Assumption of the Most-Holy Theotokos
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It is not by chance that the passage from the Holy Gospel where the Lord God-Man Jesus Christ Himself testified to us all that Mary chose the better part is indicated as the gospel reading of today’s feast. Martha is the exemplar of having chosen the good (part), while Mary is the exemplar of having chosen the perfect (part) (see: Luke 10, 38-42).
Martha symbolizes and reflects the first stage of spiritual growth, which, as you know, is the cleansing of the heart from passions, i.e. the practical struggle (asceticism); while, on the other hand, Mary represents the higher stage of spiritual growth – the prayer of the mind in the heart and the enlightenment of the mind, i.e. the theory, that is contemplation.
Speaking of the our Most-Holy Sovereign Lady and the Ever-Virgin Mary, we are put in a position to speak of Someone Who is perfect, and that is simply impossible for us given the spiritual condition in which we find ourselves. But still, I will share a thought with you, which inspires me these days before the good feast day:
Bearing in mind the fact of Adam’s fall and the legacy of that fall passed on to us, the following inexpressible happened to us: The Heavenly One gave us an earthly birth, and the Earthly One, through Her personal struggle, enabled us to have a spiritual birth. Let us remind ourselves how…
The overall dispensation of our salvation is the work of our God – the Holy Trinity, from the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. This Dispensation is Christ-centric (just like our life in the Church) due to the incarnation of the Son of God from the Virgin Mary and the Holy Spirit, who also became a Man – God-Man, as well as because of all that He did for us and our salvation. In all this, the most important thing for us is that human nature, hypostasised (embodied, accepted) and deified in the Son of God – Jesus Christ, is not suppressed by His Divine nature, but on the contrary, God through deification guarantees His own human perfection and fullness, as well as its oneness with the entire human race.
The deification of human nature in the Son of God – the God-Man Jesus Christ, is the basis of the deification of every person who desires it to be, in the Church as His Body – by participating in Its Holy Mysteries and Virtues. We should also know this: although we say that, in the process of deification, our nature and God’s nature are mutually interpenetrating, we still know that the interpenetration is by God, Who with His uncreated energies penetrates and deifies human nature. That is why God is our only Saviour and no one else. Man cannot save man.
But the way of our salvation is also important. We would not have been saved by the God-Man Jesus Christ if, after the entire Dispensation of our salvation, He had only ascended into Heaven and sat at the right hand of the Father, in the flesh, but He saves us, as we have already mentioned, in the Church as a Mystery of His Body, whose Head He is, and we – organic parts of that Body, which contain the whole. All of that, however, is made possible for us by the descending of the Holy Spirit the Lord, on His own accord, on His disciples – especially on the Apostles, who are the first to make up that Body. This is clear.
One should always be aware of the sotirological (salvific) consequences of what is claimed in theology. For example, does the aforementioned violate the basic orthodox principle of God’s and man’s free synergy in the Church? That is, does it violate our resemblance to God, our freedom? The answer is – no! It is true that God did everything – for us and our salvation, but none of what He did would have been possible without Her “yes”, without Her consent. This claim also raises the question of the place and role of the Most-Holy Theotokos in the process of our salvation. Certainly, our salvation is not possible without our personal and free consent, no matter how much God and the Theotokos want to save us.
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The Ever-Virgin Mary conceived the Hypostasis (Person) – of the Son of God, composed of two natures, Divine and human. The Most Holy Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary gives birth to exactly this Hypostasis, in Her new state of complexity. The God-Man Jesus Christ is the only subject of the birth – Someone is born, not something. There are not two sons, but only two births of the same Son. One birth – pre-eternal and incorporeal from the Father, as a way of existence; the other birth – from the Most-Holy Theotokos, in the flesh and in time. This is where the truth and meaning of the name Theotokos comes from. This name contains the whole mystery of the Dispensation of our salvation – if the mother, from the human race, is the Theotokos, it is because Her Son is certainly God and certainly Man. The refusal to call Her Ever-Virgin Mary – Mother of God, and the refusal to honour Her correctly as the Theotokos, means rejecting the mystery of the incarnation of the Son of God – and all the consequences of that incarnation; including our salvation.
From the aforementioned, we see that the place and role of the Most Holy Theotokos in the Mystery of our salvation is so important that if we tried to Hypothetically leave the Mother of God out of the Church, just as the organism of the God-Man in which we are saved, we would see that nothing would remain of it and of our salvation. The same is not true for any other man or angel, it is not true for any created being.
What kind of place and role, through Her free and loving struggle, did the Most-Holy Theotokos secure for Herself in God’s Dispensation of our salvation? First; She became our only perfect gift to God. Second; our free and loving synergy with God was perfectly realized in Her. Third; with Her “yes” to God, She also made our salvation possible. Fourth; the Holy Spirit Lord descended among us only because of Her. Fifth; Her position as the Theotokos is such that only through Her we received our Saviour – the God-Man Jesus Christ as a gift, as well as every perfect gift of God needed for our salvation, but also, every gift we offer to God, He only receives it through Her. Sixth; we are Her body and blood, that is, Christ’s brothers by grace, and Her and children of God. And seventh; She is His Mother, whom He commanded to be honoured and respected, and the greatest expression of that respect is His love for Her, that is, His obedience to Her, etc. That is why we believe that if even the biggest sinner (Her child) sincerely asks Her to save him, he will be saved because of Her request to Christ, i.e. because of the newly established personal relationships.
This trust of ours towards the Theotokos, as we have seen and as we know, is supported by the entire Tradition of the Church, in addition to the dogmatism, and by the lives of the saints (as many examples as we can find in them), the works of the Holy Fathers, the life experience, as well as from the liturgical practice of the Church all over the world, on Mount Athos (Holy Mountain) and in our country.
We usually address God with the words – “have mercy on me”, as the only normal relationship between the created and the Uncreated; even if we endure thousands of sufferings, in His glory, they do not make us worthy of salvation – only His mercy saves us. Usually we turn to the saints of God with the prayer – “pray to God for us!” Only to the Theotokos, in the consciousness and conscience of the Church, and because of Her special place as the Mother of God, it is customary and pious to turn to Her with the words – “save us!” When and where we address Her, it is no longer important.
This is an example of seeing the Tradition as a whole, not in parts. This is the work of the Spirit that makes alive, not the word that kills. There is no pious negative comparison between the two, who, one without the other would not be what they are – between the God-Man Christ and His Mother, the Theotokos. It is important Who is the One that saves us, but the way of our salvation is also important. Christ is Life, Christ is Truth, but also the Way.
Just as the Theotokos resided in the Holy of Holies, in the Temple of Jerusalem, before the incarnation of Christ, so our mind with obedience to God should reside in pure prayer, before receiving the gift of revelation of the place of the heart. Virgin prayer is a condition for the manifestation of divine grace in the heart and for receiving the gift of the prayer of the mind in the heart. That is a spiritual Nativity in the heart. Then follows our service to Christ in the world and near the end compassion with Him. Finally we end with our repose in Him, until the resurrection from the dead.
The end of the struggle of our deified Sovereign Lady, Theotokos and the Ever-Virgin Mary is both the Assumption, and also the Resurrection from the dead in glory, before the general resurrection. The Resurrection of Christ and the Assumption of the Most-Holy Theotokos are similar feasts (holy days), made possible by, one and the same, grace of the Resurrection. Christ does not withhold His Mother the Theotokos from Himself and what He has; nor us. This is one of the most joyful feasts we have in the Church. Confirmation of our resurrection also.
Our Most-Holy Sovereign Lady Theotokos, after you alone made it possible for us and showed us that salvation is available to all of us, now also save us – lost without You! And forgive us…
Metropolitan of Strumica Nahum
27.08.2022 15:56
