Kosmas of Maiouma

KOSMAS of Maiouma, St (The Hagiopolite, the Jerusalemite, the Melode, the Monk, the Poet). b. ca. 675; d. 752/754. He was born in the patriarchate of Jerusalem, probably in Jerusalem itself. According to later hagiography Kosmas lived as a monk at Saint Sabas, but according to recent research it is more likely that he served at the Resurrection Cathedral at Jerusalem. He was elected bishop of Maiouma in Phoenicia, ca. 743, at the age of nearly 70. Together with St John Damascene*, Kosmas was the principal figure in the creation of a new hymnodic corpus in Jerusalem from the 7th-8th century (the New Tropologion and the Octeochos, with the Heirmologion). Kosmas composed both text and melody,...