www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Theotokos: ever virgin and miraculous childbirth

No, I am just a person seeking understanding.

Who is to define this "core" you speak of? Isn't that what definitions are for in the first place?

In the West the tradition is that Enoch, Elias, and the Theotokos were "assumed" (to use the Western word) in to Heaven. I had never heard that St. John the Evangelist was. There are other traditions that Moses and St. Joseph were as well. I believe that Moses was taken up due to the fact that he was at the Transfiguration with Elias, and the Book of Jude also alludes to this as well.
Regarding St. Nicholas, I haven't heard of his for lack of a better term "immaculate conception" (sorry I don't know how else to put it.) What are the sources for this?
St. John the Baptist, the West believes was not conceived without sin but was Sanctfied when the Theotokos went to assist St. Elizabeth. When he leapt for joy in her womb.
I hope I haven't muddled the discussion.

Dear Dr Eric,

Ah, this is a fascinating topic for me as well!

In the West, John the Baptist was sanctified in the womb of his mother at the time of the Visitation. There is a feast of the Visitation in the West that does not exist in the East. In St Louis de Montfort's Rosary on the Visitation, he adds the words "Jesus sanctifying" to the Hail Mary.

In the East, there is the feast of the Conception of John the Baptist and he is feted as a Saint at that time - he was, in the view of the East, sanctified in the womb of his mother at his Conception. The fact that the Theotokos visited St Elizabeth and he leaped in her womb could also mean that he experienced sanctification at that time as well!

There is a feast of the Nativity of St Nicholas (August 11) i.e. his birthday and this would imply that he was sanctified in the womb of his mother - only the Mother of God and John the Baptist have their Nativities celebrated along with their Conceptions.

Our liturgical tradition, based on the deuterocanonical tradition, is that John the Theologian was translated ("perestavleniye") body and soul into heaven. These things are not dogmatized but simply part of the "lex orandi, lex credendi" tradition.

The East has been liturgically celebrating the Holy Conception of the Theotokos since the sixth century and this means that we believe she was holy (not just "sinless") but sanctified at her Conception, as befits the Most Holy MOther of God the Word Incarnate.

Certainly, Moses and Elias are also honoured in the East as having been taken to heaven body and soul!

As for St Joseph, he does not have the same cultus in the East as he does (closer to our times) in the West.

Except for the Kyivan Baroque era when there was a definite imitation of Western devotion to St Joseph (ie. by St George Konissky in Belarus).

The reason for this was that the deuterocanonical tradition in the East tended to portay Joseph as a very elderly man (with children from a previous marriage, four sons of whom became disciples of Christ) a guardian to the Mother of God whose Son's Father was and is God.

Eastern iconography also dissuades from the portrayal of St Joseph holding the Child Jesus as obtains in the East.

Alex

Dear Adversos,

Ah, but you've touched on a fundamental difference between East and West here!

The East is less inclined to "define" doctrine apart from the definitions of the Seven Ecumenical Councils in the first millennium of the Church.

The East does not accept the same understanding of Original Sin with Augustine and so felt no need to define the Immaculate Conception at any time (the Immaculate Conception was held by many in the West before its formal definition in the 19th century, as you know, and sometimes entire national Churches held to it like the Catholic Church of the Spanish Empire, but even St Thomas Aquinas disagreed with the IC).

The East however sees a dynamic sanctification of the Mother of God, beginning with her Conception, Annunciation, Pentecost, Dormition etc.

During our Divine Liturgy, we even pray "for" the Mother of God and the Saints . . .

She and the Saints continue to grow in glory in heaven!

The point is that the East has always affirmed Mary's total holiness from her Conception - something that even the true Roman Catholic Church appears to have failed to do!

How can this be so, do you suppose?

Alex

Alex,
If the East has always held the sinlessness of the Theotokos from her Conception why do my Greek Orthodox acquaintences get so mad when I mention the Immaculate Conception?
Dr. Eric

Oh yeah, what about Moses?

Wow. I haven't had a chance to get back to this forum since posting the original question. I was called to begin a teaching position, which, by the way, I am still trying to discern if I should continue. Your prayers are appreciated. I have agreed to a trial period till Christmas.

My question in all of this came about out of my own desire to know how this teaching came about. With all due respect to the teaching office of the Church and to the holy, and blessed Virgin, I am only trying to understand in my own mind how this would have originally come about as an authoritative doctrine.

The sources would need to come from earliest Tradition in some form. St. Joseph himself, perhaps, who was present at the birth, or angelic pronouncements. Things like that. In fact, the scripture which Pani Rose presented was a type of the evidence I am hoping to find. I only suggest this, not as an argument against the teaching, but as a devil's advocate type of argument.

What is the earliest date of the poetry, canons, verses, etc. which have been given as evidence? What were the original sources? Are there other connections to the Apostolic Tradition?

Peace in Christ, Tammy

The perpetual virginity of the Blessed and Most Glorious Virgin Mary was not some 6th Century creation. It has its roots in the Early Fathers Irenaeus 130-200 AD and Clement of Alexandria 150-215 AD who both taught the perpetual virginity of Mary, the term aeiparthenos seems to have its earliest use by St Athanasius 396-373 AD, the great defender of Orthodoxy. The Fifth Council gives Mary the title of honour "Semper Virginem" or ever virgin (aeiparthenos).
Stephanos I

Alex,

Can you elaborate on something? Do Eastern Christians (Orthodox and Catholic) believe that Mary was "full of grace" (kecharitome) from the very moment of her conception? In other words, has she always been "All-Holy" (Panagia), or was there a time in her existence when she was "Almost-All-Holy" or "Not-Yet-Quite-All-Holy"? I do not mean to be flippant - but I think that the rejection of the Immaculate Conception by the East is more a matter of semantics colored by the manner in which is was proclaimed and not, therefore, one of substance.

To me, it seems the West proclaims the absolute absence of something in her, while the East proclaims the absolute fullness of something in her. Are they not in fact two sides of the same coin? How can she be Immaculate, if she is not All-Holy? How can she be All-Holy, if she is not Immaculate?

Sea Knight

Here are a few of the Scriptural texts tha the Fathers and the Church used:
Isaiah 66:7 "Before she was in labor, she brought forth; before her time came to be delivered, she brought forth a man child."
and Ezechiel 44 1-2 "And he brought me back to the way of the gate of the outward sanctuary, which looked towards the east, and it was shut. And the Lord said to me: This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it, because the Lord the God of Israel hath entered in by it and it shall be shut."

The Fathers saw in these verses a prefigurment of the perpetual virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Stephanos I

Dear Sea Knight,

Actually, no. Eastern Christians have always believed in the total holiness of the Most Holy Theotokos - and it was the East that first established the feast of the Conception of St Anne (with England in the West the first to receive it into its Western calendar and prior to the schism).

It is more about the way in which Original Sin affects us rather than about the fact that both East and West believe in the total holiness of Mary.

Truth be told, there were Western saints and doctors who rejected the Immaculate Conception prior to its dogmatic definition - St Thomas Aquinas for example - but I don't pretend to understand the theological subtleties here.

The point is that the East never felt the need to dogmatise on this point - it was always celebrated in the lex orandi tradition. To examine the prayers for the Conception of St Anne is to see the clear way in which the Eastern Orthodox Catholic tradition glorifies the All-Holy Theotokos!

Personally, although I grew up with the Western understanding of the Immaculate Conception as a "mechanism" by which God prevented the Mother of God from "contracting" Original Sin in advance of the merits of Christ etc., I find the Orthodox view much more satisfying and also much more 'befitting' the honour of the All-Holy Mother of God.

The fact is that her sanctification by the Holy Spirit is seen as dynamic in the Eastern Church with her Holy Conception as only the first event - others include the Annunciation, Pentecost, Dormition etc.

The Western view, to me and others, APPEARS to be underlining the "sinlessness" of the Mother of God.

The Eastern view celebrates her glorious holiness as the Temple of the Holy Spirit.

This is why St John of Kronstadt glorifies her as the "Chosen Daughter of God the Father, the Mother of God the Word Incarnate, the Spouse of the Most Holy Spirit and the Temple of the Holy Trinity!"

And this doesn't prevent the East from glorifying her as "All-Immaculate" and "Most Immaculate" to underscore her sinlessness throughout her life as well.

I am powerfully drawn to the Eastern perspective here - and also to other Eastern theological perspectives on other matters.

All-Holy Theotokos, save us!

Alex

Happy feast day of Our Lady of Guadalype, Queen of Mexico, Empress of the Americas and the Islands of the Phillipines. And Happy feast of St Lucia, light of the North.
Stephanos I

You are a New Calendarist?

Et tu, Patre?

Alex

It's also important to remember that the formulation of the Immaculate Conception dogma in the West was highly influenced by Protestant modes of thought based in Augustinian tradition. While there wasn't a major heresy within the Catholic Church itself to address, there was a growing skepticism and even pessimism about Mary creeping in through Protestant angles.

One only needs to read certain Protestant attacks on the Mother of God to see why the "sinlessness" was stressed over the "full of Grace", even though they are indeed two sides of the same coin. Quite simply, the language of Grace in Protestantism is distinct even from traditional Latin theology, and trying to define the concept of "ever-Holy" and "all-Holy" without dealing specifically, and especially, with "always without sin" is just not going to fly in discussions between Protestants and Catholics.

Even today there are differences in opinion within the Latin tradition between Augustinians and Thomists on the nature of Mary's conception; it's really not as troublesome as it first appears, IMO.

In fact, the biggest difference that I've come across specifically between East and West has more to do with what Dr. Alex calls the "dynamic sanctification" of Mary, something that would be quite foreign to most Westerners I would think. Thankfully that falls into the area of "friendly theological disputes" rather than Dogmatic hair-splitting. It's not even clear to me that such a view is even held to universally outside of the Latin tradition, as I have a good friend who is Ethiopian (Oriental) Orthodox, and what she has told me about their beliefs on Mary and her apparent sanctification are quite fascinating, such as her healing people while still in St. Anna's womb and other even more remarkable stories.

After hearing them, I said "Man, and I thought Latins heaped on the accolades of Mary's supreme holiness in the womb!" :p

Alex: Just a matter of clarification, in case some are not too familiar with St. Thomas Aquinas' "anti-IC" argument, he was coming at the question from such an entirely different angle that his conclusions against the IC were more about the question of Redemption (i.e. "Can Mary be said to have been Redeemed?") rather than the actual question of when she was infused with Grace. Since Aquinas believed that before the use of reason we are "morally neutral" in a certain sense, he found a solution to the question as saying that she was not conceived "all-holy", but was infused with Grace while still in the womb. He never advocated the idea that Mary was ever impure, only that she must have been Redeemed like everyone else, in other words that she was not "all-holy" by virtue of some unique attribute of her own.

This important distinction actually became the foundation for the IC as formulated, but with a different "solution" than Aquinas proposed. You can read his article on the matter here [newadvent.org] .

Peace and God bless!

Dear Ghosty,

Yes, I have the utmost reverence for Aquinas (as did our Patriarch Josef Slipyj who had an icon of him done for his chapel in Rome)!

I still much prefer the tried and true Eastern approach based on the lex orandi-lex credendi - and I think this avoids the theological "fix perturbandi!"

Alex