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More on Greek usage
The feast day commemorating the [[miracle]] is celebrated with an [[All-Night Vigil]], with many of the same elements as occur on [[Great Feast]]s of the Theotokos. However, this feast has no [[afterfeast]].
==HistoryRussian Usage==
The Russian ''Primary Chronicle'' noted that the intercession of the Theotokos was needed for the protection of the people of Constantinople when a large fleet of the pagan Rus, led by Askole and Dir, was threatening Constantinople. The invading fleet was defeated and the event remembered. Strangely, the feast came to be considered a very important feast by the Slavic Orthodox Churches but not by the Greeks.
The Moscow cathedral was built in the mid 1500s by Tsar Ivan IV and the Bogolyubovo church was built in 1165 by Prince Andrew Bogoliusky. In [[Novgorod]], the [[Monastery]] of the Intercession of Our Lady (Zverin Monastery) was also built during the twelfth century.
==Greek Usage==
In recent years, the Feast of the Protection has become associated with thanksgiving for the deliverance of the Greek nation from the Italian invasion of 1940. These events are commomorated in Greece in a national holiday known as "Oxi Day" or "No Day," referring to the response of the Greek leader Metaxas to Mussolini's ultimatum.
In recognition of this, the [[Holy Synod]] of the [[Church of Greece]] elected in 1960 to transfer the Feast from October 1 to October 28. The [[Ecumenical Patriarchate]] also provides for this usage in its parishes in Greece and in the Greek diaspora, and it is generally observed now throughout the Greek-speaking world. The observance includes the chanting of a [[Doxology]] incorporating hymns recognizing the Protection of the Theotokos over the Greek nation, as well as the [[kontakion]] "[[O Champion Leader]]."
==Hymns==
*[http://www.mgr.org/TheVeil.html The Miracle of the Virgin Mary at the Church of Blachernae in Constantinople in 911 A.D.]
*[http://ocafs.oca.org/FeastSaintsViewer.asp?FSID=102824 The Protection of our Most Holy Lady the Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary] ([[OCA]])
*Makarios, ''The Synaxarion: The Lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church (Volume 1)'', Ormylia: 1998, pp. 249-250 [ISBN 9608560373]
==External links==
