In 1913 he left the Patriarchate (due to the very low wage of the position of Second Domestikos) to become Protopsaltis of the Church of St Dimitrios of Tatavla. Between 1925-33 he moved to Thessaloniki and chanted in various churches around Northern Greece creating a good reputation between psaltic circles and a wave of followers of his psaltic style. In 1933 he returned to Constantinople and chanted in various churches.

In 1938 he was invited to become Lambadarios of the Patriarchate since Archon First Domestikos Anastasios Michaelidis who was the expected successor of that position had rejected the offer due to its heavy requirements (according to Angelos Boudouris). In 1939 he became Protopsaltis (replacing the ill and old Iakovos Nafpliotis) and served as Protopsaltis of the Great Church until 1959 approximately. During these 20 years of his Protopsaltia he often visited churches in Constantinople and in Greece, invited to chant at their parish feasts. He became renowned for his majestic and hegemonic (as he used to call it) interpretation and superb voice qualities shown off in compositions written especially for such parish feasts which, as he used to say, were not meant to be chanted in the Patriarchal Church. He also taught Byzantine Music at the Theological School of Halki in the 50s.

For some psaltai today, Pringos is considered the last of the so-called "old Patriarchal school" and his death meant the end of an era of Byzantine Chant. Despite that, his recordings had been treasured privately by some psaltai and only recently did they become available to all by websites such as cmkon.org, analogion.com and by CD publications such as those of Georgios Konstantinou. With the generous offer of recordings by many people (especially Georgios Michalakis, Basil Stavropoulos, Vasili Zacharis and others) analogion.com was the first to present the complete (to our knowledge so far) series of recordings of Pringos and Iakovos Nafpliotis made in early 20th century in what were the first ever recordings of Byzantine Chant.

During his life Pringos published informally half of the Anastasimatarion and Holy Week in collaboration with Avraam Efthemiadis who actually wrote down the pieces (probably because Pringos was not good at orthography as attested by Boudouris). A few years after Pringos' death, his students published as single books his Anastasimatarion, Megale Evdomas (Holy Week) and his Mousike Kypsele (Doxastarion) in a book series titled "Patriarchike Forminx". A collection of Pringos' festal Liturgy compositions was included in a Liturgy book published under his name by his admirer laywer Andreas Papandreou in 1974 together with compositions from other psaltai. Pringos' compositions for the Liturgy have been criticised by many as being non-traditional and being influenced by external music. This is evident also by the choice of some non-ecclesiastical modes (maqams) that label such compositions like Sabah, Houzam, Kurdi etc. He himself did not want them to be published since, as he once said to Avraam Efthemiadis, "the classical old melodies of the Liturgy are irreplaceable" [ref. Prof. Alygizakis' book, pending].

Archon Domestikos Angelos Boudouris wrote some previously unpublished information about Pringos at the time of Iakovos Nafpliotis and later. Contains comments by Nikolaos Raidestinos (son of Georgios Raidestinos Protopsaltis of the Great Church) about Pringos [html]. Raidestinos claimed that Pringos was the last one who knew something about old traditional Byzantine chant. Nafpliotis thought the same, although both appear to have had reservations as to the future success of Pringos as Protopsaltis.

Other information about Pringos has been published in the book of Thrasyvoulos Stanitsas' biography published by Christos Tsiounis. For instance in that book it is mentioned that Pringos and Stanitsas did not get along very well although they both admired each other as psaltai. Stanitsas learnt a lot from Pringos as he himself says and as can be heard from his chanting. Stanitsas also said that Pringos was invited to chant the Doxastikon of Great Wednesday (Troparion of Kassiani) at other churches after the Patriarchate service. He added the following story: A friend of Stanitsas once asked him to go and listen to Pringos chanting the Troparion of "Kassiani" and Stanitsas said "don't go". However his friend went and when he saw Stanitsas again he confessed that he would like to go every year and listen to Pringos chanting that piece. Stanitsas explained that that was the reason why he "objected" to his friend going earlier. He knew that Pringos' interpretation was captivating and did not want to "lose" his friend.

Also according to Stanitsas (from the same book), Pringos used to pick exactly the same base note pitches for the various pieces without using a tuning fork.

The associations of psaltai of the Evros and Kalavryta regions of Greece have been named "Konstantinos Pringos" in his honour.

Pringos' musical books are used sporadically at the Ecumenical Patriarchate up to this day (when musical scores are used).

He was the first director of the newly founded choir of the Friends of Music of Constantinople in the late 40s (see photo from a relearsal below).

Pringos fought against the introduction of polyphony in the Greek Orthodox Church and he used to say that "people cannot pray with songs". He rejected the claim that the slow papadic pieces resemble "amane" (slow exhibitionist style of singing developed mainly in Asia Minor and Constantinople in early 20th century).

It is said that both Pringos and Stanitsas were taught many of the secrets of Patriarchal chanting and order by Anastastios "Sobatzis" Michaelidis who was then First Domestikos.

According to Avraam Efthemiadis, Pringos was not highly educated however he understood and felt what he was chanting to the point of being ecstatic while chanting. He used to chant with the same majesty from the beginning of the Orthros (Matins) until the end of the Liturgy. According to Christos Tsiounis, Pringos often liked to chant a kalophonikos heirmos at the end of the Liturgy, especially "Efrikse Ge" by Panagiotis Halatzoglou.

Pringos did not appear to have much theoretical knowledge about Byzantine Music. He was an empirical psaltis (as most Patriarchal psaltai as attested by Angelos Boudouris) however his practical knowledge and musical memory were so advanced that he preserved a lot of the traditional elements of chanting to the newer generations of psaltai. His vocal range, chronos, attacks and phrasing are superb. His intervals are great most of the time although shaky during the end of his life probably due to his age and illness. His pronnunciation and general style resembles a lot that of his teacher Iakovos Nafpliotis. He did not use isokratema in most of his recordings as far as we know. A study on Pringos' intervals using spectral analysis has been performed by Tasos Fotopoulos and can be found here [html] (oet.gr).

Pringos appears to have recorded three grammophone plaques in early 20th century. The plaques are mentioned in Panagiotis PAnagiotidis' book [reference pending] to be kept at the Aristotle University in Thessaloniki, Greece by the team of Prof. Antonios Alygizakis. There is no information as to what those plaques contain and when/if they are going to be published.

His chanting of kalophonikoi heirmoi is superb. He does not follow the music text note by note and he uses a loose tempo (free/eleutheros chronos). A very nice example is his recording of the kalophonikos heirmos "Pasan tin Elpidan Mou" of Petros Bereketis in Barys Mode. Elpidan Mou" published on tape by Athanasios Pettas.

Although Pringos (and Efthemiadis') analytic transcriptions of Patriarchal chanting were the first to become mainstream popular between modern psaltai they were not the first to be written. Former First Domestikos Angelos Boudouris had already written down analytically much of the Patriarchal repertoire of his time "as it was chanted in the Great Church" some 20 years before Pringos however his work remained relatively unknown until very recently.

Pringos was criticised by Angelos Boudouris as chanting to "show off" sometimes as well as for choosing a better wage instead of his Patriarchal education as Second Domestikos in 1913. When Pringos became Lambadarios he quickly dismissed his Second Domestikos (Prodromos Topaloglou) due to voice incompatibility and hired the then inexperienced Dimitrios Magouris. Boudouris (and Nafpliotis) did not approve of that action as it did not help Pringos get accustomed to the Patriarchal taxis. Soon after Pringos took over the Protopsaltia from Nafpliotis, Boudouris was quick to point out that such chanting does not have a place in the Patriarchal Church and criticised Pringos for having "innovative ideas" regarding the Psaltic Art which did not fit the conservative nature of Patriarchal psaltic roles. Pringos indeed deviated sometimes from the Patriarchal tradition when chanting around Greece in order to please his audience congregation but when asked why he didn't chant those pieces at the Patriarchate he always maintained that such pieces were only for the parish feasts and had no place at the Patriarchate. Despite such comments, the pieces became very popular between modern psaltai and started a trend that lead to secularised, exhibitionistic and western influenced chanting in the most sacred parts of the Divine Liturgy.

Probably the most well known Cheroubikon of Pringos is the so-called "Chorodiakon" (choral) Cheroubikon in Plagal First mode. The naming of the piece (aren't all papadic pieces choral?) and the composition itself (western influenced) are unfortunate. Pringos started a trend of uncontrolled innovation in the Liturgical pieces especially by Thessalonikian psaltai like Athanasios Karamanis, Harilaos Taliadoros and others.

From a related page of cmkon.org [htm] we quote the following about Pringos (translated by Dimitri Koubaroulis from the Greek passage below):

"In the introduction of his Mousike Kypsele, Konstantinos Pringos presents the Patriarchal style as "modest, simple and mystical" and that is was transmitted ear-by-ear by listening as he says on tape: "...because if I chant these things to you and you listen, you will be able to chant them like me in the future". And another time again: "... well done Mitso, you did great, you imitate me without having heard me, well done my son, it seems you have been born to be a psaltis". And another time he narrated the following incident: In one of his trips to Greece from Constantinople, after a Liturgy, the psaltai of that church gathered around him in the parish hall and were discussing with him about the Psaltic Art. He chanted a few pieces for them as he would often do. The protopsaltai and others in his audience asked him to hear them chant too in order to get his opinion. Indeed they chanted various pieces and in the end they all waited to hear the judgment of the great teacher who told them: "All of you guys, you have great voices, you know music, you chant in churches but you are not Psaltai. Why? Because you haven't listened." And to explain himself he would present the argument of a language and its accent which can only be learnt by ear".

"Ο δε Κωνσταντίνος Πρίγγος στον πρόλογο του της Μουσικής Κυψέλης, χαρακτηρίζει το ύφος το πατριαρχικό «σεμνό, απέριττο, μυστικοπαθές», και για την μετάδοσή του με την ακοή όμως λέγει στην απαθανατίζουσα την φωνή του κασσέτα ο ίδιος τα εξής: «... διότι σε σας αν τα πω και τ'ακούσετε, θα τα λέτε μεθαύριο σαν κι εμένα». Και άλλη φορά πάλι: «...μπράβο ρέ Μήτσο, ωραία τα κατάφερες μα εσύ με μιμείσαι χωρίς να με έχεις ακούσει , μπράβο παιδί μου, φαίνεται ότι είσαι γεννημένος για ψάλτης». Kαι άλλοτε πάλι μας διηγήθηκε ο ίδιος: Σ' ένα ταξίδι του στην Ελλάδα από την Κωνσταντινούπολη και μετά από μια Λειτουργία μαζεύτηκαν στο τέλος στην αίθουσα του ναoύ οι ψάλτες και συζητούσαν γύρω από την ψαλτική τέχνη. Όπως συνήθιζε, τους έψαλε μερικά μαθήματα. Οι ακροατές του Πρωτοψάλτες κ.λπ. του είπαν σε μια στιγμή vα ψάλλουν κι αυτοί, να τους ακούσει, για να τους πει τη γνώμη του. Πράγματι έψαλαν και αυτοί διάφορα μαθήματα και στο τέλος περίμεναν όλοι να ακούσουν τη γνώμη του Μεγάλου Δάσκαλου που τους είπε: «Βρε παιδιά, όλοι σας καλλίφωνοι είσθε, όλοι σας μουσικά ξέρετε, όλοι σας στις εκκλησίες ψάλλετε, αλλά Ψάλτες δεν είσθε. Γιατί; Γιατί δεν ΑΚΟΥΣΑΤΕ. Και για vα γίνει πιο αντιληπτός χρησιμοποιούσε την παρομοίωση μιας ξένης γλώσσας και της προφοράς της, που δε γράφεται και ούτε διαβάζεται, παρά μόνο με το ΑΥΤΙ αποκτάται."