A canonarch is a lead

cantor A cantor or chanter is a person who leads people in singing or sometimes in prayer. In formal Jewish worship, a cantor is a person who sings solo verses or passages to which the choir or congregation responds. In Judaism, a cantor sings and lead ...

, or

reader A reader is a person who reads. It may also refer to: Computing and technology * Adobe Reader (now Adobe Acrobat), a PDF reader * Bible Reader for Palm, a discontinued PDA application * A card reader, for extracting data from various forms of ...

, in

Eastern Christian Eastern Christianity comprises Christian traditions and church families that originally developed during classical and late antiquity in Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Northeast Africa, the Fertile Crescent and ...

churches of the

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinopl ...

tradition. The canonarch ensures that other readers chant from the correct texts and use the proper tones. The canonarch preserves the canonical order in the liturgical services through proper use of the

Typicon A typikon (or ''typicon'', ''typica''; gr, , "that of the prescribed form"; Slavonic: Тvпико́нъ ''Typikonə'' or Оуставъ, ''ustavə'') is a liturgical book which contains instructions about the order of the Byzantine Rite off ...

. The canonarch also reads the verses of the

prokeimenon In the liturgical practice of the Orthodox Church and Byzantine Rite, a prokeimenon (Greek , plural ; sometimes /; lit. 'that which precedes') is a psalm or canticle refrain sung responsorially at certain specified points of the Divine Liturgy or ...

and related texts. In some churches many of the duties of the canonarch are assumed by

deacon A deacon is a member of the diaconate, an office in Christian churches that is generally associated with service of some kind, but which varies among theological and denominational traditions. Major Christian churches, such as the Catholic Churc ...

, such as chanting the verses of ''

Theos Kyrios ''Theos Kyrios'' (Greek: Θεὸς Κύριος, "God is the Lord", or "The Lord is God") is a psalm response chanted near the beginning of the Matins service in the Rite of Constantinople, observed by the Eastern Orthodox and Byzantine Catholic ...

''.

References

* Parry, Ken et al., editors. ''The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity''. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2001, p. 111. * Simmons, Nikita
Troparia, Sessional Hymns and Kontakia in the East-Slavic Singing Traditions
Synaxis.info, retrieved June 2007. * Hieromonk Cassian
The responsibilities of the canonarch
Orthodox Christian Information Center online, retrieved June 2007. {{orientalOrthodoxy-stub Ecclesiastical titles Byzantine Rite