Let’s wrap up Marian popular piety. From the East:

207. In the Byzantine tradition, one of the oldest and most revered expressions of Marian devotion is the hymn “Akathistos” – meaning the hymn sung while standing. It is a literary and theological masterpiece, encapsulating in the form of a prayer, the universally held Marian belief of the primitive Church. The hymn is inspired by the Scriptures, the doctrine defined by the Councils of Nicea (325), Ephesus (431), and Chalcedon (451), and reflects the Greek fathers of the fourth and fifth centuries. It is solemnly celebrated in the Eastern Liturgy on the Fifth Saturday of Lent. The hymn is also sung on many other liturgical occasions and is recommended for the use of the clergy and faithful.

Familiar with this hymn? If you think papal liturgy has any influence, consider recent usage:

In recent times the Akathistos has been introduced to some communities in the Latin Rite (In addition to the Akathistos other prayers deriving from the Oriental traditions have received grants of indulgences: cf. EI Aliae concessiones, 23, pp. 68-69). Some solemn liturgical celebrations of particular ecclesial significance, in the presence of the Pope, have also helped to popularize the use of the hymn in Rome (The singing of the Akathistos at Santa Maria Maggiore on 7 June 1981 marked the anniversaries of the Councils of Constantinople (381) and Ephesus (431); the hymn was also sung to commemorate the 450th anniversary of the apparitions of Guadalupe in Mexico, 10-12 December 1981. On 25 March 1988, John Paul II presided at Matins in Santa Maria Supra Minerva during which the hymn was sung in the Slavonic Rite. It is again explicitly mentioned among the indulgenced devotions for the Jubilee Year in the Bull Incarnationis Mysterium. It was sung at Santa Maria Maggiore on 8 December 2000 in Greek, Old Slavonic, Hungarian, Roumanian and Arabic at a solemn celebration with the representatives of the Byzantine Catholic Churches at which John Paul II presided). This very ancient hymn (While its author is unknown, modern scholarship tends to place its composition some time after the Council of Chalcedon. A Latin version was written down around 800 by Christopher, Bishop of Venice, which had enormous influence on the piety of the Western middles age. It is associated with Germanus of Constantinople who died in 733), the mature fruit of the undivided Church’s earliest devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary, constitutes an appeal and invocation for the unity of Christians under the guidance of the Mother of God: “Such richness of praise, accumulated from the various forms of the great tradition of the Church, could help to ensure that she may once again breath with “both lungs”: the East and the West” (John Paul II Redemptoris Mater, 34).

Comments on the Akathistos to Mary? About Marian piety in general? Remember, the Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy is online at the Vatican site.