Narsai’s memra 33 is made of 12 by 12 syllables, and its title “On the Sanctification of the Church” suggests that it was written for the feast of the Dedication of the Church celebrated by the Church of the East to this day on the first of November. The memra names the Church of the Nations the Bride of the Bridegroom Christ. The Church had a pagan origin but Christ chose her to become his bride. He thus saved her through his suffering, cleansed her with baptism, prepared the bridal feast for her through the Eucharist, and crowned her victory over all the nations.
Narsai, called the “Lyre of the Holy Spirit,” on account of countless metrical memre-hymns that he composed, lived between ca. 399 and ca. 502, and was thus contemporary for a while of another major theologian and poet, Jacob of Sarug (d. 520).
