Kassia

Born in ninth-century Constantinople, Kassia the Nun was a precocious scholar, defender of icons, abbess, poet, and composer. She is the preeminent woman hymnographer in the Byzantine tradition. Her hymns—composed three centuries before Hildegard—still resound in Orthodox worship today, her voice especially echoing through Lent and Holy Week.

Her most famous work, popularly known as “The Hymn of Kassianí,” is a hauntingly beautiful lament by the anonymous woman who anointed Jesus’s feet before his crucifixion. Startlingly direct and deeply emotional, it has inspired countless settings over the centuries, which can last more than four times as long as the medieval melody.

Her odes for Holy Saturday extol Christ’s descent into hell, and the liberation of captive souls; these hymns were later suppressed in favor of texts by male poets, and are restored here by Cappella Romana.

Discover Kassia’s medieval melodies as she herself sang them—before centuries of tradition shaped them into the versions Orthodox faithful know today.