang the rest from the ambo before a long final alleluia. A 14th-century manuscript now in Messina pairs it with acclamations for King Frederick II of Sicily. A shorter version was sung at the imperial court of Constantinople in the 14th century, and a longer elaboration of it is attributed to John Koukouzeles. Because so many Byzantine music manuscripts were destroyed, especially after Western crusaders drove the cathedral rite out of Constantinople in 1204, notated Greek sources survive only from the late 12th century on.

The oldest notated sources are therefore Western. In the Carolingian world the hymn was the prototype of the Latin chant genre offertorium. A "Missa greca" sung at Pentecost survives in a sacramentary written for canonesses at Essen, with the Greek words in Latin letters and early neumes, and the Royal Abbey of Saint-Denis sang the hymn in Greek and in Latin at Pentecost and in its patron's festal week, after Saint Denis had become identified with Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.

On some days other hymns, the "anti-cherubika", take its place: on Holy Thursday a hymn of the Mystical Supper, at the Liturgy of the Presanctified another, and on Holy Saturday "Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence" from the Liturgy of St James. Cantors have also composed cycles of the hymn in the eight modes; one of the earliest is by Manuel Chrysaphes, written in 1458, and the chief cantors of the Patriarchate of Constantinople are still expected to add their own. Printed editions give a short version for weekdays, a longer one for Sundays and an elaborate one for feasts when a bishop or abbot joins the procession. It is sung today in Greek and in Old Church Slavonic, Georgian, Romanian and other languages.

What it says

The congregation is likened to the cherubim who sing the thrice-holy hymn before God, and is called to lay aside the cares of the world in order to receive the King of all, who comes escorted unseen by the hosts of angels. It closes with alleluias. The mood is slow, solemn and mystical, sung as the procession moves.

The words

The words of this song are in the public domain, but no free, reliable edition of them has been found yet to import them from, and the Institute never types a song’s words from memory. “What it says” above tells what they are about.