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Prayer — Eastern Christian

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Ἀκάθιστος Ὕμνος

Akathist Hymn to the Most Holy Mother of God

Constantinople, c. 626 AD

The great hymn of the Eastern Church to the Theotokos — sung standing on the Saturday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent, composed in 7th-century Constantinople.

The Prayer
English (Kontakion 1 and Oikos 1) · Original
To Thee, the Champion Leader,
we Thy servants dedicate a feast of victory and of thanksgiving,
as ones rescued out of sufferings, O Theotokos:
but as Thou art one with might which is invincible,
from all dangers that can be do Thou deliver us,
that we may cry to Thee:
Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

An Archangel was sent from Heaven
to say to the Theotokos: Rejoice!
And beholding Thee, O Lord, taking bodily form,
he was amazed and with his bodiless voice he stood crying to Her such things as these:

Rejoice, Thou through whom joy will flash forth!
Rejoice, Thou through whom the curse will cease!
Rejoice, recall of fallen Adam!
Rejoice, redemption of the tears of Eve!
Rejoice, height hard to climb for human thought!
Rejoice, depth difficult to contemplate even for the eyes of angels!
Rejoice, Thou who art the throne of the King!
Rejoice, Thou who bearest Him who beareth all!
Rejoice, star that causest the Sun to appear!
Rejoice, womb of the divine Incarnation!
Rejoice, Thou through whom creation is renewed!
Rejoice, Thou through whom the Creator becometh a babe!

Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded!

(The Akathist continues for twenty-four such stanzas, traversing the Annunciation, the visit to Elizabeth, the birth of Christ, the flight into Egypt, the presentation in the Temple, and the salvation of the world. The full hymn is sung standing.)
When the Prayer is Said

Saturday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent in the Eastern Churches; in many Eastern monasteries every Friday evening; in Marian shrines and pilgrimages.

History & Background

On August 7, 626 AD, the city of Constantinople was besieged by a combined Avar–Persian–Slav army of 80,000. The Emperor Heraclius was away on campaign; the city was defended only by the Patriarch Sergius and a remnant population. Sergius led an all-night procession around the walls carrying an icon of the Theotokos; at dawn the besieging fleet was destroyed by a storm and the army withdrew. The Akathist was sung the next morning in thanksgiving in the Church of the Theotokos at Blachernae.

The name 'Akathist' means 'not seated' in Greek — the faithful sang the hymn standing throughout, as they did during the all-night vigil that saved the city. The hymn is composed of 24 stanzas (kontakia and oikoi) arranged as an alphabetic acrostic from alpha to omega, each oikos ending in 'Rejoice, O Bride Unwedded.'

The Akathist has been adopted by virtually every Christian tradition: by the Eastern Orthodox Churches as part of the Lenten Triodion (sung on the Saturday of the Fifth Week of Great Lent); by the Eastern Catholic Churches in the same place; and increasingly in the Latin Church under the influence of John Paul II, who introduced its use into the Roman liturgy of Marian feasts during his pontificate.

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