Mary
Orthodoxy: The
Narrow Path
Ronald Clausen
5
Mary
"...Blessed art thou
among women..."
Luke 1:42
It saddens me that I now have to include a defense of the understanding and attitude
the Church has always had about Mary until a small group, just within the
last 200 years, digressed from the teachings of the Church. Shamefully, I was
also one of these that had an unnatural 'phobia' over Mary, the Mother of
Jesus, and this subject along with the Eucharist were major concerns of mine.
I found that my 'phobia' was because of a personal indifference over what the
Bible said about her and a misunderstanding over what the Orthodox Church
believed and practiced.
To begin, I went back to the Word of God and started with the way Gabriel
greeted her:
"And the angel came in unto her, and said, 'Hail, thou that art highly
favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women'."
(Luke 1:28)
And Elisabeth echoed this, being filled with the Holy Spirit:
"...and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost: and she spake out with
a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women..."
(Luke 1:41-42)
Well the re should be no doubt that God considered her "highly
favored" and "blessed among women." Then Mary herself
prophesies and says:
"...behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed."
(Luke 1:28)
This prophecy has been fulfilled in the Orthodox Church, for truly she is
blessed among women. She is 'blessed,' not solely because she bore Christ,
but Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it
(Luke 11:28). Mary fit this criteria. She had to have lived righteously for
Gabriel to say to her "thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with
thee" and for the King of all to choose her womb to be born from. She
also fit the criteria by her answer to Gabriel:
"Behold the handmaid of the Lord; Be it unto me according to thy
word."
(Luke 1:38)
In a sense, Mary was the first to receive Christ, she was the prototype of
the church. Her response is what ours should be: Lord I am your servant, I
pick up my cross to follow you and lay down my life. Mary in a sense, is the
new Eve: she lays down her life to obey God. She heard the word of God and
kept it and was an instrument of God to bring the Savior into the world:
"The mystery hidden, from all eternity, unknown even to the angels is
revealed to those on earth through you O Theotokos: God incarnate, in a union
without confusion."
(Theotokion of the Resurrection, tone 4)
Even in this hymn of the Church regarding Mary, the doctrine of Christ is
sung establishing Him as God incarnate, in a union without confusion. The
title for Mary, the Theotokos, then becomes a doctrinal statement on Christ.
The thought that Mary bore God is affirmed by Elisabeth when she said to
Mary:
"And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to
me?"
(Luke 1:43)
For she knew by the Holy Spirit that Mary was going to give birth to Christ.
Timothy Ware states in his book:
"Mary is God's mother, for she bore the Word of God made flesh. What
Mary bore was not a man loosely united to God, but a single and undivided
person, who is God and man at once. The name Theotokos {Greek: God bearer}
safeguards the unity of Christ's person: to deny her this title is to
separate the Incarnate Christ into two, breaking down the bridge between God
and humanity...."
(The Orthodox Church, p. 25, by Timothy Ware)
This term 'Theotokos' proceeded from the Creeds and doctrines of Christ of the
Early Church and was an integral part of Christology. This title,
'Theotokos,' accepted by the whole Church at the 3rd Ecumenical Council
(431), was to be the accurate declaration of the Incarnation of Christ. It
was a title given to Mary to 'protect' the doctrines of Christ. Nothing more
was meant by this, but the truth that she, in her womb, bore a child that was
Light of Light, Very God of Very God, begotten, not made; of one
essence with the Father, by Whom all things were made: Who for us men and for
our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the
Virgin Mary, and was made man...(The Nicene Creed). That child that
she bore was God; she was the one who bore God; the Theotokos; Mary the
Mother of God {Christ, for you who are still squeamish} and all generations
should call her blessed.
I will now simply turn to the 'Fathers of the Reformation' to speak for
Orthodoxy in defending the teaching that Mary was 'Ever Virgin.' First I will
let Ulrich Zwingli (leader of the Swiss Reformation, divided from Lutheran
Reformers because he denied Christ's real presence in any form in the
Eucharist) speak to this:
"She (Mary) had to be a virgin and perpetually a virgin..."
(Reformed Dogmatics, p. 422, by H. Heppe)
And in a prayer he calls her:
"the pure and ever virgin..." (Prayers of the Eucharist, p. 184, by
Jasper & Cuming)
Regarding the verse that "Joseph kept Mary a virgin until" [Matthew
1:25], John Calvin maintains in his commentary:
"Those words of Scripture do not mean that after His birth they
cohabitated as man and wife..."
(John Calvin NT Commentaries Vol. 3, p. 71)
And on the subject of Jesus' brethren he said:
"In the Hebrew manner relatives of any sort are called 'brethren'...It
is therefore very ignorant to imagine that Mary had many sons because there
are several mentions of Christ's brethren."
(John Calvin NT Commentaries Vol. 3, p. 71)
This has always been the undisputed theology regarding Mary. From the
Apostles on down nobody disputed the perpetual virginity of Mary for nearly
1600 years. This teaching is even considered to be prefigured in the Old
Testament as reflected in the hymnology of the Orthodox Church:
"The shadow of the law passed when grace came, as the bush burned, yet
was not consumed, so the virgin gave birth yet remained a virgin, the Sun of
Righteousness has risen instead of a pillar of flame, instead of Moses, there
is Christ, the Savior of our Souls."
(Theotokion, tone 1)
For this gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter
in by it; because the Lord, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it,
therefore it shall be shut (Ezekiel 44:2). Mary's perpetual virginity
was the view of the early Church and even Athanasius used the term "ever
virgin" to refer to Mary. Jesus put His exclamation mark on this by,
while hanging on the cross, He gave His mother to "the disciple whom He
loved" to be cared for. This would have been unheard of in that culture
if Jesus had brothers.
Mary was chosen by God to be an instrument to restore salvation to each one
of us. Her womb became "more spacious than the heavens" for it is a
mystery how it could have contained God, the creator of the world. She became
a temple for God; no other woman has been so honored. Out of the mouth of
three witnesses (Gabriel, Elisabeth and Mary herself) she is truly blessed
and every generation since has proclaimed her to be so in the Orthodox
Church.
Worship
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