From the Prologue of Ochrid
By origin from the Syrian city of Emesa. He served as a church sacristan first in Beirut and then in Constantinople at the cathedral church in the time of Patriarch Euthymius (490-504). He was unlettered and unskilled in chanting, for which certain learned clerics mocked him. Saint Romanos tearfully prayed to the Most Holy Theotokos, and she appeared to him in a dream, offered him a scroll of paper (called a kontakion), and told him to swallow it. The next day dawned as the Feast of the Nativity of Christ, and Romanos went up to the ambo and with an angelic voice sang: "Today the Virgin gives birth to Him." All were amazed both at the content of this hymn and the voice of the singer. Having received from the Theotokos the gift of hymnody, Romanos composed over one thousand kontakia. As a deacon of the Great Church, he reposed in the year 510 in Constantinople and was translated to the angelic choirs.
