Question concerning the appelation Ἄρχων Πρωτοψάλτης

[tudorvolcano]

Could anyone explain to me what is the title Ἄρχων Πρωτοψάλτης?
I saw this title being used for multiple people, but with slightly different titles, like with Lykourgos Angelopoulos, who was never the protopsaltis in Constantinople.
It just seems to make no sense anymore when so many people are awarded this title outside of Constantinople, when the title, from what I knew, could only be awarded to one peson, the protopsaltis at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople.

Can someone tell me who is the actual Archon Protopsaltis at the Ecumenical Patriachate in Constantinople now?
Also, is the list of Archontes recorded, just like the list of Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople?

 

[Κωσταντής1]

Could anyone explain to me what is the title Ἄρχων Πρωτοψάλτης?
I saw this title being used for multiple people, but with slightly different titles, like with Lykourgos Angelopoulos, who was never the protopsaltis in Constantinople.
It just seems to make no sense anymore when so many people are awarded this title outside of Constantinople, when the title, from what I knew, could only be awarded to one peson, the protopsaltis at the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople.

Can someone tell me who is the actual Archon Protopsaltis at the Ecumenical Patriachate in Constantinople now?
Also, is the list of Archontes recorded, just like the list of Ecumenical Patriarchs of Constantinople?

Τhere are many discussions in the present forum concerning the meaning and the origin of this title (officium). A 13th-century-or-so source reproduced in many very well established compilations states expressively that the protopsaltes is a title replacing the domesticos ton psalton. Now the domesticus is a title widely used in Byzantium both for ecclesiastic and secular offices covering a broad range from household servant (domus, house> domesticus, of the house) to leader of an administrative group, even the whole army! Perhaps in an older arrangement the domestikos ton psalton was the cantor affiliated to a specific church while there were others that moved from chuch to church and were subordinated to the domesticus of each one, every time. Thus the transition from domesticos ton psalton to protopsaltes would express the social fact of each church having its own psaltis.