“It is truly meet” is what we sing to honor the Theotokos during the Divine Liturgy. You’ll hear it right after the priest consecrates the Holy Gifts, when the whole church magnifies Mary as the Mother of God.
The full prayer goes like this: “It is truly meet to bless thee, 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 corruption thou gavest birth to God the Word. True Theotokos, we magnify thee.”
That’s a lot packed into a few lines. We’re saying it’s right and proper, truly meet, meaning fitting, to bless Mary. Not worship her, but bless her and magnify her. Why? Because she’s the one who gave birth to God the Word without losing her virginity. She’s more honorable than the Cherubim, those angels who guard God’s throne. More glorious than the Seraphim, the six-winged angels who cry “Holy, holy, holy” before God’s face. That’s how highly we honor her.
But notice where the prayer ends. “True Theotokos, we magnify thee.” We’re not magnifying her instead of Christ. We magnify her because of what God did through her. She’s the one who made the Incarnation possible by her “yes” to Gabriel at the Annunciation.
How It Came to Us
There’s a story behind this prayer, and it’s one of those accounts that reminds you the Church isn’t just an institution but a living communion with heaven. Around 980 AD on Mount Athos, an elder monk left his cell to attend Saturday Vigil at Karyes. His young disciple stayed behind. A stranger showed up asking for shelter, and the young monk let him in.
When it came time for evening prayers before the icon of the Theotokos, they both stood and began to sing. The stranger sang “More honorable than the Cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the Seraphim,” but he added something the young monk had never heard: “It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and most pure, and the Mother of our God.”
The young monk was stunned. “We don’t sing it that way,” he said. “Write it down for me.”
There wasn’t any paper around. So the stranger, who turned out to be the Archangel Gabriel himself, took his finger and wrote the words on a stone tile. The tile went soft like clay under his touch. Then he vanished.
The elder returned, heard what happened, and they took the tile to the church authorities. The prayer spread through the Orthodox world from there. You can still see that tile in the Protaton church at Karyes. The icon before which Gabriel and the young monk prayed sits in the altar of the cathedral there.
We commemorate this event on June 11th in the Church calendar. It’s a feast day specifically for the “Axion Estin” icon, though you won’t find many parishes in Southeast Texas doing much with it since it falls in the middle of summer when half the parish is at the beach or visiting grandkids.
When We Use It
You’ll hear “It is truly meet” at every Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, which is what we serve most Sundays. It comes right after the consecration, during that part of the Liturgy when we’re offering the gifts and remembering the Theotokos, the saints, and all the faithful departed.
But not always. During Great Lent, when we serve the Liturgy of St. Basil, we sing a different hymn: “All of creation rejoices in thee, O Full of Grace.” Same basic idea, honoring the Theotokos, but with a different emphasis fitting for the penitential season. And on major feast days of the Theotokos like her Dormition or Nativity, we might sing the festal hymn instead.
Some Orthodox Christians also pray “It is truly meet” at home as part of their morning or evening prayers. It’s become one of those prayers that’s woven into Orthodox life beyond just the Liturgy.
If you’re new to Orthodoxy and coming from a Baptist or non-denominational background, this level of honor given to Mary probably feels strange. Maybe even wrong. That’s normal. But stick around long enough and you’ll start to see why we do it. She’s not a competitor with Christ. She’s the first Christian, the first to bear Christ in her body, the one who shows us what it means to say yes to God completely. When we magnify her, we’re really marveling at what God did through her willingness.
Next time you’re at Liturgy and the choir starts singing “It is truly meet,” remember that young monk on Mount Athos learning it from an archangel. We’re singing the same words he heard that night, joining our voices to the angels and saints who never stop praising God and honoring his Mother.
