Invited talk in the series Global Approaches to Sacred Space, Stanford University, 6 November 2023.

The Akathistos is a mysterious piece of poetry and probably the most important Marian song of the Byzantine realm. Apart from the fact that nobody knows who wrote it and when, it has a peculiar constitution: As opposed to much kontakion hymnography, it lacks a narrative development; instead it depends on flourishing imagery which slings itself out in intertwining scrolls. Thus it appears as a spatially oriented composition. At the same time, the Akathistos – despite later iconographic domestication of its otherwise wild and sprawling metaphorical growth – confronts us with perplexing images and unimaginable spaces.  

Having discussed such tensions, I will venture into what I call the “dark mariology” of the hymn and explore how the salutations’ obscure imagery associates the Theotokos with landscapes and fields – where the Logos incarnates into more-than-human flesh – and downplays her human forms in ways that yield an earthier and more dispersed Marian imagination.