The Theotokia and Axion Estin

The Marian hymnody woven through the fabric of every Orthodox service: the theotokia appointed at the “Both now and ever…” throughout the offices, the dogmatika that teach the Incarnation in song, and the Axion Estin of the Divine Liturgy with its refrain “More honourable than the Cherubim.” This file treats these hymns and pins the Athonite apparition tradition of the Axion Estin to its sources.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Byzantine hymnography)

The Theotokion: The Marian Undertone of Prayer

Beyond the set-piece Marian hymns, the Mother of God is woven through the whole fabric of the Orthodox offices. A theotokion (plural theotokia) is a troparion or sticheron addressed to the Theotokos, appointed by rule at the “Both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages” (Kai nyn) that follows the “Glory to the Father…” (Doxa) throughout the daily services (see The Troparion, Kontakion, Canon; and St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns). The pattern is deliberate and constant: hymnody to the Trinity is answered, again and again, by hymnody to the Virgin through whom the Son took flesh, so that the veneration of the Mother of God becomes not an occasional devotion but the continual undertone of Orthodox prayer. To pray the Orthodox offices is to return, at nearly every turning, to the Theotokos — the “Glory… Both now” pairing making the confession of the Incarnation the recurring cadence of the whole daily cycle.

The Dogmatika: The Councils Sung

The weightiest of the theotokia are the dogmatika (Dogmatika Theotokia): the theotokia appointed at “Lord, I have cried” at Great Vespers on Saturday evening across the eight tones of the Octoechos. They are so called because they set forth the dogma of the Incarnation — the union of the two natures in the one Christ born of the Virgin — and so teach in song what the Council of Ephesus (431) and the Council of Chalcedon (451) defined in prose (see Hymnography as Dogma Sung; and St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns). In them the Church sings the very content of her Christology: that the Virgin “without corruption gavest birth to God the Word,” that the Uncontainable was contained in her womb, that she is truly Theotokos and not merely the mother of a man. The first dogmatikon, in Tone 1, is a compact catechism of Chalcedon set to melody, confessing the two natures of the one Christ through the paradox of the Virgin’s childbearing (The Festal Menaion, trans. Mother Mary and Ware, Faber, 1969, appendix on the tones). The core of the Octoechos, including its dogmatic theotokia, is traditionally ascribed to St. John of Damascus, though scholars regard the received collection as a composite that grew after him (see The Octoechos and the Eight Tones; and the both-sides treatment at John of Damascus and Cosmas). [Disputed: the attribution of the Octoechos and its dogmatic theotokia to John of Damascus is traditional; modern scholarship treats the eight-tone cycle as a layered compilation only partly his (Frøyshov, SVTQ 51 [2007]; Louth, St John Damascene, 2002).]

Axion Estin: “It Is Truly Meet”

Within the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the hymn to the Theotokos sung after the consecration — as the deacon censes and the faithful commemorate her — is the «Ἄξιόν ἐστιν», “It is truly meet to bless thee, the Theotokos, ever-blessed and most pure and the Mother of our God” (see St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns; Orthodoxy: The Divine Liturgy). This opening sentence is joined to an older and more exalted verse, the Megalynarion (“magnification”): “More honourable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim, who without corruption gavest birth to God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify” (Tēn timiōteran tōn Cheroubeim…). This second half is drawn from the hymnography of St. Cosmas of Maiuma (8th c.), where it serves as the refrain (the megalynarion) to the ninth ode of his canons, and it circulated as a magnification of the Virgin before being joined to the “It is truly meet” incipit (The Festal Menaion; and see John of Damascus and Cosmas). On the great feasts the Axion Estin is replaced by the festal irmos of the ninth ode — the “Zadostoinik” of the Slavonic books — so that each feast supplies its own magnification of the Mother of God in place of the ordinary one.

The Axion Estin is among the most familiar of all Orthodox chants, sung at nearly every celebration of the Chrysostom Liturgy, and its two halves together — the “More honourable than the Cherubim” of Cosmas and the “It is truly meet” incipit — form the Church’s constant magnification of the Theotokos at the heart of the Eucharist.

The Athonite Apparition Tradition

A pious tradition of great fame attaches to the first sentence, “It is truly meet,” and it must be reported per the repository’s attestation rule (METHODOLOGY §3.5), because it is transmitted in Athonite tradition and the icon’s own history rather than in contemporary documents. According to the account, the “It is truly meet” verse was revealed by the Archangel Gabriel, appearing in the form of a monk, to a cell near Karyes on Mount Athos around 980; the angelic visitor is said to have sung the “Axion estin” before the “More honourable than the Cherubim,” where the Athonite monk had known only the latter, to have written the new words with his finger on a stone that softened under his hand like wax, and to have declared that the angels sing it thus (the tradition transmitted in the Athonite sources and the history of the icon; and see St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns). The icon before which this is said to have occurred, called “Axion Estin” (“It Is Truly Meet”), is enshrined in the Protaton church at Karyes and is among the most venerated icons of the Holy Mountain.

[Apocryphal: the tradition — not attested in the early or contemporary sources — that the “It is truly meet” verse was revealed by the Archangel Gabriel to a monk near Karyes on Mount Athos c. 980, written on a softened stone, and that the icon “Axion Estin” of the Protaton dates the event. The account is transmitted in Athonite tradition and the icon’s own later history, not in datable contemporary documents; it is reported here as pious tradition, not as established fact (see St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns).]

What is not in doubt is the antiquity and centrality of the hymn itself. The “More honourable than the Cherubim” is securely the work of Cosmas of Maiuma and older than the legend; the joining of the “It is truly meet” incipit is early and the combined hymn is universally sung. The apparition tradition explains, in the mode of pious memory, why the two verses are sung together in the order they are — but the hymn’s standing rests on its liturgical antiquity, not on the datability of the legend, and the honest course is to name the source of the story and let it stand as the Holy Mountain’s cherished tradition rather than as documented history.

The Marian Hymnographers

The great hymnographers of the Theotokos span the golden age of Byzantine liturgical poetry, and the Marian hymns gathered here are their work. St. Romanos the Melodist (6th c.) perfected the kontakion, the form the Akathist follows (see The Kontakion and Romanos). St. John of Damascus and his foster-brother St. Cosmas of Maiuma (both 8th c.) shaped the canon and composed festal hymnody for the Marian feasts — the “More honourable than the Cherubim” belongs to Cosmas (see John of Damascus and Cosmas). St. Joseph the Hymnographer (9th c.), the most prolific of all, composed vast numbers of theotokia that fill the daily books (see The Studite Hymnographers). Through their work the veneration of the Mother of God became the continual undertone of Orthodox prayer — the Marian hymnody that this file has followed from the daily theotokion to the Axion Estin at the heart of the Liturgy.

References

The Festal Menaion. Trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London: Faber & Faber, 1969. (The dogmatika and the tones; the festal magnifications; the Axion Estin and the “More honourable.”)
The Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, standard English service texts. (The Axion Estin after the consecration.)
Frøyshov, Stig Symeon R. “The Early Development of the Liturgical Eight-Mode System in Jerusalem.” SVTQ 51 (2007): 139–178; and Louth, Andrew. St John Damascene. Oxford: OUP, 2002. (The Octoechos attribution.)
Cunningham, Mary B. Wider than Heaven: Eighth-Century Homilies on the Mother of God. Popular Patristics Series 35. Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2008. (Cosmas, John of Damascus, and the Marian feasts.)
On the “Axion Estin” icon and its tradition: the Athonite sources and the history of the Protaton icon, reported as pious tradition (cross-referenced to St. the Theotokos: The Akathist and the Hymns).
Councils: Ephesus (431), the Theotokos; Chalcedon (451), the two natures — the dogma the dogmatika sing.