Dedication of the Church of the Theotokos at Blachernae
The Commemoration of the Dedication of the Venerable House of our Most Holy Lady the Theotokos at Blachernae
A fixed commemoration of the Church of Constantinople, entered in the synaxarion on July 31: ἡ ἀνάμνησις τῶν Ἐγκαινίων τοῦ σεβασμίου οἴκου τῆς ὑπεραγίας Δεσποίνης ἡμῶν Θεοτόκου τοῦ ἐν Βλαχέρναις — the memory of the dedication of the venerable house of the Mother of God at Blachernae. This was the greatest Marian shrine of the Byzantine world: the church in the north-western corner of the city, above the Golden Horn, founded by the empress Pulcheria in the middle of the fifth century, to which Leo I added the chapel of the Holy Reliquary that received the Robe of the Mother of God. From it the Robe was carried round the walls in the sieges; in it the Akathist was first sung in thanksgiving; there Andrew the Fool saw the Protection; and there the weekly "usual miracle" of the veil was seen for centuries. The building burned in 1434 and was never rebuilt. This day keeps the anniversary of its consecration, and is distinct from the feasts of the Robe (July 2) and the Protection (October 1) which are kept in the same place.
Blachernae
Blachernae was the district at the north-western angle of Constantinople, on the slope above the head of the Golden Horn, outside the line of the Theodosian land walls until Heraclius enclosed it with a wall of its own after the siege of 626. Its name is of uncertain and probably pre-Greek origin. The place had a holy spring (hagiasma) and, from the fifth century, an imperial complex of church, chapel and bath (loutron) that grew into the chief Marian sanctuary of the empire — and, from the eleventh century, into the neighbourhood of the imperial palace itself, when the Komnenoi moved their residence there from the Great Palace.
The foundation
The tradition assigns the foundation of the church to the empress Pulcheria, sister of Theodosius II, in the years around 450, and its completion to her husband the emperor Marcian — the same imperial pair whose devotion to the Mother of God is bound up with the Council of Chalcedon and with the definition of the title Theotokos.
To this church the emperor Leo I (457–474) added the chapel of the Holy Reliquary (ἡ ἁγία σορός) to receive the precious Robe, the maphorion of the Mother of God, brought from Palestine by the patricians Galbius and Candidus. That deposition is kept separately on July 2 and has its own entry in this collection: the Deposition of the Robe of the Theotokos at Blachernae. Later emperors — Justin I and Justinian among them — enlarged and adorned the complex, and it was repaired after fires more than once before its end.
The encaenia, the dedication or consecration of a great church, was itself entered in the calendar of the capital and kept every year, as the dedications of the Anastasis at Jerusalem, of the church of Saint George at Lydda and of the church of the Theotokos at the Pege are kept. It is in that class that July 31 belongs. Which of the several building campaigns at Blachernae the day commemorates is not stated in the notice, and no year is transmitted with it; the synaxarion gives the bare ἀνάμνησις τῶν Ἐγκαινίων and nothing more.
What happened at Blachernae
The shrine is inseparable from the history of the city it guarded.
- The sieges. In the great Avar and Persian siege of 626, with the emperor Heraclius away in the east, the patriarch Sergius carried the icon of the Mother of God round the walls and the Robe was brought out of the Holy Reliquary; the raising of the siege was ascribed to her, and the Akathist Hymn was sung all night standing in thanksgiving in this church — which is why the Akathist is called acathistos, "not-sitting," and why its kontakion addresses the Theotokos as the Champion Leader. The same relic and the same procession are named again at the Rus' attack of 860 and in the Bulgarian wars.
- The Protection. It was in the Blachernae church, at the all-night vigil, that Andrew the Fool-for-Christ and his disciple Epiphanius saw the Mother of God spread her veil over the people — the vision kept on October 1 as the Protection of the Theotokos, the great feast of the Slavic churches.
- The usual miracle. Every Friday evening at the vespers of the Holy Reliquary the veil that covered the icon of the Theotokos was seen to rise of itself and to remain suspended until the Saturday liturgy. The Byzantines called it τὸ σύνηθες θαῦμα, "the customary miracle," and its failure and return in the twelfth century became a matter of public and even synodal concern; the emperor Manuel I appealed to it in a letter after a victory in 1158.
- The icon. The Blachernitissa — the Mother of God orant with the Child in a medallion on her breast, the type also called the Platytera — takes its name from the shrine, and was the palladium of the city.
The end of the shrine
The church survived the Latin occupation and the recovery of the city, but on 29 January 1434 it caught fire — the story is that boys hunting pigeons in the roof left embers behind — and burned to the ground. It was never rebuilt; the city fell nineteen years later. The hagiasma remained in use through the Ottoman centuries, and a small church was raised over the spring in 1867, which stands today in the Ayvansaray quarter of Istanbul under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Nothing of Pulcheria's building survives above ground.
Feast and commemoration
July 31 (church date; New Calendar civil July 31, Old Calendar civil August 13), a Constantinopolitan commemoration entered among the "on the same day" notices of the Greek synaxarion, beneath Eudocimus of Cappadocia and beside Joseph of Arimathea and the twelve Roman martyrs. It has no proper office; where it is kept it is kept with the common of the dedication of a church of the Mother of God. The day is also the forefeast of the Procession of the Cross, which in practice governs the services, and the last day before the Dormition Fast.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of the dedication of a church of the Theotokos)
As the heaven of many lights is this house of thy glory shown to be, O Theotokos, enlightening all the faithful; and standing within it we cry to thee: establish this house, O Lady, and preserve it unshaken unto the end, and grant peace to thy people, for thou art the salvation of our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Appointed readings
Epistle — Hebrews 3:1–4
1Wherefore, holy brethren, partakers of the heavenly calling, consider the Apostle and High Priest of our profession, Christ Jesus; 2Who was faithful to him that appointed him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house. 3For this man was counted worthy of more glory than Moses, inasmuch as he who hath builded the house hath more honour than the house. 4For every house is builded by some man; but he that built all things is God.
Gospel — Matthew 16:13–18
13When Jesus came into the coasts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? 14And they said, Some say that thou art John the Baptist: some, Elias; and others, Jeremias, or one of the prophets. 15He saith unto them, But whom say ye that I am? 16And Simon Peter answered and said, Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. 17And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven. 18And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
Iconography
Dedication commemorations are painted as architecture: the church in elevation with its domes and its enclosure, held out upon the hands of its imperial founders — here Pulcheria and Marcian, crowned and in the loros — and above it the Mother of God, blessing the building or standing orant over it. For Blachernae the painters have the shrine's own image to draw on, the Blachernitissa: the Theotokos frontal with both hands raised in prayer and the Christ-child in a round medallion upon her breast, which is the type that took its name from this church and that stands in the apse of a great part of the Orthodox world. Where the shrine is shown as a place rather than a building, the composition is the Holy Reliquary with its veiled icon and the lamps of the Friday vigil, or the Protection scene with Andrew and Epiphanius looking up into the dome.
No storable image of the dedication as such has been located. Nothing pre-1900 depicts this particular commemoration; the entry is listed under wanted icons.
Disputed questions
- Which dedication? The notice does not say which consecration is meant — Pulcheria's original church, Leo's chapel of the Holy Reliquary, or one of the several rebuildings after fire. No year is transmitted. Sources that supply one are supplying it.
- This is not the feast of the Robe. The Deposition of the Robe (July 2) commemorates the bringing of the maphorion to this same church; the two commemorations share a building and nothing else. Day-calendars that print "the Robe of the Theotokos at Blachernae" against July 31 have conflated them.
- This is not the Protection. The October 1 feast commemorates a vision that took place in this church; it is a separate commemoration with its own history and its own office.
- Jurisdiction. The commemoration is carried by the Greek books. The Slavonic Menaia and the American calendars do not print it on this day, and the OCA day-page for July 31 omits it.