The Boundless Motherly Embrace of the Akathist Hymn

The Boundless Motherly Embrace of the Akathist Hymn

April 16, 2021

By Elder Patapios of Kavsokalyva

In the liturgical life of our Church, the Fridays of Great Lent constitute an island of joy within the springtime and the preparation for Pascha, which makes everything good and beautiful appear attainable and within easy reach.

It is a Theometoric-centered path that leads us safely along the cross-and-resurrection journey toward Pascha.

The Akathist Hymn is yet another gift of the Panagia to humanity, but also to each one of us personally, within this heartfelt communion and atmosphere of this service.

With the Theotokos, the world was illumined again; it became new, renewed. It became our home. We are able to live, to be saved through her Son and our God.

We are able to partake of adoption, to become again children of God, and by position, children of the Ever-Virgin, whom the Lord Himself entrusted to us, through the Evangelist John the Evangelist, as the Mother of Christians.

In Theometoric literature, we find an endless meadow filled with flowers, with which the faith and piety of Christians crown her all-holy person and praise her most-hymned name, while at the same time asking for her supplication and intercession to Christ for His mercy and for the salvation of the soul.

The tenderness and protection of the Theotokos for the human race fill the faithful with gratitude and hope, who hasten to the countless churches dedicated to her grace, in order to venerate her wonderworking and grace-bearing holy icons, since in her we find "a refuge after God.”

Heaven is approached only through her maternal gaze.

The Panagia has the power to help us in all our problems because of her relationship with the Lord and her Son.

She is ready to hear every request that is for our benefit. And especially today, in the midst of the pandemic, which the Lord has permitted as a global, universal chastisement, for our repentance.

Let us entreat her, and we will surely not be disappointed.

Source: Dedicated to the memory of the most devout Hieromonk Chrysanthos Agiannannites († April 15, 2021). Translation by John Sanidopoulos.