Augustine Sokolovski
Another name for Akathist Saturday is Praise of the Theotokos. The holiday owes its origin to the threefold deliverance of Constantinople from enemy invasions.
In the 7th century, these were the Persians, in the 8th century, the Arabs, and in the 9th century, the Slavs. Each time, the siege of the city threatened destruction and seemed fatal. But again and again, it was saved. The Eastern Roman Empire, which modern Western scholars pejoratively called "Byzantium", was provided with several more centuries of prosperity.
The pious Romans, as the inhabitants of the Empire called themselves, who in the tradition of modern anachronism are usually called simply "Greeks", thanked the Mother of God for deliverance. She was considered the Patroness of the City.
After several centuries, the danger from the Persians, Arabs and Slavs passed. The Persian Empire was taken by the Arabs, the Arab state weakened over the centuries, and the Dnieper Slavs, who once besieged Constantinople, themselves became Orthodox and allies of the Byzantine State.
Trouble came from an unexpected place. At the turn of the 12th-13th centuries, in 1204, the city was taken by the Latins, led by the Venetians. In 1453, Constantinople fell under the blows of the Ottomans. Why did this happen? Did the Virgin Mary retreat from the City?
Researchers are still arguing about the reasons for the Byzantine decline. For us, Orthodox Christians, it is important to look for the spiritual, theological tectonics of secular, worldly factors. The Latins, of course, were Christians. But between the Greeks and the Latins, whom the Romans, that is, the Byzantines, considered barbarians and often simply disdained, alienation arose over the centuries.
An example of this is the fact that the works of the greatest Western Father of the Church, St. Augustine (354-430), who wrote in Latin and is considered the Father of the Christian West, were not known at all in Byzantium. The first translations were made in the 12th-13th centuries. It was only one single treatise, "On the Holy Trinity." But it was too late.
The Romans, that is, the Greeks, were much more developed in cultural and civilizational terms, and this, of course, imposed more responsibilities on them than on the Latins of the Christian West, who had just embarked on their rapid rise. This imposed a duty for mission, evangelism, catechesis, not only to be proud, but also to share the treasures of Eastern Orthodoxy.
St. Gregory Palamas (1296-1359) himself was once captured by Turkish pirates. In addition to the theology of grace as divine light, an important spiritual testament of St. Gregory was the prophecy about the need for an Orthodox mission among the Ottomans. Incidentally, the saint himself quoted St. Augustine from the treatise "On the Trinity", which was translated precisely in that era, and considered himself the heir of his theology.
On the day of the Praise of the Mother of God, the Church, as a Society of Believers wandering in history, thanks the Blessed Virgin and mourns for broken wills.