By Syngelis Em. Konstantinos, Philologist
On 31 August, the Church celebrates the Placement of the Honorable Zoni of our Most Holy Lady in the Church of the Theotokos in Chalkoprateia of Constantinople. This church was in a neighborhood close to a place called Milion, and it was here that the workshops were which belonged to the craftsmen who made and sold copperware, hence the name of the area.
There is no clear evidence concerning this feast of the Mother of God before the 7th century. In the 6th and 7th centuries, six new feasts were added to the liturgical life of the Church, all of them related to our Panagia: her Conception by Saint Anna, her Nativity, her Entry into the Temple, the Annunciation, Christ’s Reception in the Temple by Symeon, and her Dormition. It was the Empress Saint Pulcheria who established the practice of holding a vigil every Wednesday in the Church of the Theotokos in Chalkoprateia. The practice was formalized by the Emperor Saint Maurice (582-602).
