Theotokos
Familiar English translations are "Mother of God" or "God-bearer" – but these both have different literal equivalents in Ancient Greek: Μήτηρ Θεοῦ, and Θεοφόρος respectively.
Theotokos is an adjectival compound of two Greek words Θεός "God" and τόκος "childbirth, parturition; offspring".
The full title of Mary in Slavic Orthodox tradition is Прест҃а́ѧ влⷣчица на́ша бцⷣа и҆ прⷭ҇нод҃ва мр҃і́а (Russian Пресвятая Владычица наша Богородица и Приснодева Мария), from Greek Ὑπεραγία δέσποινα ἡμῶν Θεοτόκος καὶ ἀειπάρθενος Μαρία "Our Most Holy Lady Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary".
"Mother of God" is the literal translation of a distinct title in Greek, Μήτηρ τοῦ Θεοῦ (translit.
Mētēr tou Theou), a term which has an established usage of its own in traditional Orthodox and Catholic theological writing, hymnography, and iconography.
The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 affirmed the Christian faith on "one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (æons)", that "came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and of the Virgin Mary, and was made man".
Within the Orthodox doctrinal teaching on the economy of salvation, Mary's identity, role, and status as Theotokos is acknowledged as indispensable.
[21] The oldest preserved extant hymn dedicated to the Virgin Mary, Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν (English: "Beneath thy Compassion," Latin: Sub tuum praesidium,) has been continually prayed and sung for at least sixteen centuries, in the original Koine Greek vocative, as ΘΕΟΤΟΚΕ.
[26]Augustine of Hippo (354-430) stated: An Angel speaks to Zacharias; fertility is given to the barren; the priest comes forth dumb from the place of incense; John bursts forth into speech while yet confined within his mother's womb; an Angel blesses Mary and promises that she, a virgin, shall be the mother of the Son of God.
Nestorius' opponents, led by Cyril of Alexandria, viewed this as dividing Jesus into two distinct persons, the human who was Son of Mary, and the divine who was not.
The council accepted Cyril's reasoning, affirmed the title Theotokos for Mary, and anathematized Nestorius' view as heresy.
Explaining his rejection of Nestorius' preferred title for Mary (Christotokos), Cyril wrote: Confessing the Word to be united with the flesh according to the hypostasis, we worship one Son and Lord, Jesus Christ.
There is, then, one Christ and Son and Lord, not with the sort of conjunction that a human being might have with God as in a unity of dignity or authority; for equality of honor does not unite natures.
Nor do we understand the manner of conjunction to be one of juxtaposition, for this is insufficient in regard to natural union.... Rather we reject the term 'conjunction' as being inadequate to express the union... [T]he holy virgin gave birth in the flesh to God united with the flesh according to hypostasis, for that reason we call her Theotokos...
Modern research suggests that also the Church of the East in China did not teach a doctrine of two distinct natures of Christ.
Other examples include Sub tuum praesidium, the Hail Mary in its Eastern form, and All creation rejoices, which replaces Axion Estin at the Divine Liturgy on the Sundays of Great Lent.
[e][35][f][36] One of the two earliest known depictions of the Virgin Mary is found in the Catacomb of Priscilla (3rd century) showing the adoration of the Magi.
Recent conservation work at the Catacombs of Priscilla revealed that what had been identified for decades as the earliest image of the Virgin and Child was actually a traditional funerary image of a Roman matron; the pointing figure with her, formerly identified as a prophet, was shown to have had its arm position adjusted and the star he was supposedly pointing to was painted in at a later date.
[37] The putative Annunciation scene at Priscilla is also now recognized as yet another Roman matron with accompanying figure and not the Virgin Mary.
[citation needed] Recently another third-century image of the Virgin Mary was identified at the eastern Syrian site of Dura Europos in the baptistry room of the earliest known Christian Church.
The iconographic tradition of the Theotokos or Madonna (Our Lady), showing the Virgin enthroned carrying the infant Christ, is established by the following century, as attested by a very small number of surviving icons, including one at Saint Catherine's Monastery in Sinai, and Salus Populi Romani, a 5th or 6th-century Byzantine icon preserved in Rome.
The roughly half-dozen varied icons of the Virgin and Child in Rome from the 6th to 8th centuries form the majority of the representations surviving from this period, as most early Byzantine icons were destroyed in the Byzantine Iconoclasm of the 8th and 9th century,[39] notable exceptions being the 7th-century Blachernitissa and Agiosoritissa.
