The Cherubic Hymn and Its Meaning #
The Cherubic Hymn is an important part of the Divine Liturgy. It is sung by both choirs of cantors as they descend to the center of the church. The rest of the faithful stand with bowed heads. It is forbidden to move about the church during the singing of the Cherubic Hymn.
The text of the Cherubic Hymn appears in the service only once and is sung, which makes it difficult to immediately grasp the words as a coherent text:
“Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim, and who sing the thrice-holy hymn to the life-giving Trinity, now lay aside all earthly cares. That we may receive the King of all, who comes invisibly upborne by the angelic hosts. Alleluia.”
The hymn is divided into two parts, between which the Great Entrance takes place—the clergy carry the Holy Gifts from the table of oblation to the altar, where they will become the true Body and Blood of Christ. The priest takes the bread, which still lies separately on the diskos, and the wine in the chalice, both covered with veils, and stands before the worshippers, saying three times the prayer:
“May the Lord God remember you all in His Kingdom.”
All present in the church make three bows to the Holy Gifts, praying:
Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom. (bow from the waist)
Remember me, O Master, when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom. (bow from the waist)
Remember me, O Holy One, when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom. (full prostration)
After this, the priest passes through the royal doors into the altar, and the doors are closed behind him.
In The Mystical Vision of Church Things, St. Germanus writes:
“The noetic powers, beholding during the Cherubic Hymn the transfer of the precious Gifts—which form the Body of the Lord Jesus—from the Place of the Skull to the tomb, sing with us invisibly: Alleluia. For this reason, at the carrying out of the Gifts, the priest and the people pray with the prayer of the thief ‘at the Place of the Skull’: ‘May the Lord God remember you all in His Kingdom.’”
The journal Church, 1913, No. 19, interprets the meaning of the words of the Cherubic Hymn as follows:
“After the transfer of the Gifts, the following is read in the altar: ‘The noble Joseph took down Thy most pure Body from the Cross…’ etc.—that is, a burial prayer. The Cherubic Hymn, sung at that moment, contains a summons, indicating with what disposition we ought to behold this procession of the Lord in the Holy Gifts. ‘Let us who mystically represent the Cherubim…’—that is, we who now mystically portray the cherubim, who accompany Christ the King, and offer the thrice-holy hymn as a gift to the Life-Giving Trinity, let us cast away, let us reject all anxiety and care about worldly things, so that we may, together with the clergy, receive the King of all, whom the angels bear invisibly in the Holy Gifts.”