Protection
of the Theotokos
(October 1st)
from the website of
the
Melkite Catholic Eparchy of Newton
In 1917 the
John Rylands University Library in Manchester, England, acquired a third-century papyrus fragment of great historic interest.
It contained the earliest known copy of a hymn to the Theotokos. The verse,
still used in the liturgies of all the historic Churches, reads as follows: “Beneath
your protection, we take refuge, O Theotokos. Do not despise our petitions
in times of trouble, but rescue us from dangers, only pure, only blessed one.”
This hymn shows that, from as early as the 200s, Christians have
looked on the Holy Virgin as their protectress. Our liturgical year
includes feasts celebrating the city of Constantinople’s reliance on the Theotokos to protect it.
Today’s feast is the most iconic of these commemorations.
In the mid-fifth century, the emperors thought to enhance the city’s role as the Christian capital
by collecting many relics from near and far. The patriarch of Jerusalem
sent the holy mantle and robe of the Theotokos to the capital. A great church
was built at Blachernae on the shore of the Bosphorus in honor of the Holy Virgin with an adjoining shrine, the Hagia Soros
(Holy Mausoleum) in which the mantle and robe, as well as relics of other saints, were enshrined.
The church at Blachernae became known for the numerous healings and other miracles
associated with the church’s principal icon of the Theotokos, the Panagia of Blachernae.
This icon was frequently taken in procession around the city asking for the protection of the Virgin.
Such a procession was held in 625 when the Avars, from the northern Caucuses, were besieging the city.
Their fleet was sunk and, seeing this as divine intervention, the Avars fled.
The Christians of Constantinople saw this as a sign of the Virgin’s protection.
The kontakion of the Akathist Hymn, which we know as “We your servants” (originally, “I your city”)
was composed to celebrate this victory.
During the latter
years of the first millennium, Constantinople suffered a series of assaults from hostile powers.
When Persians besieged Constantinople in 677 and Muslim Arabs did the same in
717, people turned to the Virgin for protection. Both invasions were
repulsed, and the Virgin was praised for her protection. Orthodox Christians sought the Virgin’s protection over the Church during the era of iconoclasm. Every Friday an all-night vigil was celebrated before the Panagia of Blachernae. When all sacred images were finally removed from the church, the icon disappeared. It was reputedly found hidden behind a wall during renovations in 1038.
In the 830s, the Viking-Slavic peoples of Kievan Rus’ began migrating south. When the Rus’ began raiding settlements on the Black Sea it was inevitable
that their forces would come to the gates of Constantinople.
In 860 a fleet of over 200 ships from Rus’ entered the harbor of Constantinople
where they made a show of force before the city. On June 18th, the inhabitants
gathered with the emperor and patriarch, Saint Photios the Great, in an all-night vigil at the Church of the Mother of God
of Blachernae, near the shore, imploring her to protect the city. Saint
Photios took the robe in procession to the harbor, dipped it into the sea and then took it through the streets to Hagia Sophia. By June 25, the Rus’ began to withdraw from the harbor and entered into
a treaty with the empire which led to the eventual Christianization of Rus’ in the next century. Saint Photios attributed
the city’s deliverance to the “Never-failing Protectress of Christians.”
On July 2nd, the robe was returned
to Blachernae in celebration, an event still commemorated in our Church every July 2nd.
The memory
of these events, as well as the presence of the Virgin’s robe, made the Blachernae church the most popular shrine to
the Theotokos in the imperial capital. It would become even more renowned
with the event of October 1, 911.
It was a Sunday,
and the all-night vigil was being served in the church at Blachernae. Among
those present was Saint Andrew, a Fool-for-Christ, a Slav who had been captured during a military incursion and sold as a
slave. His mother saw to it that Andrew learned to read and the young man
became attached to the Church and its worship. He was inspired to adopt the
ascesis of madness during the day, but pray all night.
During the
vigil, sometime after 3 a.m., we are told in the Synaxarion that Saint Andrew “lifted up his eyes towards the heavens
and beheld our Most Holy Lady Theotokos coming through the air, resplendent with heavenly light and surrounded by an assembly
of the Saints. Saint John the Baptist and the Holy Apostle John the Theologian
accompanied the Queen of Heaven. On bended knees, the Most Holy Virgin tearfully
prayed for Christians for a long time. Then, coming near the ambo, she continued
her prayer.
After completing
her prayer, she took her veil and spread it over the people praying in the
church, protecting them from enemies both visible and invisible. The Most
Holy Lady Theotokos was resplendent with heavenly glory, and the protecting veil in her hands glowed more that the rays of
the sun.
Saint Andrew gazed
trembling at the miraculous vision and asked his disciple, the blessed Epiphanius standing beside him, “Do you see, brother, the Holy Theotokos praying for all the world?”
“I do see, Epiphanius replied, “and I am in awe.”
For a long time, they observed the Protecting Veil spread over the people and shining with flashes of
glory. As long as the Most Hoy Theotokos was there, the Protecting Veil was
also visible, but with her departure it also became invisible. After taking
it with her, she left behind the grace of her visitation.
The icon
of this feast shows the appearance of the Theotokos to Saint Andrew. Some icons, particularly those displayed for veneration on this feast, have a lower tier or an inset depicting Saint Romanos the Melodist chanting at the
ambo. October 1st
is also the feast day of this saint.
This vision is celebrated in most Byzantine Churches on October 1st. In
the Church of Greece, however, the feast of the Protection of the Theotokos has been transferred to October 28th to coincide with the Greek national holiday, “Ohi”
Day, marking the start of Greek resistance to the German and Italian occupation during World war II.
The Church of the Theotokos was severely damaged by fire in 1070 but rebuilt
and restored by two successive emperors. Finaly, the entire church complex,
along with the surrounding quarter, was completely destroyed on February 29, 1434, when some children accidentally started
a fire on the church roof.
A few years before
the fire, a portion of the robe had been sent to Russia. When the feast of
the robe (July 2nd) was celebrated during the Tatar siege of Moscow in 1451, the Tartars were unaccountably seized with confusion
and fled in disarray. Again, the Virgin’s protection was credited with
the deliverance of a Christian city. By the 17th century, a portion of the robe was being
venerated at the Dormition Monastery in Khobi, Georgia. To this day this
relic is carried in procession around that city for veneration on July 2nd.
