www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Byzantine Hail Mary...

Slava Isusu Chrystu!

Could anyone share what is the counterpart of the roman prayer Hail Mary full of grace...?

thanks! God bless!
eumir

Rejoice O Virgin Theotokos!
Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with you.
Blessed are you among women, and Blessed is the Fruit of your womb.
For you have borne Christ
The Saviour of our souls.

Amin.

This is so. But more than that we also have an alternative to the Rosary: the Chotki. We pray: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner."

Dan Lauffer

"Hail Mother of God, Virgin Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb; for you have borne Christ, the Savior and Deliverer of our souls. Amen"

This is the version from some of the Sunday school workbooks for children.
denise

Dear Friends,

There are actually two versions of the "Hail Mary" in the Byzantine tradition.

The one above is used still by the Old Believers in Russia ("for Thou hast given birth to Christ the Saviour, the Redeemer of our souls").

The one used by most other Orthodox simply ends the prayer "for Thou hast given birth to the Redeemer of our souls" ("Yako rodyla yesy Spasa dush nashykh").

Other Eastern Churches have different endings to the Hail Mary, such as the Syriac Church.

The most popular and ancient Western variation ends after the Name of Jesus and does not include the invocation that is of later provenance.

Also, I wanted to comment on Professor Dan's point regarding the Jesus Prayer as an "alternative" to the Rosary.

In fact, we know that the Orthodox Church has, from ancient centuries, performed what is still a strong monastic devotion of saying 150 Hail Mary's.

The Old Believers have a special "Lestovka" that consists of 150 "steps" or "babotchki" divided every ten with a larger one to say this "Rule of Prayer of the Mother of God."

St Seraphim performed this rule daily and promoted it widely.

In addition, the West has always had a strong devotion to the Name of Jesus to be found in the LItany of the Name of Jesus, the Jesus Psalter and simply the recitation of "My Jesus, Mercy!"

St Leonard of Port-Maurice prescribed this last prayer to be said 1,000 times daily. We also know that the earliest form of the Dominican Rosary was actually a form of the Jesus Prayer with the meditations on the 15 mysteries!

Both East AND West, in fact, have the Jesus Prayer and the Rosary/Rule of the Mother of God.

The emphasis may be different, but the fact remains that they both have it.

Alex

Alex is quite correct (and has probably done more research on this topic than anyone I know ). There are a multitude of prayer rules specifically to the Theotokos from the times of the desert fathers onward. I think Alex should write a larger work describing all of these sometime.

The Chotki is really not a parallel to the Western Rosary since as it is most well known and used today it is focused on the Jesus Prayer. It is also generaly used as a personal devotion and not said publicly as the Rosary often is.

Sort of off-topic, but the "Bohoroditse divo, radjusja", "Hail Mother of God, Virgin Mary full of grace" is often used as the final troparia of Byzantine vespers. So in this case the "Hail Mother of God" or Byzantine "Hail Mary" is actually used within the liturgy as a proper, not outside of it as a paraliturgical devotion.

Does anyone know of good historical documentation for the origin this practice? The �Bohorodice Djivo� originally replaced the final troparia at the Vigil (Vespers + Matins) because the troparia were sung again just after �The Lord is God� at Matins (not to mention yet again at after the Great Doxology). From there it moved into Vespers (not at a Vigil) but it is not in the rubrics for Vespers.

What's that, Alex? The end of our "Ruthenian" Богородице Дiво in Church Slavonic is

"...яко родила єси Христа и Спаса, Избавителя душам нашим." Are you saying that the Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian and other Slav Orthodox prayer in Church Slavonic ends differently?

But in song we chanted:

"jako Spasa rodila jesi dush nashim (dus nashich?)".

The 1984 Marian Hymnal has:
"jako rodila jesi Spasa dusham nashim".

Dear Lemko,

Yes, there are slightly different endings.

The Ukrainian Orthodox in Canada (most of which are descended from former Greek Catholics as you know)have the ending to their Hail Mary:

Jako rodila Khrysta Spasa dush nashikh (in modern Ukrainian, of course).

Most Slavic Greek Catholics and Old Believers have the exact same ending to the Hail Mary - could this mean we both adhere to the more ancient Slavonic form?

But the Russian and other Orthodox usage is as djs has so kindly presented it.

There is one form of the Rosary that I've seen in my Catholic bookstore that is rather interesting.

For each Hail Mary on the beads, it is "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee, Blessed art Thou among women and Blessed is the Fruit of Thy Womb, Jesus."

And then, at the end of the decade, there is the invocation, "Holy Mary . . ."

In fact, this is a similar form to the Rule/Rosary of St Seraphim Zvezdinsky, shot by the Bolsheviks in 1937 and very personally devoted to Seraphim of Sarov.

He ended each decade with the prayer "Open to us the doors to Thy Mercy . . ."

There are hints in the works of "Rosary Saints" in the West, like St Louis de Montfort, that the Western Hail Mary had a similar role to that of the Jesus Prayer ie when the word "Jesus" was pronounced while reciting it.

The Syriac version has "Jesus Christ" and later Roman Catholic versions of the Hail Mary had "Jesus Christ" as well.

Even one early Protestant liturgy that I've seen has the Hail Mary (without the invocation at the end) but ending with "Jesus Christ."

But the original Western Hail Mary was simply a compilation of the words of St Gabriel and St Elizabeth in the Gospel of Luke with no reference to Christ's Name. This form of the Hail Mary in the West is used in the liturgical propers for the feast of the Holy Rosary.

When recited as a Psalter of 150 Hail Mary's, some versions ended each Hail Mary with a doxology "Glory be..." as is done after each Psalm in the Roman and Benedictine traditions.

To this day, when Western Catholics recite Our Father's in place of psalms, they recite the doxology at the end of each "Pater Noster."

Alex

Dear Administrator,

Well, in our practice, we only have the "Hail Mary" as a Troparion at the end of Vespers during Lent/Great Fast."

Is that different for your Church?

And you've put your finger on the basis for a different liturgical form of the Hail Mary in the East.

In the West, the "Hail Mary" was simply taken from Scripture as a private prayer - that later grew into the paraliturgical devotion of the Rosary, said both in private and in public.

In the East, the words of the Gospel of Luke were taken but woven into a liturgical composition celebrating the "Theotokos-Virgin."

The earliest forms of the Byzantine Hail Mary end with "for You have conceived the Saviour of our souls" And this was later changed to "given birth to . . ."

So for the East, the Hail Mary is actually a liturgical prayer uniting both Scripture and Tradition.

Thank you for putting your finger on that, Esteemed Administrator!

Isn't it great being Orthodox in communion with Rome?

Alex

Dear Diak,

Your point on the Chotki and the Rosary is fascinating!

In the East, both the Jesus Prayer and the Rule of the Mother of God are private devotions of monastic origin, of course.

Jordanville publishes the monastic Rules where it is laid out that monks are to do a prostration after each Hail Mary etc.

As you know, the Old Believers always end the Hail Mary with the Sign of the Cross and a bow on "+Christ, +the Saviour, +the Redeemer, +of our souls." (bow or prostration).

But there is also the rule of Jesus Prayers that, like the paraliturgical public recitation of the Rosary in the West, is done in Church, as you also know.

The Ihumen stands with the Brotherhood in Church in the evening and intones the Jesus Prayer three times out loud.

Then the monks do thirty prostrations with the Jesus Prayer. And then they stand in silence for the remaining 70 Prayers. And this is done ten times.

St Seraphim of Sarov had a "Lestovka" made of leather, but, on closer inspection, it was the "Bogarodychnaya Lestovka" divided every ten steps.

I tried to order one of these from our Old Believer friends in Kyiv - it would seem that the bishop there would NOT give a blessing for these "Marian Lestovkas" to be made. I don't know why!

Alex

When I was doing Greek as an undergraduate, we prayed "Chaire Maria, kecharitomene, ho Kurios meta sou. Eulogomene sou en gunaixin, kai eulogomenos ho karpos tes koilias sou, Iesous. Hagia Maria, meter tou Theou, proseuchou huper hemon ton hamartolon, nun kai en te hora tou thanatou hemon, Amen."

This is an exact translation of the Latin "Ave Maria," and was taken from a Greek Orthodox prayer book (I believe).

LatinTrad

Dear LatinTrad,

Yes, but the Greek Orthodox themselves use the same "Hail Mary" in the Troparion form as we have it.

In addition, it would be liturgically impossible for an Orthodox Christian to use the invocation "Holy Mary Mother of God . . ."

It would have to be "Most Holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary" in that traditional order.

One of the famous Greek "Errors of the Latins" was that the Latins referred to Our Lady only as "Holy" and not as "Most Holy."

And also, traditionally when Orthodox Christians ask the Mother of God for her intercession, it is usually "save us" in the first instance rather than "pray for us" as we ask of all the Angels and Saints.

Finally, we refer in prayer in our tradition to "me a sinner" but not to "us sinners" as we can only speak for ourselves as individuals.

Some monasteries may use "us sinners" but that is the extent of that particular usage.

So, on three counts that immediately pop up for me, the invocation of the Latin Hail Mary is outside the liturgical tradition of the Byzantine East.

Certainly, there is a Greek Roman Catholic Church that would use the Latin Church Hail Mary in the Greek language.

They also now use the Nicene Creed without the Filioque, if you really want to get into it . . .

No?

Well, too bad. . .

Alex

Alex, this is all very interesting. Your posts have taught me a lot.

Nevertheless, I was not trying to argue at all--I was just posting something of interest, i.e. the Latin Hail Mary in Greek, from a GO book, is the prayer of choice at a Roman Catholic undergraduate institution.

I was not trying to initiate an adversarial discussion at all.

No need to get upset.

LatinTrad