By Eleutherios Andronis
The Akathist Hymn is the poetic masterpiece chanted in our churches during the 5th week of Lent, as a seal of all the weekly services of the Salutations.
This glorious hymn has the uniqueness of combining the faith and history of the Roman people. It has Byzantium and Orthodoxy as its common roots, as it began to be chanted in the mid-7th century, when, during the reign of Heraclius, Constantinople was saved from the great siege of the Avars. A salvation that tradition attributed to the miraculous interventions of the Panagia and the spirited reaction of the Christians, after Patriarch Sergius blessed the walls of the Queen City with the icon of the Panagia of Blachernae and prayed to the Champion General to save the City.
The Akathist Hymn is a glorious garden, full of theological flowers that exude the fragrance of consolation and salvation. It is not entirely certain who wrote this exquisite hymn, but most scholars attribute its original form to Romanos the Melodist, and it is not excluded that some additions were made later. It consists of 24 Oikoi (stanzas) and each of them begins with the corresponding letter of the Greek alphabet. 12 Oikoi end with “Rejoice, Bride Unwedded” and the other 12 with “Alleluia”. It is an encomiastic and thanksgiving Hymn with absolute symmetry in its composition.
Each ode to the Theotokos is a poetic ornament, which in an enlightened way manages to grasp her greatness. Panagia the “heavenly ladder”, the “everlasting shoot”, the “harbor of souls”, “the gateway to Paradise”, the “dawn of a mystical day”, the “fruitful tree”, the “stone that waters those who thirst for life”.
Each verse is a reflection of the heart that remains ecstatic with the love of the Panagia. It is a chain of unbreakable links, from ancient Byzantine times to our days. A living connection with our ancestors, in an indivisible, deep and essential way, something that only the Church can achieve in our nihilistic era. This is also a strong argument that our hymnology cannot accommodate “modernizations”. The exact words that were heard with tears of thanksgiving 14 centuries ago in the Holy Sophia of God, are heard every day of Lent in every church and every place.
Imagine how much this gem, the Akathist Hymn, would be degraded in a modern Greek performance and how much its lyricism, its poetic symmetry, its acoustic harmony and its elegance would be dulled. It is an unattainable work of art that the world should immerse itself in its meanings, and not be reduced to the world's standards.
The "difficult language" that supposedly "the young cannot understand" is a cunning pretext that is either said to justify our spiritual laziness, or is used for the purpose of altering our Faith.
The Akathist Hymn, but also the entire hymnography of the Church, is understood first with the heart and then with the mind. The believer’s relationship with the hymns is above all experiential. That is why in the past you would see uneducated old women understanding all the sacred writings, and what they did not understand they felt with their hearts. Thank God, nowadays there are infinite sources of translations for every well-intentioned person who wants to delve into the high meanings of the Akathist Hymn. So there are no more excuses.
And only the infinite miracles that have been performed with the help of the Salutations are enough to constantly proclaim the meanings of each verse and each glorification of the Panagia. Every blessed Christian can become a God-bearing preacher who transmits the amazing power of the Salutations to the Theotokos. All the Saints, whether modern or ancient, extol their value as an irresistible weapon; a Byzantine weapon that has not been defeated, has not been enslaved and will never lose its power.
In every darkness of every era, the Salutations to the Panagia are the “light-bearing lamp” that dispels gloominess and warms our souls with heavenly fairy tales.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.