DEDICATION - "Sedentary Hymn": On this day, 1400 years ago, the first psalm of the divine prayer of the Churchtranslated

One thousand four hundred years are exactly completed today from the day when with emotion in the eyes and gratitude to the Mother of God - for the deliverance from the sufferings caused by the siege of the Persians and the Avars against the Queen of the Cities - the upright chanting of the Akathistos Hymn was heard for the first time during the Holy Vigil held at the Panagia of Blacherna.  From the evening of August 7, 626 and since then the "Akathistos Hymn", this brilliant masterpiece of ecclesiastical poetry, an incomparable monument of the Greek language and an art of God-breathed Theology, became the most popular hymn of our liturgical life, "the sweet delight of Christians", as noted in the Patriarchal and Synodical Circular commemorating the 1,400 year anniversary issued last March.

"But the "Akathistos Ὕmnos" is always a divine prayer of the Church! Voice of the devout Christian heart!" , is underlined in the Patriarchal and Synodal Encyclical.

The historic Church of Blacherna, where, according to tradition, a weekly Holy Vigil was held in honor of Theomitoros, often with the Imperial presence, on the night of August 7, 626,...