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Why was it listed as "error of the Latins."I believe it is the Anglicans who often call the Virgin Mary as St. Mary.

Dear Friends,

Both are perfectly acceptable and used interchangably in the Armenian Church. Let us not forget that "Saint" comes from the Latin word "Sanctus" which means "holy." So it makes little sense to insist on "Holy" over "Saint." Nor does it make any sense to me to object about using St. Mary's name. She still is a part of the Communion of Saints, now matter how glorious was her life or highly we honor her.

Dear Elexie,

(Thank you for the gift you sent . . .)

The Anglicans came much later, the sixteenth century as a matter of fact .

This list of errors was drawn up already by the time of Photios of Constantinople.

This is also simply a tradition of the Byzantine Church that finds "Saint Mary" to be too familiar and lacking in the respect that the Mother of the Incarnate Wisdom ought to have.

It does not somehow "invalidate" other traditions.

Alex

Dear Brother Ghazar,

Yes indeed - but the Byzantine tradition, indeed all CHristians honour her for what she is - the Saint of Saints who is actually ABOVE even the holiest and highest of the Angels.

And so we honour her as such.

Alex

Dear Joe,

I think I know what you are saying.

And I also know that God will lead you to where He wants you, His Servant, to be!

(I did with my wife as you instructed. She told me to always follow your instructions . . . ).

Alex

As many have already said (Mike, Francis, etc.). St. Mary seems to be mostly an Anglican or English term. In the Roman Church, I most often hear her referred to as "the Blessed Virgin" or "Our Lady." Every Roman Catholic knows what "BVM" stands for!

Logos Teen

Dear Brother Alexander,

I agree with you. This is the mystery of the Asdvadzadzeen: She is "more honorable than the Cherubim and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim..." and yet still a human being and infinitely lower than the All Holy Trinity. To remain Orthodox we must hold fast to both of these truths. Unfortunately, I've come across some individiual Roman Catholic brethren who have made some pretty amazing comments. Once when a friend of mine and I looked at a piece of religious art depicting the Holy Trinity crowning a very regal St. Mary in heaven, he commented to me: "doesn't it seem almost easier to love and go to Mary than to go to Jesus?" I dare say such a view is close to heresy. I think this is where misguided over-devotion can lead. On another occasion I heard a very traditional Roman Catholic pastor comment during a homily that the Liturgy of the Hours (or "Divine Office") should never take the place of the Rosary in family devotion. Yet the Rosary is primarily a Marian devotion whereas the Canonical Hours consist of Divine Worship. I think things get a little turned on their heads sometimes when devotions to the saints get out of proportion to the point they are replacing Divine Adoration.

Trusting in Christ's Light, wm. Ghazar der Ghazarian
Looys Kreesdosee: www.geocities.com/derghazar [geocities.com]

"Doxa to Theo panton eneken" (Glory be to God for all things) The last words of St. John Chrysostom before he fell asleep in the Lord; the result of his exile to Armenia and continual forced marches untill his physical exhaustion and death: a glorious proto-martyr for the Armenian Church

p.s. A local Catholic school near me is called "St. Mary's" in honor of the "B.V.M." Also there is St. Mary Major in Rome. Just manifestations that although some are not accustomed to it, reference to the Theotokos as St. Mary is perfectly acceptable in Latin Tradition.

Dear Ghazar,

Happy Old Calendar Armenian Christmas!

Well, I think the priest you mention is a bit off with his comment.

The Divine Office is not usually the prayer that is said privately by Catholic laity. Perhaps that is more prevalent now than prior to Vatican II. But it is hardly widespread.

Nor is there an obligation for laity to say it - there is, of course, for clergy and monastics.

Families and individuals who pray the daily Rosary with the meditations are indeed engaging in prayer that is Christ-centred and Incarnation-centred.

The Hail Mary's are a kind of backdrop, like background music, and the meditations on the life of Christ come to the centre. And, thanks to the Hail Mary refrain, the Christ that comes to the centre is truly both Man and God!

The Rosary is not in competition with Divine worship.

In the East, when we pray to Saints, we pray to the God Who is enshrined in the Saints, and especially in the Most Holy Theotokos.

The Rosary is so popular because of the fact that it brings before us the drama of the Life of Christ.

When I began saying the Rosary with little verses placed in the Hail Mary's (when I have the energy, I make up a different verse for each Hail Mary related to the Mysteries), this prayer made Christ SO real for me that I can truly attest to the Rosary being an excellent form of Divine worship and meditation.

We can so often recite psalms and the office without real concentration on the God we seek.

The Rosary is so attractive as a form of intercessory prayer and meditation on the life of Christ that it draws us toward it by its simplicity and its inspiration in the humility of Christ's Mother - Whom He Himself gave us at the foot of the Cross, and also at Cana in Galilee!

The Rosary teaches us to become like her, to think about the life of Christ and ponder all of it in our own hearts!

The Rosary has brought me so close to the Lord Jesus through His Mother that a day without it is a day that is, as far as I'm concerned, wasted in our spiritual lives.

As St Louis de Montfort wrote, the Rosary is also something that develops the urge within us to go beyond it and pray the Office, the Psalms and the Name of Jesus.

I can also attest to this wondrous and grace-filled effect of the Rosary in my life.

The priest you mention is, and I could be very wrong, a person who is not as acquainted with the Rosary as he could be.

Alex

Alex,

We might have found a new spiritual home. Last week, we heard our first sermon in a long time that was actually about the Gospel and Jesus. We might go back. We were inspired by the preacher.

Joe

Although the name 'Theotokos' is Greek, the Greek people affectionally refer to Mary as 'the Panaghia', or my 'Panaghia', etc. I guess the translation would be 'all holy'. (Pan means all, and aghia means holy).

If one should ever wonder why so many icons of our 'Panaghia' shed tears of myrhh, it's because myrhh means Mary...or rather Mary means myrhh.

I just realized the connection.

Zenovia

St Mary is the archetypal saint. I don't see anything wrong with the appellation. Saint simply means holy, sancta, or hagia. Nobody's denying that!

In the Anglican tradition, she is most often referred to as "Saint Mary the Virgin," and there are a number of churches by that name, including the famous one at Oxford (once Cardinal Newman's cure).

Ecclesia Anglicana [anglicana.blogspot.com]

Dear Alex,

Thanks for the nice defense of the Rosary. Actually I think you misunderstood the point the priest was making. He was in agreement with what you are saying. His point was that Hours of Prayer were good but they are not as important as the Rosary. This I disagree with. The Rosary being a private devotion should not be seen as more normitive than the Liturgy of the Hours which is the official "Lex Orandi" of the Church. I know Latins argue that the Rosary is a Christ-centered devotion but I think its pretty Marian centered and the most famous of all western Marian devotions. I have no problem with this. Nor do you need to defend prayers to the Saints to me. Of course I believe in these, I'm an Orthodox Christian. Although I do not regularly pray the Rosary, when I was a Latin Catholic I prayed the Rosary very regularly in many different forms (even with the Pope's Rosary CD in Latin). We in the Armenian Church express our devotion to the Mother of God in different ways (primarily liturgically and in the most famous of Armenian Prayer Books: Nareg). My point was, I think it is dispropotionate to direct the faithful away from the Liturgy of the Hours in deference to the Rosary. After all, I've read from Catholic sources that the Rosary was created for the illiterate who could not pray the Office. But perhaps I'm getting off topic here.

p.s. What on earth is Old Calendar Armenian Christmas? I've never heard of such a thing.

Dear Ghazar,

Yes, I did say I could be all wrong!

(Old Calendar Armenian Christmas is the Christmas that only Armenians who live in the Holy Land celebrate - on January 18th. It should be January 19th, like Old Calendar Epiphany, but the Armenians there did not add a day at the turn of the 20th century.)

If people can pray the Hours - that is wonderful and certainly that is the priority for everyone.

But most Catholic laity just don't for whatever reasons (although there are probably more that do now than ever before).

The Rosary is a form of prayer that is very popular and easily accessible to one and all - is what I'm saying.

And when prayed properly, it can be a source of great spiritual nourishment as it brings us into the Life of Christ and Mary.

The practice of reciting 150 Hail Mary's is also an Armenian monastic one, I believe.

There were Armenian Chalcedonian Orthodox among the disciples of St Paisius Velichkovsky in Ukraine who recited the Rosary or Rule of the Mother of God daily together with everyone else and they said that this was also part of the Armenian tradition.

And even if it weren't, there's no reason why ANY Christian, including Protestants (ie. the Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary) could not gain great spiritual rewards from the Rosary.

Just the other day, I picked up a little book in our Catholic store called the "Golden Book of Prayer" that contained meditations on the Rosary.

I've been praying the Rosary for some time now and yet this book opened my eyes to its riches, which are the riches of Jesus and Mary, in a way that I did not experience before.

We are all learners in this and the water is just great!

Alex

Bill,

As I was listening last evening to Sunday School cancellation announcements in anticipation of the storm, I was struck by the large number of Catholic parishes in eastern Massachusetts and southern New Hampshire that are titled "St. Mary's".

Many years,

Neil

Dear Alexander the Orthodox Catholic,

Although, I do not pretend have an all-knowing knowledge of Armenian Tradition, I have been studying it pretty indepth for several years now. I must say I am very skeptical about the assertion that praying 150 "Hail Marys" was ever a part of our historic Tradition. I'd be open to seeing evidence for this. Now there were pleanty of "Unitors" in our Church who being compelled by the Latins were willing to abandon almost anything of our historic Tradition in deference to the Tradition of the Latins for the sake of reunion. Our Church still bears the scars of Latin's attempt to "enslave" us (Western Mitres, etc.). So one has to be very careful as to what comes from our historic Tradition and what comes from the Latinizing movement of the Unitors.

As for the promotion of the Rosary: authentic Armenian devotion to the Mother of God is sufficient for me. I respect your zeal for the Rosary, but I feel no need or desire to interject that devotion into my prayer life. I have a strong desire to continue to learn and plummit the spiritual depths of our own historic Tradition and Theology so much that I'm not interested in adopting those of the Latins or those who sympathize more with them. It is not anti-Latinism that I'm expressing, not at all! Its rather just a desire to be in touch with our own historic Faith. So please don't misunderstand.

Finally, I realize (as you state) that the Rosary is a very easy and accessible prayer for Latins. My original point was just one of surprise that it would be encouraged even over the Canonical Hours. Maybe I'm surprised by this because of my own experience and Faith. Maybe I was misguided to express this surprise on a Catholic forum. Sorry for any offense I might of caused. And thanks for lively discussion as always.

Wm. Ghazar

p.s. Do you have any comments to make on my thread about the "Fear of Death?" This is something I'm researching right now in conjunction with a project I'm working on. Thanks either way.