Byzantium and the Panagia (Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Mani)

Byzantium and the Panagia

Homily of His Eminence the Metropolitan of Mani, Chrysostomos III

Delivered during the Fourth Salutations (5 April 2019) at Saint Demetrios of Mystras

We find ourselves, by the honorable invitation and blessing of His Eminence the Metropolitan of Monemvasia and Sparta, Eustathios, in Mystras, the capital of the Byzantine Despotate during the 14th and 15th centuries, just a few kilometers east of the historic city of Sparta.

And although Mystras is called a “dead city” because it is no longer inhabited, nevertheless it is a living city of the wonders of God.

It is, of course, connected with the dissolution of the Byzantine Empire by the Fourth Crusade (1204), after which it became a most important spiritual center of the late Byzantine period. Many rulers — the Kantakouzenoi and the Palaiologoi — governed and were active in the Despotate. Many scholars, artists, and spiritual men also left their mark.

The most important treasure in Mystras, however — a monument of world civilization — is its holy churches: Peribleptos, Pantanassa, Hagia Sophia, the Holy Theodoroi, and Hodegetria, magnificent churches, the Evangelistria, and the Metropolis - Saint Demetrios. It is Saint Demetrios, the holy church where we are tonight, on this most sacred night, celebrating the Service of the Salutations, specifically the Fourth Stasis of the Akathist Hymn. A wonderful Byzantine church, where, indeed, Constantine Palaiologos was crowned emperor. Behold, we see and recall in the center of the church the marble slab with the double-headed eagle.

Here, then, is imprinted history — the history of the Byzantine times, our own history, for Byzantium is also the history of our people.

At times we forget Byzantium, those great centuries, and we make the mistake of leaping from ancient Greece directly to modern times. Yet Byzantium possesses a wealth of heroism, philanthropy, learning, art, great personalities — a whole world of the spirit. And we, the modern Greeks, ought not to sever our roots, but to study this Byzantine world. If Byzantine studies and research are exceptional and highly developed abroad — in university centers in Europe and America — how much more ought we, the natural heirs, to immerse ourselves in the treasure of Byzantium.

However, tonight, since we have chanted with such sacred compunction and reverence the Salutations to our Panagia, it is worth pausing on the theme: Byzantium and the Panagia. What, then, does the Lady Theotokos, the one who is Full of Grace, the one who “received the Rejoice,” our Panagia, have to say to us?

It is a fact that the Panagia was closely connected with Byzantium.

Already with the Third Ecumenical Synod, which was convened in Ephesus, “we confess the holy Virgin as Theotokos, because God the Word was incarnate and became man, and from the very conception united to Himself the temple taken from her.” Together with the term “Theotokos,” we also ascribe to the Mother of the Lord her ever-virginity.

Then, under Emperor Leo I (5th century), we have the translation of the Honorable Garment (the Maphorion) of the Panagia and its deposition in the church at Blachernae, while later, in the 8th century, we have the deposition of the Honorable Zoni of the Panagia in the church of the Chalkoprateia.

In Byzantine times, the feasts of the Theotokos were established — the Annunciation, the Dormition of the Theotokos, and others — and the sacred hymnographer Romanos the Melodist already in the 6th century composed kontakia and hymns to the Theotokos.

In the 7th century, Byzantium gives us the Akathist Hymn, this great supplication and prayer of the Church to the Most Holy Theotokos. The “Champion General” defeated the enemies and saved the City, and the Akathist Hymn — with its rare words, beautiful expressions, images, rhymes, alliterations, and titles — and as it was chanted standing in the Church of the Blachernae, so from that time it elevates the faithful to heavenly realities; and the kontakion “To you the Champion General” becomes the wonderful hymn of doxology and thanksgiving to the Theotokos.

The devotion and honor toward the Panagia in Byzantine times are manifested by the many churches and monasteries dedicated to her, but also by her depiction on imperial lead seals, patriarchal seals, rings, and coins. It is also characteristic that in illustrated manuscripts many patristic homilies refer to the Theotokos, the Lady of the world, who ministered the great mystery of our salvation.

And how could we not also refer to Byzantine art? Sacred feelings, theological thought, reverence, prayer, and faith led great iconographers-artists to depict the all-holy person of the Panagia in icons and mosaics. Many are the icons of the Panagia in Byzantine times. Among the most prominent are the Panagia Hodegetria, the Panagia “who Contained the Uncontainable,” the Pammakaristos, and the Deesis in the Church of Hagia Sophia in the Queen of Cities, but also the Panagia in the inner narthex between Emperors Constantine and Justinian, and in the southern gallery between John Komnenos and Irene — these magnificent mosaics, with the foremost being the apse mosaic of the enthroned Theotokos, “the living throne of the Pantokrator,” the most ancient mosaic.

However, our Mother Panagia wept at the fall of Constantinople, the ever-royal Queen of cities. She was grieved and wept.

But let us consider: does not our Panagia also weep and grieve today, when we, her children, sin? Does she not weep when we depart from her Son, Christ, and when we disobey His divine commandments? What did she say to the Archangel Gabriel when he visited her in Nazareth? “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word.” Faith, humility, and obedience to the divine will — these three great virtues are expressed in these words of the Panagia.

Therefore, tonight, all of us pilgrims in these sacred lands, who have come from all over Greece here to Byzantine Mystras, to the Metropolis of Mystras, I feel that we ought to “bow the knee of the heart” in obedience before our Panagia. Yes, let us kneel with reverence and holy awe.

She is tearful for us, but also supplicating her Son, Jesus Christ, on our behalf.

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.