the cathedral rite, the ritual context of the long kontakion was the pannychis during solemn occasions (a festive night vigil) and was usually celebrated at the Blachernae Chapel. Assumptions that kontakia replaced canon poetry or vice versa that the Stoudites replaced the kontakia with Hagiopolitan canon poetry, always remained controversial. The Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople established an own local school earlier (even if it is no longer present in the modern books), while the Stoudites embraced the genre kontakion with own new compositions. The only explanation is that different customs must have existed simultaneously, the truncated and the long kontakion, but also the ritual context of both customs. The truncated form consisted only of the first stanza called "koukoulion" (now referred to as "the kontakion") and the first oikos, while the other oikoi became omitted. Within the Orthros for the kontakion and oikos is after the sixth ode of the canon; however, if the typikon for the day calls for more than one kontakion at matins, the kontakion and oikos of the more significant feast is sung after the sixth ode, while those of the less significant feast are transferred to the place following the third ode, before the kathismata. Since the late 13th century, when the Court and the Patriarchate returned from exile in Nikaia, the former cathedral rite was not continued and thus, also the former celebration of kontakion changed. The only entire kontakion celebrated was the Akathist hymn. Its original place was within the menaion the feast of Annunciation (25 March). In later kontakaria and oikemataria which treated all 24 oikoi in a kalophonic way, the Akathist was written as part of the triodion, within the oikematarion the complete kontakion filled half the volume of the whole book. As such it could only be performed in short sections throughout Great Lent and became a kind of para-liturgical genre. In the modern practice it is reduced to heirmologic melos which allowed the celebration of the whole Akathist on the morning service of the fourth Sunday of Great Lent. This Akathist was traditionally ascribed to Romanos, but recent scholarship has disapproved it. In Slavic hymnography the so-called Akafist became a genre of its own which was dedicated to various saints; while not part of any prescribed service, these may be prayed as a devotional hymn at any time. The current practice treats the kontakion as a proper troparion,