This Akathist (Hymn, The word akathist itself means "not sitting"), also called the "Akathist of Thanksgiving," was found on the articles of Protopresbyter Gregory Petrov (Composed by Metropolitan Tryphon of Turkestan but was often attributed to Hieromartyr Gregory Petrov (+1942)) who prayed this shortly before his death in a prison camp in 1940. The title is from the words of Saint John Chrysostom as he was dying in exile. It is a song of praise from amidst the most terrible sufferings.
Scripture cannot give us a complete intellectual knowledge of God’s nature; rather, it gives us a record of the impact of God’s operations or energies upon human beings, shaped by the guidance of the Holy Spirit so as to express this experience truly in words. The inspired words show enough of the beauty and goodness of God’s nature to draw us toward him. They help us to realize that, despite our apparent unlikeness to God, such is his generosity and the effectiveness of his grace, we can be his friends (John 15:13—15) really —or, ontologically.
Nevertheless, not even the inspired words of Scripture are adequate to the actual experience of God’s energies. Every inspired writer and Saint has admitted that the words they use are only approximations; they point to something greater than words and sentences. This is why the Orthodox Church can never be literalist about the Scriptures.
Although God is in himself unfathomable, his generosity toward us causes his revelation to be exact. Here I return to the theme of the akriveia or “accuracy” of Orthodoxy. The words are exact enough to be our guide for life. Consequently, every word of Scripture and its position in the structure of the Bible as a whole gives a variety of applications to our situations in life. It teaches us in poetry, story, and in chronicles of events that actually happened.
To read the Bible, then, is not only to gain guidance about how to be deified: it is actually part of the process of our deification, as we are led up into the presence of God through human signs.
Stephen Thomas, "Deification in the Eastern Orthodox Tradition: A Biblical Perspective." (New Jersey: Gorgias Press, 2007) 74.
1) The Georgian chant is covered by divine grace
The Iberian soul “breaths” the sunlight
You have the heavenly (clear, clean) eyes coloured by the Sky (Heaven)
In whiteness of your soul the divine grace is flying (over you) (…opens the wings)
2) The Cross covered by the warmness like (covered) by the snow – blossomed
The tender soul surrounds you all over
The poor dugout “dreams” about the Iberia of the friars
The chrism (anointing oil) drops on Mtskheta’s shafts (places)
3) The Father’s May covers Lomisi (Saint George)
Incense (implement as an incense) the fleecy (smoky) Sky in your soul
Clear our hearts, our sweet (dear) patriarch
(Our hearts are) Hailed by the sorrows, befog them with the divine grace.
4) The Queen of the Heaven accepted you as her child
Cover us with the soul of Iberian father
Agmashenebeli gave you the soot (from flowers) as “Davitiani” (hymnary)
The thorns (crucifixion thorn) of Christ “kissed” your forehead
5) The prayer’s refinement “snows” on Ghudushauri (the last name of patriarch)
The Holy (Heavenly) Spirit of Achkhoti has the grace of matins
The horn of “Davituri” is acting in the Sky as the cherubs
The grace of the Christmas makes you the Saint in Gergeti
6) The Georgian chant reached the dome (of the Church) (made the circle)
Vakhtang makes the capital from Mtskheta
Pray for our father, go to Heaven, Iberia
Tamar –the crowned Queen makes your crown shine as the colour of the sun
7) Dear heavy Cross, most sweet Cross
Make the grace from the black sorrow of the world
Pray for our father, our great Ancestors
Dear Invincible (Powerful) Cross, pray for our father
(8) Mirkani put on the cape of the chitonNOTES:
The grace flies over you in the holiness of Mtskheta
You have the clear (clean) eyes “fed” by the Sky (Heaven)
“My (dear) patriarch”, “My (dear) patriarch”
(repeat verse 8 two times)
Seeing our own brokenness and beauty allows us to recognize, hidden under the brokenness and self-centeredness of others, their beauty, their value and their sacredness. This discovery is sometimes a leap in the dark, a blessed moment, a moment of grace and a moment of enlightenment that comes in a meeting with the God of Love, who reveals to us that we are beloved and so is everyone else.
"To be a witness does not mean engaging in propaganda or in stiring people up rather it means be a living mystery; living life in such a way that one's life would have not sense if God did not exist. To be a witness is much less a matter of external changes in one’s way of living than of firm determination to establish a real community of destiny with the disinherited masses."
"Mission is revealing to others their fundamental beauty, value and importance in the universe, their capacity to love, to grow and to do beautiful things and to meet God. Mission is transmitting to people a new inner freedom and hope; it is unlocking the doors of their being so that new energies can flow; it is taking away from their shoulders the terrible yoke of fear and guilt. To give life to people is to reveal to them that they are loved just as they are by God, with the mixture of good and evil, light and darkness that is in them: that the stone in front of their tomb in which all the dirt of their lives has been hidden, can be rolled away. They are forgiven; they can live in freedom."