The Akathist to the Theotokos is a hymn of twenty-four stanzas in alphabetical acrostic in honour of Mary, the Mother of God (Theotokos), sung in the Byzantine rite, most solemnly on the fifth Saturday of Great Lent. Its name is its rubric: akathistos means not seated, and the hymn is sung standing throughout, an ascetic act built into its very title. The twenty-four stanzas run through the letters of the Greek alphabet in order, alternating longer stanzas with shorter ones that end in the refrain rejoice.
The hymn's prologue, We hy hypermacho, to you the champion leader, is traditionally tied to the deliverance of Constantinople from a siege in 626, when the city's rescue was attributed to the Virgin's protection, and the prologue thanks her as the defender of the city. The body of the hymn is a dense tissue of biblical allusion and paradox celebrating the Incarnation, addressing Mary through a cascade of images and titles. Its authorship is disputed, with an old ascription to the great hymnographer Romanos the Melodist. As one of the masterpieces of Byzantine hymnography, sung by a standing congregation across a whole service, it exemplifies the Eastern church's fusion of doctrine, poetry and bodily discipline in worship.