‘All of Creation Rejoices in You’: From Annunciation to Dormition
1.0 Introduction
The feasts of the Theotokos developed beginning with the celebration of the Synaxis of the Theotokos on the day after Nativity, probably starting in the fourth or fifth centuries.108 Stories about her birth and life are relatively early (The Protevangelium of James), while accounts of her death did not emerge (at least in the mainstream tradition) until much later. The emperor Maurice (reg. 582-602) officially established a celebration of Mary’s dormition in Constantinople on August 15th, which had been a day observed in her honour in some areas.109 A concern to venerate Mary further than had already been the case probably also emerged as a result of the controversies surrounding the title Theotokos at the council of Ephesus in 431. The feast of the Annunciation, despite its biblical grounding, was one of the latest Marian feasts to receive a firm date in the calendar, although its theological association with March 25th is very early.110 The major feasts associated with the Theotokos (although some are also treated liturgically as feasts of Christ) are as follows: (a) The Birth of the Theotokos (Sept. 8) which celebrates her miraculous birth by the barren Anna and Joachim, (b) The Entry of the Theotokos into the Temple (Nov. 21) which celebrates Mary’s move to the temple at age three (where it is believed that she grew up in the Holy of Holies), (c) The Meeting of Our Lord (Feb. 2) which commemorates Mary and Joseph’s sacrifice at the temple after Jesus’ birth where they meet Symeon and Anna, (d) The Annunciation of the Theotokos (March 25) which celebrates Gabriel’s
annunciation of Christ’s conception to Mary and her willing assent to this miracle,111
and (e) The Dormition of
108
For an overview of the historical development of Marian feasts see the introduction provided by Ware (1998:38-97) and Mimouni (1995). There are also useful comments in Aubineau’s introduction to the critical edition of Hesychius of Jerusalem’s homilies. For a selection of early Patristic sources on Mary, see Gambero (1999; also Burghardt, 1955, 1957; Swanson, 2004). Much research on Marian feasts and texts was done by Catholic scholars surrounding the development of the dogma of the assumption and Mary’s immaculate conception. At times they tend to read later questions and dogmas back into the sources.
109 For a detailed examination of the emergence of this feast and the manuscript traditions surrounding Mary’s death, see
Shoemaker (2002).
110
See Talley who argues that the date for nativity was calculated from the date of the annunciation assumed to be on the same date as the crucifixion (1991; also in Johnson, 2000:265-272). The feast of the Annunciation is a rather complicated liturgical celebration, as it usually falls within Great Lent and can even occur during Holy Week. The feast is always celebrated on March 25, even if it falls on Good Friday, but there are various instructions outlining exactly how this is to happen. See Ware’s explanation (1998:435-437).
111 Orthodox theology emphasises Mary’s freedom and willing agreement. She was not coerced and her ‘answer to the
angel was not a foregone conclusion. She could have refused: she was not a passive instrument but an active participant, with a free and positive part to play in God’s scheme of salvation’ (Ware, 1998:61). Ware illustrates this with the dialogue between Mary and the angel Gabriel that is imagined as quite extensive in the liturgy (she is repeatedly portrayed as accusing Gabriel of deceit and wondering whether he is leading her astray; he applauds her ‘prudence’ in questioning him). He concludes ‘when, on this and other feasts, the Orthodox Church shows honour to the Mother of God, it is not just because God chose her but also because she herself chose aright’ (61). In fact, at times Mary is portrayed as more active than God in the liturgy: she receives the Son while ‘the Father on High gives His consent’ (445). Pelikan quotes Newman with approval who claimed that the Greek Fathers insisted that ‘had Mary been disobedient or unbelieving of Gabriel’s message, the Divine Economy would have been frustrated’ (in Swanson,
the Theotokos (Aug. 15) which commemorates Mary’s death or ‘falling-asleep’ and subsequent bodily
assumption. The feast of the Nativity of Christ is also to some extent connected to the feasts of the Theotokos (she has a prominent place in the liturgical texts and the festal icon for this day) and includes the Synaxis of
the Theotokos on December 26.112
As is true of Orthodox iconography and theology more generally, feasts of the Theotokos usually focus on the incarnation. As has often been pointed out, there is no separate ‘Mariology’ in the Eastern tradition. Mary is not considered separate from Christ.113 There are few statements about Mary that constitute theological Marian reflection disconnected in any way from her role in the incarnation. Joseph Nasrallah, who analyses Mary’s place in the Byzantine liturgy, examines the ‘ordinary’ liturgy celebrated every Sunday morning, highlighting especially various antiphons used within this liturgy (1954:45-65). Pelikan also points out the great role Mary plays even within the regular liturgy (in Swanson, 2004:1-18). He examines in detail the various phrases of the Sunday morning liturgy which mention the Theotokos and shows that veneration of the Theotokos is not in competition with worship of Christ, but that she is honoured as the first of saints who has become holy even as we are to live holy Christian lives as well.
Nasrallah goes on to consider briefly fourteen feasts and commemorations of the Theotokos, pointing out that the church year begins with a commemoration of the Theotokos on September 1 and ends with a similar feast of her on August 31. (Even if minor feasts and commemorations are excluded and one considers only the twelve major Orthodox feasts, the first and last of these are feasts of the Theotokos.) Her feasts 2004:15). He also points out in respect to the apparently ‘extravagant’ hymns to Mary that she serves not as exception to but example for human freedom, ‘the Annunciation of the Theotokos became in Byzantine theology the supreme case study of the mysterious relation between this predestinating divine choice and the inviolable human freedom expressed in her sublime confession and expression of faith in the Word of God’ (14-15).
112 Although there is some ambiguity about which feasts are feasts of Christ and which feasts of the Theotokos the feasts
just listed will be treated together here, since their central theme, the incarnation, is the same. In the Festal Menaion Ware lists the five feasts mentioned above in a) – e) as feasts of the Theotokos (1998:41). Of course, as Theodorou points out, all feasts are ultimately christocentric (1981:258).
113 Andronikof comments on this and suggests that a full mariology is developed in the liturgy. He rejects a ‘sweetish
pietism that reduces Mary to a crybaby lost in affliction or, conversely, to a Raphaelite queen floating with suaveness among the cherubs’ (1988:272). It should also be pointed out that veneration of the Theotokos does not automatically imply anything about the positive treatment or status of women. Elizabeth Behr-Siegel explains that ‘it would seem that in the western as in the eastern spheres of Christianity the promoters of Marian piety and theology have often, perhaps most often, been men’ (2001:102). Although women have not been excluded from this entirely, ‘nevertheless, even down to our time, one thinks of Christian women prohibited from preaching in the ecclesial assembly of the liturgy and unable to participate in the elaboration of Marian theology. This has been almost exclusively the business of men, of the clergy, who unconsciously perhaps have imprinted upon the theology of Mary their own dreams, their own vision of the ideal woman, a vision they combined with scorn or at the very least the second-class citizenship of real women within societies of a patriarchal form’ (103). She censures both the extreme gap, one the one hand, between Mary and women that puts her on an unreachable pedestal and associates all other women with the sinner Eve and, on the other hand, the association of women with Mary as a model for submission and obedience (104). She reviews recent re-evaluations of the status of women in light of feminist objections who accord full personhood to women and yet reaffirm an essentially male priesthood, taking note of Father Hopko’s book on Women in the Priesthood that reinforces gender inequality by arguing that male metaphors for God are more correct than female ones. Behr-Sigel also points out that Mary gave a free
response to God’s request (108). ‘For Christian consciousness, the assumption of Mary does not mean the glorification of her femininity, that of the “eternal woman”. An eschatological sign above and beyond history, she announces and anticipates the end, the meaning or telos for which humanity as a whole was created, namely the glorification of the creature when all is accomplished and completed, when God is “all in all”’ (110-11). See also her essays ‘Jesus and Women’ and ‘Women and Orthodoxy’ which precede and follow this essay on ‘Mary and Women’, respectively.
therefore frame the church year. Although Nasrallah cites only isolated portions of these feasts and
commemorations and his primary point in this treatment is to justify the immaculate conception, almost all of the texts he cites refer to creation in some way (1954:65-72). In a reflection on Mary’s place in the liturgy, Doncoeur similarly points out that ‘creation can have no other end than the glory of God’ and that this is expressed within the liturgy (in Bogler, 1954:101). Employing the notion of human priesthood of creation he interprets redemption as a restoration of voice to the cosmos and claims that the feasts of the Theotokos show Mary in particular as the one who most performs this glorification of God in her life and song and draws all of creation (including the angels) into the praise of liturgical worship (ibid., 105-109). It is also interesting that nature is particularly associated with Marian feasts in other ways. In some areas imprisoned birds are freed on the Annunciation to signify the freedom and restoration of creation begun at this inception of the incarnation (Strotman in ibid., 73). At the Dormition in August flowers are commonly blessed.114 It seems that the larger creation is not a peripheral theme in these feasts.
1.1 ‘World’ opened by liturgy
The fundamental message of all feasts of the Theotokos and of the Nativity is the incarnation, the affirmation that God became flesh. As in all liturgical texts other theological insights are also present, but the incarnation is clearly the most important theme. The incarnation is central not only in the celebrations of the Annunciation and Nativity, but is taken up in the liturgies for the other Marian feasts as well. This is
particularly obvious in the feast of her entry into the temple which employs the katavasias from the office of the Nativity celebration (celebrated on Nov. 21 it falls within the Nativity fast which extends for forty days before Nativity). Creation and redemption are closely linked in the liturgical texts. As Behr has argued, Eastern cosmology starts from the cross. He points out that March 25 was first celebrated as the day of the crucifixion and was simultaneously regarded as the day on which the world was created (2006:91). Showing close parallels between feasts of Christ and of Mary, he concludes:
These Marian feasts present a theological reflection on who Mary is and what she has done, made in the light of Christ’s work of salvation: they are a confessional statement of faith, a theological reflection based upon Christ. In the scriptural descriptions of the Annunciation and the Nativity of Christ, and in the other liturgical celebrations of Mary, we are directed not to Mary herself, but to Mary as the one who received the Word and gave birth to Christ, and whose whole life is transfigured by this, and we are given all this as an exhortation for us also to receive the Word, standing firmly by the cross and putting on the identity of Christ. (130-131)115
According to Behr, incarnation and Pascha are closely related and draw on each other. Hopko also shows how this is true in his reflections on the nativity cycle which following Schmemann he calls the ‘winter Pascha’ (1984:10-11; also Andronikof, 1970:96-97). Like Pascha, the mood of these feasts is predominantly one of celebration, joy and gratitude, although it is of a slightly different flavour than that at Pascha. While Nativity celebrates the dawning of the light, the beginning of salvation (and the feasts of the Theotokos largely foreshadow this), Pascha celebrates its accomplishment.116 Ware speaks of the dominant mood of the Marian
114
These are later developments and there are no references made to these traditions within the rubrics.
115 He also points out the close connection made in the liturgy between Christ’s ‘tomb’ and Mary’s ‘womb’ (136). 116 Rossum points to the connections between Pascha and nativity in his analysis of Romanos’ nativity hymns (2000:99).
feasts (especially that of her nativity and entry into the temple) as one of anticipation (1998:52). The gratitude at the Annunciation, Nativity and the Meeting is for God’s humbling to our situation, while the gratitude at Pascha is for a victory won.
1.2 Symbolism, Polyphony, Limit-Expressions
Like the Paschal liturgy, the liturgies for the feasts of the Theotokos and for Nativity exult in paradox. Their language throughout is excessive in order to stress the great condescension of the divine. Almost all references to the incarnation are put in stark contrasts between the transcendent and immutable divine and the fragile and weak human infant. They contrast Creator and creation, transcendent and immanent,
incomprehensible and circumscribed, eternal and finite, giving of life and barrenness, power and weakness. For example, a vesperal sticheron at the Annunciation says: ‘O marvel! God is come among men; He who cannot be contained is contained in a womb; the Timeless enters time; and, strange wonder! His conception is without seed, His emptying is past telling: So great is this mystery!’ (443). At the Nativity the liturgy asks: ‘How is He contained in a womb, whom nothing can contain? And how can He who is in the bosom of the Father be held in the arms of His Mother?’ (Sessional Hymn, 268). Similar contrasts abound in most of these liturgies. Many of the festal texts and especially the homilies are characterised by imagined dialogue: between Anna and Joachim, Mary and Gabriel, Mary and Joseph, Mary and Elisabeth, Mary and Eve.117 The dialogue, which was a popular stylistic measure, heightens the tension and grapples to some extent with the discordance present in the accounts (especially the pregnancies of a barren woman and of a virgin). It thus introduces elements of polyphony which enable the expression of the paradox of God’s incarnation.
The heaviest symbolism in these feasts is that used for the Theotokos. She is depicted in countless images drawn from the Old Testament. These are heavily employed within the liturgical texts and many of the homilies. She is compared to stars and the sun, to a mountain and a tomb, a life-giving branch and the
unconsumed bush, to a cloud of rain and to water, to an oyster and a ‘luxuriant vine’, a gate and the whole earth. As many of them are images drawn from nature, one may well wonder about their possible use for an ecological theology, especially as Mary is often seen as an ‘icon’ of all of creation. This is difficult, however, since ecofeminism has strongly censured the traditional association of women with nature (see Appendix I), which at first sight seems abundantly supported by this typology used for Mary. There is indeed lots of imagery for the Theotokos that compares her in various ways to other parts of creation. She is the ‘bush springing from barren ground’, ‘fountain of life that gushes forth from the flinty rock’, the ‘life-giving branch’, ‘the mystical Paradise’, a cloud dripping with life-giving rain, even a ‘young heifer’: ‘Behold, the Virgin comes like a young heifer, bearing in her womb the fatted Calf that takes away the sins of the world. Let creation as it keeps feast rejoice exceedingly’ (Forefeast, O4, 212). Especially prominent is the imagery of her opening Paradise, serving as a renewed temple or heaven. She ‘shines more brightly than all the creation’ (Entry, O3, 177) and is ‘more spacious than the Heavens’ (178). The most extensive imagery and symbolism
is found in the Akathist hymn which is theologically associated with the annunciation, but it now usually celebrated on the fifth Friday of Great Lent (which may or may not fall close to March 25; see Theodorou, 1981:305-320). Such comparisons are also very popular in the Patristic homilies. For example, Proclus describes her as follows:
The holy Mary has gathered us here;/(she is) the undefiled treasure of virginity,/the spiritual paradise of the Second Adam, the workshop of the union of the natures,/the market-place of the contract of salvation,/the bride- chamber in which the Word married the flesh,/the living bramble of nature, which the fire of the divine birth did not consume,/the truly light cloud that carried in her body the one who sits on the cherubim,/the purest fleece with the rain from heaven,/whereby the Shepherd has clothed himself with the sheep;/(she is) the maid and mother, the virgin and heaven,/the only bridge for God to mankind,/the awesome loom of the incarnation, on which was ineffably woven the role of union./The Holy Spirit acted as weaver thereof,/and the power that overshadowed (her) from on high was the worker,/and Adam’s old covering of skin served as wool,/and the undefiled flesh from a virgin was the thread,/and the immeasurable grace of the one who wore it served as shuttle,/and the Word who entered through the ear was the artisan. (1.1, 63-64)118
Elizabeth Johnson especially has stressed the danger of much of this imagery (2004). She argues that, at least in Western theology, Mary has been elevated to a divine position (a feminine side of God) that separates her from the rest of humanity and she suggests instead that she should be returned to her status as ‘sister’ of believers. In fact, within Orthodox theology Mary is actually in many ways regarded as the ‘first among equals’ of the saints and thus as their sister and companion (see Andronikof, 1988:273-285). Fitzgerald examines several of the common Eastern titles for Mary and points out that
the Orthodox have always made it clear that there is an important distinction between our worship of God and the honour we give to Mary and the saints. Mary and the other saints are human persons. Worship (latreia) belongs to God alone. From the Orthodox point of view, veneration (proskinisis) or honour (timi) can rightly be offered to those human persons who are close to God. Therefore, we honour and fervently pray to those blessed, faithful departed who are alive in Christ, as our brothers and sisters. When we honour Mary and pray to her, we pray to her both as our Mother and our sister among the saints.... she is and always will be ‘one of us’. She is a full member of the human community who fulfilled her particular vocation. (in Swanson, 2004:86)
He also stresses the importance of Mary’s freedom in the annunciation (90-92) and her collaboration with God (94-97).119
1.3 Actions
Homilies for the feasts of the Theotokos tend to take the form of encomia and seldom exhort to