The Apolytikion of the Feast of Dormition

A Lutheran friend of mine decided to give me guff this morning about the Feast of the Dormition, particularly focusing on the Apolytikion (Dismissal Hymn).  I got the usual "talking points"--it's not Scriptural, Mary's no different than the rest of us, invoking saints is bad, etc.  I don't think he actually read the hymn's text which I posted in Greek (if he knows any Greek, I'd be surprised; Lutherans are particularly weak on language).  I'm going to go through the hymn line by line and I would encourage anyone (especially my Lutheran friends) to find anything objectionable:

Ἐν τῇ Γεννήσει τὴν παρθενίαν ἐφύλαξας.  Translation:  In birth-giving, you guarded your virginity.  Was Mary not a Virgin when she gave birth to Christ?  Did not the Prophets prophesy that it was a virgin who would be the Mother of God?  See Isaiah 7:4 and then the fulfillment in Matthew 1:22-23 which quotes Isaiah (Septuagint version) directly.  

This does not address the issue of the semper virgo, whether Mary was ever-virgin.  Of course, we Orthodox do believe that Mary was ever-virgin as did the Luther. In the Lutheran confessions, she is always referred to as semper virgo.  I don't understand how something from the confessions which demands a quia subscription by Lutheran pastors AND laity is now reduced to a "pious opinion."  But, I digress...

ἐν τῇ Κοιμήσει τὸν κόσμον οὐ κατέλιπες Θεοτόκε.  Translation:  And in your Dormition, you did not forsake the world, O Theotokos (God-bearer).  The unnecessary categorical distinction between the church militant and the church triumphant only causes confusion.  Does not St. Paul say that in Christ shall be made alive? (1 Cor 15:22).  Doesn't that even extend to those who are no longer in the world (ο κοσμος)?  If not, why not?  The saints make intercession for this world though they are no longer of this world, having been changed.  If it is considered good and worthy to ask for your friends and family to pray to God on your behalf, why not for those saints to do so?  

Now, with regards to the term Theotokos, most appropriately translated as God-bearer, but sometimes erroneously translated as Mother of God, this term has been applied to Mary for as long as there has been a Church catholic.  The term is not found in Scripture, but there can be no doubt (especially from the long introduction of the Gospel of St. John that the Jesus is BOTH man and God, Thenanthropos) that whom Mary gave birth to was God, born in the flesh.  The term Theotokos came under assault by Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who, desiring to protect the honour and integrity of the God-head, favored the term Christotokos--Christ-bearer.  But such a description would divide Christ into two persons and we know (from Scripture) that the members of the Trinity are individual persons.  Nestorius was rebuked at the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D. though he still has followers in the Middle East. (I believe the Jacobites in India are Nestorian as are the Assyrian Church--I'll have to check that).  Lutherans accept the 7 ecuemnical councils because, according to them, they agree with Scripture.  Calling Mary only Mother of Jesus is Nestorian and too many Lutherans have unfortunately accepted this as correct and that is heretical.

Μετέστης πρὸς τὴν ζωήν,  translation:  Thou wast translated to life.  A note first about translation.  The verb is active, but rendered here passively.  It's not intended to be reflexive for that would imply she went into the heavens by her own power, which is not held in Orthodox theology.  This was simply the best way to render it into English.  

The Greek prefix μετα implies material change.  And doesn't St. Paul say that we shall all be changed when we enter into our Lord's glory.  Mary is glorified because of the glory that her Son gives to her.  

μήτηρ ὑπάρχουσα τῆς ζωῆς, Translation:  Being the mother of life.  This is pretty self explanatory.  Mary is not only the mother of God, but God is the author of our life.  There are a myriad of Scriptural references on that.

καὶ ταῖς πρεσβείαις ταῖς σαῖς λυτρουμένη, ἐκ θανάτου τὰς ψυχὰς ἡμῶν.  Translation:  delivering by thine intercessions our souls from death.  In many churches, the participle λυτρουμενη is rendered as an imperative verb.  You will hear "Deliver our souls from death" which is not correct.  So instead of merely describing what Mary is doing, it looks like an invocation which rubs Lutherans and other Protestants the wrong way.  Of course, we Orthodox do not shy away from invoking the saints and asking for their prayers (see above), but, there is none of this here.  

Lutherans will say that there is no doubt that the saints intercede for us.  See Revelation 8:3-4 for example.  So, why then the objection to this hymn?  The hymn restates the  fact that the saints (all of them, both in the world and in the heavens) pray for us and probably pray for any number of things for us.  And why shouldn't those prayers include deliverance from death (i.e. the Devil and his ways)? 

There should be nothing objectionable to this hymn from Lutherans, none at all.  It fulfills  your artificial criterion of Scriptural support, even though there is much more to Mary and the saints in our theology than just this hymn which may or may not find direct Scriptural support.  But, what is more significant is that many Scriptural "proofs" do exist for other doctrines and beliefs that Lutherans find objectionable, but those Scriptures were removed by Luther. These are the so-called Apocrypha which include books like Sirach, Tobit, III Maccabees, etc.  Luther excised those because he didn't like that they actually supported doctrines that he himself didn't like.  Luther wasn't only trying to correct abuses that had snuck into the Medieval Catholic church and return the church to the doctrinal purity of the apostles or those following, but wanted to purge doctrines that he himself hated because Luther thought that he was above the church despite the Scripture that it is the Church which is the guardian and bulwark of Truth, not the Bible.  

I again challenge how this hymn could be objectionable.  Of course, debate over doctrine is generally fruitless and futile so I'm sure that if I do receive anything, it will be more in the form of polemic and invective.

Mother of God vs. Mother of Jesus

Today is my parent's 40th wedding anniversary (God grant them many more years together) and so when I got home from my church, my parents informed me of what went on with their service. I think my parents paid extra special attention since I'm sure that they were mindful of all the blessings and headaches (i.e. me) that have come with 40 years of marriage. Anyway, they mentioned to me that the theme of this the fourth Sunday in Advent was about Mary and Elizabeth. (On a side note, Fr. Peters over at Pastoral Meanderings has a blog on his flock's response to Mary in today's service) I responded that in our church, the Sunday before Christmas is referred to as the Sunday of Genealogy where we read the forefathers and foremothers of Christ our God, born in the flesh and that we stress that God did not simply appear but became as we are to make us what He is. I then asked a question, because I was genuinely curious: Did the pastor refer to Mary as "Mother of God" or "Mother of Jesus?" Nearly instantly, my parents responded "Mother of Jesus." I had to shake my head in disbelief and responded with a typical shockingly "What?" My parents thought I was making a big difference over nothing. But then again, I wonder how many Orthodox (cradle and convert alike) would also assume that there is no fundamental difference in the terminology.

I would never, ever accuse Lutherans of holding a heretical Christology, never. Then again, I think, as with the case of my parents, they see (and probably many Lutheran clergy) that there is no difference in "Mother of God" versus "Mother of Jesus" even though there is quite a difference in those two descriptions. I then responded that to call Mary the Mother of Jesus is to make a Nestorian distinction between the Logos and the man, Jesus. My parents, in all honesty, did not know what Nestorian means.

As far as I understand the term (and I have been reading +Fr. John Meyendorff's book, The Person of Christ in Eastern Thought lately so that sort of helps), a Nestorian understanding of the person of Jesus Christ arises when one believes that there can be no union of the divine and the created together in one substance since that would presuppose that as the mortal part grows old and dies that hence God would die as well, which, of course is impossible. Also, Nestorius said that in His very nature, God could not assume that which He is by nature not (i.e. creator assuming the created). Hence, Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ only and gave her the epithet "Christotokos" which is Greek for "Mother of Christ." Now, to be fair to Nestorius (though he was condemned as a heretic by the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D.), and like most other heretics who were without doubt pious men, he probably just felt that the idea of Mary giving birth to the Divine God with human attributes would somehow rob the Godhead of the glory that is due to Him. So Nestorius' solution to his own problem was that there were in fact two persons, the Divine Logos and the human Christ and Mary was the mother of the latter.

Of course orthodox Christian doctrine (notice I use the small "o" deliberately to refer to Christian confessions such as Roman Catholics, Lutherans, Anglicans and some other Protestant sects as well as the Orthodox) is that Jesus Christ was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary (Nicene Creed) and thus he is both God and man in one union. There is only one person, Jesus Christ, but there is present two substances, which, clarified by the Council of Chalcedon in 451 which were neither commingled nor confused but contained in one hypostatsis, i.e. the God-man, Jesus Christ.

But let's get back to Mary. Lutherans, it seems, will object to the term Theotokos for Mary because it assumes that Mary is supplying the Divine chromosome, so to speak. Of course, this is not Orthodox theology or belief. But to say that she only gave birth to a human is to deny the reality of the incarnation. Again, Lutheran theology, especially as it is contained in the Book of Concord which are the Lutheran confessions, is very orthodox (again, notice the small "o") on this point since it explicitly says that Mary gave birth to ONE person, the God-man Jesus Christ. Thus, Lutherans do accept the tenets of the Council of Ephesus, but, according to them, the only reason they do is because they say it agrees with Scripture (that's an argument for another time).

It's easy for me to shake my head in disbelief when I hear Lutherans call Mary only the Mother of Jesus since I know that they are not heretical in this regard. But when you insist that there is a vital difference in calling her Mother of God versus Mother of Jesus, it will often result in a "it makes no difference" or "well, that's your way of looking at it." I think, though, that if people (and I mean all Christians who accept the incarnation as an article of faith handed down by the Church) really understood that one description does damage to the understanding of why God became incarnate, without which we could not have possibly been saved, then I think the terminology will take care of itself. The only remedy, for Lutherans and Orthodox alike, is continued catechesis and insistence that the two titles do NOT mean the same thing.