The Orthodox Understanding of the Virgin Mary

The most difficult part of my Orthodox experience to discuss with Protestants seems to be the place and role of the Virgin Mary in the Orthodox Church. From the Orthodox view, an accurate understanding of her is deeply theological and even essential to a right understanding of the Orthodox faith. In the services of the Orthodox Church, the full title for Mary is Our All-holy, immaculate, most blessed and glorified Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary. In this article, I hope to explain and defend the Orthodox view and titles of Mary.

ALL HOLY

Although not subject to a dogmatic definition, Παναγία ("All-Holy") is a title given to the Virgin Mary in the East. In Orthodox Christian piety, Mary is honored as the All-Holy who is the "supreme example of the cooperation between God and Man, as God, Who always respects human freedom, did not become incarnate without the free consent" of the Virgin. The Holy Scripture tells us, her agreement was freely given: "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it done to me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38). We revere and honor Mary as above all others besides Jesus, because through her consent, the Logos was born.  The title "All-Holy" is connected to the title "most blessed and glorified Lady".

IMMACULATE

In the Orthodox Church, we call Mary ἄχραντος, typically translated as "immaculate", "pure", or "spotless". However, unlike the Roman Catholic view, these terms are not used to define her conception in the womb of her mother Anna; rather, we teach that Mary was conceived just like any other person. We believe that Mary was born into original (or ancestral) sin and inherited the same fallen nature as us, and that is why she too needed a Savior. She was born, as were all the descendants of Adam, with the effect of sin upon her human nature. However, unlike us, she did not voluntarily sin and lived a life that exemplified being in control of your passions. Mary, as a human being, could indeed have sinned, but chose not to. This isn't to say that she was perfect, as only Christ was a perfect man. According to St. Silouan, “she was not quite perfect and complete, she did make some mistakes that did not involve sin. We can see this from the Gospel when on the return from Jerusalem she did not know where her son was, and together with Joseph sought him for three days”.

MOST BLESSED AND GLORIFIED LADY

The Orthodox Church venerates the Virgin Mary and asks for her intercession before God, but we firmly believe that worship belongs to God alone. Based on Luke 1:28 ("Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women") and Luke 1:42 ("Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb"), we rightfully call her blessed. What is interesting to note is that in Luke 1:28, the very greeting in the original Greek reads, “κεχαριτωμένη” typically translated as “full of grace”, but really, the conjugation suggests “who was filled with grace and continues to be filled”. The very fact that Gabriel begins with “Hail”, Χαῖρε, denotes that Mary possesses a royalty and dignity that is even above the angels, which makes perfect sense considering the Orthodox proclaim her as "more honorable than the cherubim, and beyond compare more glorious than the seraphim". The only other place we find the wording of “full of grace” throughout the entire Scripture is the John 1:14, where Jesus is called “full of grace and truth”, which theologically makes sense that truth would be included due to him being the literal incarnate Logos. The Virgin Mary herself declared, “for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed" (Luke 1:48). Thus, the Orthodox Church fulfills this commandment and example by offering praise and hymns to our Lady.

THEOTOKOS

Θεοτόκος ("God-bearer") is a title given to the Virgin Mary by the Fourth Ecumenical Council (although used in devotional and liturgical use before then). The status of Mary as Theotokos was a topic of theological dispute in the 4th and 5th centuries and was the subject of the decree of the Council of Ephesus of 431. Mary is Theotokos because her son Jesus is one person who is both God and man, divine and human. To deny this is to fall into the heresy of Nestorianism, which declares that in Christ there are two separate natures, one human and one divine, i.e. there are two Sons in the one Christ. Nestorius believed that we should call her Christotokos ("Birth-giver to Christ") instead, restricting her role to be only the mother of "Christ's humanity" and not his divine nature. Saint Cyril of Alexandria wrote, "I am amazed that there are some who are entirely in doubt as to whether the holy Virgin should be called Theotokos or not. For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how is the holy Virgin who gave [Him] birth, not [Theotokos]?" Theologically, the terms "God-bearer" or "Mother of God" should not be taken to imply that Mary is the source of the Godhead. Within the Orthodox tradition, Mother of God has never been understood, nor been intended to be understood, as referring to Mary as Mother of God from eternity, but only with reference to the birth of Jesus, that is, the Incarnation. The Church acknowledges the mystery in the words of this ancient hymn: "He whom the entire universe could not contain was contained within your womb, O Theotokos."

EVER-VIRGIN

One of the more puzzling traditions regarding the Virgin Mary is the teaching that she is Ever-Virgin, that is, that she remained a virgin before, during, and eternally after the birth of Jesus Christ. That the Holy Virgin Mary is Ever-Virgin (ἀειπάρθενος) is not to elevate her to some special status above other creatures; rather, it is an affirmation of who Christ Jesus is. Because He has chosen her to be His mother and to give birth to Him, we understand her as a finite dwelling place of the infinite God. The principal understanding of the Virgin Mary as Ever-Virgin in Scripture is expressed in terms of her being a new Ark of the Covenant, a created thing that contains the uncontainable God. The reason that St. Joseph did not enter into marital relations with her is that he understood her as one would understand the Ark, that she had been set aside for use by God, and that her womb had in some sense been made into a temple. The language used for the Virgin in the New Testament parallels that used for the Ark in the Old. From a Roman Catholic source:

For the first time God's presence has descended upon a person as the new ark of the Covenant. . . . Rene Laurentin speaks of the subtle use of ark imagery [early in Luke]. For instance, he shows how in II Samuel 6, there was a journey to the hill country of Judah that the ark of the covenant took. Likewise, the same phrase is used to describe Mary's journey to the hill country. . . . Both David and Mary "arose and made the journey." In II Samuel 6:2 and Luke 1:39. Laurent goes on to describe how when the Ark arrived and when Mary arrived, they were both greeted with "shouts of joy." And the word for shout or the word for Elizabeth's greeting, anafametezein, is very rare. It's only used in connection with the OT liturgical ceremonies that were centered around the Ark. It literally means to "cry aloud, to proclaim or intone."

Elizabeth greets Mary the same way the Ark of the Covenant was greeted. The entrance of the Ark and the entrance of Mary are seen then as blessing an entire household. Like Obededom's household was blessed, so Elizabeth sees her household as blessed. Laurentin goes on to talk about how both David and Elizabeth react with awe. "How shall the Ark of the Lord come to me?" David says in II Samuel 6:9. And likewise Elizabeth says, "Why should the mother of the Lord come to me?" The Ark of the Covenant and the Mother of our Lord are in a sense two ways of looking at the same reality which is becoming clearer and more personal with Our Lady. Then finally, the Ark of the Covenant and Mary both remain in the respective houses for three months, II Samuel 6:11 and Luke 1:56.

In Luke 1 and 2 we have the annunciation of Gabriel to Zachariah and six months later the annunciation by Gabriel to Mary, then nine months later Jesus is born, and thirty days later He is presented in the temple. You add up 180 days in the six months, 270 days in the nine months, and the 40 days in the presentation and it adds up to 490, which is a very rare number that is found in one of the most memorable prophecies in the OT, Daniel 9. . . . Luke is once again giving a surplus value, a surplus meaning to those who are really willing to dig deep into the text to see all of the inspired meanings behind what God has done to inaugurate the New Covenant salvation in Christ and in His Blessed Mother.

This is the Ark of the Covenant. Now let's go back and conclude our time in Revelation 11 and 12. We have Mary the Ark of the Covenant. We have Mary the true tabernacle. We have in Mary a figure for the New Jerusalem because at the end of Revelation, how is the New Jerusalem described? As being a bride that is pure and yet also being a mother of God's children Well, how is it that you could be at the same time virginally pure and maternally fruitful? It seems impossible in human nature, but not for Mary, not only in mothering Jesus, but in John 19 at the cross and also in Revelation 12 where we read at the very end of the chapter, verse 17, we discover that Mary becomes by grace the mother of all God's children.

How is it that then that the Scripture says that Christ had brothers and sisters? In Orthodox Church tradition, we hold to the view that St. Joseph the Betrothed (as he is called in Church tradition) was a much older man, a widower, and had children by his previous marriage; thus, the "brothers" and "sisters" of Scripture are step-brothers and step-sisters. According to the Protevangelion of James, an early 2nd-century apocryphal gospel, Mary had dedicated herself to a life of virginity, whereas Joseph was much like a guardian to her. Another possible understanding is that these "brothers" of our Lord were his cousins. According to St. Jerome, these were the children of St. Joseph's brother Cleopas, who had died and left his children and widow in Joseph's care. Additionally, both the Hebrew and Greek terms for "brother" are often used to refer to relatives who are not necessarily biological. For example, Abraham and Lot are called ἀδελφοὶ ("brothers") in Gen. 14:14 in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament. Jacob and Laban are also called "brothers" in Gen. 29:15, though Laban was Jacob's uncle. Furthermore, there is not a single instance in Sacred Scripture where anyone other than Jesus is explicitly called the child of Mary. 

Another testimony from Scripture is that on the Cross, our Lord gave His mother into the care of the Apostle John (John 19:26). If the “brothers of the Lord” were Mary’s biological children, Jesus wouldn’t have entrusted Mary into John’s care. According to Jewish custom, care of a mother would fall to the second born if the firstborn died, and if the widow had no other child she would be left to take care of herself. When He gave his mother to the Apostle John to look after, He did so because she had no other children who could take her in.