Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ and the Protection of the Mother of God

Part II of a three-part series on Saint Andrew Salos of Constantinople

On 1 October the Church celebrates the Protection of the Mother of God, that is, the shelter the Most Holy Theotokos gives the faithful through her prayer. The Churches that keep the Julian calendar celebrate the feast on the same day of the month, which falls on 14 October in the civil calendar. The Church of Greece celebrates it on 28 October.

The feast begins with a vision in Constantinople. One night, in the church in the quarter of Blachernae, the Mother of God appeared praying for the people and covering them with her veil. She was seen by Saint Andrew the Fool for Christ, a saint who hid his life with God beneath the appearance of a man without reason. His disciple Epiphanius saw her with him. In many Orthodox Churches Saint Andrew is commemorated on the day after the feast, 2 October, while the Churches of Greek tradition commemorate him on 28 May.¹

In the first part of this series we told the life of Saint Andrew as the priest Nicephorus wrote it. Here we stop at the vision of Blachernae.

The name of the feast carries two meanings at once. It means the veil that covers, and it means the protection the strong give to the weak. The Greek name of the feast, Skepi, and the Slavonic, Pokrov, both carry these two meanings.

The troparion, the hymn that sums up the meaning of the feast and is sung several times on its day, says:

Today we, the faithful people, keep the feast in brightness, overshadowed by your coming, O Mother of God, and, looking with compunction upon your most honoured icon, we say: Cover us with your honoured protection, and deliver us from all evil, entreating your Son, Christ our God, to save our souls.¹⁰

The verb “overshadow” is also found at the Annunciation, when the angel said to the Virgin: “the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee” (Luke 1:35).² There the word shows the work of God, by which the Son became incarnate of her. In the troparion the same word shows the protection we receive through her prayers, as from a shade that shelters.

The church of Blachernae

Blachernae was a quarter by the walls of Constantinople. There, beside a spring held to be holy, the holy Empress Pulcheria began in the year 450 to build a church dedicated to the Mother of God. After her death her husband, the Emperor Marcian, completed the work.³

The Emperor Leo I then built beside it a chapel, a small round church joined to the large one. The chapel was called the Holy Reliquary (in Greek, Hagia Soros), because the garment of the Mother of God, brought from Palestine in the year 473, was laid in it. From then on, in time of danger, the city ran to Blachernae.

In the year 626 the Avars and the Persians besieged Constantinople. The icon of the Mother of God of Blachernae was carried along the walls, and soon afterwards the Avar army was destroyed. The church, which then stood outside the walls, was the only one the invaders did not plunder. Later the Emperor Heraclius built a new wall that took the quarter inside the city.

In the church of Blachernae all-night vigils were held, that is, services lasting from evening until nearly daybreak. It burned in 1434, nineteen years before the fall of Constantinople. On its site, beside the spring that still flows today, a small church was built in 1867. For almost six centuries nothing of the church of Blachernae has stood, yet the vision seen there is celebrated today throughout the Orthodox world.

The vision according to the Life of Saint Andrew

The Life of Saint Andrew tells of the vision at length.⁴ One night a vigil was being kept in the Holy Reliquary, the chapel where the garment of the Mother of God was kept. Andrew had come too, and was behaving, as usual, like a man without reason. Epiphanius was also there, with one of his servants. Andrew used to stand at the service as long as his zeal held him, sometimes until midnight, sometimes until morning.

At about the fourth hour of the night, that is, some four hours after sunset, Andrew saw the Most Holy Theotokos entering the church. She was very tall, and an awesome company accompanied her. On either side Saint John the Forerunner and Saint John the Evangelist held her by the hand. Many saints in white garments went with her, some before her and some behind her, and they sang hymns and spiritual songs.

The Mother of God drew near the ambo, the raised place in the middle of the church from which the readings were read and the hymns sung. Then Andrew went to Epiphanius and asked him: “Do you see the Lady and Mistress of the world?” The disciple answered: “Yes, my spiritual father.”⁵

Before their eyes the Mother of God knelt and prayed for a long time, her most pure face wet with tears. Then she went into the sanctuary and prayed there for the people standing round. When she had prayed, she took the veil from her head, and it shone like lightning. She held it in her most pure hands, great and awesome as it was, and spread it over all the people. For a long time the two saw it spread over the people, shining with the glory of the Lord. As long as the Mother of God remained there, the veil could be seen. After she left, they saw it no more. The veil she took with her, but her grace she left to those who were present.

At the end the Life says that Epiphanius saw all this through Andrew’s mediation. The saint had boldness before God and gave his disciple to see what he himself saw. Boldness here means the freedom with which a saint stands before God and speaks to Him.

The vision according to the synaxarion of the feast

The Menaion, the book containing the services for each day of the month, also has on 1 October a synaxarion of the feast. A synaxarion is the reading about the saint or feast of the day, appointed at Matins, the morning service. That of the Protection tells of the vision more briefly.

It was the night before a Sunday, 1 October, and the church of Blachernae was full of people who had come to the vigil. At about the fourth hour of the night Saint Andrew lifted up his eyes, together with his disciple, the blessed Epiphanius. Both saw the Queen of Heaven, the Protectress of the whole world, the Most Holy Virgin Theotokos, standing in the air and praying. She shone with light and covered the people with her honoured omophorion. Omophorion here means the veil over her head and shoulders. Around her stood the heavenly hosts and a multitude of saints clothed in white. Two of them were more prominent: Saint John the Forerunner and Saint John the Evangelist.

The Life shows the Mother of God walking through the church, kneeling and entering the sanctuary. The synaxarion shows her standing in the air. So the service of the feast sings of her, and so the icon paints her.

The synaxarion places the vision in the days of the Emperor Leo the Wise, who reigned from 886 to 912. The Life begins its account in the reign of another emperor of the same name, Leo the Great.⁶ This is Leo I, the builder of the chapel of the Holy Reliquary, who reigned from 457 to 474. We showed in the first part that the Life was written around the middle of the tenth century and that the years in which it sets its account were arranged by its author. What the Church received into the service of the feast is the vision itself: the Mother of God praying for the world and covering the people.

The synaxarion also keeps something the Life does not have: the words of the prayer the Mother of God offered to her Son.

Heavenly King! Receive every man who glorifies You and calls upon Your most holy name in every place; and wherever my name is remembered, sanctify that place, and glorify those who glorify You, and those who with love honour me, Your Mother. Receive all their prayers and vows, and deliver them from all needs and evils.

The vows are the promises a person makes before God. In the whole of this prayer the Mother of God asks nothing for herself.

A fool for Christ

In another vision, the Life shows Andrew honouring the Mother of God. On Palm Sunday, when the city was praising Christ with palm branches and hymns, Andrew saw the prophet David in the church of Holy Wisdom. He came with a countless multitude and played upon a lyre. Andrew leapt for joy and cried out with the words of Psalm 131, speaking of the Lady who intercedes with the Lord. Some of those present thought his words foolish and laughed at him.⁷

The Life then explains what the saint meant. In this psalm David vows: “I will not give sleep to mine eyes […] until I find out a place for the Lord, an habitation for the God of Jacob” (Psalm 131:4-5). Andrew was telling the prophet that the dwelling he sought had now been found: first the great Lady who intercedes for us, and then the Church.

At Matins of the feast the Gospel is read in which Mary, come to the house of Elizabeth, magnifies God: “For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed” (Luke 1:48). She whose lowliness God regarded let herself be seen, at Blachernae, by a man the whole city despised.

Invisibly, in the church

The vision of Blachernae revealed in visible form the care and prayer of the Mother of God for mankind. The kontakion of the feast, the other short hymn of the day, which is also sung at the Liturgy, speaks of the same prayer as something taking place today:

Today the Virgin stands before God in the church, and with the choirs of the saints invisibly prays to God for us. Angels with hierarchs worship, and apostles with prophets dance for joy; for the Theotokos entreats the pre-eternal God for us.

She “stands before” God as one who prays for others. The apostles and prophets “dance for joy”, as King David once danced before the ark of the covenant, the holy chest in which the tablets of the Law were kept. The canon of Matins, the series of hymns of that service, makes this very comparison: the faithful now run into the church before the Mother of God with a joy greater than David’s. “The pre-eternal God” is the eternal God.

The kontakion says that she stands in the church even today and prays “invisibly”. A hymn from Vespers, the evening service of the feast, calls the faithful to that very place:

Come, ye faithful, into the holy church, for there the Theotokos covers the people with her omophorion from all the temptations of the enemy.

In the canon of Matins the Church asks her to come now, as she came then:

Come now with great glory into your church, O Theotokos, with the assemblies of all the saints, as Saint Andrew once saw you in the air praying for Christians, and grant us your mercy.

The prayer of a Mother

The service of the feast says that Christ Himself gave her to mankind as “defender and mighty protection”. The Gospel shows the hour in which the Lord, from the Cross, gave her the beloved disciple as a son:

When Jesus therefore saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he saith unto his mother, Woman, behold thy son! Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home. (John 19:26-27)

The Mother of God stood by the Cross and saw with her own eyes the death of her Son. Among the hymns of the Menaion of 1 October there is one that shows her in that hour:

When the Most Pure saw You hanging on the Cross, weeping she cried out as a Mother: My Son and my God! My most sweet Son! How do You suffer a shameful passion?

The tears of the vision of Blachernae remind us that she who prays for the world is the Mother who stood beside the Cross of her Son.

Her protection does not spare the believer the cross. It gives him the assurance that he does not carry it alone, until the hour when the soul is parted from the body.

All her protection passes through her prayer to the Son. The troparion asks her to cover us “entreating your Son”. The kontakion sings that she prays for us to the eternal God. A hymn of the vigil shows her “ever stretching out her hands to her Son for us”. The Menaion says that she has towards Him “a mother’s boldness”, that is, the confidence with which a mother speaks to her son.

The Mother of God does not entreat her Son as though she were merciful and He without mercy. She prays to Him who loved us and gave Himself for us. Her love as a Mother is in full union with His love for mankind.

Saint Gregory Palamas, in his homily on the Dormition of the Mother of God, writes that she was raised above the angels and archangels by her nearness to God. He also says that she alone is the boundary between created and uncreated nature.⁸ This word shows her unique place in the mystery of the Incarnation: from her the Son of God took human nature without ceasing to be God. The Mother of God remains a creature, sanctified and glorified by grace, and the union of the divine nature with the human took place in the Person of her Son. She received the Son with faith and obedience, saying: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word” (Luke 1:38). Therefore, among creatures, no one stands nearer to Him than His Mother.

Her protection is a gift of love, and love is not bought with the number of prayers. The service shows clearly for whom she prays: for those who glorify her Son and for sinners who run to her. She leads them all by her prayer to Christ.

How the feast spread

The vision took place in Constantinople, but the feast was first established in old Rus’. The tradition of the Russian Church regards as its founder the right-believing Prince Andrei Bogolyubsky, who ruled the land of Vladimir in the twelfth century. In his time the church of the Protection on the Nerl, near Vladimir, was built, and it still stands today.

The Romanian Menaion, in its 1929 edition, has a plain note on this day:

On this day the Protection of the Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary is celebrated in the land of Russia with a vigil. From there we too have taken the custom in our monasteries of celebrating this feast with a vigil.

The service was put into the book for those who have greater devotion to the Mother of God.

The transfer of the feast to 28 October in the Church of Greece was decided in 1952. On that day in 1940 the war had begun for Greece, and the transfer was made in thanksgiving for the protection of the Mother of God in those years.⁹

The icon of the feast

The icon of the Protection, in the form that became usual, developed in the Russian tradition from the vision in Constantinople. Above, in the centre, the Mother of God stands in the air, surrounded by light. Sometimes she holds the veil spread in her hands. Sometimes she prays with raised arms, and two angels hold the veil above her. On either side stand Saint John the Forerunner and Saint John the Evangelist, the apostles, the hierarchs and other saints. Below, Saint Andrew points to the Mother of God and turns towards Epiphanius, as in the Life, where it is he who shows her to his disciple.

Often, directly beneath the Mother of God, a deacon stands on the ambo singing from a scroll. The deacon is Saint Romanos the Melodist, that is, the composer of hymns, whom the Church also commemorates on 1 October. He was not present at the vision, but the icon gathers together the saints connected with the feast.

His synaxarion tells that he came from Syria to Constantinople in the days of the Emperor Anastasius and served at the church of the Mother of God in the quarter of Kyrou. In the evening he would go to the vigil at Blachernae, and after the service return to his church. The Mother of God appeared to him in a dream and gave him a piece of paper, commanding him to eat it. It was the feast of the Nativity of the Lord. As soon as he woke, Romanos went up into the ambo and began to sing: “Today the Virgin gives birth to Him who is above all being…” According to the same synaxarion, he afterwards composed more than a thousand kontakia.

The kontakion of the Protection begins with the same words, “Today the Virgin”, and is sung to the model melody of the kontakion of the Nativity, the hymn that gives it its metre and tune. In the icon of the feast the singer who received the gift of song from the Mother of God stands at her feet.

On the same day the synaxarion also commemorates two singers of the Great Lavra on Mount Athos, the Venerable John Koukouzelis and the Venerable Gregory the Domestikos. Of the second it is said that he received a gold coin as a gift from the Theotokos.

Beneath her protection

Nothing in the service of the feast urges the faithful to go in search of visions. The service calls them into the church, where the people of God pray. Yet the prayer of the Mother of God does not stop at the walls of the church. In the synaxarion she asks her Son to receive every man who calls upon His name “in every place”.

At Matins, after Psalm 50, “Have mercy on me, O God”, it is sung: “Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Merciful One, cleanse the multitude of our transgressions.” This petition comes straight after the psalm of repentance. The one who repents does not pray alone: the Mother of God prays with him.

One enters beneath her protection with a humble heart, with repentance and prayer, in the Church of her Son. Towards the end of Matins the Church prays thus:

O most holy Lady Virgin Theotokos, cover us with your wondrous omophorion […]; you whom the wondrous Andrew saw praying in the church of Blachernae, send us now also, O Lady, your great mercy.

In Part III we shall read Saint Andrew’s words to Epiphanius about the end of the world, and see with what discernment such prophecies ought to be received.

Notes