So, why do we call the Virgin Mary the Theotokos? Hmm, no, I am not talking about the theological justification for the term. I mean, why do we use the term, “Theotokos,” and do not simply use the English, “Mother of God?” After all, that term has been used by both Roman Catholic and Protestant. The Formula of Concord states, “Therefore she is truly the mother of God and yet remained a virgin.” Hmm, no, it is not because we are Hellenophiles (Greek-lovers). Mind you, Orthodoxy uses terms from other languages. The Antiochians, Alexandrians, and Greeks will use Greek-based terms. The Russians have developed their own terms, but that means that Russian words are used in parishes out of a Russian Orthodox background. So, are we simply being “ethnic” by using that term? No, I do not really think so.
The term Theotokos means God-bearer. Perhaps you would understand it better if I wrote it as, “the One who bore God,” or perhaps, “the One who gave birth to God.” This is a different emphasis than the term, “Mother of God.” If I can successfully explain the connotation difference between “Mother of God” and “Theotokos,” I have some hope of having you see the difference in attitude between the East and the West regarding the Blessed Virgin Mary.
You see, the trouble is that when a Roman Catholic or Protestant commonly refers to Mary as the Blessed Virgin Mary or as Mary, the Mother of God, they are referring to the Ever-Virgin Mary only as she supposedly is in herself. (Here is a hint: There is only One who can refer to Himself as He is in Himself.) Is Mary the “Blessed Virgin Mary?” Well, sure she is. Is Mary the “Mother of God?” Well, sure she is. Is Mary, “Ever-Virgin?” Well, sure she is. But, here is the problem. Those terms refer to the Theotokos apart from her son, Our Lord Jesus Christ. That is, if we ONLY call her the Blessed Virgin Mary, we are ONLY saying that she is blessed above all women, and a virgin, which is ONLY what the angel said, and is ONLY a partial truth. Even when we say “Mother of God,” our emphasis tends to be on the word, “mother,” rather than on “God.”
When the Orthodox commonly use the term, “Theotokos,” we mean it in the same way that Jean Cauvin (John Calvin) meant it. “To this day we cannot enjoy the blessing brought to us in Christ without thinking at the same time of that which God gave as adornment and honour to Mary, in willing her to be the mother of his only-begotten Sonâ€. We could also state the converse which is that to this day we cannot think of that which God gave as adornment and honor to Mary without at the same time thinking of the blessing brought to us in Christ. The two are intimately tied together. It means that we can ONLY refer to one by referring to the other and vice versa.
The Ever-Virgin Mary makes no sense apart from her Son Jesus Christ. It is only as she is the, “One who bore God,” that her status and her identity make sense. But, it is only as Jesus Christ is truly seen as the Son of the Ever-Virgin Mary that the person of Christ makes sense. To refer to Mary without mentioning Christ is to have an unbalanced view of her. To refer to Christ without mentioning Mary is to have an unbalanced view of Him. Neither the Incarnation nor the Death of Christ make sense without the Ever-Virgin Mary. She anchors the humanity of Christ. He makes sense of why she is blessed beyond all other women and is fully worthy of every honor that we can give her.
So, we use the term Theotokos. It is an inadequate term, but it does not carry the connotation load of Mother of God, nor does it carry the weight of the philosophical arguments of the West. And, yet the two are tied together, the Son of God and the Theotokos. And, so, both Our Lord Jesus Christ and His Mother, the Theotokos, turn up in just about every minute of our worship. If you go to a Divine Liturgy, you will hear Our Lord Jesus Christ brought up, then, in the next breath, you will hear the Theotokos brought up. We cannot mention Him without mentioning her. We cannot mention her without mentioning Him.
That was a great explanation, Fr. Ernesto. Could you elaborate on the Orthodox view of Mary a little more, since we’re on this subject?
First, when did the belief in the ever-virginity of Mary first take root in the Church?
Second, what else does the Orthodox church believe about Mary? Is she prayed to? Can she intercede? What is her role?
Last, does the Orthodox church believe that she was born without original sin, led a sinless life and was taken up to heaven bodily without death, as the RC church believes?
Our major problem here is that we protestants are looking at the Orthodox church through RC colored lenses (crypto-papists!). Seeing the differences, and the reasons behind those differences, would be extremely helpful.
Oops, I missed seeing this comment last year, sorry.
I was wondering the same thing as DaveMc….why “Ever-virgin”? She went on to have other children…
Did you respond somewhere else? I don’t see a response on this page.
The belief in the ever-virginity of Mary is quite old and was certainly firmly in place by the second century. The Protevangelium of James, from about mid-second century, already fully firmly believes in her ever-virginity. In fact, to put it another way, we do not find any writings from the Apostolic of sub-Apostolic age that do not assume her ever-virginity.
Also there is no history of anyone, until the Reformation, identifying the “brothers” of Jesus as full brothers and sisters. Again, all the non-Biblical writings say that they are either cousins or half-siblings. When one gets a belief that is that old, chances are that it is true. Many of our assumptions about Mary and Joseph are based on an idea that we have come to believe, and that is that a husband and wife will not and cannot really refrain from having sex when they are young and healthy. Planned Parenthood certainly says the same about teenagers.
But, if you look at the culture back then, Romans, Greeks, and Jews all had communities of people dedicated to celibacy, and even couples who would eventually swear celibacy. So, the practice is not that strange. Given that no early writer says says that she stopped being a virgin and that no early writer says that she had other children, this points to Ever-Virgin.
We do see Mary as being able to intercede, just like all the saints. We see her role as analogous to the role of Solomon’s mother when she went in to intercede and Solomon had her sit on a throne beside him.
The Orthodox think that the Roman Catholic view of original sin is wrong. I did some posts on that in 2010. So, the question does not apply since we do not believe in original sin in the way in which the Roman Catholics do. Most Orthodox would believe that Mary led a sinless life and 99% of Orthodox believe that she was assumed bodily into heaven after her death. But, those are not required beliefs, and that makes a big difference.
As to the bodily assumption, it has been pointed out that there is no Biblical reason against it, since two people in the Old Testament were assumed bodily into heaven. One of them was the Prophet Elijah on the fiery chariot. It has also been pointed out that there are tours in the Holy Land, Turkey, Vatican City, etc., of churches or sites that hold the tomb of almost every Apostle, prophet, major martyr,etc., except for two people. There are no Christian sites for the tomb of either Jesus or Mary. None, zip. Had Mary died and not been assumed, one would have expected the same multiplicity of sites and bodily relics as are found for the Apostles, etc. But none are. Nevertheless, this is evidence rather than proof. It is not a required belief among the Orthodox.
I hope that some of this helps.