AVETIKH of Ezinghà (Jernglatzi). — Also called Kešis Okù, a dissident Armenian patriarch of Constantinople. Born in Tokat (vilayet of Sivas, in Asia Minor) in 1637; he was appointed hegumen of St James of Nisibis and bishop of Erzingan in 1690. In 1701 he went to Constantinople as vicar of the Armenian patriarch Efrem, eventually replacing him in the see and initiating a policy of harassment against his own clergy and against Catholics. However, in the summer of 1703, after the execution of his protector the mufti and the accession of Sultan Ahmet II, A. was captured and imprisoned for over a year; then, thanks to the intrigues of his partisans, he regained the patriarchal see. Deposed a second time, he was eventually sent to France by the French ambassador Ferriol. There he was confined in the Bastille and later released after making his profession of faith before the Archbishop of Paris. He died on 21 July 1711.
« AVE VERUM CORPUS NATUM ». One of the most famous medieval episcopal salutations of the Eucharist. It appears in manuscripts from the fourteenth century onwards and has sometimes been attributed to Pope Innocent VI (†1352-62). Originally it was one of many devotional compositions used privately for the Elevation (v.) of the Host (in *elevatione Corporis Christi*), and as such it spread widely in France, Germany and England.
This “rhythm” is sometimes called an *antiphon*, but more often an *oratio*. Closely related to the *Adoro te devote* (v.), though much more frequently used, it was in some places at the end of the Middle Ages also considered a liturgical chant. Dom Guéranger, observing that the brief poem was reserved for the moment of Elevation and that in various, indeed some of the best, manuscripts it concludes with the words *In excelsis*—the final words of the *Sanctus*—believes that the *Ave verum* is a trope (v.) which would have been joined, completing it, to the Trisagion.
It consists of lines regulated not by classical quantitative metre but by accentual rhythm: the feet arranged in catalectic trochaic tetrameters, corresponding to the Italian double octonary, with the second octonary truncated:
*Ave verum Corpus natum*
*De Maria Virgine.*
With constant alternating rhyme, the catalectic dimeters (the first, plain part of the double octonary) end in *-atum*; the catalectic ones (the second, truncated part of the double octonary) in *-ine*. The Gregorian melody rightly groups them into two strophes, each of two octopodies or tetrameters.
This rhythm of trochees—the same as in the famous *Pervigilium Veneris*—is gracefully replaced at the end by
*O Jesu dulcis,*
*O Jesu pie,*
*O Jesu fili Mariae!*
In some manuscripts this invocation is even shorter:
*O dulcis, o pie,*
*O Jesu, fili Mariae!*
closely recalling the ending of the *Salve Regina*; perhaps, in its simplicity, composed of only two rhyming lines, it represents the most authentic form. The musical setting by T. L. da Vittoria (†1564-1637) ends:
*O clemens, o pie*
*O Jesu, Fili Dei et Mariae!*
Other principal textual variants are: 1) *Unda fluxit et sanguine*, a more elegant reading than *Fluxit aqua et sanguine*; but the text with *aqua* is closer to the Gospel narrative (Jn 19:34); 2) instead of *Mortis in examine*, various manuscripts have *In mortis examine*, a reading almost equally good for the metre.
The theological thought of the composition is dense: three strong assertions of the reality of the Lord’s Body present (that born of the Virgin, immolated on the cross, pierced mercilessly) are followed by the soul’s trembling prayer in view of death: *Esto nobis praegustatum – Mortis in examine*. Perhaps the need for rhyme suggested the expression *in examine*, which more probably means “at the moment of death.”
In music it is considered a Eucharistic motet. Besides the very ancient Gregorian melody in the sixth mode, and the polyphonic setting by da Vittoria for four voices, celebrated compositions include those by Viadana for four voices (2 tenors and 2 basses), by Josquin des Prés for two and three voices, and especially those by Mozart for four voices, and by Schubert, Gounod and Martini. Among the doubtful works of Palestrina, Haberl published two *Ave verum* settings, one for four voices (vol. XXXI) and another, as a diminution of a madrigal, for two voices (vol. XXXIII).