Does anyone have or know of an Akathist to Our Lady of Mariapocs? This would be great to pray during the Eparchy of Parma's annual pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of Mariapoch in Burton, Ohio, Aug. 10-11.
Well, I was listening an Akathist of the Virgin Mary last night, but it was in Ukrainian (from the UGCC), but I would have to think it could at least give an idea of a good one to use.
The custom of writing specific akathists to wonder-working icons never took hold among those of the historic territory of the Eparchy of Mukachevo. (How's that for a PC, general classification?) In fact, the wonder-working icons--like Mariapocs--are not even marked by special feasts. The big pilgrimages to such shrines were always on existing feasts of the Mother of God, like the Dormition. When people went on pilgrimage to Mariapocs, they prayed the Paraklis and the Akathist.
Years ago, I began penning some thoughts on an akathist to the Mariapocs Icon, but I never got beyond the second oikos.
Two years ago, I received a call from a priest I didn't really know who asked to drop by for tea . . . I knew he was from Britain somehow . . .
He brought me a rosary from Lourdes and said that his pilgrim group there sang the akathist to our Lady of Lourdes I had written. However, he said, he asked some priests about "concerns" he had with respect to my Marian language in the Akathist. One or two priests actually told him not to use those terms (although he never indicated which ones). Over time, he became comfortable with the language.
A year later, he asked me to come and speak to his prayer group at his parish. During his introduction, he talked about the akathist and said that his Marian devotion was awakened by it. Don't know what any of that is all about, but if his devotion to the Theotokos is more for it, then good I say!
Yes, the Old Believers never went into writing Akathists and still only use the one to the Theotokos.
People would write all sorts of akathists for private devotion, most of which never got to the Patriarchal Censor in Moscow.
For example, there were seven akathists examined by the Liturgical Committee in honour of St Theodosius of Chernihiv (Chernigov) who was canonized in 1896. And NONE of them passed muster and this despite the fact that one of them was so much in use among the Kozaks that they knew it from memory!
The Ukrainian poet Shevchenko actually wrote an akathist to a living person, a lady who was charitable toward him, to show his gratitude.
I was pleased to do an akathist to the Anglican St Charles, King and Martyr which is being sold by SKCM, together with a Devotional Manual which will be going into its second printing soon. There are English Catholics who venerate him privately as well, from what I gather. It isn't a liturgical genre that is easily assimilated by Western Christians, but those who do tend to like the rich imagery that characterize akathists.
When I complete my draft of an Akathist to Our Lady of Mariapoch, I would be pleased to receive your critical comments, as well as those of My Lady Anhelyna of Glasgow!
Since his death I've been back twice - but it's not the same - I have to go with a group and I can't have the same time to spend in 'my' Church. Now my SF has returned to Australia , things have changed.
I've recently got news about the latest floods there - truly devastating - far worse than the floods of last year
This is report #2 Report #1 is below it on the same page.
Interesting--just read this from the book I am reading and thought it apropos to the thread: (from the book: Everyday Saints and other Stories, by Archimandrite Tikhon (Shevkunov), a best seller in Russia and now available in brilliant translation in the United States... )
Chapter called Father Antippus
In addition to the unceasing reading of the Psalter, there is a special church service that is often performed in the monasteries: the reading aloud of Akathists and supplicatory prayers. As far as I know, this ceremony is not to be found either in the ancient rules of Orthodox monasteries or in the traditions of other Orthodox churches in other countries. Instead, it is peculiar to Russia. But our people are particularly fond of these services, and Akathist hymns have been requested from us in the Pskov Caves Monastery many, many times--sometimes fifteen or twenty at once, lengthening our services by up to three hours.
Young monks like us used to get quite tired by these long, drawn-out and sometimes monotonous services. It is easy to understand why: after all, Akathists are primarily designed to be read at home, and over time they have been composed by all sorts of people--sometimes by great ecclesiastical poets, but other times merely by pious and God-fearing provincial young ladies. Therefore the texts of these Akathist prayers are not always perfect, to put it mildly. And there were certain young monks who used to try to get out of their obligations to read these prayers out loud.
...He goes on to say how this one saintly Elder,Father Antippus, loved to pray the Akathists, and had kept a book of many of them, a virtual suitcase of them, which had been written and given to him through the years...he prayed them with names for the living and dead which were given to him, for hours on end.....
What a beautiful tradition and blessed praxis of all those, like our beloved Alex Roman, who compose these beautiful and poetic prayers to the Lord, His Holy Mother and the holy saints!
You are far too nice, but the all-night Akathist service is one that was also a personal devotion of St Jonah Atamansky, a married priest of Odessa (+1924).
He would go to bed early and then get up for the Midnight Service which he would then continue until morning, reading Akathists and Paracleses.
He would do these also in Church and people would come to pray all night with him. He would end the all-night Akathist service with the Canon of the Holy Spirit, written St Maximus the Greek (who was a disciple of Savonarola's).
His fame as a miracle-worker grew and he was known for miracles of healing of blindness and also those possessed by demons. (His Presbytera, upon learning that a demon-possessed person was being brought to her husban, would quickly hide all flammable objects in her kitchen, as fires would be mysteriously started there after the demons were cast out . . .).
The mother of a boy of seven who was born blind was told by the chief opthalmologist of Moscow, who was also a university professor, that nothing could be done for her son. She told him she would go to Fr. Atamansky.
And this priest prayed over the bed of the boy, praying the all-night Akathists, for nine nights straight.
On the morning of the tenth day, the boy could see with 20/20 vision. All of Odessa rejoiced at this. And Fr. Atamansky was arrested by the communist authorities.
That same professor came from Moscow to testify on behalf of Fr. Atamansky and the communists then turned their vitriol onto him, calling him a fool and not a real scientist etc. Fr. Atamansky was released but then died later that same year. He was locally venerated at Odessa until he was formally canonized a few years ago. His veneration continues to spread around the world.
The holy monastics of the Thebaid likewise were taught by the angelic vision of St Pachomios how to pray day and night. The Angel told St Pachomios that 12 psalms were to be prayed at each hour of the day and night, so that all 150 psalms were prayed twice in one 24 hour period.
An Anglican family of the 17th century, that of Nicholas Ferrar of Little Gidding, followed this rule and prayed psalms every hour. At nine at night, they took turns praying the psalms until one in the morning and thus they fulfilled the same rule.
When King Charles I visited this community, he was so impressed by their asceticism that he told his RC wife, Queen Henrietta, that there is "in Little Gidding an Anglican family that by their pious life puts to shame the strictest Catholic religious order . . ."
We are truly called to intimacy with God through ceaseless prayer and the Holy Saints ppresent to us the ceaseless Jesus Prayer, the ceaseless Psalter and also the ceaseless Akathist service.
May God bring us to ever longer periods of intimate communion with Him, the Mother of God and His Saints.
May God bless our precious and dear Mother Alice. Only a person with a heart over-flowing with truly genuine devotion could have written the post she has.
A good night to you, Mother Alice of the Holy Spirit.
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It would not be the first time you have written an Akathist 
.