Addressing God as
It is truly right to bless you, O Theotokos, ever blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God. More honorable than the cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim, without defilement you gave birth to God the Word. True Theotokos, we magnify you.
The second part, „More honorable than the cherubim,” was written by Saint Cosmas the Hymnographer. Tradition holds that the Archangel Gabriel taught the first part to a monk of Karyes on Mount Athos in the tenth century.
