Изложение учения Православной церкви о Божией Матери

The Mother of God, Ever-Virgin Mary is the highest being of all created rational beings, incomparably higher than the highest angels, cherubim and seraphim, incomparably higher than all holy men. She is the Lady and Queen of all creation, earthly and heavenly. She is the Ever-Virgin, that is, before the birth of the God-Man she was a Virgin, at His birth she was a Virgin, after His birth she was a Virgin. The name Mary was given to her by command of God, and means Lady 257. The understanding of the dignity of the Mother of God, the understanding of it in the greatness in which it is confessed by the Orthodox Church, is guided by precise and detailed concepts about the incomprehensible act of the omnipotent God: the incarnation of God the Word. The Eternal Word - the Son of God - by the power of His creativity made flesh for Himself in the womb of the Virgin: the God-Man was conceived and the God-Man was born. The Son by Divine nature became a son by human nature. Jesus Christ was born of the Virgin, one Person in two inseparable and unfused natures - Divine and human. The Divine nature, despite Its infinity, did not destroy human nature, and human nature, despite its unfused existence, did not in the least constrain the infinity of the Divine nature. Such a wonderful union, accepted by faith and the spiritual mind generated by it, 258 incomprehensible to the carnal and spiritual mind, is produced by the omnipotence of the Divine. The Lord who became man had all the attributes of man: spirit, soul and body. The name of spirit denotes the rational part of a person: his mind, his thought, his verbal heartfelt sensations, alien to the nature of animals and cattle, common to human and angelic nature. The soul itself is expressed in the life force; the soul is characterized by desire or will and energy or natural anger that does not turn into irritability. We see these properties in animals too. The human spirit of Christ was exercised by prayer and the presentation in human words of the word of God; the soul of Christ expressed joy, sorrow, anger, languor; The body of Christ was conceived, born, nourished, grew, labored, felt hunger and thirst, rested in sleep, suffered, was crucified and buried, and was resurrected. According to the inseparability of natures, in all cases when human nature appeared as if acting exclusively, the nature of God assisted it inseparably and inseparably, although unfused, acting in accordance with Itself. Thus, although man was conceived in the womb of the Virgin, at the very conception he was already God; although man was born from the Virgin, God was also born together; grew, ate food, was weary from the journey, was bound in the garden of Gethsemane, struck on the cheeks, struck on the head with a staff, crowned with thorns, man was crucified, but at the same time God. Thus, the apostles were eyewitnesses, disciples, messengers of God 259 (Luke 1:2); Judas Iscariot betrayed God 260; the Jewish bishops and Pilate are deicides 261; The Ever-Virgin is the Mother of God. Due to the inseparability of natures in one Person, what happened in relation to one nature inevitably applied to the other. At the conception of the God-man, one half of him was borrowed from humanity - the Virgin; the man's seed, which usually fertilizes the woman's womb, is rejected. The reason for this is clear. The human race immediately after the creation of the first people received the ability to reproduce (Gen. 1:28). This ability is defiled by sin along with other abilities at its very root - in the forefathers; therefore, by producing people, in the very rite of production it imparts sinful poison to them, as the prophet David, at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, confessed on behalf of all mankind: “I was conceived in iniquity” (Ps. 50:7). The method of conception, which imparted sinfulness to life, could not be used at the conception of the God-Man, destined to be an atoning Sacrifice for humanity. The sacrifice for the sinfulness of mankind had to be alien to sin, completely immaculate. This is not enough: it had to be of immeasurable price so that it could redeem humanity, guilty before the infinite God, unredeemable, therefore, by any limited price, no matter how great this price may be. Human nature made the God-Man capable of being a Sacrifice, and Divine nature gave this Sacrifice an immeasurable price. For the acceptance of humanity, God the Word replaced the action of the male seed with the creative power of God. “The Son of God,” says Saint John of Damascus, “from most pure and virgin blood formed for Himself the firstfruits of our nature, flesh, animated by a verbal and rational soul, but He formed it not from seed, but creatively” 262. The Virgin was also prepared for a worthy conception. The Virgin, whose conception was announced by an angel to her parents who were praying and mourning their infertility, who became the fruit of tearful prayers and fasting, who was the daughter of the righteous, who was dedicated by them from birth to God and who, according to the mood of her spirit, devoted herself entirely to serving God - the Virgin was already a very pure vessel in herself. The purity of the Virgin was all the more inviolable for sensory sensations because Her mind, constantly directed and attached to God, did not even descend to thoughts of marriage. She testified to this to the archangel who announced to her the conception and birth of the Son (Luke 1:34). A clean vessel, prepared by God through the mediation of holy men and holy angels, a pure vessel, prepared by one’s own mood, was still pre-purified by the Holy Spirit for the reception of the all-holy, immaterial seed - the Word. When the Virgin asked the archangel about the image of conception and birth for a husbandless woman, he explained this image to Her as follows: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). The Word is called power. The Word of God is at the same time the Power of God and the Wisdom of God (1 Cor. 1:24): “all things came into being through the Word, and without Him nothing came into being” (John 1:3). The Holy Spirit descended on the pure Virgin and cleansed her further. Pure in her own state of body and spirit, she became purest from the creative omnipotent action performed in her by the life-giving, cleansing, renewing, changing, transforming His vessels by the Spirit of God. The Pure Virgin became Most Pure, alien to all filth, thought and felt, and became a grace-pure, spirit-bearing, divine Virgin. Into such a renewed and God-adorned vessel, having acquired from the action of the Holy Spirit in it the ability and dignity to receive God the Word, the Word God descended, became in the womb of the Virgin both a seed and a fruit, and became human 263 . “The Holy Spirit,” says John of Damascus, “descended on her, cleansed her, and gave her the ability to both accept the Divinity of the Word and give birth. Then the Son of God enshrouded her, as if he were a divine seed.”264 The Most Pure Virgin brought her purest blood as a gift from the entire human race to the Seed-Word for the conception of the God-Man. The Virgin, having conceived and given birth to God and man in one person, became the Mother of God in the exact sense, because the one born by Her was God, although there was also a man at the same time. “What if not the Mother of God,” exclaims Saint John of Damascus, “Who gave birth to God incarnate from Her?” 265. The Virgin, having become the Mother of God, naturally became the Mistress, Queen and Mistress of all rational creation, earthly and heavenly; but at the same time She remains the creature and servant of the Son and Her God. Having given birth to a Sacrifice for all humanity, She gave birth to this Sacrifice for herself, as belonging to humanity. Her Son is God, Creator, Lord, Redeemer and Savior 266. When God pronounced judgment on the fallen first two people in paradise, He also pronounced the promise that the Seed of the woman would erase the head of the serpent (Gen. 3:15). The seed of the man is not mentioned in the promise; the breaking of the dominion of sin over mankind is attributed solely to the Seed of the woman. With the approach of the time at which the Redeemer was to appear on earth, the prophecy about the image of His appearance was pronounced more clearly. “The Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the Virgin will conceive and give birth to a Son, and you will call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14), the prophet Isaiah foretold about the event of the incarnation of man seven centuries before the event. Exactly: a wondrous sign, a sign given by God, which could not even have occurred to a person! A supernatural sign that the Lord and Creator of human nature invented and gave Himself, changing the laws of nature, making the Virgin the Mother, and Himself, the Lord and Creator of all visible and invisible creatures, the Fruit of Her womb! Carried away by pride, Adam dreamed of becoming God in paradise. He attempted to tamely and violently steal the Divine from the Divine, to assimilate the infinite to the limited through the cunning and effort of a weak creature. The creature died while trying to carry out a daring, insane plan. She did not comprehend the infinite goodness of God, capable of bestowing on creation not only the advantage of the angelic and human natures, but also His very Divinity, to the extent that creation is capable of accepting such a gift. The plan and attempt of the forefathers were futile and murderous: God Himself teaches His Divinity to humanity, who desired Divinity, having become incarnate from the Virgin, taking the form of a slave and a creature, communing with the nature of rational creatures, in order to make them capable of partaking of the Divine nature 267. Accept what is given without envy; accept what is given with indescribable goodness; accept what is incapable of being kidnapped either through tame tricks or through predatory violence! Because of the pride that made you want, through your own effort and unscrupulous cunning, to kidnap and appropriate for yourself the inviolable and unapproachable Divinity, do not reject the great honor, do not renounce for the sake of the dignity of beasts and devils the dignity of the gods, which was brought to you on earth, in the deplorable vale of your exile, by God Himself, humbled to the flesh and born of the Virgin. The God-man had human nature, completely immaculate, but limited. It was limited: limited not only by the limitation with which man was created, but also by that which appeared to a much greater extent in the nature of man after his fall 268. The God-man had no sin, was not at all involved in sin, even in its slightest forms; His natural properties were not changed, as in us, in passion 269; These properties were in him in a natural order, in constant subordination to the spirit, in the control of the spirit, and the spirit was in the constant control of the Divinity united with humanity. The God-man had the ability to grieve and grieve; but sadness never took possession of Him, as it happens to us, but was constantly controlled by the spirit. The Lord was upset by the death of Lazarus and shed tears at his grave (John 11:33, 35, 38); The Lord wept over Jerusalem, predicting its destruction for its rejection of the Messiah (Luke 19:41); The Lord allowed Himself such a pre-death languor in the Garden of Gethsemane that this state of His soul is called in the Gospel a feat and mortal sorrow. It was accompanied by such a painful tension of the body that the body gave out and shed sweat on the ground, drops of which were like drops of blood (Matthew 26:38–39; cf. Luke 22:43–44). But even with this intensified feat, severe sorrow was in submission to the spirit, which, expressing both the severity of sorrow and its power over sorrow, said: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass by from Me: not as I will, but as You will” (Matthew 26:39). The God-man had the quality of anger; but anger acted in Him as a holy spiritual force, as character, as energy, constantly preserving the dignity of a person, never revealing any enthusiasm. The Lord expressed His indignation at those who did not allow children to come to Him (Mark 10:14); He was moved with anger at the embittered and blinded Pharisees, who dared to blaspheme God’s obvious miracle (Mark 3:5). The extraordinary, astonishing mastery of anger when using this force in movement is contemplated in those terrible denunciations that the Lord pronounced to the Jews (Matthew 23; John 5:7–8, 10). A majestic spiritual spectacle is represented by the human properties of Christ during His suffering for humanity: the Lord, throughout the duration of these sufferings, remains constantly faithful to Himself; Neither fervor nor delight, which usually animate earthly heroes, appeared in Him for a moment; not for a moment did the verbosity and eloquence of these heroes appear in Him; Not for a moment did any changeability appear in Him; an unwavering, equal force constantly acted in Him, without weakening and without tension; this force constantly expressed both its power and subordination to the holy power that guided it. If anyone delves into the character of Jesus Christ through a reasonable reading of the Gospel, he will, by this character alone, confess Jesus as God, just as the Apostle Peter confessed Him as God solely for His word of life (John 6:68). Such a character, constantly and completely free and open, constantly the same, never carried away, not changing either from reproaches or from praise, lower in the face of murderers and death - there is no such other character among human characters. The God-man was completely alien to one of the properties of our fallen nature; He was completely alien - not in the structure of the body, but in the feeling of the soul and body - that property, which before the fall was not at all felt, felt immediately after the fall, then developed, became natural to the fallen nature. Adam, created dispassionately from the earth, Eve, borrowed dispassionately from Adam, were dispassionate in accordance with the dispassionate beginning of their existence. They were so dispassionate and innocent that with close fellowship and constant communication with each other, they did not need clothing, they did not even understand their nakedness, despite the fact that they constantly saw it (Gen. 2:25). The God-man was conceived through the action of the Holy Spirit! The Word made flesh for Himself in the womb of the Most Pure Virgin! God made His flesh at its very conception Divine, capable of sensations that are only spiritual 270 and Divine. Although the properties of the flesh of the God-Man were human, together they were all deified, as belonging to one Person, who is God and man. For the same reason, the human properties of the God-man were both natural and supernatural in relation to human nature. The holiness of the flesh of God and the Lord was infinitely higher than the holiness in which the flesh of the creature, Adam, was created. It is obvious that the infection that the human fall exudes into all people through humiliating conception in the likeness of beasts and cattle, conception in sin, could not have any place here, because the very method of conception did not take place, that is, the means by which the sinful infection is imparted did not take place. On the contrary, just as the conception was Divine, so all its consequences were Divine. The God-man, as the atoning Sacrifice, took upon himself all human weaknesses - the consequences of the fall - except for sin, so that, having redeemed humanity, he would deliver him from the burden of these weaknesses, show him in a renewed state, show him without those weaknesses that were drawn into our nature by the fall. The God-man accepted and bore our infirmities arbitrarily, and was by no means subordinated to them by the necessity of nature; being a perfect man, He was also a perfect God, the Creator of human nature, the unlimited Master of this nature. For this reason, He showed His humanity in the way that pleased Him. Sometimes He revealed His humanity in the weakness of a fallen nature: He toiled, thirsted, took rest in sleep, was captured and bound in the Garden of Gethsemane, suffered beatings and humiliation, was crucified and buried. Sometimes He showed His humanity in the rights of nature with which it was created: He walked on the waters; rode into Jerusalem on an unbroken stallion, on which no man had ever ridden; this power was originally the property of Adam 271. Sometimes the Lord revealed His human nature in that state of glory and greatness that He bestowed on human nature, having united in Himself, in one Person, Divinity and humanity, which it did not have at all at creation, in the very state of innocence and immortality: He showed this state of greatness and glory with wondrous signs, mainly He showed it to His chosen disciples at His transfiguration, He showed it to the extent to which they were capable see 272, and not in the one in which it is. The Divinity of the God-Man is unfused, but completely united with His humanity: the Divinity of the God-Man is united with His human spirit, with His soul, with His body. When the soul of Christ was separated from the body of Christ through death, the Divinity of Christ remained inseparable from both His soul and His body. The Holy Church proclaims: “In the tomb carnally, in hell with the soul like God, in paradise with the thief, and on the throne you were Christ, with the Father and the Spirit, fulfilling all the Indescribable” 273. The body of the God-man had extraordinary harmony and beauty, as His forefather, the holy prophet David, prophesied about Him: “fair in kindness more than the sons of men” (Ps. 44:3). But the physical beauty of the God-man did not at all produce on the female sex the impressions that the beauty of men usually produces on it. May such an abominable and blasphemous thought, which is nevertheless accepted and uttered by heretics 274, be rejected and cursed. On the contrary, the body of Christ healed all passions, both mental and physical. Whatever property it was imbued with, such a property it conveyed. It abundantly taught Divine grace to everyone who looked at it, to everyone who touched it, both men and women. “Power came from Him, the Gospel testifies, and He healed all things” (Luke 6:19). “As many as I touch Him, I am saved” (Mark 6:56). This is the Divine body, about which the Lord Himself testified: “Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood will have eternal life” (John 6:54). “He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him” (John 6:56). Let every Orthodox and pious Christian imagine the inconceivable greatness of the Mother of God, who bore such a body in her womb, then carried it in her arms, and for the longest time was in close relation to this body. Because of the Divinity of the body of Christ, it is infallible to recognize and call the greatness of the Mother of God Divine. During his burial, the body of Christ was placed in a narrow, artificial cave, carved out of stone, that is, in a hill that was solid stone. The cave is so cramped that it is called a coffin in the Gospel. The entrance to it is so low that you have to crawl into the cave through it, taking the most bent position. After the body of Christ was brought into the tomb, a stone of considerable size was rolled at the entrance to the tomb (Matthew 27:60). The Jewish bishops, fearing His resurrection predicted by the Lord and thinking that the body of Christ is subject to the same laws to which human bodies are usually subject, sealed the stone that blocked the entrance to the cave to the outside of the cave; Moreover, they placed a guard at the entrance. Thus, according to human understanding, all the obstacles were inevitably combined and arranged to prevent the resurrection; all measures were taken to ensure that in the event of a resurrection, immediately after the resurrection, the resurrected person would be destroyed by a violent death. But the Divine body was resurrected, leaving both natural obstacles and human precautions intact. It penetrated through the thick, solid and solid substance of the cave: the stone remained rolled down, the seal untouched; the cave did not give a crack for the free procession of the resurrected body; the guards, appointed for surveillance and violence, were not honored to either feel the resurrection or see the resurrected one. Already after the resurrection of Christ, an angel descended, broke the seal, rolled away the stone and announced the completed resurrection; guards from one vision of an angel fell dead to the ground (Matthew 28:2, 4). After the resurrection, the divine body penetrated through the closed door to the assembled apostles (John 20:19). It was not recognized by the two disciples who were marching to Emmaus; when they recognized it at the breaking of bread, it suddenly became invisible (Luke 24:31). This body, in the sight of all the apostles, separated from the earth, began to rise and penetrate the air, like a winged one, disappeared from the eyes of the apostles at an unattainable height, and entered the sky (Acts 1:9). The first martyr Stephen saw him in heaven, being raised to such a vision by the action of the Holy Spirit, and exclaimed: “Behold! I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God” (Acts 7:56). With such supernatural advantages the God-Man showed, constantly showed and shows His human body after the resurrection. These advantages are an imperishable, spiritual crown, with which the body of the God-man is crowned with justice by Him, as having conquered and trampled down death by death 275. One should not think that the body of Christ received such properties only after the resurrection 276. No! It, as the body of the all-perfect God, always had them, and after the resurrection it only constantly manifested them. The following events prove this. Once in the Temple of Jerusalem, the Lord Jesus Christ indicated His pre-eternity in Divinity; The Jews took up stones to beat the God-Man, who had so openly announced Himself to them. But the Lord suddenly became invisible in their midst; and departed from the church, passing among many of His enemies 277 . Another time, the enraged inhabitants of the city of Nazareth seized the Lord, who was teaching in their synagogue, and took him to the top of the mountain on which the city was built, in order to throw him down from there and kill him; but the Lord became invisible and, leaving their midst, withdrew (Luke 4:29–30). This is exactly what the Lord did at His birth: He came out of the Virgin’s womb, without destroying the seals of virginity, without opening the doors of this wondrous church of His, as the prophet foretold, who foretold in the delight of his vision: “This gate will be closed, and it will not be opened, and no one will pass through it, and it will be closed, and no one will pass through it: for the Lord God of Israel will enter through it, and it will be closed” ( Ezek. 44:2). The Holy Church sings to the Lord in its hymns: “Our Creator appeared without seed, incarnated from the Virgin, without breaking the seal from the tomb, and rose from the tomb, and to the Apostle the door was closed with the flesh below.”278 “Having kept intact the sign (seal) of Christ, You rose from the grave, the keys of the Virgin unharmed at Your Nativity” 279. “All more than meaning, all your glorious, Mother of God, sacraments, sealed in purity and preserved in virginity, Mother knew you truthfully, having given birth to the true God” 280. “Before the Nativity the Virgin, and at the Nativity the Virgin, and after the Nativity remain the Virgin” 281. “To those who dare to say that the most pure Virgin Mary did not exist before the Nativity, at the Nativity, and after the Nativity the Virgin: anathema” 282. The divine body of the God-man was conceived divinely and born divinely. The virgin gave birth, being at the time of birth filled with spiritual, most holy joy 283. Disease did not accompany this birth, just as disease did not accompany the taking of Eve from Adam. They could not have a place here, being one of the executions for original sin, and this sin had no place here, because conception took place not only without the participation of male seed, not only without any sensation of carnal sweetness, but, in contrast to ordinary conception, with the influx of the Holy Spirit on the Virgin, with the infusion of the All-Holy God the Word into the womb of the Virgin. The painlessness of the Virgin at the birth of the God-Man is very clearly visible from the simple and modest narrative that we read in the Gospel: “Give birth to Your firstborn Son,” the Gospel tells about the Mother of God, “and give birth to Him, and lay Him in a manger” (Luke 2:7). The Virgin gave birth and immediately begins to serve! She wraps the newborn, lays him in a manger, without needing outside help during the service, because he does not feel any illness, any exhaustion, which are so characteristic of wives who give birth to children in sin, conceived in iniquities, who give birth to them already killed by eternal death and for eternal death. The Mother of God gave birth to Life and the Giver of Life (John 14:6). The Mother of God, having conceived and given birth to the God-man, became above all holy men and holy angels. According to the explanation of St. Gregory of Sinai, the Mother of God was the only verbal vessel in which God indwelt with His very being. Other holy people, although they are made, through the action of the Holy Spirit in them, partakers of the Divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) and abodes of the Trinitarian God (John 14:23), but in a completely different way than the Mother of God 284, Who alone received God the Word into Herself for His incarnation. Such acceptance of God into oneself is obviously unique, exclusive, unparalleled, inaccessible to either holy men or holy angels, belonging to the Mother of God alone. Just as the God-Man replaced Adam with Himself for the tribe of the saving elect and became their ancestor, so the Mother of God replaced Eve with Himself for them and became their mother. Just as the God-Man is the King of Heaven, the King of all men and angels, so the Mother of God is the Queen of Heaven, the Queen of both men and angels. The Mother of God was born from holy and righteous parents, Joachim and Anna, was the only fruit of their marriage, and was requested by many prayers and tears; born after a long period of infertility of her parents, born having been foretold to her parents by an angel, born when her parents were already very advanced in age. The circumstances of the birth of the Mother of God are very similar to the circumstances of the birth of St. John the Baptist, described in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke. The Holy Orthodox Church glorifies the birth of John like this: “Let us now praise the Lord’s Forerunner, whom the priest Elizabeth bore, from barren wombs, but not without seed. Christ is the only container that can pass through impassable without seed. Give birth to John without fruit, but do not give birth to him without this husband. Jesus, by the shadow of the Father and the Spirit of God, gave birth to a pure Virgin. But to the seedless one a prophet and a preacher appeared from the barren, together with the Forerunner” 285. The Holy Church thinks and confesses similar things about the Mother of God. Anna, barren and aged, gave birth to a daughter to Joachim, and a Mother to God, but she did not give birth without seed: she borrowed the seed into her womb from her husband, the righteous and old man Joachim. Born of holy spouses, the Virgin became God's chosen and God-sanctified vessel, into which God the Word dwelt, in whom this Word - the Creator of everything visible and invisible - by the favor of the Father, with the assistance of the Spirit, served as a seed through His creative power, and became human. The God-man born from Mary made the Virgin the Mother, and kept the Mother the Virgin. The God and Creator of the Virgin became her Son, being her God and Creator; having become her Son, He became her Redeemer and Savior. The first Adam produced a wife without the participation of a wife; The Ever-Virgin, without the participation of her husband, conceived and gave birth to the New Adam. With all the greatness of the Mother of God, her conception and birth took place according to the general law of humanity; therefore, the general confession of the human race about conception in iniquities and birth in sin belongs to the Mother of God. The humble and grace-filled Mary made this confession in the hearing of the universe! Feeling the presence of the longed-for Savior in her womb, She, out of the action of spiritual, grace-filled joy, pronounced a confession in the following wonderful and remarkable words: “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior: for He has looked upon the humility of His servant: behold, from now on all generations will bless me” (Luke 1:46–48). The Mother of God confesses before all humanity in the Gospel, read by all people, that the God born by Her is also Her Savior. If God is Her Savior, then She was conceived and born in sin according to the general law of fallen humanity. God is the Creator of both angels and men: but He is the Savior of only men; Regarding the angels who did not fall, He is their Lord, but not their Redeemer and not their Savior. The recognition of God by a rational creature as the Savior is at the same time the recognition by this creature of its own destruction. The Virgin Mary was conceived and born in destruction, in the fall, in the bonds of eternal death and sin, she was born in a state common to the entire human race. Her birth of God, Her Savior and all men, gave Her greatness that exceeded the greatness of the sinless angels who did not taste spiritual death and did not need a Savior. The holy parents of the Mother of God, who were in advanced years, who had humbled their flesh through many and lengthy deeds, did not, therefore, during marital copulation undergo those strong passionate sensations that are inevitable for people in their blossoming years and strength, in a mood of soul far removed from the pious mood in which the righteous Joachim and Anna were. However, their copulation took place according to the general order of human copulation, according to the order that appeared after the fall and as a result of the fall. By conception and birth, the Mother of God became a participant in original sin and sinful poison, which infected the entire human race in our forefathers. Born from righteous parents, the Mother of God herself led the most righteous life. Purity and humility were Her main virtues. She was constantly engaged in contemplation of God, prayer, reading and studying the Holy Scriptures. She was not only innocent of all mortal sins, but also of every deed and word that was clearly contrary to the Law of God, in which She was raised, which She studied and constantly studied. Despite, however, the righteousness and integrity of the life that the Mother of God led before receiving, together with the apostles, the Holy Spirit, who brought her Christian perfection, sin and eternal death manifested their presence and dominion in Her. We see evidence of this in the Gospel. Thus, before the illumination of the Holy Spirit, Her mind, like the mind of the holy apostles, remained darkened, and She did not understand the words of the twelve-year-old Savior spoken to her in the church (Luke 2:49–50). Saint John Chrysostom, explaining the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 12:46–49) and John (John 2:1–11), shows with all satisfaction how the old man was revealed and acted in the Mother of God 286. Eternal death and sin, planted in human nature, could not help but manifest itself. This is the exact and true teaching of the Orthodox Church about the Mother of God in relation to original sin and eternal death, which infected and infected the entire human race. The descent of the Holy Spirit on the Ever-Virgin took place twice. For the first time, the Holy Spirit descended on Her after the gospel spoken by the Archangel Gabriel, cleansing Her, pure, according to human understanding, making Her grace-pure, capable of receiving God the Word into herself and becoming His Mother. Her virginity is sealed by the spirit: She, who had hitherto kept Herself aloof from every thought and sensation of voluptuousness, became impregnable to these thoughts and sensations. This is how the Virgin should be, appointed to serve God, the incomparably closest service of the cherubim and seraphim. She had to not only conceive and give birth to the God-Man, but also spend her entire life in the closest relationship with Him. She fed Him with her breasts; in Her arms He spent infancy and childhood, with Her He spent His youth until manhood, until the age of thirty, when He revealed Himself to the world as the promised Redeemer of the world. But even during the three and a half years during which the Lord proclaimed salvation to people, the Mother of God was very often with Him, as can be seen from the Gospel. The Holy Spirit, at the first influx of the Most Holy Virgin, made Her capable of such the highest service, worthy of this highest service. The second time the Holy Spirit descended on the Virgin was on the day of Pentecost, when He descended on the holy apostles, with whom the Mother of God remained inseparably after the Lord’s ascension into heaven (Acts 1:14). Then the Holy Spirit destroyed the dominion of eternal death and original sin in Her, raised Her to a high degree of Christian perfection, and made Her a new person in the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord, having trampled down death by death and resurrected the human race in Himself and with Himself, first of all, granted the resurrection of the soul 287 to His Most Pure Mother and His Apostles on the day of Pentecost. Saint John the Theologian calls this resurrection of the soul the first resurrection (from the first mortification, from the mortification by sin, over which the second death, i.e., eternal destruction, no longer has power (Rev. 20:6)). It may seem incomprehensible to some why, at the first influx of the Holy Spirit on the Virgin, the destruction of eternal death did not take place in her? We answer: this destruction of eternal death was the fruit of redemption: before redemption was accomplished, it could not have taken place. Likewise, the holy apostles, although before their renewal they received various grace-filled gifts, such as: healing of ailments, casting out demons and resurrecting the dead, but the destruction of eternal death, the transition from the old man to the new, from the state of the soul to the spiritual, took place for them on the day of Pentecost, was a consequence of redemption (John 7:39). From all of the above, the absurdity of the two opposing teachings of the West is obvious, of which the teaching of the papists ascribes to the Mother of God a conception outside of original sin, similar to the conception of the Savior, and the teaching of the Protestants does not recognize the Virgin as the Ever-Virgin. Truth is alien to all exaggeration and belittlement: it gives everything its due measure and proper place. One should not think that the dogma of the conception of the Mother of God outside of original sin (immaculata conceptio) is modern news among the Latins. At present, the dogma has only been officially accepted and proclaimed by the Pope. Bergier, a writer of the 18th century, says: “According to the general belief of Catholics (Papists, Latins), Mary is not involved in any sin. With the word conception immaculee (immaculate conception), we explained that, although the Church did not formally decide that Mary was not involved in original sin, this is a belief based on the Holy Scriptures and on constant Tradition (church)” 288. With the word conception immaculee, Bergier pronounces the same doctrine even more decisively. He says: “It is the general opinion of Catholic theologians that the holy Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, was preserved from original sin “when She was conceived in her mother’s womb.” This belief is based on the opinions of the holy fathers, who are worthy of respect.” What fathers does the Latin writer cite? Some Latin ones, belonging to the already fallen West from the East. He cites the Council of Trent, which determined in the 5th session that all the children of Adam will be born defiled by original sin, but that this definition does not apply to the Holy Virgin; cites the Council of Basel in 1439, the Council of Avignon in 1457, which recognized this teaching as infallible and belonging to the Church. The definition of the Council of Basel was adopted by the University of Paris, as a result of which the theological faculty of the university decided in 1497 a definition according to which no one could be awarded the degree of doctor unless he first obligated himself by oath to profess the accepted dogma of the Mother of God. These facts, while in no way confirming the teachings of the papists for the sons of the Orthodox Church, only show that the heretical teaching about the Mother of God crept, after many others, into the Western Church more than four centuries before our time. In his articles, Bergier, to confirm the new dogma, cites two writers belonging to the primacy of the universal Church, Origen and Blessed Augustine, who, however, did not say a word about the new dogma. Origen in the 6th conversation on the Evangelist Luke says that the expression “grace-filled” in Scripture is used only once in relation to Mary alone. But this does not in the least affect the new dogma of the papists; this is recognized by the entire Church. The grace of God, as we have outlined and explained above, received by the Ever-Virgin, incomparably surpasses in both quality and abundance the grace that other holy people are awarded and which the holy angels have. St. Augustine (Liber de Natura et Gratia) says: “We know that she (the Mother of God) received abundant grace to conquer sin in all its forms” 289. And these words do not at all confirm the dogma of the papists! They contradict him: only those who have sin living and active within themselves need and can receive abundant grace-filled power to overcome sin. The Holy Orthodox Church, as stated above, has always confessed and confesses that the Holy Spirit descended on the pure Virgin, descended on the unmarried bride - this is how the Church calls the Mother of God - made the pure most pure, pure by nature, made pure above nature, grace-pure - grace-filled, having received the grace of the Holy One for her nourishment and enjoyment Spirit. The abundant taste of Divine grace alienated the Virgin from carnal sweetness and inspired complete and decisive disgust for it. Such befitted the rational church of God, the spiritual heaven, the throne of God, His holy of holies. A false thought usually entails a chain of other false thoughts. The papists, recognizing the Mother of God as a stranger to original sin, recognized her as a stranger to all sin, completely sinless, 290 and therefore in need of neither atonement nor a Redeemer. The gracious Ever-Virgin Mother of God herself stops the mouths of mind-blind heretics and fanatics, confessing the God born to her as her Savior. The papists, attributing sinlessness to the Mother of God, thereby show their distrust of the omnipotence of God. But the Orthodox Church glorifies the omnipotence and greatness of God, who made the one conceived and born in sin incomparably higher than the cherubim and incomparably more glorious than the seraphim, who never knew sin, constant in holiness. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,” said the blessed Virgin in response to Elizabeth, when Elizabeth, at the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, proclaimed in a loud voice that the Ever-Virgin is the Mother of God (Luke 1:43). The Most Holy Mary with her words not only blocks the mouths of the papists, who take away the significance of the Savior for Her from God, - she blocks the lips of Protestants, who attribute to Her spirit delight not in God, but in carnal voluptuousness. In contrast to the dogma of the papists, Protestants, sworn enemies of New Testament virginity, argue that the most holy vessel and church of God, the Mother of God, after she gave birth to the God-Man, violated her virginity, became a vessel of human lust, entered into a relationship with Joseph as a wife, and had other children. The thought is terrible; the thought is both bestial and demonic; blasphemous thought! She could only be born in the depths of deep depravity! It could and can only be uttered by a desperate and rejected adulterer! It can only be accepted and adopted by those who have descended so much from the image and likeness of God to the likeness of beasts that they have and can have an understanding of human nature only in its humiliated, bestial state. To confirm this monstrous thought, ignorant and unfortunate detractors refer to the Gospel. Luther, who overthrew monasticism and took as his concubine a nun who overthrew monasticism - the union of Luther with Catherine de Borre cannot be understood otherwise, since it is not clear that the vows of virginity given to God were returned to them - cries out against Christian virginity. All Protestants cry out against him along with Luther. They call virginity unnatural, contrary to the will, blessing, command of God, who, after creating the first two people, immediately told them: “Grow and multiply and fill the earth” (Gen. 1:28). Protestants can respond with the words of the Savior, spoken by Him to the Sadducees: “You are deceived, not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God” (Matthew 22:29). Protestants, referring to the above words, did not notice that after them the book of Genesis describes the virginity of the first two people, in which they remained until the fall, not even understanding their nakedness, that they understood this nakedness and felt shame, a sign of lust that appeared after the fall, that the real relationship of a wife to her husband and her illness during childbirth is described as execution for the violation of God's commandment (Gen. 1, Gen. 2, Gen. 3). The Orthodox Church recognizes virginity as natural to humanity, 291 recognizing the actual nature of man as the nature in which he was created. The state of fall in which all humanity now finds itself is an unnatural, unnatural, unnatural state. But since all of humanity is gripped by the illness of the fall, this state of general illness can be called natural to fallen humanity. Thus, the properties of illness are natural to the state of illness; they are unnatural to the state of health. In this case, we agree, virginity is no longer natural to humanity. For this reason, there were very, very few virgins among the righteous of the Old Testament: both the patriarchs and most of the prophets had to submit to the yoke of marriage. Our Lord Jesus Christ, having restored fallen human nature, also restored virginity. He Himself was, according to humanity, an all-holy virgin; His Mother was a gracious, Most Pure Virgin. Virginity, natural to human nature in the primitive state of nature, unnatural to fallen nature, was returned as a gift to nature renewed by the Savior. “The gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord is all that constitutes our eternal salvation, our dignity, our perfection, which is all called by the common name of eternal life” (Rom. 6:23). And New Testament virginity is a gift of God, bestowed by the Lord, as the Lord Himself said about virginity: “Not all can bear this word, but to them it is given to eat” (Matthew 19:11). The gift of reverence is given (i.e. a moral state most similar to that which our Lord Jesus Christ revealed) to those who desire it with all their hearts and ask the Lord with the warmest prayers 292. Virginity is unnatural for fallen humanity, and therefore it cannot be obtained through one’s own efforts alone: ​​one’s own efforts tame the flesh, and true virginity is a gift from God as a result of constant, most diligent, and often very long-term prayer. True virginity does not consist in bodily purity alone; but mainly it consists in alienating the mind from voluptuous thoughts and dreams. The mind is not capable of renouncing sin on its own unless divine power overshadows it 293. The struggle of the mind with sin constitutes that greatest work, during which the ascetic sheds many bitter tears, emits many deep and heavy sighs, begging for help and intercession from Above. When the heart tastes spiritual sweetness, then only it can be torn away from the pleasure of carnal sweetness; without pleasure it cannot exist. “Love is reflected by love, and fire is extinguished by immaterial fire,” said St. John Climacus 294. The number of virgins and virgins in the New Testament Church is countless by the mercy and generosity of our Savior; but they moved on to the state of virginity, proving through constant, difficult and prolonged struggle with the lusts of the flesh their sincere desire for virginity. This can be seen from the biographies of St. Anthony the Great, Pachomius the Great, Simeon Christ for the Fool's sake and many other greatest saints of God. But the Mother of God did not taste or know the struggle with carnal desires: before lust acted in her, the Holy Spirit descended on Her, imprinted Her purity, bestowed Her with grace-filled purity, gave Her spiritual pleasure, to which Her heart clung and from which it was never torn away. The Holy Church calls the Mother of God an animated book, which was sealed by the Spirit 295. Protestants see the basis for their teaching in the Gospel. The Evangelist Matthew, they believe, narrating the relationship between the Mother of God and Joseph, the betrothed of the Mother of God, says about Joseph that he did not copulate with the Virgin only before the birth of the God-Man by Her, and this serves as an indication of copulation subsequently. The actual words of the evangelist, cited by Protestants to support their opinion, are the following: “And (Joseph) not knowing her (Mary), until she gave birth to her firstborn Son” (Matthew 1:25). Detractors base their conclusion on the word “dondezhe”, which, in their opinion, expresses urgent abstinence from intercourse and the idea of ​​intercourse that followed the birth of the first-born, also on the word first-born, which conveys the idea of ​​further childbearing: according to the properties of the Russian language, the above verse of the Gospel can be translated with all accuracy as follows: “Joseph did not know her, and she gave birth to her first-born son.” Obviously, the words: “Joseph did not know her” refer to the entire time the Mother of God was in Joseph’s house. If we carefully consider the narration of the Evangelist Matthew about the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:18–25), then it becomes immediately obvious that the evangelist used all his care to show with clarity and accuracy the birth of the God-man from the Virgin, without male seed. For this, the evangelist explains that the Virgin, betrothed to her husband, without knowing her husband, turned out to be pregnant with the Holy Spirit; for this, the evangelist cites the testimony of an angel who appeared in a dream to Joseph and certified that the fetus in the womb of the Virgin was from the Holy Spirit; for this, the evangelist brings the prophet, who foretold that the Virgin will conceive and the Virgin will give birth to the Son, the Savior of the world; for this, speaking already about the very birth of the God-man, the evangelist shows that Mary gave birth to Him, being a Virgin, just as she conceived, being a Virgin. The circumstances that concerned the actual face of the Mother of God and did not constitute the main subject that was described by the evangelist were left by him without a clear explanation. The story of the Evangelist Luke about the birth of Christ has the same character. Keeping silent about Joseph's bewilderment and the appearance of an angel in a dream, Saint Luke tells about the coming of the Archangel Gabriel to the Mother of God with the most joyful news from God about the conception and birth of the Son of God by her, and tells that Elizabeth, through the action of the Holy Spirit, recognized Mary as the Mother of God. Saint Luke, like Matthew, calls Mary the Virgin, betrothed to her husband (Luke 1:27), and the God-Man born by Her - Her Son, the Firstborn (Luke 2:7). A similar presentation of the circumstances concerning the Virgin itself was not made by Saint Luke; It is only indirectly clear from his story, as was said above, that the Virgin was painless at the birth of the God-man. And so in vain do Protestants seek support for their blasphemy in the Gospel! The Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church see in the above words of the Evangelist Matthew a thought completely opposite to the thought of the Protestants - they see evidence that the Mother of God, having conceived the God-Man as a Virgin, remained a Virgin at conception, gave birth to a Virgin, remained a Virgin at the Nativity, remained forever a Virgin 296 . “Ever-Virgin,” says Saint John of Damascus, “and after the Nativity remains a Virgin, having no communication with her husband until death. Although it is written: “And without knowing her (Joseph) she gave birth to her firstborn Son,” yet one must know that the “firstborn” is the firstborn, even if he were the only begotten. The name firstborn means the one who was born first, and does not necessarily indicate the birth of others. And the word dondezhe, although it means a period of a certain time, however, does not exclude the subsequent time after that. So the words of the Lord: “And behold, I am with you always, even to the end of the age” (Matthew 28:20) do not mean that the Lord will separate from us at the end of the age, because the divine apostle says: “And so we will always be with the Lord” (1 Thess. 4:17), that is, after the resurrection. Here the word dondezhe, although in itself meaning a definite period, has a completely opposite meaning from the usual use of this word in Holy Scripture. The Lord said: “Do not come out from there (from the hellish prison), until you give the last coin” (Matthew 5:26). It is known that the torments of hell are eternal: the urgent word dondezhe, used here, means that those imprisoned in hell will never leave it, unable to repay the debt of sin, the payment of which is made only during earthly life by good deeds in Christ and the cleansing of sins through repentance. About the raven that Noah released from the ark, it is said: “And when he went out he did not return, until the water was dried up from the earth” (Gen. 8:7); The raven did not return to the ark at all. The Holy Scripture says: “The Lord said to my Lord: sit at My right hand, until I will make Your enemies Your footstool” (Ps. 109:1); here the word “dondezhe”, meaning term, is again used to mean unlimited, endless time. It is obvious that the presence of the incarnate Son at the right hand of the Father according to humanity, which signifies the highest state of glory, will not be limited to the time that will be used to overthrow the enemies of the God-man, fallen angels and wicked men, but will continue endlessly forever and ever. The word “dondezhe” has the same meaning in relation to the Virgin as it has in relation to the written law given by God. “One jot,” said the Lord, “or one tittle shall not pass from the law until they are all” (Matthew 5:18). The law will be sealed by its fulfillment and will remain forever sealed as fulfilled: the Virgin sealed Her virginity with the birth of God the Word and remained forever a Virgin, being sealed with the birth of God. “And without knowing her (Joseph), he gave birth to his Firstborn Son”: “This means,” says Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, “he never touched her, neither before birth nor after birth did he know her.” Both evangelists, with an obvious, special purpose, point out that the God-man was the “Firstborn.” The Jews, to whom the Messiah was promised, for this reason especially respected childbearing, and despised the infertility of women; for the same reason, they especially respected the firstborn among children, since one of the firstborn, in their opinion, should have been the expected Messiah. Here is the longed-for and glorious “Firstborn,” say the evangelists, who satisfied desires and expectations! After His birth, there is no longer any reason for a woman’s infertility to be her dishonor, and for the firstborn born from now on to have special significance. Henceforth glory passes from marriage to virginity, because the expected Firstborn is a Virgin, and was born of a Virgin, preserving her at birth and at birth as a Virgin. The Holy Gospel is silent about the parents of the Mother of God; it presents righteous Joseph as the guardian of Her and the Infant God-Man. It must be that the parents of the Mother of God, having produced their priceless fruit in their most advanced years, died soon after. “God,” says Saint John of Damascus, “arranged it so that the Young Lady (the Mother of God is called the Young Lady because of her youth) is betrothed to Joseph by the priests, and the New Book is handed over to the “leader of the Scriptures” (Is. 29:11). This Betrothal protected the Virgin” 297. Righteous Joseph was eighty years old 298 when the fourteen-year-old Virgin was betrothed to him. According to Jewish law, She was betrothed to him as a person belonging to the tribe of Judah and the tribe of David, to which the Mother of God also belonged. After staying in his house for four months, She heard the gospel from the mouth of the archangel and conceived the God-Man. The humble Mary did not dare to tell the betrothed that the great archangel had appeared to Her, that She had become a wonderful church of God. When Joseph learned from the angel who appeared to him in a dream the great significance of the Virgin betrothed to him, he understood the full significance of his duty towards Her, and became Her servant, performing his holy service with reverence and fear, as Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria says. He received a feeling of deep respect for Her, similar to that felt and expressed by Saint Elizabeth, having been honored with a visit to the Mother of God. “Where do I get this,” she exclaimed, where do I get this greatest honor, this greatest happiness, “may the Mother of my Lord come to me?” (Luke 1:43). Not only righteous people were filled with reverence for the Mother of God, but the Archangel Gabriel himself, pronouncing the gospel, stood before Her with reverence. He treated Saint Zechariah completely differently, announcing to him the birth of John, the greatest among the prophets. So! Holy angels and holy men revere the Ever-Virgin; arrogant and blasphemous judgments about Her are characteristic only of rejected spirits, who have filled both heaven and paradise with blasphemy, characteristic of corrupt people who have entered into unity with rejected spirits. Saint John of Damascus quite rightly notes that not only the matter, but the thought of the corruption of virginity by the Ever-Virgin can belong only to the most immoral, corrupted mind. How could righteous Joseph, having heard from an angel the great testimony about the Mother of God, who saw the wondrous miracles performed at the birth of the God-Man, encroach on gross lawlessness, on the terrible crime attributed to him by the Protestants! How could a righteous eighty-year-old man be carried away by youthful lust and corrupt His Mother in the eyes of the God-man! No no! Such terrible debauchery and crime is impossible for a holy elder. Righteous Joseph was honored with Divine revelations, which are awarded only to those who are pure in heart and body. When he was perplexed about the Mother of God, an angel appeared to him in a dream and said: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to receive Miriam your wife” (Matthew 1:20). The angel answers Joseph's thoughts directly. Joseph, suspecting Mary, wanted to secretly let Her go from himself; the angel, testifying to Her chastity, commands to have Her with him, without any doubt, as if she had not violated her marital duty; then reveals that She conceived by the Holy Spirit. When the Son of God had to retire to Egypt from the murderous hand of Herod, then the angel again appears to Joseph and no longer calls Mary his wife, but the Mother of the Child. The Gospel tells twice more about the appearance of an angel to Joseph. At the appearance, described in more detail, at which the return to the land of Israel was commanded, the angel again calls Mary the only Mother of the Child (Matthew 2:13, 20). The Gospel mentions the brothers of the God-man (John 7:3; Matt. 13:55); Detractors of the Ever-Virgin point to this circumstance as confirmation of their opinion. But the reliable Tradition of the Orthodox Church explains that the name of the brothers of the Lord was borne by the sons of the righteous Joseph, the betrothed to the Mother of God, from his first wife. They were called the Lord's brothers in exactly the same respect in which Joseph was called His father. The Mother of God herself called Joseph this way. Having found the twelve-year-old Lord in the Jerusalem temple, she said to Him: “Child, what have you done to us? “Behold Thy Father, and I have sorely sought Thee” (Luke 2:48; cf. Luke 4:22; John 6:42). Modern Jews, who did not know the conception from the Holy Spirit and the birth from the Virgin, recognized the God-man as the son of Joseph (Luke 3:23); and the Mother of God, the disciples and neighbors of the Lord hid the great mystery from the embittered Jews, who did not stop to blaspheme the obvious signs. What blasphemous cry would they raise if the conception from the Spirit and the birth from the Virgin were revealed to them? This remained unknown to them, and, according to popular opinion, Joseph was considered and called the father, therefore, his sons were considered and called the brothers of the Lord. They were much older in years than the God-Man, who, therefore, could not be the first-born in relation to them. The accusation of Saint Joseph of attempting to corrupt the virginity of the Mother of God turns out to be alien to meaning; Such an accusation is even more incongruous in relation to the Mother of God. A thousand thousand virgins became ignorant of Christ and kept the seals of virginity unresolved; Could it be that the greatest of the virgins, the Bride and together the Mother of God, did not do this? A thousand thousand virgins have preserved their virginity with the assistance of the grace of the Holy Spirit; Could the greatest of the virgins really not have been able to do this, in whose womb the Almighty God moved not by an act of grace, but by His being? Didn’t She who was constantly in close communication with God do this? If the cherubim and seraphim, due to their closeness to God, have their minds and hearts constantly directed towards Him, and cannot tear them away from Him, is it really incomparably higher than the cherubim and seraphim, is it really She who conceived and carried God in her womb, who painlessly gave birth to God, who nourished him with her breasts, carried him in her arms, who spent her entire earthly life with Him, did not have her mind and heart attached to Him? Has she really descended into carnal voluptuousness? No! Such a thought can be born and accepted only by those who have always groveled and groveled in carnal voluptuousness, and have never arisen from it! May this blasphemous thought be removed from us into dark hell and eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels! We confess our Lady, the Mother of our God, before the Nativity as a Virgin, at the Nativity as a Virgin, after the Nativity as a Virgin, Ever-Virgin. Knowing and confessing the greatness of the Mother of God, we direct our hearts to Her with undoubted faith, with the deepest reverence and, following the succession from the holy apostles, we prayerfully cry out to Her: “Most Holy Theotokos, help us!” 299. From some places in the Gospel it is clear that the Lord responds to the Mother of God, according to human judgment, coldly and sternly; this again serves as a stumbling block for carnal minds. The injustice of stumbling is exposed by spiritual consideration of the actions and words of our Lord. Spiritual things must be judged spiritually, said the holy Apostle Paul (1 Cor. 2:14). The deeds and words of the Lord “They are spirit and life” (John 6:63). Just as the old Adam was carried away by tenderness for the old Eve and in this passion transgressed the commandment of God, so the New Adam - the Lord - reveals Himself as having in mind only the fulfillment of the will of God, and therefore does not reveal any passion for the tenderness of the New Testament Eve caring for Him. He doesn’t even show any sympathy for this tenderness! Acting in this way, He redeems with His dispassion the passion of the forefather, redeems the acceptance of tenderness that led to sin, the rejection of sinless and natural tenderness; teaches us to guard against passions and to be guided by feelings even for the most plausible reasons. Our lamp and guide in the field of our activity should be the Law of God (Ps. 119:105). The parents of the Lord - this is what the Gospel calls the Mother of God and Joseph, speaking in this case according to the custom of modern society - had the pious custom of coming to Jerusalem every year for the holiday of Easter. When the Lord was twelve years old, they came to Jerusalem, taking with them the Youth the God-Man. Having spent the days of the holiday in the holy city, Mary and Joseph went back to their place of residence, Nazareth, and the Child of the Lord remained in Jerusalem. At first the Mother of God did not notice this, and neither did Joseph: they believed that the Lord was coming with other worshipers. Having spent the whole day on the road, having probably reached their lodging for the night, they began to look for Him among relatives and acquaintances, but did not find Him, and returned to Jerusalem. Here, after three days, they found the Lord in the church in the midst of the teachers of the law, who were perplexed and horrified by the word of God coming from the mouth of the Youth God. The Ever-Virgin, seeing Him, uttered the words we have already cited, filled with tenderness: “Child, what have you done to us? “Behold Thy Father, and I have sorely sought Thee.” To this the Lord answered: “What do you seek for Me? Do you not know that it is fitting for Me to be in those who are My Father” (Luke 2:41–50). In the Lord's answer it is clear that thoughts, will, and love are devoted entirely to duties regarding God; duties regarding man are given their place, as can be seen from the events that followed the answer (Luke 2:51). When a person does not properly place his duties, does not give each of them due measure, then their fulfillment cannot bear fruit as virtue; the fruit will be sins and mistakes, all the more dangerous because their outer clothing is specious. While the Lord was already preaching the Gospel, a marriage was taking place in Cana, a small city in Galilee, to which the Lord, his disciples and the Mother of God were invited (John 2). The Lord sanctified marriage and the feast of marriage by His coming. In the middle of the feast there was a shortage of wine. The Mother of God said to the Lord: “They have no wine.” The Lord answered her: “What do you and I have, wife? My hour has not come." A wonderful answer about the fruit of the vine, which has such a strong influence on people! This is the answer that Adam should have given to Eve when she offered him to eat the fruit forbidden by God, a deadly taste that infected the human race with the poison of eternal death. “What do you and I need, wife?” - these could be the words of Adam, - you were created as my helper: do not be a slanderer. I am united with you by the union of marriage into one flesh; but if you disobeyed God, I separate from you as united with you to serve God, and not to oppose Him.” The second half of the Lord’s answer contains a deep, mysterious meaning. The Mother of God has mercy on the feasting society, which in the middle of the feast lacked wine, and wants to destroy this lack with the divine power of her Son; God the Word, in His ineffable mercy, descended in the form of man to fallen humanity, perishing on earth from a lack of food and spiritual drink, having brought humanity daily bread and new drink - His Body and Blood, Himself, ready out of His love for humanity to immediately grant this food, hints at the meal prepared by God and already very close, says: “My hour has not come.” “My hour has not come!” the hour of saving suffering has not come, the hour of the shedding of animal Blood, which should heal humanity from the intoxication of eternal death. The Lord desired this hour as an hour of salvation for people, as an hour in which He would show all the abundance of His love, as an hour for which He came into the world (John 12:27). The request of the Mother of God, in itself, did not contain anything reprehensible and was fulfilled; From this it is clear that the initial rejection of the humane intercession of the New Testament Eve atone only for Adam’s consent to the sinful proposal of the Old Testament Eve. The meaning of the Lord’s words can be interpreted as follows: “You take care of the corruptible food of men, but I have loved them with an incomprehensible Divine love. Guided by this love, I am ready and willing to give them My very Body and My very Blood as food and drink; but this too will happen in its own time, i.e. in its own time, established and determined by the inscrutable counsel of God.” The Holy Evangelist Matthew narrates that one day the Lord was teaching the people in a house; The Mother of God with the sons of Joseph, called the brothers of the God-man, came and waited for Him outside the house, wanting to talk with Him about something. This was reported to the Lord: but He answered: “Who is My Mother and who are My brothers? then, pointing his hand at His disciples, he added: Behold My mother and My brethren: whosoever doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven, he is My brother, and My sister, and My mother” (Matthew 12:46–50) 300. Similarly, when a certain woman, hearing the wonderful teaching of the Lord, said to Him: “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breast that you pissed,” the Lord answered: Blessed is he who hears the Word of God and keeps it” (Luke 11:27–28). The Lord is constantly and equally faithful in all circumstances to His all-holy service. “I came down from heaven,” He said, “not to do My will, but the will of the Father who sent Me” (John 6:38). Such divine behavior of the Lord and His divine words regarding the Mother of God do not at all humiliate the dignity of the Mother of God - they elevate it. The Ever-Virgin is above all holy men, both for the reason that she became the Mother of the God-Man, and for the reason that she was the most constant, the most attentive listener and executor of the teachings proclaimed by the God-Man. The first of these virtues is imprinted by the second, and therefore the dignity of the Mother of God has become the greatest dignity. The Holy Gospel testifies to the Mother of God: “Mariam kept all these words in her heart” (Luke 2:19). This is said on the occasion of the story of the shepherds, to whom on the night of the Nativity of Christ an angel appeared and announced the birth of the Savior. What has been said has the following meaning: the Mother of God carefully followed all the events relating to the God-Man from His very birth, noticed them, and imprinted them in memory. Her heart served as a book for recording these events. Subsequently, the Gospel repeats its testimony: “His mother kept all these sayings in her heart” (Luke 2:51). This has already been said about the words of the Lord. Not only did She notice with all care the events concerning the Lord, but she noticed His very words, putting them in her heart, keeping them in her heart, like priceless treasures in an ark, which itself became priceless because of the pricelessness of the treasures. It is impossible not to mention that the Gospel says this about those words of the Lord that were inaccessible to the Mother of God in her then state of mind and which were explained to her later, after she was renewed by the Spirit. What hearing of the word of God can be stronger than that in which the word of God is placed in the heart and stored in it? The Holy Prophet David said: “I have pleased to do Your will, O my God, and Your law in the midst of my belly” (Ps. 39:9) 301, that is, in the midst of my heart. What the greatest saints of God wanted to do, the Mother of God, by the Divine grace given to her, actually did. And how did you perform? At first her heart and womb were overshadowed by the Holy Spirit; then her womb became the church of the essentially indwelling Lord; spiritual joy from the presence of the Lord in her embraced her entire being, as she herself witnessed. Usually, holy joy embraces people who are privileged to feel the action of the Holy Spirit within themselves, especially since the Mother of God was filled with Divine joy. After the birth of the God-man, she was in close relationship with Him. He spent his infancy in her arms and embraces; He was inseparable from her not only in his adolescence, but also in his youth and manhood, until his very entry into Divine service, which lasted three and a half years. No one else was such a close hearer of the word of God and for such a long time as the Mother of God; no one followed the words and deeds of the God-Man with such deep and constant attention, no one preserved them with such care and love. We contemplated the behavior of the Lord regarding the Mother of God at the wedding in Cana of Galilee; Let us also pay attention to the behavior of the Mother of God regarding the God-Man. Having received a stern answer to her request, she understood him completely differently from how those who are seduced by him understand him. She did not see in this answer a rejection of her petition and therefore turns to those serving at the feast and says to them: “Whatever the Lord says to you, do it” (John 2:5). This order of the Mother of God was followed by the transformation of water into wine by the God-Man. In the last three years and a half of the Lord’s stay on earth, the Mother of God could not be constantly with Him. The Lord used this time to wander through the land of Judea to proclaim the Gospel to people; but even at this time, the Mother of God often saw Him, often followed Him among His disciples and disciples, listening to His all-holy teaching, for which she acquired the skill of an insatiable thirst. She was especially persistent with him during His suffering. The Mother of God shared the sufferings of the God-Man and took a most living and real part in them. Just as the old Eve in paradise made the old Adam a participant in her crime, so the New Adam made the new Eve a participant in the suffering that atoned for the crime of the forefathers. During the Lord's suffering and because of this suffering, the Mother of God suffered the most terrible sorrow. Grief struck her heart, as if with a deadly weapon (Luke 2:35). When the Lord accomplished the redemption of the human race and already intended, hanging on the cross, to seal the redemptive feat with arbitrary death, then the Mother of God stood with the Lord and at His cross with the Lord’s beloved disciple, John. The Lord has already accomplished the redemption of mankind; He already gave birth to humanity into a new life with His dying sufferings; He was already ready to accomplish this birth by His death. Having thus become the Forefather of renewed humanity, replacing for it with Himself the forefather, who, because of the fall, was unable to give birth to children for salvation, giving birth only to destruction, the Lord suddenly turns to the Mother of God standing before Him, to the participant in His redemptive suffering for humanity, introducing her to her rights regarding humanity, to the rights granted to her by the God-man and all her relations to the God-man. He declares her the Mother of the beloved disciple, and in him of all renewed humanity, according to the understanding and explanation of the fathers 302. Just as the Lord replaced Adam with Himself, so He replaced Eve with the Mother of God. Eve, being created as a virgin, transgressed the commandment of God and could not retain the holy feeling of virginity; submission to her husband is declared among her executions. The Mother of God, being conceived and born in the sin of her forefathers, prepared herself with a chaste and God-pleasing life into a vessel of God. Having become a vessel of God, She remained alien to thoughts and sympathy for the lust of her husband, for bestial copulation, to which, as Scripture teaches us, wives submitted as a result of the fall. Continuous communication with God, who was also the Son of the Ever-Virgin, constantly fed her with heavenly, spiritual, holy thoughts and sensations. The Apostle Paul said: “Be cleave to the Lord; you are one spirit with the Lord” (1 Cor. 6:17). These words were fulfilled in all their fullness over the Mother of God, they were fulfilled over her more preferentially and more abundantly than over all the holy virgins and holy virgins from among the chosen humanity. The Mother of God - the Virgin was a Virgin before she gave birth to the God-Man; at her very birth she remained a Virgin; after her birth she remained a Virgin. She did not experience any attraction to her husband, because she was completely and completely attracted to God, united with God. After the Ascension of the Lord, the Mother of God, as we see from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, already cohabited inseparably with the apostles in the same house, constantly practicing prayers. The Holy Evangelist Luke calls these prayers “prayers and supplications” (Acts 1:14), by which he depicts that all the activities of the Mother of God and the apostles were concentrated in different types of prayer, that all their time was devoted to prayer. In the midst of such an exercise and way of life, on the day of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples of the God-man, Who always requires preparation by the most careful and unceasing prayer from a disciple of Christ, in order to descend on him and overshadow him. At this time, the Mother of God received the most abundant gift of the Holy Spirit, which enlightened not only her soul, but also her body. Her soul and her body became themselves sources of light. This is how the Holy Spirit testifies, this is how the Holy Church witnesses, this is how the spiritual mind witnesses! For those who wish to hear historical testimony, we offer here the testimony of the Mother of God from her contemporary in earthly life, Saint Dionysius the Areopagite, a famous and learned Athenian converted to Christianity by the holy Apostle Paul. When three years passed after the Areopagite accepted faith in the Redeemer, he visited the Mother of God, who, after the Ascension of the Lord, had permanent residence in Jerusalem, in the house of the Evangelist John. We extract the following from the letter of Saint Dionysius to the Apostle Paul: “It seemed incredible to me, confessing before God, O, our excellent leader and superior! so that besides the highest God Himself, someone would be filled with Divine power and wondrous grace; no man can comprehend what I saw and understood through not only spiritual eyes, but also bodily ones. I saw with my eyes the god-like and, more than all heavenly spirits, the most holy Mother of Christ Jesus, our Lord, whom the grace of God, the condescension of the Supreme Apostle (John) and the inscrutable goodness and mercy of the most merciful Virgin gave me to see. Again and again I confess before the omnipotence of God, before the grace of the Savior and before the glorious honor of the Virgin, His Mother, that when I was introduced before the face of the God-like, Most Holy Virgin by John, the head of the evangelists and prophets, who, living in the flesh, shines like the sun in heaven, such a great and immeasurable divine radiance enveloped me, not only from the outside, but even more enlightened within, and I was filled with such a wonderful and varied fragrance that neither my weak body nor my spirit could bear such and such great signs and firstfruits of eternal bliss and glory: my heart fainted, my spirit fainted within me from her Divine glory and grace. I testify by God, who had residence in the most honest womb of the Virgin, that if I had not kept in my memory and in my newly enlightened mind your Divine teaching and commandments, then I would have recognized the Virgin as God and would have honored her with the worship befitting the one true God, because the mind cannot imagine greater honor and glory for a person glorified by God, like the bliss that I, unworthy, was worthy to taste, having become then completely blessed and prosperous. I thank my highest and most good God, the divine Virgin, the most graceful Apostle John, and also you, the supreme and triumphant leader of the Church, who has graciously shown me such a benefit.”303 The gracious gifts of the Holy Spirit, with which the apostles abounded, were abundantly and more abundantly available to the Mother of God. She had the gift of prophecy, and the gift of clairvoyance, and the gift of miracles, and other countless gifts known to the Giver of gifts and to the one who received the gifts. Touching her healed incurable ailments. Her virgin body, consecrated by God, became a container and source of miracles. Just as the icon of the Apostle Peter, depicted on earth as his shadow, worked miracles (Acts 5:15), so the icons of the Mother of God work miracles throughout the entire earth, preaching, testifying, and sealing with signs the truth of the teachings of Christ. The painters of the miraculous icons of the apostle were the rays of the sun; The painters of the miraculous icons of the Mother of God were the intelligent rays of the Sun of Truth, God and the Ever-Virgin Son - His apostles and His saints. On the third day, after her blessed dormition, the Mother of God rose from the dead and now lives in heaven, soul and body. She not only resides in heaven, she reigns in heaven. She, as the Mother of the Heavenly King, was declared the Queen of Heaven, the Queen of both holy Angels and holy men. She was given special power and special boldness to intercede before God on behalf of humanity. The Holy Church, addressing petitions to all the greatest saints of God, to all the angels and archangels, says to them: “pray to God for us”; To one Mother of God she uses the words: “save us.” The Mother of God is the greatest intercessor and helper of all those who work to please God, all who have dedicated their earthly life to serving God. Appearing to a certain holy monk, She healed him of a serious illness and called him one of her family 304. She is a quick consolation for those who mourn and mourn; She is the representative of the penitent; She is a safe haven for sinners who want to turn to God; She is the warmest intercessor for them before God. Standing before the Mother of God in deep reverence for her greatness, in sacred bewilderment and surprise, in the delight of faith and love, the children of the Orthodox Church bring all-joyful praise to the Ever-Virgin. Accept, Lady, these infant voices, this infant babbling, intensified by the warmth of the heart to determine your greatness and cannot determine it due to the weakness of the mind, the weakness of the word, the immensity of your greatness. Rejoice, village of God the Word! Rejoice, Holy of Holies! Rejoice, throne of the Almighty! Rejoice, container of the incontainable God! Rejoice, chariot of him who sits and walks on cherubim! Rejoice, church of the one worshiped and hymned by the seraphim! Rejoice, height inaccessible to human thoughts! Rejoice, depth inaccessible to angelic minds! Rejoice, doubtful hearing of the unbelievers! Rejoice, well-known, reliable praise of the faithful; Rejoice, you who show the wise to be unwise; Those who are cunning take away both their cunning and their words! Rejoice, thou who has put to shame the curious, shameless, insane, all-evil prospectors! Rejoice, thou who has filled the fishermen's depths of faith with spiritual knowledge! 305. Most Holy Theotokos, glory to You! Most Holy Theotokos, save us! Amen. This presentation was compiled in Caucasian Stavropol, as a result of the desire of some people in society, in which the new dogma of the papists was then the subject of judgment. Saint John of Damascus. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith, book. 4, ch. 14 About the fact that by faith the carnal and spiritual mind is destroyed and the spiritual mind is born, see the 28th word of St. Isaac of Syria “Having delivered to us those who were from the beginning the savovids and servants of the Word”_ “The traitor receives the bread in his hand; he extends it in secret and accepts the price of Him who created man with His own hands.” Kontakion, Tone 2 on Holy Thursday “Lord, I have condemned You the Jews to death, the Life of all.” Troparion of the 3rd tone on Great Friday. - “Seeing the thief, the Head of life, hanging on the cross, he said: if God had not been incarnate, He who was crucified with us, if the sun had not hidden its rays, the earth would have trembled trembling: but endure everything, remember me, Lord, in Your Kingdom.” Troparion of the 9th hour Saint John of Damascus. Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book. 3, ch. 2 According to the unanimous opinion of all the holy fathers of the Orthodox Church who wrote about this subject. Saint Gregory the Theologian. Word 38th Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book. 3, ch. 2 Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book. 4, ch. 14 Adam and God lied of old, desiring to be, not to be. Man (man) is God, and God makes Adam god (god). Akathist to the Mother of God, 4th stichera Saint John of Damascus. Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, book. 3, ch. 28 and 16 Passions are the name given to human properties in their painful state produced by the fall. Thus, the ability to eat turned into an inclination to gluttony and delicacy; the power of desire is in whim and lust; the power of anger or mental energy - into temper, rage, anger, hatred; the ability to grieve and be sad - into cowardice, despondency and despair; the natural property of despising sin that degrades one’s nature - in contempt for one’s neighbors, in pride, etc. The 2nd word of St. Isaiah the Hermit Here, spiritual is called that which is sanctified by the Holy Spirit, according to the meaning that the holy Apostle Paul gives to the word spiritual (1 Cor. 2:15) and which is given to it by all the holy writers of the Orthodox Church Venerable Macarius the Great. Word 4, ch. 3 “Thou art transfigured on the mountain, Christ God, who showed Thy glory to Thy disciples, as unto a man.” “Thou art transfigured on the mountain, and as Thy disciples have seen Thy glory, O Christ our God: that when they see Thee crucified, they may understand free suffering.” Troparion and Kontakion to the Transfiguration Troparion at the Hours of Holy Pascha Romance extracted from the Gospel, known as: Passion douleureuse de notre Seigneur Jesus-Christ par Catherine d'Emerich Saint John of Damascus. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith, book. 3, ch. 28 and 16. The Lord, solely by His good pleasure, took upon Himself the infirmities of fallen human nature, such as: hunger, thirst, fatigue, even bodily death, which consists in the separation of the soul from the body. The Lord’s body was subject to all this before His resurrection and ceased to be subject to it after the resurrection. The flesh of the Lord itself is deified from the very conception; she was already conceived as Divine. “She,” says Damascene, “became one with God, and God - not by addition or transformation, not by change or merging of nature. One of the natures, - with reference to the 42nd word of Gregory the Theologian, - became deified, the other was deified, and, I dare say, became one with God; and the anointed one became man, and the anointed one became God. And this is not due to a change in nature, but according to a providential union for salvation, that is, hypostatic, according to which the flesh is inseparably united with God the Word, and according to the mutual penetration of natures, to which we see the like in the burning of iron with fire.” Just as the Divinity always has the same dignity, being constantly equal to Itself and unchangeable, so the dignity of the soul and flesh of the Lord in relation to their divinity has always been the same. This dignity was the same in all changes in the human age of the God-man: it was the same when the incarnate God reclined as a baby in a manger, when he was wrapped in swaddling clothes, and when he revealed himself in indescribable glory on Mount Tabor, when he rose from the grave, when he ascended into heaven. This dignity was the same in all circumstances, which the God-man was pleased to obey according to his humanity: this dignity was the same when the Lord stood before the bound Sanhedrin and Pilate, when he was showered with abuse, strangulation and spitting, and when He sat down, according to humanity, at the right hand of God the Father, when all the angels and archangels bowed and fell at His feet (John 8:59) According to the interpretation of Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria Akathist to sweetest Jesus. Ikos 7th Sunday Troparion, Tone 2, Theotokos Sunday Troparion, Tone 7, Theotokos Worship on the Week of Orthodoxy Saint Cyprian of Carthage, see reference to Saint Demetrius of Rostov. Chet'i-Minei, December 25. Word for Christmas The Life of St. Gregory the Sinaite, written by his disciple, His Holiness Patriarch Callistos of Constantinople. Manuscript Interpretation of St. John Chrysostom on the Gospel of Matthew; also the Evangelist, an explanation of the passage quoted from the Gospel of Matthew. “Something human, the power of a mother over her son,” notes Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria, considering the circumstance described by the Evangelist, “the Mother of God showed: she did not yet understand all the greatness hidden in the God-man. And therefore, while He was speaking a lesson to the people, she interrupts Him and calls him to her, wanting from Him, as from a son, respect and obedience to herself. For this reason, Christ, who knew her heartfelt thought, said: “Who is My Mother? and who are my brothers? And He stretched out His hand to His disciples, saying: Behold My mother and My brethren: whosoever doeth the will of My Father which is in heaven, the same is My brother, and My sister, and My mother.” He said this without humiliating the Mother of God, but distracting her from vanity and from looking after the old man.” Venerable Macarius the Great. Word 7th, ch. 11, 12 Bergier. Dictionnaire de Théologie. Article "Marie" Spiritual alphabet, book. 1, ch. 7 and 8 According to the explanation of Blessed Theophylact of Bulgaria Venerable Gregory of Sinaite, ch. 110 and 114. Kindness, part 1 Canon of the Akathist to the Mother of God, hymn 1, troparion 1 "The Good News", An Accurate Statement of the Orthodox Faith; Chetii-Minea and so on. An accurate exposition of the Orthodox faith, book. 4, ch. 14 This information and other historical information were borrowed from the Chetya-Menaia, which set out a detailed church Tradition about the Mother of God, i.e. the stories and reasonings of many holy fathers are given about it Thus the apostles exclaimed when they saw the Mother of God appear to them after her dormition. Chetii-Minei, August 15 See the explanation of this circumstance in the “Blagovestnik” According to the explanation of Saint John Climacus This is how the blessed elder Seraphim of Sarov explained The story of the Dormition of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Chetii-Minei, August 15th Blessed Seraphim of Sarov Borrowed from Akathist to the Mother of God You might be interested in: