What is the Akathist Hymn, why is it sung during Lent, and why do we call the Virgin the bridal chamber of the divine-human wedding, and also the Bride?
“Rejoice, O Bride unwedded!” The Church originally appointed the Akathist Hymn to be sung at Matins (Orthros) on the Saturday of the fifth week of Lent.
On that day it was sung in full, that is, all 24 stanzas (“oikoi”). Later it was divided into four groups of six stanzas and introduced into the four preceding weeks as well.
And, as with the services of Holy Week, it was moved to Friday evening instead of Saturday morning for pastoral reasons, so that more of the faithful could attend. But what is the link between the Akathist and the fast, and why is it sung on Saturday morning? The most important refrain, which keeps returning in the Akathist, is “Rejoice, O Bride unwedded!”, and it speaks of a wedding.
In the stanzas, the Virgin is also called “bridal chamber of a virginal marriage” (stanza 19). This virginal wedding was the goal of creation from the beginning. God created the world in six stages, six days, and he did not create this world to throw it away, but to unite it with himself and share his glory with it. That is why God created light, the heavens, the animals…
And at the end, on the sixth day, God created the bride he wished to betroth to himself, without spot or wrinkle. This bride is man, who will share with him the life of love that is in the Trinity. But the journey of this divine-human wedding stumbled in paradise. God did not abandon his bride, man; in his plan and his love he sent the prophets, gave the laws and all that took place in the Old Testament to train man and form him spiritually, so that Christ, the Word, the Second Person, might come and present the Church to himself as a glorious bride (Ephesians 5:27).
So God united himself with man hypostatically in the Incarnation of the Lord Jesus. And Christ founded his Church on earth, to bring to him as his bride every person who lives in her. In the divine Incarnation the first true and perfect wedding took place, when God united himself with man. And what was hoped for on the first Sabbath of creation in paradise was fulfilled in the Incarnation in its most perfect form.
And in this event the Virgin was the bridal chamber of this virginal wedding. It was in the Virgin that the union of God and man took place: she brought God and man together and became “the bridal chamber of God the Word”, as the hymns of the Akathist call her. The goal of the first days of creation was the last day of creation, when man was created. God does not need creation, but he brought it into being for the life of his bride, man.
The goal that failed in paradise was fulfilled in the Incarnation, and here the Virgin was the bridal chamber of this divine-human wedding. In this wedding the Virgin was both the bridal chamber and the bride. And now the Church has become the bridal chamber of this wedding for every person, that is, for every bride. And the Virgin is the servant of this wedding. What happened in the Virgin happens in the Church today; and just as the Virgin was the servant of the wedding at the Incarnation, she has become the servant of the wedding of every human soul, preparing it to be a bride for Christ. The Church prepares souls for this wedding.
She is the new bridal chamber that brings about in every person what took place with Christ in the Incarnation, that is, the union that happens through the sacraments and the life of the Church: the union between God and man, the union between Jesus and every human soul. So what the book of Revelation ends with, in the last verses of the Bible, is fulfilled: “The Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come.’… Come, Lord Jesus!” And this is the goal of human existence. The Triodion, Great Lent, is the most important season the Church has set to prepare the human soul, purify it and make it ready to be a pure and spotless bride for Christ. To this end the Church set the fasts. These fasts mean, on the one hand, abstaining from food, giving alms and praying more… On the other hand, the Church also set liturgical fasts. They appear in the divine services, for example in the vestments, the reverence, the atmosphere of repentance and “bright sadness”, during the first five days of the week. That is why she also laid down that the Divine Liturgy should not be celebrated on those days, since its character is one of resurrection, triumph and victory.
She laid down that only very solemn, penitential services be held on weekdays, so that the first Liturgy takes place on Saturday and the second on Sunday. For Communion during the week, the Lamb presanctified at the Saturday or Sunday Liturgy is used.
So the faithful fast liturgically from Monday to Friday in an atmosphere of bright sadness, and on Saturday the Divine Liturgy is celebrated, as if all the weekdays were preparation for the faithful to come forward to the true wedding, union with the precious Body and Blood of the Lord, on Saturday and then Sunday. In the first days of the week the believer keeps vigil in prayer, the labours of fasting and prostrations, to make himself fit to be a pure bride whom the Lord Jesus will take as his bride at the Liturgy on Saturday and then Sunday. That is why the night between Friday and Saturday is the night of the liturgical wedding: it is the eve, or the dawn, of the Divine Liturgy of union with the Lord. And here on Friday evening, the night of the liturgical wedding for each believer, the Akathist plays, liturgically, the role the Virgin played as bridal chamber of the divine virginal wedding in the Incarnation. Just as the Virgin was the link between God and man in the Incarnation, here the Akathist becomes the liturgical link between the days of bright sadness and the believer’s day of divine wedding. We sing to the Virgin: “Rejoice, you who adorn souls with bridal adornment”, and this is what the Akathist achieves. The surprise the believer may meet on the wedding night is finding himself unworthy of this divine union. That is what the Akathist addresses: it adorns us with bridal adornment.
When the believer sees in the Virgin his lost image, the image of the pure bride, and when he sings to the Bride, the Mother, the bridal chamber and the servant of every human bride, then the hymns of the Akathist lead him to purity of soul and raise him from bright sadness to the joy of the virginal bridal chamber. The Virgin is the servant of the wedding of every soul, and the Akathist plays this role.
In the Akathist the Virgin’s intercession is also at work, cleansing our unworthiness. Through the Akathist we see in the Virgin love, humility, purity and consecration, and in its hymns we behold the image of the true bride to which we are all called. The prayers of the Akathist complete the repentance begun in the first days of the week. The weekdays of bright sadness are the days of repentance striving; the Akathist on Friday evening (in place of Saturday morning) leads us to repentance in its fullness.
That is why the weekdays of Lent bear the mark of bright sadness, while Saturday and Sunday bear the mark of wedding rites, the wedding of the soul made complete by repentance. The Virgin is the bridal chamber of the divine wedding in the Incarnation and the servant of this wedding for every soul. The Akathist leads us liturgically to the wedding during the fast; through the Virgin’s intercession and her example, which leads us to repentance, it brings us, after the days of bright sadness, to union in the Liturgy on Saturday and Sunday. “Rejoice, bridal chamber of a virginal marriage.” “Rejoice, you who reconcile the faithful (through repentance) with the Lord.” “Rejoice, you who adorn the souls of the faithful with bridal adornment.” “Rejoice, O Bride unwedded!”
Fr. Gerard Abi Saab
