In 451, the bishops assembled for the Council of Chalcedon sang a hymn, ‘Holy God, holy strong, holy immortal, have mercy upon us’. Tradition adds, St John Damascene tells us, that one September a few years before, angels had taught the hymn to a little child during an earthquake in Constantinople, and when everyone sang it the earthquake stopped.

The pedigree of the hymn, traced back by John Damascene not only to the Council and the stilling of the earthquake, but even to the vision of Isaiah, was such that he could not conceive how Peter of Antioch could have presumed to alter it so soon, and so clumsily. John vowed to sing the unadulterated version, come what may.

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