Liturgical Name-Calling: Otherness and the Akathist Hymn

abstract: Within the textual traditions of Orthodox Christian hymnody, there exist forms of singing against others to construct the self. This mode of liturgical name-calling sometimes includes, as part of public communal prayer, pejoratively identifying others. Such hymning, I argue, is inconsistent with the aims of liturgical theology and an Orthodox understanding of Christology. Alternately, hymns that reflect on the example of Christ's own overcoming of otherness by uniting humanity to Himself in the Incarnation, on the revelation of divine power in lowliness, and on the Christian calling to cultivate and participate in divine likeness are more theologically consistent. The Akathist serves as an example of how hymns might shape those singing in divinely imitative otherness through paradoxical affirmations toward the divine Other, celebration of divine power overcoming presumed boundaries, and teaching the ones singing to respond to otherness in a humble non-objectifying way.