December 9 (Julian) - December 22 (Gregorian)

The Conception by St Anna of the Most Holy Theotokos

As the Holy Feast of the Nativity according to the Flesh of our Lord, God and Saviour, Jesus Christ fast approaches, we pause thoughtfully on December 22 to celebrate a special Feast in honour of the Conception of His Mother.

Just as we are about to praise Christ our Lord for His coming into the world as a Child, the Church asks us to thank God for the Conception of Her from whose pure blood God fashioned a Body for Himself.

Veneration for the Mother of Christ is always veneration for the Incarnation of the Son of God.  In all the Icons of the Orthodox Church, She is always portrayed with Her Divine Son.  In most instances, He is a Child in Her arms. 

In others, She prays before Him on the Cross or else She cradles His lifeless Head in Her lap after the Crucifixion.  Other examples depict Her with outstretched arms in prayer to Her Divine Son for all of us.  All the honours that God has given to Her derive from Her being the Bearer of God, the "Theotokos."

When we honoured St Nicholas the Wonderworker, we were honouring a Father of the Church who participated in an Ecumenical Council that was called to define and defend Orthodox doctrine about Christ (against Arius, in this case).

The term "Theotokos" is also a theological one that was proclaimed by the Church against Nestorius to affirm that Christ is One, that He is One Divine Person in two Natures, Divine and human.  To deny that the Virgin Mary is the Theotokos is to, in effect, deny what the Scriptures and the Church have always taught about Christ.

The Virgin Mary stands between the Old and the New Testaments.  She is the culmination of the hopes and prayers of the Old with respect to the coming of the Messiah.  She Herself opens Her heart and life to God to become His instrument in bringing salvation to the world through His Son Jesus Christ.

According to tradition, an Angel of the Lord announced to Her mother, St Anna, that she would bear a Virgin who would bear a Son, in fulfillment of the Scriptures.

Like St Sarah of old, the barren womb of St Anna is made fruitful by the Holy Spirit.  Like St Sarah, so too St Anna is visited mystically by the Holy Trinity.

The Western Church, especially after AD 1054, promoted its doctrine of the "Immaculate Conception" of the Virgin Mary.  Under the influence of the notions surrounding Original Sin derived from Blessed Augustine, the West thought it spiritually offensive to think that Mary, the Mother of God, could have been said to have been in sin at any time. 

Therefore, the Immaculate Conception was developed as a way to explain that the Theotokos was preserved from the "stain of Original Sin" from Her Conception as a result of the application to Her of the Merits of Christ.  The Roman Catholic Church formally promulgated this doctrine in 1854.

However, the Orthodox Church never understood Original Sin in the sense that we somehow inherit the actual sin of Adam.  For how could this be?  Adam was guilty of his own sin. 

What we inherit in Original Sin is the corruption of human nature that was incurred by Adam through his sin i.e. death, moral weakness, suffering.

The Orthodox Church therefore sees the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception as totally unnecessary.

The Orthodox Church has also always believed that the Virgin Mary was, from Her Conception, filled with every Grace of the Holy Spirit in view of Her lofty calling as the Mother of Christ our God.

This is why the celebration of Her Conception is even liturgically and theologically possible: Only the Feasts of Saints i.e. those already sanctified by God may be celebrated!

The Orthodox Church also celebrates other Saints who were sanctified in the womb of their mothers.  St John the Baptist is one example.  Another is St Nicholas the Wonderworker himself as can be seen in the First Ikos of the Akathist in his honour.  

"Lex orandi, lex credendi" as the Latin saying goes, or "the rule of prayer is the rule of faith."  The Orthodox liturgy hymns the Virgin Mary as "Ever-Immaculate" and "Most Immaculate." 

If the post-schism Roman Catholic West had wanted to honour the Mother of Christ properly, it should have just looked to the Orthodox Church, rather than start concocting new doctrines! 

Russian Orthodox emigres in France in this century developed a strong devotion to the Mother of God at Lourdes.  There are 93 miraculous Shrines of the Theotokos in France. For them, the "Immaculate Conception" is the Conception of Christ in the Womb of the Virgin Mary.

Ukrainian scholars who studied in Paris beginning in the seventeenth century brought home with them the veneration for Mary Immaculate.  During the Baroque Period of Kyivan Christianity, numerous western theological views crept into the curriculum of the Kyivan Academy. 

A westernized notion of Original Sin seemed to hold sway as well which gave impetus to a popular cult of the Immaculate Conception even among Orthodox Ukrainians.

Following the French Catholic example, Ukrainians developed Church Brotherhoods of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God.  They also took the famous "bloody vow" which was an implicit vow the members of the brotherhood took to defend "unto the shedding of their own blood" the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, that the Virgin Mary was conceived without sin.

The Ukrainian members of these Brotherhoods wore special medals of the Immaculate Conception, minted in France, as a symbol of their belonging.  They also recited a special prayer:  "Most Immaculate Mother of God, save us!"

St Dmytry of Rostov and other leaders of the Kyivan Baroque even prayed the special western "Crown of Mary Immaculate" which consisted of 3 Our Father's and 12 Hail Mary's along with other western-based devotions.  Ukrainian and other Orthodox Monks and Nuns are still encouraged today to say the "Rule of Prayer of the Mother of God" which is the recitation of the Orthodox "Hail Mary" 150 times.

St Dmytry was even summoned to Moscow at one point to answer "charges" before the Synod for his western theological views. 

There are a few Icons or western pictures of the Most Immaculate Mother of God that have been locally glorified for public veneration in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church. This picture shows the Mother of God standing with a Crown of twelve stars on Her head, crushing the head of a serpent under Her feet which stand on a moon crescent, and clothed with the Sun. 

On these pictures, Her hands point downward as She looks up to Her Son in prayer for humanity.  This was also how She appeared in the late sixties over a Coptic Orthodox Church in Zeitoun near Cairo in Egypt.  ("Zeitoun" means "Olive Oil").  This appears to have also been the way the Mother of God appeared over the cupola at Pochayiv as She warded off the cannon balls of the Turks. 

In western Ukraine, it would seem that the medal of the Immaculate Mother of God is, once again, returning to popular devotion among both Orthodox as well as Eastern Catholics.  Again, for the Orthodox, (and for Eastern Catholics, if they are true to their theological heritage as encouraged by the Second Vatican Council) such a devotion would simply underscore the total holiness of the Mother of God without reference to the Augustinian view on Original Sin.

When I was growing up, I always knew that a special and great holy-day was approaching when extra effort was expended in cleaning and decorating the family home.

As we await the coming of our Saviour on the Feast of the Nativity, we are afforded an opportunity to consider how the Holy Spirit has greatly and spiritually adorned His special Temple, the Virgin Mary, Who is conceived this day, and through Whom Christ was revealed to the world.  

Dr. Alexander Roman  alex@unicorne.org