Other
Perspectives of Blessed Mother Mary
Roman and Eastern Orthodox
traditions
Christian theologies hold that Jesus was the result of a virgin
birth; denial of this by Liberal Theology is considered apostasy by
Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox (and Evangelicals) alike. She
is often called the Blessed Virgin Mary or Our Lady (this latter,
in French, Spanish, and Italian, is rendered Notre Dame, Nuestra
Señora, and Madonna respectively). Among Roman Catholics and the
Eastern Orthodox she is called Theotokos (Greek for God-bearer) and
St. Mary. Roman Catholics also refer to her as Mother of the
Church, Queen of All Saints, Queen of Angels, and Queen of Heaven;
other Roman Catholic names for Mary can be found in the Litany of
the Blessed Virgin Mary.
According to the Gospel of James, which, though not part of the New
Testament, contains biographical material about Mary considered
plausible by some Orthodox and Catholic Christians, she was the
daughter of Joachim and Anna. Before Mary's conception, Anna had
been barren, and her parents were quite old when she was conceived.
They took her to live in the Temple in Jerusalem when she was three
years old, much like Hanna took Samuel to the Temple as recorded in
the Old Testament (Tanakh, Hebrew Bible).
According to Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox tradition, between
three and fifteen years after Christ's Ascension, in either
Jerusalem or Ephesus, she died while surrounded by the apostles.
Later when the apostles opened her tomb, they found it empty and
concluded that she had been bodily assumed into Heaven. (A tomb in
Jerusalem is attributed to Mary, but it was unknown until the 6th
century.)
Islamic
tradition
Islamic theology also posits that Jesus was the result of a virgin
birth. The Quran tells the story of Maryam (Mary) in two places,
3:35-47 and 19:16-34, but goes into much less detail than the
Bible. It says that Maryam (Mary) was dedicated to God's service by
her mother while still in the womb (Quran 3:35), that she was cared
for by Zakariya (Zecharias) (3:36), and that in her childhood God
provided for her to help her grow strong and pious (3:37). He then
sent an angel to announce that she could shortly expect to bear a
son, specifying that "O Mary! Allah hath chosen thee and purified
thee - chosen thee above the women of all nations." (Qur'an 3:42).
It specifies that she conceived Jesus despite being a virgin: "She
said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man hath touched
me?" He said: "Even so: Allah createth what He willeth: When He
hath decreed a plan, He but saith to it, 'Be,' and it is!"
(3:47).
Dormition and
Assumption
For Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics alike, Mary's assumption,
i.e., the lifting up of her body into Heaven after her death, is
seen as a concrete and present instance of the resurrection of the
body, a belief integral to Christian theology and found in the
creeds.
= The doctrine in Roman Catholicism
= The belief in the corporeal assumption of Mary was formally
declared to be dogma by Pope Pius XII in 1950; Roman Catholics must
therefore hold the doctrine as being necessary to salvation. Pope
Pius XII states in Munificentissimus Deus "[We pronounce, declare,
and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate
Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of
her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should dare willfully to deny or
to call into doubt that which we have defined, let him know that he
has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith."
This is an example of an invocation of papal infallibility. The
Feast of the Assumption is celebrated on August 15.
The promulgated dogma is not worded so as to force the issue as to
whether she experienced death prior to her Assumption, as there is
no theological basis for doing so. Ludwig Ott (Bk. III, Pt. 3, Ch.
2, 6) states that "the fact of her death is almost generally
accepted by the Fathers and Theologians, and is expressly affirmed
in the Liturgy of the Church," to which he adduces a number of
helpful citations, and concludes that "for Mary, death, in
consequence of her freedom from original sin and from personal sin,
was not a consequence of punishment of sin. However, it seems
fitting that Mary's body, which was by nature mortal, should be, in
conformity with that of her Divine Son, subject to the general law
of death." In keeping with the historical consensus of the Church,
Pius XII himself almost certainly rejected the notion of Mary's
"immortality" (the idea that she never suffered death) in favor of
the more widely accepted understanding that her assumption took
place after her physical death.
= The doctrine in Eastern and Oriental Orthodoxy
= The tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church holds that Mary
died, and that after her death and burial, she was resurrected and
taken up bodily into heaven. This two-fold event is celebrated as
the Dormition ( "falling asleep" ) of the Theotokos. The Feast of
the Dormition is celebrated on August 15, and is preceded by a
fourteen day fast from meat and dairy products, the third longest
fast of the liturgical year after Great Lent and Winter Lent.
Despite the great importance of this feast in the Orthodox
liturgical calendar, it is not considered a matter of dogma as in
the Catholic Church (dogmatization of the Dormition for the Roman
Catholic Church was formalized by a Roman Catholic pope after the
Great Schism, whose authority Eastern Orthodox did not
recognize).
Theotokos
At the Third Ecumenical council, the Council of Ephesus (against
the Nestorians), A.D. 431, it was decided that it was entirely
appropriate to refer to Mary as the Theotokos, to emphasize that
Mary's child, Jesus Christ, was in fact God (Denziger 111a). That
Council clarified that the Church Fathers "did not hesitate to
speak of the holy Virgin as the Mother of God" (ibid.), thus
affirming what had always been held as true: e.g. St. Ignatius of
Antioch, ca. A.D. 110 (Jurgens 42); Alexander of Alexandria, A.D.
328 (Jurgens 680); among other references from similar sources. She
is often referred to as "Theotokos" in Eastern Orthodox
hymns.
Non-Christian worship of
Mary
Some non-Christians, particularly followers of Wicca, link Mary to
the Earth Mother of various Neo-pagan traditions. Some Buddhists
have even been known to link Mary to Kwan-Yin of various Chinese
Buddhist faiths. Christians and Muslims regard these as misguided;
in fact, the Quran explicitly states that she is not to be
worshipped (5:116) while the Scriptures indicate, in her own words,
"for behold from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed"
( Luke 1:48 ); see again the distinction, above, between latria and
dulia.
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