The Beauty of Orthodoxy, Devotion to the Mother of God

This is the script for a lecture I delivered at a student conference held recently in honor of the completion of this year's course on the Mother of God in Orthodox Theology and Devotion, taught by the inestimably great Fr. Maximos Constas.

Apse Mosaic of the Mother of God in Haghia Sophia, Istanbul

The Beauty of Orthodoxy

Devotion to the Mother of God in the Homilies of Photius

For some two decades following the resounding defeat of iconoclasm, Haghia Sophia, the greatest church of Christendom lay unadorned, the marks of the epoch making struggle against iconoclasm still evident. And so the occasion of the unveiling of a newly installed icon of the Mother of God was bound to be one of pomp. As it was the event was even more replete with symbolism; it occurred on Holy Saturday in 867, immediately after the reception of a large group of heretics, in the presence of the heirs of the very emperors who had destroyed and profaned the icons. This triumph was personal for the reigning Patriarch of Constantinople, Saint Photius, a great scholar, statesman, and churchman. As a pious Christian and student of the Fathers he shared in the joy of the victory of Orthodoxy. As a hierarch it was a seminal achievement of his patriarchate. As a son, it was the vindication of the sufferings of his own parents, martyred under the iconoclast emperors. This was a victory both for the Church as society, and for its individual faithful. The Iconoclast controversy was an attack on the pious devotions of the Church, the veneration of relics, the saints, and images all inter-connected in the controversy. It was in this light that many of the defenders of Icons chose as their specific focus to compose homilies on the Mother of God. She was, and had been for some time, a central figure in the history of dogma, and the iconodules rightly pointed out the consequences of the incarnation of Christ for Christian art, that the Mother of God makes her son visible to us by His putting on of her flesh, and in consequence making Him depictable. Beyond this dogmatic consideration though more was at stake: the Theotokos is our intercessor, and the example and image by which we draw closer to God, an image of a humanity perfected by God, making her, in eternal relation to Her Son, the symbol and seal of Orthodoxy, both in dogma and in piety. Photius speaks about the Mother of God in exactly such a way in his homilies. She is the subject of several of his homilies, both directly and indirectly. We shall speak about three of those homilies: Homily V On the Annunciation,  Homily IV On the Departure of the Russians, and Homily VII On An Image of the Mother of God. Through Photius's descriptions of the Mother of God we shall see the multi-faceted content of devotion to the Mother of God at the beginning of what has been called the Byzantine Renaissance; or the Second Byzantine Golden Age.

We shall begin with Homily V, On the Annunciation. The Annunciation was a favorite subject for the iconodule writers, and we find it discussed in homiletic series by St. Andrew of Crete and St. Germanos of Constantinople among others. The feast gives an opportunity for the speaker to discuss Mary in two capacities; her dogmatic relationship to Christ and her role as an example for the faithful. In this homily, we can see how Photius, a consummate educator, accomplishes both goals. 

Photius uses several different modes of speaking, giving a panegyric, and an explanation of the Mother of God's dogmatic role. However the piece really shines in the extended invented dialogue between the Theotokos and the Archangel Gabriel. It is an example of ethopoiisis, or character study, used to excellent effect in this text. The dialogue envisions Gabriel, the angelic herald, as an earthly ambassador treating with the Virgin. She does not immediately accept, but in her Photius offers an example of discernment; she questions the angel as to how the miracle can happen to her, saying, “she was troubled, but she did not turn away; she was troubled but she cast in her mind inquiring into the manner of [Gabriel's] salutation, yet perceiving that its cause escaped understanding.” The virgin is here depicted as an example of prudent wisdom, neither refusing outright, nor accepting without reflection. She shows the discernment that Eve, our foremother, lacked when she listened to the serpent. For this reason she is “seized by a prudent fear, and amazed by the strangeness,” of what she is hearing.

The angel here responds by stating the mystery is greater than he, the messenger, knows, and that also, “the Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee. It is that which shall teach thee... it shall interpret how thou shalt conceive...” He does not end here however. He references the old testament as a proof; “if thou wishest to accept credence of my tidings by means of examples, inferring great things from small ones, and confirming the things to come by things past, thou shalt conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son in the same manner as Aaron's rod,...” he goes on to mention Gideon's fleece which was bedewed while the ground remained dry, and the bush that Moses saw burning but unconsumed, referring these to the Theotokos. These references serve to show the people also how they might know, and inquire into truth, by trust in the Holy Spirit and by searching the Divine Scriptures. This trust is given its final example, the example set to mold the believer in the pattern of the Virgin's assent, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be to me according to they word.”

Homily 5 ends in a series of familiar refrains: “‘Hail much-graced one, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.’” By praises like these, reminiscent of the Akathist hymn, the patriarch invites the people to join in the angel's praises as he concludes his homily. In the spirit of the praise and supplication of the Mother of God we move to Homily 4, on the Departure of the Russians.

In this homily we see, par excellence, the Mother of God's role as intercessor. This homily and its immediate predecessor were delivered at the time of the unexpected invasion of Constantinople by the Russians, a hitherto “unknown tribe of barbarians.” Photius speaks in both homilies of the damage being done by the rampaging horde; their devastation of the suburbs of Constantinople, and he informs his flock that this has come because of their sinfulness and lack of purity in life. Even after the retreat, he begins by again recounting, in this homily, how the sins of the people have brought on this sudden onslaught. He sees these events in the light of Scriptural history: the barbarians are a scourge sent from God.

In the midst of this deserved suffering, Photius brings to light God's mercy. And how has this mercy come to the people? Through their benefactress. Having admitted their sins, and, “at the time when, denuded of all help, and deprived of human alliance, we were spiritually led on by holding fast to our hopes in the Mother of the Word, our God, urging her to implore her Son, invoking her for her protection as an impregnable wall for us, begging her to break the boldness of the barbarians, her to crush their insolence, her to defend the despairing people and fight for her own flock.” The people of the city, with the patriarch, carried the sacred relic of the robe of the Theotokos about the city walls, and the Patriarch exults in the miraculous garment saying, “It embraced the walls, and the foes inexplicably showed their backs; the city put it around itself and the camp of the enemy was broken as at a signal; the city bedecked itself with it, and the enemy were deprived of the hopes which bore them on.” Above all he praises her as the intercessor whose words availed to save them, and moved her Son to accept the people’s repentance, “we offered freely our prayers and performed the litany, thereupon with ineffable compassion she spoke out in motherly intercession: God was moved, His anger was averted, and the Lord took pity on His inheritance”. It is by the prayers of the Lord's mother that the city was saved, in the mind of Photius. This is not merely to be taken as some sort of pious trope either. The depth of feeling, the tender relief of the Patriarch and his flock and their gratitude towards the Theotokos is an essential and unavoidable element of the tradition of the Orthodox Church. She is a pillar by which the faithful stand and come closer to Christ. We have seen how the Mother of God helps to shape our behavior by conforming to her example, how she is our help in trials, lastly we shall see how she, beyond being a dogmatic symbol, embodies Orthodoxy in her own beauty, shown forth in her Icon.

In Homily 17, we return to where we started; the unveiling of an image of the Virgin in Hagia Sophia. The Patriarch describes this event as the triumph of Orthodoxy, and the plunge of all the heresies of ancient times up to the recent iconoclasm into the abyss. Yet what is most interesting for our purposes in this homily is the constant interplay between three features; the physical building, the spiritual Church, and the image of the virgin. This is unsurprising given the Iconodules emphasis on the real relationship between the image, the physical icon, and its prototype; the reality which the image depicts.

He says of the image that, “[w]ith such a welcome does the representation of the Virgin's form cheer us, inviting us to draw not from a bowl of wine,but from a fair spectacle, by which the rational part of our soul, being watered through our bodily eyes, and given eyesight in its growth towards the divine love of  Orthodoxy, puts forth in the way of fruit the most exact vision of truth. Thus even in her images does the Virgin's grace delight, comfort, and strengthen us!” Her very image strengthens us, heals us, both feeds and increases our perception of Orthodoxy, and is like strong drink, the very gladness of our faith. He says of the image that its silence is not inactive, “neither is the fairness of her form derivatory, but rather it is the real archetype.” He contrasts the wholesomeness of our Lady's direct presence to the unclean attacks of the iconoclasst on the physical building. Here we see Haghia Sophia, and our Lady's icon in particular, become a cipher, a stand in for Holy Orthodoxy. The scars born by the building are her scars, and the scars of the faithful. The blemishes are her blemishes, and that of all the church. Likewise in the restoration, Orthodoxy is cleansed, the ornaments in the Church restored, and our Lady's image returns. He uses here allusions to the Song of Solomon, “All fair is my companion, and there is no spot in her” and likewise to Psalm 44, “the queen stood by on thy right hand, clothed in vesture wrought with gold, and arrayed in diverse colors.” These two texts of the Old testament each have a double significance. They are both read in the Orthodox tradition as pertaining to the Church as a whole, but also in specific to the Mother of God. So Photius is not altogether exaggerating, or at least is not egregious in exaggerating, when he declares that this day of the unveiling is “the beginning and day of Orthodoxy.”

We see then how fitting, from her deeds, and her goodness towards us, and how even by her very image the Theotokos is for us indispensable. For the faithful Orthodox how we perceive the Mother of God is caught up in our very conception of what it means to be faithful to God. She, as the Bride of God par exellence, is the image of the Church herself as God's bride. And because she is what we are to be, she stands for us, who stand with her in the Church, our hope and our intercessor, a pledge of the heights attainable by those who, in the Lord's words, “hear the word of God and keep it.” 

Note: the essay focuses on the Mother of God's role in Orthodox devotion and less on her role in dogmatic theology. Suffice it to say, I take for granted the position of Chalcedonian Orthodoxy. The Mother of God is a guarantor of the Lord Jesus Christ's humanity; by her birth-giving He is fully man, by her virginity He is truly God. The Lord is of two natures, divine and human, perfectly both, without confusion or separation, united in a single hypostasis (self-existing person). The Son exists eternally united to the Father and the Spirit in the Godhead, but the Word has in the latter days become flesh, through her whose womb has become "wider than the heavens". Likewise this leads to the other base assumption of this lecture; that she is worthy of honor. She has a relationship to God closer than all humanity, for God chose her, as the pinnacle of the human race, to be His mother according to the flesh. No other human being has been so favored, nor shall they be.