Anyone who wants to ask for the help of St. John of Kronstadt in illness or in worldly needs will need not only to turn to him with fervent prayer, but also to read the Akathist to the saint at home for a certain time.

What is an Akathist? Let's take a look at the encyclopedia "Religion"

Akathist (from the Greek hymn for singing standing; church – Slavic non-sedalen) is a genre of Orthodox liturgical poetry, a special kind of kontakion, or kondakia – a majestic kontakion that arose in Byzantium in the 6th-7th centuries and became widespread in Greek church literature of the mature and late Middle Ages, and from there passed into East Slavic religious poetry.

The akathist differs from the usual kondacion in certain features: a strictly fixed number of stanzas, or ikos (ikos is a Greek house, a building) – there are always twelve of them; at the same time, each ikos ends with a string of twelve hairetisms (literally, joys) – exclamations beginning with the word "rejoice" with periphrastic naming at each and organized by syntactic parallelism, isosyllabism, and numerous sound roll-calls; ikos regularly alternate with smaller stanzas that have a different refrain – "Hallelujah" (Hebrew praise the Lord – an exclamation in church hymns) – and are also called kontakions (a term not identical to the genre of kondakia); at the same time, the Akathist, like the kontakion, opens with an introductory stanza – kukulium (literally, from the Greek – hood), which in the Russian tradition is also called a kontakion (therefore, a total of thirteen kontakions are formed, a total of twenty-five stanzas).

The most ancient Akathist, which became a model for all the others, came down from the 6th century and is called by the first line "Victorious Commander Who Has Been Chosen" (in the Russian tradition it is called "To the Most Holy Mother of God").

It was customary to listen to the akathist standing (in modern church practice – on your knees). And now it is read at the evening service at matins. The akathist is also read at will at home.

How to read the Akathist?

First of all, since reading will take time, you need to choose a free hour during the day. At this hour, no one should disturb you, nothing should distract you from prayer.

It is good if you read the Akathist in front of the icon of St. John of Kronstadt, it is wonderful if you light a church candle in front of his image.

Probably, at first the words of the Akathist will not be very clear to you and even difficult to pronounce. But the longer you read it, the clearer the meaning will become, the easier it will be to read.

The main thing that is required when reading the Akathists at home is patience and constancy. That's the whole secret.