The great canon of st. Andrew of Crete. Scriptural, liturgical and hesychastic invitation for an encounter with God

St. Andrew of Crete has been commonly acknowledged as the inventor of the canon, a new type of liturgical hymnody that replaced the sequence of nine Biblical Odes (òda...) chanted at the Orthros, the Morning Office1. These Biblical Canticles praise God for His work in history for our salvation. They appear throughout the Great Canon2. Initially, as Robert Taft suggested, these Biblical Odes, were used as a complete cycle at Matins. All nine canticles were chanted during the monastic office of agrypnia, celebrated on Saturday night vigil. Testimonies have been preserved that such a practice was known to John Moschos and Sophronios in the late sixth or early seventh century in Palestine and Sinai. Apart from that there are references that nine Biblical Odes were sung as a part of morning prayer in the cathedral rite3. Frederica MathewesGreen explains the invention of the canon in a very simple way: