Akathist

Akathistos means "not sitting." Orthodox services allow the tired to sit at certain points; this hymn announces by its very name that it is not one of them — it is sung by a Church on its feet, as before a queen. The name belonged first to one particular hymn, the Akathist to the Theotokos, and spread from it to the whole genre modeled on its shape.

The original is a masterpiece of construction. After an opening stanza, twenty-four stanzas follow the Greek alphabet from alpha to omega. They alternate: the longer ones unfold into a ladder of salutations — "Rejoice" upon "Rejoice," twelve in each — ending with the refrain "Rejoice, unwedded Bride!", while the shorter ones end simply "Alleluia!" The first half follows the Gospel story from the Annunciation through the shepherds, the Magi, and the meeting with Simeon; the second half contemplates the mystery itself — the Virgin as bridge, ladder, and defender. And all of it grows from a single seed: the archangel's greeting, "Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee" (Luke 1:28). The Akathist is Gabriel's one word of greeting multiplied more than a hundred times over.

The hymn's author is unknown — it has been credited to St. Romanos the Melodist, to Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople, and to others — and it likely dates from the fifth or sixth century. Its fame, though, is bound to a deliverance. In 626, with the emperor away at war, Constantinople was besieged by Avar and Persian forces; Patriarch Sergius carried the icon of the Theotokos in procession along the walls, and the city, against every expectation, was saved. The tradition tells that the people, refusing to sit all that night, sang this hymn standing in thanksgiving to the Mother of God — and that its famous opening stanza was added then: "Victorious leader of triumphant hosts, we your servants, delivered from evil, sing our grateful thanks to you, Theotokos! As you possess invincible might set us free from every calamity, so that we may sing: Rejoice, unwedded Bride!"

The Church still gives the hymn one fixed place in her year, in Great Lent. Greek practice sings it in four portions at the "Salutations" services of the first four Friday evenings and entire on the fifth; Slavic practice sings it whole at Matins of the fifth Saturday. Either way, that fifth Saturday is kept as the Saturday of the Akathist — a whole festal day built around a single hymn, something no other hymn in the calendar can claim.

The form proved too satisfying to leave alone — greeting after greeting, the refrain returning like surf — and later centuries filled it with new subjects: akathists to our sweet Lord Jesus, to the Cross, to great saints, for the departed, in thanksgiving. Among the best loved of the modern ones is the thanksgiving akathist "Glory to God for All Things," written in Russia in the years of persecution, its title taken from what tradition remembers as the dying words of St. John Chrysostom. Its existence makes the genre's quiet point: a hymn built for praising is usable in any circumstances whatsoever, including a labor camp.

Akathists live mostly outside the required services. They are sung in church at a molieben, but they need no priest and no building: one person with a booklet, standing if able, can pray a whole akathist at home, and for many Orthodox Christians this is where liturgical prayer first becomes personal prayer. The form carries you — the story unrolls, the refrain returns, the greetings accumulate — until the one praying discovers that praise, which seemed the hardest kind of prayer, has been made almost easy.