How to pray the Akathist without priest
Praise be to Jesus Christ!
Me and my wife were trying to pray the Akathist to the Theotokos tonight and just could not find how to do it. I found a website showing you how to pray it without a priest: https://saintjonah.org/akathists-canons-and-services/the-order-for-reading-canons-and-akathists-when-alone/
That left me confused as well though, as after the 7 Bows Beginning, the text reads:
Heavenly King; Holy God (thrice); Glory, Both now; O Most Holy Trinity; Lord, have mercy (thrice); Glory, Both now; Our Father; Lord, have mercy (twelve); Glory, Both now; O come let us worship (thrice); Psalm 50, Have mercy on me, O God; I Believe, and the reading of the canons and akathists.
Now, being Catholic (about to become Eastern Catholic) I'm familiar with prayer shortcuts, i.e "Hail Mary", "Salve Regina" Etc, instead of writing out the whole prayer, but I'm confused as to which of these are individual prayers and where to find them. For example, is "Heavenly King" one prayer and "Holy God" refers to the Trisagion? Or is that a single prayer called "Heavenly King; Holy God" prayed 3 times? Or do the semicolons designate where the next prayer begins? Because trying to find the individual prayers I had little luck
I also found this link https://domoca.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Akathist-to-the-Theotokos.pdf
Which has parts for a priest, so do I simply skip over the priest part and do the rest? Or, if I use the "Canons and Akathists when alone" page, when does the actual Akathist begin?
I apologize for the ranting nature of the post, I simply find the Akathists beautiful and wonderful, and would love to begin praying them, but I struggle to find a singular source walking me as a layman through how to pray from beginning to end
May God keep us all in His Loving Embrace
Thank you!