In Chapter 7, Metropolitan Hilarion outlines the divine services from the beginning of the church year. It begins on September 1, and it is followed by The Nativity of the Theotokos on September 8. The Protoevangelium of James, also known as the Infancy Gospel of James, and our knowledge of the Scriptures give us an understanding of Joachim and Anna who are the parents of The Most Holy Mother of God, Mary. Their example teach us that God is always our helper, not riches or fortune. From Anna’s barrenness and prayers the Theotokos was born, and Mary was born for Christ and Christ was born for Mary. The Church glorifies the Theotokos. She is foreshadowed many times along with Christ in the Old Testament: the vessel of light, book of life, the bridal-chamber and many more images. She is so important and glorious that Orthodox theologians recognize her as “the book of the Word.” Mary is one unique source of the holy scriptures and salvation through her God-bearing life. Scriptural typology is replete with images of her ever-virginity and her high place in our salvation. In the Festal Menaion of the Church, Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpakos quotes troparia in his book Life After Death, “Today the ancient bond of the condemnation of Adam is loosed, Paradise is opened to us: the serpent is laid low. Of old he deceived the woman in Paradise, but now he sees a woman become Mother of the Creator.” The Theotokos is described as “the living temple” sitting enthroned. God also sits on thrones of angelic ranks in the heavens. Her glory and His glory are “beyond the universe;” this glory is beyond eternity, and it is a great mystery.
The link between Christ and Mary is inextricably established. St. Andrew of Crete teaches this deep knowledge in one of his Homilies on the Most Holy Mother, “For after the first formation of humankind had been fashioned from pure and undefiled earth, nature concealed [our] intrinsic honor, having been robbed of grace by the lapse of disobedience.” Mary is the pure earth, the candlestick, the altar, the ark of the covenant, and more. To bear the One above Being and beings she must have a birth beyond the natural laws of barrenness and fallenness to the One who created this earth. St. Andrew teaches again that, “We exchanged the joy in paradise for perishable life … from it came death and hence the corruption of our race … [No one knew] how to correct human nature and by what means it might be restored quickly and easily to its former noble state.” Christians belong to Christ’s Race through the Theotokos, and no one before or after can rightly correct our mortal humanity; death is both the consequence and the cause of further sin and sorrow. So, the restoration -- called apokatastasis in the New Testament – and the Theotokos are understood to work together for the good of all humans. Her will is the will of the Father. Her volition aligns with God’s volition even at the “pre-eternal council” – a term that as often mentioned in this chapter. Also, chastity, chasten, and chastisement are interrelated, and both etymologically come from the Latin verb castigare – to make pure. Mary’s will is united with the Holy Trinity’s will, and she never stops shedding tears and interceding on our behalf, whether in this life or the next; that’s evident in many stories of the saints. St. Andrew of Crete continues his teaching, “And so [he has been pleased] to point out the way towards a free and truly passionless new life for those who have, as it were, been reborn by the baptism of divine regeneration.” The true freedom of the Christian is always to do what is right just like the Theotokos. Even the most well-known of the Greek philosophers taught that no creature can truly wish for their own destruction – except maybe for the demonic creatures. We only will what we think is good for us, Aristotle and Plato taught. But even the best of philosophy couldn’t ultimately correct our backward and dysfunctional way of living as humanity has been doing for ages. The incarnation, which many educated Athenians mocked, is impossible without the Theotokos; likewise, our “correction” or kolasis in both modern and koine Greek would be impossible. She hid Christ in her womb who is “above being.”
Another great mystery is the typology of Mary as the New Eve and the Feast of the Exaltation of the Cross of the Lord that is celebrated on September 14 after the Church of the Resurrection of Christ was built in 335 AD. After many miracles occurred during the founding of the true Cross by Empress Helen and Emperor Constantine at Golgotha, the theology of the New Eve and the Theotokos grew quickly in the churches. Like Eve is the Mother of all the generations of humans, Mary is the Mother of the whole human race, and the Theotokos prays that “all should be saved” since mothers never give up on her children; if she wept for Christ, she would also weep for the restoration of all people. Orthodox Christians keep the feasts because we want to rejoice with the Trinity, the Theotokos, and all the angelic ranks together now. Creation isn’t meant to use reproduction and generation to fight off death to perpetuate our species. In this sense, evolution cannot be true because “death isn’t natural,’ which is taught in the book A Christian Ending by Dcn. Barna. The world was supposed to create without death like the Most Holy Mother of God and Christ. True evolution is Christ’s Resurrection, and His Cross is the only kind of death that brings life, with our participation, and brings us into the whole family tree of beings under One Mother. Death isn’t the survival of the fittest but just the assurance of more death. Metropolitan Hilarion teaches us that holy scripture and the liturgical hymnography and texts are deeply interwoven and educative. Many of the foreshadowing and theological insights of the fathers are taken from the Menaion, and the stichera and songs of matins and vespers. Emperor Leo the Wise teaches us through the stichera verses, “Hail, O Cross, complete redemption of fallen Adam.” The redemptive value of Christ’s Cross and Mary’s voluntary vouch for our race is the best news possible. The stichera of the Menaion teach, “…that in His compassion He may save the world from error.” Tears and prayers and the cross give us hope that these actions of our Master and Mother of God will unfreeze our passionate will and nature. In Holy Orthodoxy, tears can be a gift from God.
There is another great mystery and feast called the Protection of the Most-Holy Theotokos that is celebrated on October 1. It happened to St. Andrew Fool for Christ on that same day that Mary appeared to him in Jerusalem. She was surrounded “in light blue light” and she was praying with tears and with her head uncovered for the worshippers in the church. She was praying at the altar table in the church and spread out her omophorion over them to protect them. She protects Christians from evil doers, demons, and natural disasters. The kontakia at matins in the Menaion teach that, “… the prophets rejoice together, since for our sake she prays to the pre-eternal God.” The Holy Trinity is before eternity. Many Christians seem to make the concept of time above God. But God created time itself. God isn’t bound by eternity, since His will and council and plan for Mary was before that. The word eternity comes from the Latin aeternum which is a translation of “ages” or eons (aion in the New Testament). God is timeless. No concept of infinity or finitude can encompass the Holy Trinity, and the Most-Holy Theotokos requests protection and salvation with tears despite such ideas of time.
Finally, the feast of the Entry of the Most-Holy Theotokos into the Temple is celebrated on November 21. Again, this feast fulfills the “pre-eternal” plan of the Holy Trinity that foretells of Christ our Savior. Hades could not hold Christ, but the Theotokos held “the one of whom the prophets preached.” The Theotokos is the image of the Temple and the Tabernacle of heaven; She is the Tower like the Church being built until the end of the age. All ages have an end like this earth. If the prophets and scriptural images are all pointing to Christ and the incarnation, likewise we cannot understand scripture unless we see the Panagia (the Most Holy Mother) as the key to the scriptures, view her as the book of the Word, and keep the feasts of the Theotokos. Since Mary’s life is connected to Christ’s life, the next chapter discusses the Nativity Cycle of Christ.