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When you can provide the text in English I will compare it, I think that is the only way your example can be considered. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Brother Ed writes:

>>>Hooooooo Boy!!

>>>Just when I, as a convert, am starting to get comfortable with all the honors lauded upon our Blessed Mother, the Latins have to come up with THIS!!!

>>>I have a headache now!!

>>>And HOW, may I ask, is THIS going to make it any easier to bring Protestants into the Church?

I too am a convert who is just beginning to get an understanding of the Theotokos. And one of my first questions was: 'Why all this fuss about Mary?' [I mean, she is not God, and she died over two thousand years ago, yes?]

And the thing that Protestants do not understand theologically in the whole matter of relationship to salvation. They do not understand praying to saints for help. They do not understand the utter necessity of Christians praying for each other on both sides of the veil of death. They do not understand the need of communion within the whole of the Church, the living, the dead, and the yet to be born. They have no idea of the sheer blessedness of the Theotokos, and of her incredibly awesome place in the communion of salvation of the ekklesias... As the birth-mother of God, she contained the uncontainable, and is thereby far and away the most holy intercessor we have before God, and it is our relationship with each other that constitutes our being, expressed in our communion within His Holy Body, the Church. She is at the very top, subordinate only to Christ Himself and the Holy Trinity of our One God. Hers is the 'spiritual fatherhood' of the Holy Fathers, even becoming at Christ's bequest from the Cross the Mother of 'The Beloved Disciple', and thereby of us all... She is steeped in the Mystery of silence, and there is no amount of talking that will illumine Her for a Protestant or other heterodox who does not think that she matters.

The Holy Trinity exists in Communion as One, and we are called to be in Communion with the Second person of that Trinity of Persons, and She birthed that Second Person. She is a core Person of the Church for over two thousand years now, with never even a single controversy over her place in Church worship in all that time, except in the Protestant west of late.

I hope this helps with your "Hooooooo Boy Headache!!"

geo

As someone raised RC who is now embracing his true ethnic roots, Eastern Christianity, this has always ticked me off. Mary has always been put on a pedestal that she didn't deserve. She never was, never is, or never will be or can be, a co-redeemer with the Lord. Our's and Adam's redemption is because of Calvary: Jesus' shed blood. Any other kind of though mingled with a redemption theology is mocking that event.

A correct teaching re: Mary is that she advocated for Eve by undoing her decision. Eve said "Yes" to the deception of Satan, Mary said "Yes" to the will of God.

I wish everyone would just WAKE UP and see this is just what Satan wants a Christian to do: lose their focus on the Lord, on what He did and accomplish at Calvary, and get entangled with extra-Biblical philosophies.

Walter Metrick

Praise God for His Son!!!!

[QUOTE]Originally posted by OrthodoxyOrDeath:
[QB]
"Most holy Theotokos save us."

"I have researched this phrase in the prayer books about a year ago, since it seemed like an interesting one; Of course I know we don't say this as if she or any of the other saints have magical powers or are demigods. When we sing "Holy Theotokos, save us", we don't mean "save" in an eternal sense, as we would pray to Christ; we mean "protect, defend, take care of us here on earth," Just as we ask for each other's prayers, we ask for the prayers of Mary and the other saints as well."

Back when the Eastern Catholic Life had a Question/Answer column, an alternative and very interesting, IMHO, response was given to the query regarding how "Mary, Save us" should be understood.
The priest answered that while chanting the acathist, the proper frame of mind should be a rather sophisticated kind of prayerful poeticism to match the frame of mind of the acathist's author, i.e., the placing of oneself at the scene of the Annunciation.
"Save us" is a way of hoping for, anticipating, "cheerleading" and finally rejoicing in Mary saying "Yes."

Cool.

Just an ordinary kind of fool.

[ 08-19-2002: Message edited by: durak ]

CIX!

Alright, someone called for a classicist? I suppose on this board, I pass for one.

What was the question about greek? The greek texts have always said "Huperagia Theotoke, swson hemas", and the "Swson hemas" cannot be translated in any other way but "Save us".

Anything else I can do?

Yours in Domino,

Edward

CNB!

Swson is obvisously related to sotir and related....like soteriology, right!

recently on the news, i watch a bit about the Pope and his visting Poland and the reporter said he was going to be speaking and promoting the fifth Marian dogma. Does anyone know want it was he was promoting?

Tais presveiais tis Theotokou, Soter, soson imas.

By the "intercessions" of the Theotokos, Savior, "save" us.


Abdur

Thanks friend!

I knew that just wanted someone else to say it...

[ 08-19-2002: Message edited by: Bob King ]

Dear Walt,

Your view on the Mother of God is HEAVILY influenced by evangelical Protestantism, Friend!

The Most Holy Theotokos is entirely focused on Her Son and our God. She has no other role but as a mediator of salvation by becoming the instrument by which God the Son came into the world.

Christianity is an incarnate religion. Salvation is through the "Man Jesus Christ" or through His Humanity.

Salvation is further mediated to us through the Church, the Sacraments, the Bible, and the Communion of Saints. And you know all this.

The Mother of God Incarnate prays for us at the head of the Communion of Saints and her intercession is so powerful that the Eastern Church bids to cry, "Most Holy Mother of God, save us" or "save us by your intercession and prayer before the throne of Thy Son."

Christ lives in His Saints through the Holy Spirit which is why, in the Eastern Church, liturgical services to Saints are actually services to God, or the God Who lives in them.

I've often had trouble understanding the Roman Church's new attitude to downplay, seemingly, veneration of Saints, as if by honouring them, we are turning our gaze away from Christ.

If that is what happens, then we shouldn't have veneration for Saints at all!

But far from this being the case, the Saints are true "Christ-bearers" and "Spirit-bearers" who assist us in bringing us closer to God.

Alex

I too believe St. Mary or the BVM or the Holy Theotokos is entirely focused on her Son. But if someone says, "hey look at the moon" and you sit there and look at the finger of the person pointing to the moon you'll never see the moon. The Holy Mother of God is not the question that most prots and some Orthodox/Catholics are concern with. It's how so many get stuck one the one pointing.

In Christ,

[ 08-20-2002: Message edited by: Odo ]

And compare:

Молитвами Богородицы, Спасе спаси нас!
By (or through) the prayers of the Theotokos, Savior save us!

Dear Odo,

Excellent point!

For me, our liturgical heritage is the great school of spirituality with respect to the Communion of Saints and the Mother of God in particular.

I once gave the Octoechos to a Protestant friend who read it for about an hour.

He later said that if that is what we call "Devotion to the Mother of God" he doesn't see any reason why all Protestants shouldn't practice it!

Alex

Slava Jesu Kristu,

Proclaiming the Theotokos as "co-redemtrix" would be heresy in my opinion. Like the Filioque, it is unneeded.

Dmitri

[ 08-20-2002: Message edited by: Dmitri Rostovski ]

[ 08-20-2002: Message edited by: Dmitri Rostovski ]

Dear Dmitri,

Well, hardly "heresy" unless it were stated in an heretical way.

It would be unnecessary, in my view, like defining the Assumption or the Immaculate Conception since the "pith and substance" of all three understandings of the Mother of God is contained in the liturgical tradition of the East, as our friend, that Defender and Pillar of Orthodoxy, Brendan the Theologian, went to great pains at one point to demonstrate for our edification.

"Co-Redemptrix" does not mean that the Mother of God was a Saviour alongside Her Son, but that She was God's instrument in the Incarnation of God the Word and that Her soul was pierced with a sword, as celebrated in Orthodox icons, in her suffering and love for Her Son in His death on the Cross.

Alex