GIUSEPPE L'INNOGRAFO, saint. – Basilian monk, born in Syracuse in 816, died in Constantinople on 3 April 886. Having taken refuge in the Peloponnese to escape the Saracen invasion, he became a monk in Thessalonica (841), whence he went to Constantinople. He set out on a mission to Rome to the Pope, but was captured en route by pirates and carried to Crete; later, having been ransomed, he returned to Jerusalem, founded a monastery there (ca. 850), and composed his celebrated hymns there, which were received into the liturgy and earned him the sobriquet “the hymnographer” par excellence. He was exiled under Photius because he was a friend of the bishop St Ignazio (867); but upon the latter’s death he was able to return to the monastery and live with Photius in good harmony.
