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Theotokos

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Byzantine mosaic of the enthroned Theotokos, Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna, AD 560

Theotokos is a title of Mary, mother of Jesus, used especially in Eastern Christianity. The usual Latin translations are Dei Genitrix or Deipara (approximately "parent of God"). Common English translations are "Mother of God" or "God-bearer".

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Quotes

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A

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  • Today is the beginning of our salvation,
    And the revelation of the eternal mystery!
    The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin
    As Gabriel announces the coming of Grace.
    Together with him let us cry to the Theotokos:
    "Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!"

B

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  • Deo Opt Max ac Virgini Deiparae sanctisque patronis suis divus Sigismundus Poloniae Rex campanam hanc dignam animi operumque ac gestorum suorum magnitudine fieri fecit anno salutis MDXX
    • To the greatest and best God, and to the Virgin Mother of God, the illustrious King Sigismund of Poland had this bell cast to be worthy of the greatness of his mind and deeds in the year of salvation 1520.
    • Latin inscription on the body of the Sigismund Bell
    • Source: The Royal Sigismund Bell. The Wawel Royal Cathedral of St Stanislaus BM and St Wenceslaus M. Parafia Archikatedralna św. Stanisława BM i św. Wacława. Retrieved on 2010-01-18.
  • Akin to the monuments of fallen despots in more recent times, religious pictures fell victim to iconoclasms directed against false or misused images (i.e. idols). In Judaism and Islam, the ban on images pertained only to their religious use and was directed against the visual practices of other populations; in Judaism against an older pictorial tradition (Uehlinger 2003) and in Islam against the use of images in Christian churches (Fowden 2014).
    In the context of Christianity the use of images was central to the project of becoming a world religion and of eschewing its Jewish legacy. The “true” portrait of Christ, a late phenomenon after the Council of Chalcedon (451), possessed a special evidence that was appropriated by competing theological schools in divergent ways. Pictures were then upgraded as originals. Iconic presence began to compete with the word in textual revelation. Already the notion of the Mother of God (Theotokos) at the Council of Ephesus (431) enhanced the doctrine of the two natures of Christ in one human face. Islamic theology returned to the verbal revelation of God. The Qur’an has been introduced as a book which God has sent to his prophet. With the Islamic rejection of Jesus as the son of God, the visibility of God became taboo once more.
    Aniconism is a picture theory under reverse conditions and usually reflects a negative experience with pictures. In the Reformation, text and picture competed with one other as different religious media, in a turn again Catholic visual politics. The Counter-Reformation above all used the weapons of a re-catholicized visual politics that transformed the space of the church into a theatre of heaven. The church directed this strategy against the private reading of the bible propagated by the Reformation. In modern secular society, religious pictures lost their old credibility, which also damaged their status as works of art. So even within the same religious tradition pictures were subject to historical change.

  • We can be sure our beloved pope is standing today at the window of the father's house, that he sees us and blesses us. Yes, bless us, Holy Father. We entrust your dear soul to the Mother of God, your Mother, who guided you each day and who will now guide you to the glory of her son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

    Today we bury his remains in the earth as a seed of immortality. Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time (full) of joyful hope and profound gratitude.

    • Benedict XVI, Homily during the Requiem Mass of the funeral of [Pope John Paul II], on April 8, 2005
  • Bethink you of the blessedness. Every wife is like the Mother of God—she has the hope of bearing a saviour of mankind. She is the channel of the eternal purpose of Heaven.
    • John Buchan, The Path of the King (1921), Ch. V "The Maid"

C

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  • I, Pope Calixtus III, promise and vow to the Holy Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, to the Ever-Virgin Mother of God, to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul, and to all the heavenly host, that I will do everything in my power, even, if need be, with the sacrifice of my life, aided by the counsel of my worthy brethren, to reconquer Constantinople, which in punishment for the sin of man has been taken and ruined by Mahomet II, the son of the devil and the enemy of our Crucified Redeemer. Further, I vow to deliver the Christians languishing in slavery, to exalt the true Faith and to extirpate the diabolical sect of the reprobate and faithless Mahomet in the East. For there the light of Faith is almost completely extinguished. If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand be forgotten. Let my tongue cleave to my jaws, if I do not remember thee. If I make not Jerusalem the beginning of my joy, God and His holy Gospel help me. Amen.
    • Pope Callixtus III, Solemn vow shortly after his election as Pope, quoted in Ludwig Pastor, The History of the Popes from the Close of the Middle Ages, Volume II (1891), p. 346
  • That anyone could doubt the right of the holy Virgin to be called the Mother of God fills me with astonishment. Surely she must be the Mother of God if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, and she gave birth to him! Our Lord’s disciples may not have used those exact words, but they delivered to us the belief those words enshrine, and this has also been taught us by the holy fathers.

D

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  • The cult of the Virgin, Mariolatry, which by the gradual elevation of the divine element in the Virgin has led almost to her deification, answers merely to the feeling that God should be a perfect man, that God should include in his nature the feminine element. The progressive exaltation of the Virgin Mary, the work of Catholic piety, having its beginning in the expression Mother of God, ...has culminated in attributing to her the status of co-redeemer and in the dogmatic declaration of her conception without the stain of original sin. Hence she now occupies a position between Humanity and Divinity and nearer Divinity than Humanity. And it has been surmised that in course of time she may perhaps even come to be regarded as yet another personal manifestation of the Godhead.

G

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  • Marriages are not permitted on the eves of Wednesdays and Fridays. During the Great Fast from Dairy Sunday up to the first Tuesday after Pascha. During the Falling Asleep of the Theotokos Fast, which consists of a two week period from August 1-15. During the Holy Apostles’ Fast: Monday after All Saints to June 28. During the Nativity Advent, the period before Christ’s Birth. On Saturday, on the eves of the Twelve Great Feasts, on the day before the Feast of the Beheading of John the Baptist, (August 29th), and the day before the Exaltation of the Cross (Sept. 14th).

J

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  • The Christianocategori, or Accusers of Christians, are such and are so called, because those Christians who worship one living and true God praised in Trinity they accused of worshiping as gods, after the manner of the Greeks, the venerable images of our Lord Jesus Christ, of our immaculate lady, the holy Mother of God, of the holy angels, and of His saints.They are furthermore called Iconoclasts, because they have shown deliberate dishonor to all these same holy and venerable images and have consigned them to be broken up and burnt.
    Likewise, some of those painted on walls they have scraped off, while others they have obliterated with whitewash and black paint. They are also called Thymoleontes, or Lion-hearted, because, taking advantage of their authority, they have with great heart given strength to their heresy and with torment and torture visited vengeance upon those who approve of the images.
    • John of Damascus, On Heresies.
    • In, Saint John of Damascus: Writings (The Fathers of the Church, Vol. 37), 1958, 1999, Frederic H. Chase, Trans. p. 160
  • Always consider it a great blessing to converse in prayer with the Lord, or with the Most Pure Lady, the Mother of God, or with Angels, or with holy people, and pray to Them always with joy and with a tremble of reverence, remembering with Whom you, an unclean and insignificant worm, are speaking.
  • The mutual relationship between the mystery of the Church and Mary appears clearly in the "great portent" described in the Book of Revelation: "A great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" (12:1). In this sign the Church recognizes an image of her own mystery: present in history, she knows that she transcends history, inasmuch as she constitutes on earth the "seed and beginning" of the Kingdom of God. 139 The Church sees this mystery fulfilled in complete and exemplary fashion in Mary. She is the woman of glory in whom God's plan could be carried out with supreme perfection.
    The "woman clothed with the sun"-the Book of Revelation tells us-"was with child" (12:2). The Church is fully aware that she bears within herself the Saviour of the world, Christ the Lord. She is aware that she is called to offer Christ to the world, giving men and women new birth into God's own life. But the Church cannot forget that her mission was made possible by the motherhood of Mary, who conceived and bore the One who is "God from God", "true God from true God". Mary is truly the Mother of God, the Theotokos, in whose motherhood the vocation to motherhood bestowed by God on every woman is raised to its highest level. Thus Mary becomes the model of the Church, called to be the "new Eve", the mother of believers, the mother of the "living" (cf. Gen 3:20).
  • But why do you not cease to call Mary the mother of God, if Isaiah nowhere says that he that is born of the virgin is the "only begotten Son of God" and "the firstborn of all creation"?
    • Julian (emperor) (c. 331 – 363), Against the Galileans (c. 361) as translated in [The Works of the Emperor Julian, edited by Wilmer Cave Wright (1865-1951), London, W. Heinemann; New York, The Macmillan co., (1913 - 1923), volume 3, p. 399,

K

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  • I take the suffering of people caused by the events taking place with deep and heartfelt pain. I call on all parties to the conflict to do everything possible to avoid civilian casualties. I appeal to the bishops, pastors, monastics, and laity to provide all possible assistance to all victims, including refugees and people left homeless and without means of livelihood. The Russian and Ukrainian peoples have a common centuries-old history dating back to the Baptism of Rus’ by Prince St. Vladimir the Equal-to-the-Apostles. I believe that this God-given affinity will help overcome the divisions and disagreements that have arisen that have led to the current conflict. I call on the entire fullness of the Russian Orthodox Church to offer a special, fervent prayer for the speedy restoration of peace. May the All-merciful Lord, through the intercession of our Most Pure Lady the Theotokos and all the saints, preserve the Russian, Ukrainian, and other peoples who are spiritually united by our Church!
  • He who wants to live the supernatural life clings to the Mother of Divine Grace. He who wants to convert and sanctify himself must have recourse to the Mother of God, for she is the Mediatrix of all graces. This mystery, that we receive everything through the Immaculate, is still little known. That is why we must propagate it; more, we must conquer the whole world to the Immaculate.<
  • Adoration is obviously love. "I adore you" are the words lovers speak. If spoken to a human being and meant literally, it is idolatry. Adoration literally means infinite love. It is to be given only to the infinitely perfect, infinitely lovable being, God. The Latin word for adoration is latria, as distinct from dulia, which is finite, human love and respect. Hyperdulia is the highest, greatest finite and human love and respect, which is to be given to the greatest merely finite and human being who ever lived, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, who alone was sinless, "our tainted nature's solitary boast".
    • Peter Kreeft, in Prayer for Beginners (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), pp. 49–50.
    • The phrase "our tainted nature's solitary boast" is from William Wordsworth's sonnet "The Virgin" (Ecclesiastical Sonnets, 1822).

L

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  • To thee, O blessed Joseph, we have recourse in our affliction, and having implored the help of thy thrice holy Spouse, we now, with hearts filled with confidence, earnestly beg thee also to take us under thy protection. By that charity wherewith thou wert united to the Immaculate Virgin Mother of God, and by that fatherly love with which thou didst cherish the Child Jesus, we beseech thee and we humbly pray that thou wilt look down with gracious eye upon that inheritance which Jesus Christ purchased by His blood, and wilt succor us in our need by thy power and strength.

Defend, O most watchful guardian of the Holy Family, the chosen off-spring of Jesus Christ. Keep from us, O most loving Father, all blight of error and corruption. Aid us from on high, most valiant defender, in this conflict with the powers of darkness. And even as of old thou didst rescue the Child Jesus from the peril of His life, so now defend God's Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity. Shield us ever under thy patronage, that, following thine example and strengthened by thy help, we may live a holy life, die a happy death, and attain to everlasting bliss in Heaven. Amen

  • "She is rightly called not only the mother of the man, but also the Mother of God ... It is certain that Mary is the Mother of the real and true God.
    • Martin Luther, Weimar edition of Martin Luther's Works, English translation edited by J. Pelikan [Concordia: St. Louis], Vol. 11, Vol. 24, 107

M

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  • My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.
Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for the Mighty One has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
  • Leaving the great and wondrous Lavra, he first set off at full speed on the ascent of Athos, where the tablets of grace were promised by the Mother of God. And thus he reached it, without eating anything, on the seventh [Sunday after Easter]; for that day was the first [Sunday] after the Ascension, the so-called Sunday of the Holy Fathers. After arriving at the summit there and prostrating himself and praying to God, as was his custom every night, he spent the whole night in vigil together with some monks. But when all the monks departed in the morning and no one was left behind, he remained there alone for three entire days and nights without food and wearing only a single garment, in the service of God. And he constantly had the name of the Mother of God on his tongue, in his mind and heart through mental prayer in the Spirit.
    • Maximos of Kafsokalyvia, Chapter 9, "Life of Maximos the Hutburner by Theophanes", translated by Richard P. H. Greenfield and Alice-Mary Talbot. In Holy Men of Mount Athos (2016), p. 473, 475
  • Thus, after spending three days in this place of fragrance, he descended at the bidding of our Lady the Mother of God as far as her church, the one called Panagia. After spending some days there, he went up again to the summit of Athos and kissed the spot where the Mother of God had appeared to stand in glory. He tearfully sought to see the vision once again, but he did not succeed; for only light and unceasing divine fragrance fell invisibly upon the holy one's senses, as before, and filled him with joy and inexpressible happiness. After going up two or three times from the Panagia and being granted this experience, he then went down from there and, going to Karmelion, found a solitary elder there and told him about his vision.
    • Maximos of Kafsokalyvia, Chapter 9, "Life of Maximos the Hutburner by Theophanes", translated by Richard P. H. Greenfield and Alice-Mary Talbot. In Holy Men of Mount Athos (2016), p. 479
  • Why is the Madonna appearing? Why didn't Jesus himself or any canonized saint appear in Lourdes (as in rue du Bac, La Salette, Pontmain, Beauraing, Fatima, to name just the last century and a half and facts approved by the Church)? But it is because – answers the theology, meditated by mystics –, according to the Catholic Creed «the Immaculate Mother of God, always Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed into celestial glory in body and soul» . Thus, the words of the dogma of the Assumption, defined and proclaimed by Pius XII only in C.E.1950 but believed in its object since the times of the Fathers of the Church both in the East and in the West (the feast of the Dormition, which has in nuce the Assumption of the Virgin Mother, it is probably the most ancient of the Marian feasts that unite the universal Church).
    Mary, in short, having carried in her womb the One who said: «I am the resurrection and life" (Jn 11, 25), followed the Son in his eternal destiny before any other human creature; she is the one who preceded us all, already welcomed into eternity "in body and soul". Therefore, if she appears to mortals, it is also to remember that what she already is, we too will be. Her sign and pledge, in short, in the person of herself, of that salvation we were talking about and that she will give us true health: the vision of Mary's body already "saved" is a guarantee that everyone's will be.
  • Peat preserves timber, animals, and such unexpected treasure-troves as hoards of acorns and firkins of beech butter from the forests which preceded the bogs. A whole archaeology may very well lie in peat, and the pollen record may reveal past history. At the base of Irish bogs the Fir Bolg (the little people), their axes, bridges, butter, and forest life are well preserved. They and their forests were banished, as if by magic, by the Tuatha de Danan (the Children of Diana) who now dig the peat. Diana was displaced in turn by Mary, mother of God. But all are mixed in the peat and the tongue of Ireland.

N

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  • It is then an integral portion of the Faith fixed by Ecumenical Council, a portion of it which you hold as well as I, that the Blessed Virgin is Theotocos, Deipara, or Mother of God; and this word, when thus used, carries with it no admixture of rhetoric, no taint of extravagant affection,—it has nothing else but a well-weighed, grave, dogmatic sense, which corresponds and is adequate to its sound. It intends to express that God is her Son, as truly as any one of us is the son of his own mother.
    • John Henry Newman, A Letter to the Rev. E. B. Pusey, D.D. On His Recent Eirenicon (1866), p. 66

P

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  • This stillness, this silence, is everywhere, pervades, all, is the very essence of the Holy Mountain. ... But this stillness, this silence, is far more than a mere absence of sound. It has a positive quality, a quality of fullness, of plenitude, of the eternal Peace which is there reflected in the veil of the Mother of God, enshrouding and protecting her Holy Mountain, offering inner silence, peace of heart, to those who dwell there and to those who come with openness of heart to seek this blessing.
    • Palmer, G. E. H. "Silence over Athos." First published in the periodical Orthodox Life (Holy Trinity Russian Orthodox Monastery, Jordanville, NY) Nov.-Dec. 1968, p.33. Also quoted in: Ware, Kallistos. “Two British Pilgrims to the Holy Mountain: Gerald Palmer and Philip Sherrard.” In The Monastic Magnet: Roads to and from Mount Athos, edited by René Gothóni and Graham Speake, 143–57. Oxford: Peter Lang. (pp. 150–51)
  • The Divine Will contains the creative strenght. From within God's one single "Fiat" came out billions and billions of stars. From the Fiat Mihi" of the Mother of God, from which Redemption had its origin, came out billions and billions of acts of grace, which communicate themselves to souls. These acts of grace are more beautiful, more resplendent and more varied than billions of stars! The Divine Fiat is full of life, and in fact It is life itself, and alla lives and things come out from within the Fiat. From the Fiat of God, Creation came out, and in each created thing can be seen the imprint of that Fiat. From the "Fiat Mihi" of the Blessed Virgin, pronounced in the Divine Will with the same power of the Fiat of Creation, Redemption came forth. Therefore everything that concerns the Redemption bears the imprint of her "Fiat Mihi".Even the very Humanity of her Son, His steps, works and words, were sealed with Mary's "Fiat Mihi".

R

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  • If Mary is full of grace, it is because she is the Mother of God.

S

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  • In our world of darkness, we need to turn to Mary, who gave us Jesus, the light of the world. In our culture of death, we need to turn to Mary, the first disciple to hear and proclaim the gospel of life. In our secularist society, we need to turn back to God. Mary, the mother of God, and our mother, will show us the way and lead us back to her son, our Lord. The nation, the world, who forgets the mother, is in danger of forgetting the Son, in danger of losing our way back to God.

Z

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  • I esteem immensely the Mother of God, the ever chaste, immaculate Virgin Mary.
  • Christ ... was born of a most undefiled Virgin.
  • It was fitting that such a holy Son should have a holy Mother.
    • Huldrych Zwingli E. Stakemeier, De Mariologia et Oecumenismo, K. Balic, ed., (Rome, 1962), p. 456.

Y

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  • There was no readiness for soldiering in this truck, no stern and cocky welcoming of challenges. They sounded - oh, Mother of God - they sounded like children.

See also

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