Feast in honor of the Intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary and its magnification

The reason for the establishment of the festival in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos was, as is known, an event 1 that took place in the history of the Byzantine Empire and in particular within the walls of Constantinople, in the so-called Church of the Blachernae Mother of God 2. Nevertheless, the celebration of this celebration, the preparation of a solemn service for it belongs entirely to Orthodox Rus', from which the southern Slavs subsequently borrowed it. What was the reason for the establishment of this service in our country remains an unresolved question. Prof. Golubinsky in his “History of the Russian Church” 3 indicates all existing opinions regarding the reasons for the establishment of this holiday and service, as well as his personal considerations on this matter. But be that as it may, the celebration was established, and we are currently holding a solemn service for this holiday. However, before taking its present place among other festivals, it had to go through a long history and withstand the struggle even with the prejudices of the time. The holiday in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos was established in Rus' in the 12th century, 4 but the service for this holiday did not appear until the 14th century. At least, for the first time in the monuments of this time we find a service for this holiday 5. Moreover, it should be noted that the service for this holiday with an all-night vigil was left entirely to the “will” of the abbot 6. In the monuments of the 15th, and especially the 16th centuries, the service in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos supplanted the service of more ancient times, that is, the service in honor of the Apostle Ananias, and took precedence 7 . There are, however, monuments in which the service to the Apostle Ananias stands alongside the service of the Feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos 8 . At the end of the 16th century, and especially in the 17th century, under the influence of the prevailing right at that time for each more or less well-known monastery to have its own “Obikhodnik” or Charter, the service in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos not only took first place in the Church Charter, but began to be replenished with such details and details that took place only on the twelfth feasts in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos. We mean introducing into the service of this holiday special magnification and choruses on the ninth song 9. But the same 17th century almost completely erased the service we are considering from our liturgical monuments. When the question of correcting our Church Charter under Patriarch Joachim was raised and the printing of the Typikon of 1682 began, the book reference books of the Moscow printing yard, in their work, followed “according to the decree of His Holiness the Patriarch and the apxhieress, according to all the Greek Charters and Menaions and the Slavic corrected Books of Hours and Trefola of Lvov and Slavic Charters Charatein and Filaretov in the names and troparia and kontakia invariably 10 "came to the conviction that this service was superfluous and made notes in the margins of the “quoted” Charter No. 1373 (Moscow Typical Bibl.): “The service of the Intercession is not in Greek books” or: “The service of the Intercession of the Mother of God is not in any Greek books” (fol. 188). What remained In this way, our Grecophile references should erase this service from the face of our Slavic-Russian Typikon, as they did in relation to other services in honor of Russian saints canonized at local Russian councils 11, but in relation to this service they did not dare to do the same. The reason for this, obviously, was the fact that the Feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos was celebrated in the Russian Church from ancient times and enjoyed special respect among the Russian people. Therefore, limiting ourselves to the above comments regarding the absence of a service in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos in all Greek books, our references in 1682 added the following remark regarding it: “On the same day (i.e., October 1st), if the rector wishes to celebrate the Intercession of the Theotokos with the Apostle Ananias and the Apostle Romanos and after this” 12. It is obvious from this remark that the inspectors of the Typikon of 1682 did not attach particularly important importance to the Feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, and the performance of the service, as well as the celebration itself, was left entirely to the rector, who may not have performed this service. However, our slavish adherence to the Charter of the Greek Church with the loss of even purely Russian memories and services to them from the pages of our Typikon lasted, as is known, only until 1695. Despite, however, such a remark regarding the service in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos, which was solemnly performed only in church churches and at the will of the abbots, the practice of the previous time, dating back to ancient times, prevailed over the remark of the church Typikon. The service to the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos began to be performed not only everywhere, but also in a solemn manner, and, moreover, in such a way that it completely overshadowed the services of other saints, whose memory is listed in the Charter under the first day of October. But since the inspectors of the 17th century, who had relegated the service in honor of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos to the background, significantly reduced this service compared to the originals of the 16th and especially the 17th centuries, then in the practice of liturgical services, with the solemn universal performance of this service, there soon turned out to be a defect. So, for example, when performing the polyeleos prescribed for this festival in the Charter, it was necessary to know what kind of magnification should be sung at this polyeleos? In the most ancient handwritten Typikons, the magnification for this holiday was written along the lines of the service, but the 17th-century authorities, excluding the magnification itself, left in the Charter one vague reference to polyeleos. The pastors of the Russian Church were thus given complete freedom to invent the magnification of their own minds. And we see that the liturgical practice of our Church includes a rather ignorant magnification for this holiday, which is still sung not only in Great Russia, but also in Little Russia. This magnification reads like this: “We magnify You, Most Holy Virgin, Mother of Christ our God and honor Your honorable Protection, as Saint Andrew saw in the air, praying.” Only in some places and very few, this illiterate magnification is replaced by the usual magnification, “It is worthy to magnify Thee Theotokos,” established for common holidays in honor of the Most Holy Theotokos. In our opinion, in order to avoid the above-mentioned illiteracy, which grates on the ears of those praying, who listen carefully to everything that is sung and read in church, it is necessary to fill in what is missing by turning to those monuments, the primary sources of the present service, which served as a model for it. So, for example, if we turn to the handwritten Rules of the 16th century, then in them we will find, in addition to the usual magnification for the Mother of God feasts “It is worthy to eat,” another beautiful magnification compiled in relation to the remembered event. This second magnification is read in the Rules of the 16th century as follows: “We magnify Thee, Most Holy Virgin, Mother of Christ our God, and glorify Thy Protection all-gloriously” 13 . This magnification, obviously composed on the model of the magnification for the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, is not verbose, is quite appropriate for the holiday, and most importantly, it is devoid of grammatical inconsistencies that unpleasantly strike many of those praying. We would sincerely wish that the pastors of the Russian Church would put into practice this formula of magnification on the Feast of the Intercession of the Most Holy Theotokos and, for this purpose, would make a real historical reference. The full story about this event can be read from Golubinsky in his “History of the Russian Church”, vol. I, floors. II, p. 348. Blachernae is the name of the area in Constantinople, constituting the northwestern corner adjacent to the Golden Horn. Here Empress Pulcheria built the Church of the Mother of God, nicknamed after its location, Blachernae, in which an all-night vigil was held in honor of the Mother of God every Saturday. Volume I, sex. II, pp. 348–349. Arch. (now bishop) Sergius. Full month of the East, M. 1876, II, p. 262. Charter, RKP. Moscow Synod. bib. No. 328 l. 61 rev; No. 329 l. 53; Full, month, eastern Sergius, vol. II, p. 262. Charter, RKP. Typogr. bib. No. 288 l. 104; No. 289 l. 144; RKP. Anzersky monastery No. 85 l. 102, 104. RKP. Solov, bibliography. No. 1117 l. 104; RKP. M. Synod, bib. No. 902 l. 194; No. 331 l. 98 rev; No. 337 l. 121; RKP. Volokol. bib. No. 338 l. 60; No. 342 l. 5. Charter, RKP. M. Synod, bib. No. 335 l. 44. Charter M. ed. 1641 stored in M. Topogr. bib. under No. 1373 l. 711. Mansvetov. About the church. Charter; M. 1885, pp. 334–335. Charter 1641 31. Topographical map. bib. No. 1373 l. 188 rev. Charter RKP. Solov. bib. No. 1117 l. 103 vol., 104; RKP. M. Synod. bib. No. 902 l. 194; RKP. Volok. bib. No. 338 l. 60; No. 342 l. 5. You might be interested in: