Orthodox chant “Beneath Thy mercy“. The oldest prayer to the Theotokos

✅Donate towards our social work: ✏Beneath Thy Protection is a Christian hymn and prayer. It is the oldest known Marian prayer and the oldest preserved extant hymn to Mary as Theotokos. It dates to the 3rd (or 4th) century AD and is well known not only in Orthodox church but also Catholic. In the Byzantine Rite used by the Eastern Orthodox, the hymn occurs as the last dismissal hymn of daily Vespers in Great Lent. In Greek practice, it is usually sung in Neo-Byzantine chant. The TEXT of the chant: Beneath thy mercy, we take refuge, O Virgin Theotokos: disdain not our supplications in our distress, but deliver us from perils, O only pure and blessed one. The chant is performed by the Monastic Choir of St. Elisabeth Convent. The Monastic choir of St. Elisabeth Convent grew out of an amateur choir of the sisters of mercy who visited the patients of the National Psychiatric Hospital in Novinki. When St Elisabeth Convent was