Time For Speaking - Kassia

810–65

She was about to be crowned the winner in a beauty pageant. Well, strictly speaking it was a “bride show,” in which the emperor would hand a golden apple to the fairest of them all—and then marry her. Perhaps it was the Eden-like apple that caused Emperor Theophilos to tease the quick-witted Kassia with the line “From woman have come the worse things.”

She instantly retorted, “And from woman the better.”

Her quick tongue was biblically accurate—Mary’s child trumps Eve’s sin—but it cost Kassia the queendom. Theophilos thought better of having such a witty wife and married someone else.

The next we know of Kassia, it’s the year 843, more than a decade later, and she’s the abbess of a convent she founded in Constantinople. Was she brooding over her lost chance at power and glory? Hardly. She was making a name for herself as a writer. Her hymns began to be used in the church. Nearly fifty of them still exist today, and about thirty are commonly used in Eastern Orthodox churches.

Besides hymns, she was also known for a collection of short sayings, including this one: “I hate silence when it is time for speaking.” That seemed to characterize her—not only in that “bride show,” but as an outspoken proponent of artful worship. She withstood forcible efforts of the emperor (yes, that same guy) to destroy the religious icons churches were using in their services.

Her strong voice is still heard in “The Hymn of Kassiani,” regularly chanted during Holy Week in Orthodox churches. A song of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’ feet, it is a lifeline for sinful women today who long for God’s compassion.

Sensing Thy divinity, O Lord, a woman of many sins

takes it upon herself to become a myrrh-bearer,

And in deep mourning brings before Thee fragrant oil

in anticipation of Thy burial; crying:

“Woe to me! . . .

Do not ignore Thy handmaiden,

O Thou whose mercy is endless.”

“I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “Your sins are forgiven.”

Luke 7:47-48