Mary, the Blessed Virgin The Mother of Christ. The place accorded
to her in Catholic and Orthodox theology and devotion issues from her position
as Mother of God. She is accounted pre-eminent among the saints. She represents
humanity before God, acting on behalf of the human race, first, when she
receives the Word of God into the world, and secondly, by her intercessory
prayer, which carries a power greater than that of the angels and saints.
In the NT Mary is a key figure in the birth stories of Mt. (1–2) and
esp. Lk. (1–2), who narrates that she was a virgin who conceived Jesus by the
miraculous intervention of the Holy Spirit (Lk. 1:26–38; see also Mt. 1:18–25).
See virgin birth of Christ. Though mentioned several times during Christ’s
public ministry, she remains mainly in the background. In the Fourth Gospel the
mother of Jesus is prominent at the wedding feast at Cana (Jn 2:1–11), and
again at the cross (Jn 19:25). In the Upper Room at Jerusalem she is present in
the earliest Church (Acts 1:14).
In the earliest Christian writings Mary is mentioned because of her
virginal childbearing. Ignatius of Antioch (d. c.107) attributes great importance to it. Testimony to her in partu virginity is found in texts
from the early 2nd cent., most notably, the apocryphal Book of James. In the
3rd cent., this doctrine is attested by Clement of Alexandria. Athanasius
referred to Mary as ‘ever virgin’ (ἀειπάρθενος); and, though contested by Jovinian, the perpetual virginity was
accepted by orthodox Fathers of the E. and W. from the 5th cent. onwards. Also
from this period is the association of Mary with Eve. Justin Martyr (d. c.165) contrasts her obedience with the
disobedience of Eve, and the theme is richly developed by Irenaeus (d. c.202) who presents Mary as Eve’s
advocate. The development of Marian doctrine received considerable impetus
around the time of the Council of Ephesus (431), with the growing popularity of
the title Theotokos (Θεοτόκος),
that is, Godbearer, or Mother of God. This expression was prob. in use perhaps
from as early as Origen; it had become not uncommon by the 4th cent., and,
though it was contested by Nestorius because it seemed to imply that God had a
beginning, it was defended by Cyril of Alexandria because it expressed the true
paradox of the incarnation. In both E. and W. Mary was esp. associated with the
Church; Clement of Alexandria merges the figure of Mary with that of the
Church; Ambrose holds her to be a type of the Church, in that in giving birth
to Christ she also brings forth Christians who are formed in her womb with him.
The earliest full accounts of the end of Mary’s earthly life date from the late
5th and early 6th cents, and bear witness to older traditions of her dormition
(falling asleep, or dying) and her bodily assumption into Heaven. These
traditions were embodied in liturgical practice which eventually crystallized
in the Orthodox celebration of the dormition, and the Catholic celebration of
the assumption, both on 15 Aug. The Coptic Church has feasts of both the
dormition (in Jan.) and the assumption (in Aug.). In the E., notable sermons on
the dormition date from the 6th to 8th cents. In the W. during the Middle Ages
there was doubt as to whether the feast celebrated the ascent of Mary’s body
and soul, or only that of the soul, but by the 13th cent. this had been
resolved in favour of the bodily assumption. Pope Pius XII officially defined
the dogma in 1950. The doctrine of the immaculate conception of the BVM, on the
other hand, was a matter of dispute throughout the Middle Ages. The earliest
defence of the doctrine is that of Eadmer of Canterbury, who wrote a treatise
promoting it. He argued that God had already given Mary the greatest possible
gift when he made her the Mother of God, so we can be sure that he will not
have withheld from her any other good thing. Therefore he must have preserved
her from original sin. The decisive arguments in favour of the doctrine were
put forward by Duns Scotus, who argued that preservation from sin was the
greatest mode of redemption, and hence there must be at least one person in
whom Christ has accomplished this, namely, the Blessed Virgin. The doctrine of
the immaculate conception was widely popular, and was defended by the Franciscans
and later the Jesuits against the Dominicans; it was dogmatically defined by
Pope Pius IX in 1854.
Mariology as a distinct branch of theology came into existence at the
turn of the 17th cent. F. Suárez (1548–1617) is often seen as its founder. In
the Catholic Church, Mariology flourished in the 17th cent., and again in the
19th to 20th cents. Partly under the influence of Louis de Montfort’s True Devotion to Mary, many Catholics
thought of this as a Marian Age. During this period, efforts were made to
secure a papal definition of Mary as ‘Mediatrix of All Graces’ and
‘Co-Redemptrix’. The Second Vatican Council was divided in its approach to
Marian doctrine, and eventually decided in favour of restraint. To bring out
the theological connection between Mary and the Church, the Constitution on the
Church became the locus of the council’s teaching on Mary, and no new dogmas
were proclaimed. The pontificate of Pope John Paul II saw a revival of interest
in Marian theology and devotion, including a revival of the movement to define
her as Co-Redemptrix.
The Marian doctrine of the Orthodox Church is very similar to that of
the Catholic Church. Since the Orthodox do not have a doctrine of original sin,
they have no doctrine of the immaculate conception. In Orthodox theology and
worship, devotion to Mary is closely tied to devotion to Christ, and
consequently the Mother of God is given the utmost reverence. The Reformers,
esp. Luther, stressed the humility of Mary and attacked her glorification by
the Catholic Church. Among all Protestant bodies there was a reaction against
devotion to her. Calvinists denied that created beings can mediate God’s grace.
Some other Protestants (e.g. Quakers and Congregationalists) rejected
hierarchical order, whether in heaven or on earth, and thus would not hold
particular saints in special honour. In the C of E the Thirty-Nine Articles
forbade the invocation of saints, incl. the BVM, but the Caroline Divines
insisted on her pre-eminent holiness. Since the Oxford Movement certain
Anglican theologians have accorded the BVM an increasingly important place
which has come to differ little from the Catholic position. After Vatican II,
improved ecumenical relations led to a thawing of Protestant hostility to Marian
devotion; and the Groupe des Dombes and ARCIC II both produced substantial
documents on Mary.
Belief in the efficacy of Mary’s intercession and hence direct prayers
to her is prob. very old. It is attested in a Gk form of the well-known prayer
‘Sub tuum praesidium’ found in a papyrus dating from the late 3rd to early 4th
cent. In the W. the honour accorded to Mary reached a high point in the 11th
and 12th cents. Thomas Aquinas formulated the doctrine of the ‘hyperdulia’
proper to her, which, though infinitely inferior to the ‘latria’ (worship of
adoration) due to her son, surpasses that befitting angels and saints.
A prominent aspect of Marian devotion is the use of visual images. In
the iconoclast dispute, the iconodules claimed that to reject the use of images
was to reject the incarnation; since Mary is the human agent in the
incarnation, images of the Mother of God have served as important reminders of
the truth of that doctrine. In both E. and W., relics and images of the Virgin
have been attributed with miraculous powers of healing and protection.
Liturgical devotions in the W. came to include the ‘Little Office of
Our Lady’ as well as the Saturday Mass and Office. Popular piety finds
expression in the Hail Mary, the Rosary, Angelus, May devotions, and
pilgrimages, esp. to Lourdes and Fatima. In the Orthodox Church Marian devotion
is expressed in the Akathistos hymn and the Theotokia or short prayers to the
Theotokos following the invocation of the Trinity which came into use in the
8th cent.
The first Marian feast was called the Commemoration (μνήμη) of Mary and was kept on a date close to
Christmas. In the E. the feast remains on 26 Dec.; in the W. it still occurs on
the Fourth Sunday of Advent. The major feasts of the BVM are the
assumption/dormition (15 Aug.), the (immaculate) conception (8 Dec.), her
birthday (nativity) (8 Sept.), the annunciation (25 Mar.; both Dominical and
Marian), the purification of Mary and presentation of Christ (2 Feb.), and the visitation
(31 May or 2 July). Since 1969 the Catholic Church has observed 1 Jan. as the
solemnity of the Mother of God (in place of the circumcision), thus reverting
to a practice attested at Rome in the Gregorian Sacramentary. The Feast of the
Presentation of St Mary in the Temple (21 Nov.) celebrates an event recorded in
the Gospel of Pseudo-James, and was celebrated first in the E. and later in the
W. The Orthodox and Catholic Churches have other Marian feasts particular to
their respective traditions.
The earliest recorded vision of the BVM is supposed to be that of Gregory
Thaumaturgus (d. c.270), recorded in a panegyric almost certainly by Gregory of
Nyssa. The apparition which resulted in the striking of the popular ‘miraculous
medal’ took place in 1830; the visionary was Catherine Labouré, a ‘Daughter of
Charity’ of Vincent de Paul. This is seen as the first of the modern
apparitions, of which the most famous are those of Lourdes and Fatima. See also
Ecumenical Society of the Blessed Virgin Mary; Loreto, the Holy House of;
Walsingham. (Sarah Jane Boss, “Mary, the Blessed Virgin,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian
Church, ed. Andrew Louth, 2 vols. [4th ed.; Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2022], 2:1229-31)
