Undusted Texts

  I have had little time to work on translation or writing projects recently, though I do have a few in progress, including a new Bérulle volume and a translation that I aim to have published in an academic journal.  However, I wanted to share some information I recently discovered. Over a decade ago, on the former home of my blog, θησαυρος της εκκλησιας , I posted a discussion of the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos, popularized by St. Seraphim Zevzdinsky.  Drawing from various sources, I put together a couple variants of the Prayer Rule in a PDF booklet ( available from my website ).   It has always been one of the more popular pages on my blogs, and it still lists high in searches for "prayer rule of the Theotokos."  (Even higher, at least on Google, are the Internet Archive and Scribd mirrors of the PDF.)  So I was pleased, though not too surprised, to see it cited as a source in a recent book on the Prayer Rule, published by Eastern Christian P...

  Introduction St. Albert the Great (1200-1280) needs little introduction: a German Dominican, teacher of St. Thomas Aquinas, and Doctor of the Church, he was one of the major philosophers of his age, as well as an important theologian.  His little treatise On Adhering to God  (or On Union with God ) is a beloved spiritual text.  Yet he also wrote much on Mary, though it is little known.  In particular, he wrote a twelve-book compilation entitled On the Praises of the Blessed Virgin Mary (De laudibus beatæ Mariæ Virginis) , which cover various Marian topics.  For instance, Book I is about Gabriel's greeting to Mary, Book IV is on her virtues, and Book V is on her beauty (spiritual and bodily).  (II.7 also has an interesting title: "On the Feast of the Eternity of Blessed Mary.")  Books VI-XI discuss Mary's "titles," though generally this means "images in Scripture that are applied to Mary."  These get very specific, such as "Mary, conch-shell...

  Introduction Jean Gerson (1363-1429) was a prolific and highly influential French scholar and theologian, especially while serving as the Chancellor of the illustrious University of Paris.  (I previously translated a small portion of one of his sermons on St. Nicholas, under the title "False Hopes and Immortality." )  Amidst his copious sermons and his harsh critiques of popular poems (notably the Romance of the Rose by Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun), Gerson had a special devotion to St. Joseph.  Part of this devotion included an attempt to establish a Feast of the Nuptials (or Betrothals) of Mary and Joseph.  Though Gerson's attempt failed, there eventually was a Feast of the Espousals of Mary (lacking Gerson's Josephite emphasis) which enjoyed a sizable popularity, usually celebrated on January 23.  For a history of the Feast and a discussion of its underlying theology, see Michael P. Foley, "The Feast of the Espousals of Mary and Joseph," New ...

  The Protection of the Theotokos Hymns of petition to the Theotokos are of no recent invention in the Church: indeed, the oldest hymn to her, known in Latin as the "Sub tuum praesidium," dates back to a Coptic text in the 3rd century.  Further hymns have not been infrequent in the intervening centuries, and Christians around the world pray constantly for her intercession.  She is also not tardy in responding to these requests: do we not have an entire feast recalling her protection of Constantinople?  The miracles wrought through her intercession, through the means of icons, springs, statutes, or merely prayers, are countless, and so she has inspired many to proclaim the greatness that the Lord has bestowed upon her, the greatness she prophesied in her canticle: "From now will all generations bless me."  Her greatness has inspired saints (such as St. Romanos the Melodist and St. Bernard of Clairvaux) and those whose fate is not known for certain, such as...

"Rejoice, Binder of the faithful to the Lord!" --The Akathist of St. Romanos the Melodist Since the election of Pope Francis, the originally German devotion to the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary as the "Untier of Knots" as become quite popular.  And it is popular for its truth, for she is the one "who gave birth to the Captives' release," the one who "ripped the Athenians' meshes," the one through whom "we have been liberated from terror."  She can truly free us from so many ills through the grace that fills her: thus in our ails we pray to her, and we have confidence in her help, whether it is with cancer (the Pantanassa) or addictions (the Inexhaustible Cup) or any other ill.  She can truly undo knots, whether those of the devil or merely our own fallen nature.  She is, through Christ, "the freedom from our chains," and thus, "in her hands there is no knot that cannot be undone." Yet, though ...

The Rosary is a well-known prayer in the Western Christian tradition, and I have often heard the Akathist Hymn to the Theotokos, composed by St. Romanos the Melodist, described as the Byzantine equivalent.  However, there is actually a prayer much closer in style to the Rosary in the Byzantine tradition: the Prayer Rule of the Theotokos.  This rule was, according to tradition, revealed by the Theotokos in the 8th century, and it used to be prayed by all Christians; over time, however, it fell out of use.  St. Seraphim of Sarov and his spiritual descendant St. Seraphim Zevzdinsky began to revive this practice, and Philip Rolfes, blogger at The Master Beadsman and maker of prayer ropes for various traditions (Rosaries, Komboskini/Chotki, Mequtaria, etc.), compiled information on various forms of this rule (see this post and the following four for his work).  He also created a system for praying only 5 mysteries a day rather than the full 15 that the original version...

"Am I not here, I, who am your mother?" I must apologize for taking so long to write about Our Lady of Guadalupe (Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe): though her image is not an icon in the typical sense (that is, made by human hands for the purpose of connection to Christ or the saints in Heaven), it most definitely should be classified as an acheiropoieton (an sacred image not made with human hands).  I apologize for not including it in my original post on these images: it didn't enter my mind until much later.  This post, then, is a supplement for my post on the acheiropoieta . St. Juan Diego (1474-1578) was a Native American from what is now Mexico (his birth name was Aztec: Cuauhtlatoatzin).  Originally a mystical and devout pagan, around 1520 or so he converted to Christianity, taking the name Juan Diego.  Shortly thereafter, in 1529, he became a widower, yet his faith remained strong.  It was in 1531 that the events for which he is now known began...

The original icon  The original icon without its riza (the metal covering revealing only the faces) The Axion Estin (Αξιον εστιν), "It is truly meet," is an icon of the Theotokos (Eleusa-style) located in the the Protaton, a church in the Karyes settlement of the famous Mount Athos in Greece, home to many ancient monastic communities.  The event which the icon takes it name from occurred in 980, so the icon was written sometime before then. The name of the icon comes from the opening words of a Marian hymn in the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom.  Up until this famous event, the hymn only included the latter half, starting at "More honourable than the Cherubim," which was written in the late 700s by St. Cosmas the Hymnographer, foster-brother of St. John Damascene.  This section of the hymn reads thus: More honorable than the cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim. Without corruption thou gavest birth to God the Wo...