PROTECTION OF THE THEOTOKOS
(October 1)
“On this day we, the Orthodox people, joyously keep festival, / illumined by your coming, O Mother of God; / and, beholding your most pure image, we cry out with compunction: / Cover us with your Protecting Veil and deliver us from all evil, / entreating your Son, Christ our God, to save our souls!” (Troparion, Protection of the Theotokos)
Today in some New Calendar churches we celebrate the “Protection of the Theotokos.” As with all our church-feasts, this feast has both historical and mystical meaning.
On the one hand, we are celebrating a specific moment in history, when in ca. the early 10th century the Mother of God appeared together with angels and saints during a nighttime vigil in the Blachernae church in Constantinople. As she prayed for the whole world, she removed the veil from her head and spread it over the people praying in the church, “protecting them from enemies both visible and invisible.
In the mystical sense, which connects this historical event to our own lives, we are celebrating the ongoing intercessions of the Mother of God (and all the Church) for all of us, which “covers” and protects us, like a blanket that a loving mother provides for her children. As the Apostle James reminds us, “The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16)
In this sense, the feast of the Protection is our grateful celebration of the fact that in the Church we are not alone; we have a lot of backup to our own prayers, through the “powerful and effective” prayers of the whole Communion of the Saints, as we walk our cross-carrying journeys. I like to remind myself of the protective “veil” of the Theotokos whenever I see a clear blue sky above me, which is like an icon of the Protection, because the liturgical color of the feasts of the Mother of God is light blue. Thank you, Mother of God, and Happy Feast of We’re Not Alone, dear friends!
