The Oxford Interfaith Forum is deeply honoured to welcome Professor George E. Demacopoulos, Fr. John Meyendorff & Patterson Family Chair of Orthodox Christian Studies and Professor of Theology at Fordham University, USA, to lead a session of the Eastern Christianity in Interfaith Contexts Reading Group.

The oldest surviving Christian hymns designed exclusively for Holy Week are a set known as the Idiomele.  They were composed by monks in Palestine during the reign of the Roman emperor Justinian.  In the modern Orthodox Church, these twelve hymns are sung during the Royal Hours service of Good Friday morning.  The final and most famous of these hymns is sung during two additional services (Holy Thursday evening and the Apokatalypsis service on Friday afternoon). Apart from their antiquity, the most noteworthy feature of these hymns is they were the first to blame “the Jews” for the death of Christ.  My goals with this paper are four-fold.  First, I will demonstrate that the presentation of the Jews in the Idiomele constituted a dramatic change from earlier hymns that reflected on the crucifixion of Christ.  Second, I will argue that this change represents more than a mere rhetorical or apologetical shift, but constitutes a profound theological shift.  Third, I will demonstrate that this change was precipitated by an explosion of Jewish/Christian violence at the time of composition and that these hymns likely reflect a form of anti-Jewish revenge literature.  Finally, I will suggest that the Idiomele have been unwittingly preserved down to the present day by a series of individuals and institutions that presumably knew nothing of the origins of their composition and who have been either incapable or unwilling to address their theological incoherence. 

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