Orthodoxy 101 - The Virgin Mary and the Saints

tonight's class is on the Virgin Mary and the Saints and that might sound like it's a lot we could in fact spend an entire session just on the Virgin Mary but I have found in my experience that it is additionally a benefit to just simply do the Virgin Mary with the Saints and why is that because the Virgin Mary is although she is in her own category as the mother of God there are so many similarities of why she is important so we're going to begin speaking on the Virgin Mary on the mother of God and then we'll go on talk about the rest of the saints so the Virgin Mary there's a great book on there's very little to the step back there is very little written in scripture about the Virgin Mary in the Gospels the only reference we see to the Theotokos the mother of God is the fact that she bore Christ that she is the mother of God okay and that first and foremost is the one thing to remember frankly we could end the class right now by simply affirming that the Virgin Mary is the bearer of God that is the only reality about her that is dogmatic okay the virgin birth of God why is that so important because in the person of Christ our salvation rests and so who she gave birth to is what is important for our theology this came to head as it were at the fourth echo Medical Council where the big argument the big debate was do you call Mary Cristo tacos the bearer of Christ or do you call the Virgin Mary failed tacos the bear of God and it was a debate in the church the big resolution there was the affirmation in the ecumenical council that Mary is in fact Theotokos the bear of God because if Christ was not God from the moment of his conception that our salvation goes down the toilet because our salvation as we know from other weeks our salvation rests in the fact that Jesus Christ as God became 100% human from the moment of conception through his death burial and resurrection he remained one other percent human yet what unites us to the divinity of God is the fact that he did that while always being 100 percent God and so the church says that if she is called Cristo tacos merely the bear of Christ and some were suggesting in the church that Christ took on his divinity that the divinity entered Christ after his birth sometime that she didn't actually bear God the church says that steadily is that rubbish but that jeopardizes our salvation because what do we have freedom right and so if God was not God in the womb from the very moment of conception then what happened to the free will of that human being if Mary did not in fact bear God and that's why it's so important that we call her mother of God okay and of course that she did that in a virgin birth that is the extent of the dogmatic statement about the Virgin Mary now there's all sorts of other there's a there's a big tradition about the Theotokos that we consider part of our tradition and part of our theology but those two elements because they directly affect who the person of Christ is is where we lose where we rest our dogmatix because a dogmatic position of the church is always simply about jesus christ so there's a great book called the life of the Virgin Mary the Theotokos show it to our people they're looking line there you go there you go right there and this book I'll pass it around is a great resource it compiles all of the tradition of who we say the Theotokos is for example we believe that the Theotokos is ever virgin that she was a virgin before during and after the birth of Christ that Joseph never went into her and had sexual relations with Mary now there are many in the Western Church that dispute this they suggest that Mary and Joseph had other children and they use among other things two phrases in Scripture that Joseph did not know Mary until she had brought forth a son implying that afterwards he did and then in Scripture it says it refers to Christ's brothers and sisters now in the tradition of the church and this book addresses it and always in the tradition of the church it has never stopped being the tradition of the church from the time of Christ the brothers and sisters that are mentioned are Joseph's children Joseph was a widower and that the early church understood her to be ever-virgin that Joseph never did know her afterwards now that is not scriptural it's not in the New Testament but it doesn't have to be in the New Testament because quite frankly whether she had other children or not does not affect who Jesus Christ is we believe she didn't have other children and the tradition of the church for 2,000 years is that she did not have other children so we don't even bother having the argument some suggest you know that because it doesn't say she didn't in Scripture it allows for it she may have she may have not but the church has always taught that she did not and so they're the ones that knew her personally ah the Apostles knew who she was and would have known in fact if these were Joseph's children or if they were Christ's own brothers you know through through Mary so these were not Mary's children so this is the tradition now of the Virgin Mary the other tradition about the Virgin Mary is that when she died the apostles were gathered at her bed her funeral bed and like poor Thomas was known to do he missed out he wasn't there so when he showed up three days later they went to go show him the body and the body was gone and so the church this teaches that that she received her heavenly resurrection body immediately unlike the rest of us who will have to wait for the second coming of Christ in her special unique role as the mother of God she was blessed to have that experience right away that's the teaching of the church okay because when the Apostles went her body was no longer there so she was resurrected like Christ was resurrected now the Roman Catholic Church teaches that she no longer the Catholic Church Roman Catholic Church teaches that no longer teaches that she died the the the the the dogma of the Roman Catholic Church is that she never died she was assumed into heaven in bodily form before death we reject that teaching and the Roman Catholic Church also used to not believe that it used to believe that she died but that Glory's not bringing that up not to speak negatively about the Roman Catholic Church but to say that that this is why I'm saying that theology has to all linked back to who Christ is if the Virgin Mary didn't die then she wasn't human because all humans have to die the only two people who never died is Elias and Enoch who God took them into heaven before their death and they will return to announce the return of Christ every of the human in the face of the earth must die and so if she didn't die that questions our humanity and if it questions our humanity what does that do to Christ's humanity because Christ takes his humanity from her so this now is all part of a line of events when the Roman Catholic Church began declaring the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception which by the way does not address the conception of Christ I don't know if you knew that when Catholics Roman Catholics talk about the Immaculate Conception that doctrine is that Mary was born without sin again the we say that's then caused the question of humanity because only God is without sin and if she was born without sin then she would have been the Messiah okay well once the Roman Catholic Church said that she was born without sin then of course she can't die so right before her death she's assumed into heaven in the Roman Catholic tradition now none of that is in the ancient church tradition you won't find that in this book it's referenced here as a comparative teaching okay but what we teach is she was born as a regular human being okay no it's not oh nothing the tradition of it no that's what I'm saying is it's not in Scripture you know the tradition of the church this book writes about it now I will also say that right the tradition of her of her birth is that her parents Joachim and Anna or an old couple and had not had children and you know in Old Testament times if you did not bear children that means you were being punished for some kind of bad behavior and so people would shun you ah God who recognized their righteousness and uh granted that they would bear a child and at the age of three her parents brought her to live at the temple and she lived the temple beginning at the age of three and she went into the Holy of Holies according to the tradition of the church which is the holiest place of the temple and began dialoguing with the Angels so when Gabriel comes back to her when she say probably 12 or 13 years old when he says you're gonna bear Christ and she is startled she's not startled about who he is because she knows who Gabriel is she started with the news so that's the tradition of the Virgin Mary why is she held with such high esteem because she's the mother of God but what gives her her importance is simply that she bore God and that's why if you see in her icon the you'll always see her depicted with the Christ child you will almost never see her alone because what gives her her importance is that she bore God okay and that's why the church demands that she be called fail tacos not simply Virgin Mary not simply Cristo tacos not simply Mary but the mother of God because that is the role she played and she's held in high esteem the one thing scripture does say about her is all generations will call me blessed okay more honourable than the cherubim is the hymn that we use and so we see the tradition of the church obviously elevates her what as first among the Saints and this is why I say we can discuss the failed dokos at the same time as discussion the Saints because she is simply the first among the Saints uh she has a unique role in that she bore God now we move on hey Chris how you doing good you are the best you are the best don't smile for the camera because you'll be I'm you'll be on my little internet for oh it's even still hot yes Oh tell your mother thank you very well am I gonna see you Christmas Eve yes good if you come help me in the back everyone you all know you know although this guy I would say your name but then the whole and that world is gonna know that you were here so that might be a good thing I don't know I don't know thanks for much Chris god bless you alright so reason we can talk about her at the same time talk about the Saints is she is simply first among the Saints because what is it about the Saints that is important pop quiz what is important about the Saints is the power of God revealed in their life that's why when you see when you hear a hymn about a saint you don't you hear about all these things at the very end glory to you God who revealed yourself in the works of this Saint or whatever the particular saint is okay everything about the Saints is about Jesus Christ is about God everything with the Virgin Mary is like that she bore God as that's what we talk about them at the same time obviously she's a category of her own because she have a unique relationship so Saints after the Virgin Mary now you have the rest of the the Saints of the church and there are categories of Saints we have apostles we have prophets we have martyrs we have what's called the Fathers of the Church which are the the bishops of the church we have the venerable Saints which is normally monastics people who were not specifically martyred who became Saints as monks and nuns we have different you know we have dr. Saints we have also different things like the the unmercenary doctors who are Saints who were healers and without receiving any pay so these types of different categories of saints also all have the same thing in common and that is the grace of God relevant to their life so imagine now we have let's say st. Athanasius who I happen to know his story fairly well how does one go about being a saint because each of us are called to be Saints okay we are all called to be Saints st. Paul teaches this in his in his writings as does Christ we are all called to be Saints there's two types of Saints as matter of fact when Paul writes his letters what do you say to the Saints in Corinth okay to the Saints in Rome to those called to be Saints now what's Paul talking about we have to remember that the original word for st. ayios means not of the earth ah-yi from the earth so not earthly in other words someone whose life is not worldly and committed to the spiritual life so we are all the saints of the church we are all called to a heavenly life versus an earthly life the fleshly life that we talked about right obviously there are a few that we put capital s's in front of okay where we identify the saints of the church capital s as those whose lives our they are worthy of our following their example ok no no I mean some of them were children some some some of the Saints were martyred as children but their life their life exemplifies the power of God and commitment to God and especially martyrdom and so we have the the big capital ask those whose lives are exemplary Orthodox Christian lives all right for example and they don't have to be ancient saint Nektarios for example died in 1924 so that all saints are ancient uh there are some 20th century Saints from America none of them are Greek but that's ok so they're not all Saints are from the ancient years of the church but how does one become a small s Saint which is each one of us to be a capital s Saint because we're all called to that life well first of all we do not have a formulaic presentation of sainthood like the Western Church does the first part the first step I will call it step but the first step in being a saint with a capital S in the Orthodox Church is that the people themselves begin venerating your life as a saint all right and normally like in the ancient church this is where how it began happening at the at the at the annual commemoration of st. Andrews death let's say the church would gather at his tomb and celebrate a Divine Liturgy on his tomb in honor of him in honor of his life and and so that that veneration is what is the beginnings of this formalization process what we call the canonization of a saint is the people first recognize this person is the saint this is also why of course in our church our altar table has the bones of saints in it because this is from that original tradition of returning to the tombs of the saints to celebrate liturgy so once the people have begun recognizing this particular person as a saint then the church says okay let's investigate this person's life now in contemporary times that includes was this person an Orthodox Christian because if the church is going to put a capital S in front of someone's name that means the church is saying that this person is worthy of your attention worth it to be a model of your life well obviously if that person went and married a Hindu the church cannot lift up that person no matter how charitable that person was no matter how much that person would have you know fed the poor whatever they might be a holy person but the church will not say mimic this person's life because the person left the church by marrying a Hindu let's most recently I think that's very obvious for example in mother Teresa mother Teresa is a holy woman she will inevitably be made a canonized a saint of the Roman Catholic Church as a matter of fact in and I think it's in Boston there is a church name for Mother Teresa already there's no doubt in that but in the Orthodox Church she'll never be called a saint simply because she was Roman Catholic so the Orthodox Church cannot lift her up as a as an example of Orthodox living because she wasn't one of us has nothing to do with her life it's a very factual reality so that's also part of the investigation by the church what was their life like were they living within teachings of the church they don't have the Saints don't have to be 100% correct all the time you know there are there are some minor teachings that may not necessarily be what the rest of the church teaches and that's okay but their theology has to be in keeping with the Orthodox Church because what happens is we have this my terminology we have what I like to call ecclesiastical and theological checks and balances the teachings of the church are upheld by the teachings of the Saints because that's what we get the teachings from they can never be in conflict so if the church has always taught for example that the Virgin Mary is the mother of God the church will never canonize a person that suggests that Christ was not God that she only Bora even being because that person's theology does not stand line with the tradition of the church does that make sense then eventually once the life of the saint the person who's being venerated is investigated then slowly eventually the canonization process takes place but it's a more organic experience in the church it's not a rigid formula within the church it comes from the grassroots level if a if a person dies very holy and the people never venerate that person's life as a saint the person may never be canonized as the capitalized in the church it doesn't mean they weren't it just me not actually has to have that a letter designation and there are thousands of saints in the church I was looking for my books but I couldn't find them but in the back of this book there's a you'll see names and names and names of saints somewhere in here alright for example there's not just one Saint John there's not just one sin of inácio so there's literally thousands of people who have been commemorated and if you look at the Orthodox calendar for example what we do the morning or throw service here in the chapel in the church every day that I do or through us I list that I commemorate names and sometimes it's 20 or 30 different people that particular day that the church recognized and that's just who the Greek Church recognizes there's the Romanian Church and the Russian Church and the Georgian Church and the Ukrainian church they all have their own lists of saints - some of them are in common like st. George and st. Athanasius some of them are local Saints you know for example st. Herman of Alaska st. innocent of alaska saint john of shanghai who was also of san francisco he was the bishop of San Francisco st. Raphael of Brooklyn these are all American Saints st. Peter the Aleut from from Alaska so these are all Saints who lived and work in Alaska in America in the past 200 years less than 200 years and they're all the saints of the church so you see st. innocent Orthodox churches and things but you don't see them here in though in this part of town because we don't that's he's a Russian saying he went Mecca he became patriarch of Moscow you know but and you know you're you see for example st. Herman Orthodox Church in the OCA Church because that was that's who has most of Alaska as the OCA so you have that built in I'd like some data as to have some of the mayor Saints depicted in icons in our church you know because they are people to be lifted up because they live the American life they live the American reality that we live you know and they are example exactly it's constantly going it's constantly going exactly so that's how you that's how it becomes a saint ah the last thing we'll talk about in terms of Saints is how they are honored and icons which we talked about specifically without the church itself but will return a little bit of topic of icons in terms of how we honor the Saints we honor the Saints with hymns we honor the Saints with icons we honor the Saints with church services again all for the same reason the power of God and you see again let me set up with a Virgin Mary's icon or the icon of any any saint you see a halo the halo indicates the light of Christ shining from that person's life so even in the depiction of the icon or honoring God in the life of that person we pray to the Saints or we or we should pray to the Saints this is something of course that that many in the Protestant West don't approve of but our teaching in the Orthodox Church is that we are all one Church the Saints are the church in heaven in we living are the other church militant here on earth that church still communicates so just like we pray for each other on earth right we do that right it's all intercessory prayer we put what we talked about that night without about prayer hey the same thing we do with the Saints we ask the Saints to pray for us too I mean if you're going to ask me to pray for you may as well ask your old patron saint to pray for you because they're alive with Christ - as a matter of fact there doesn't own of God so that is really misunderstood in our American American context because people confuse prayer with worship not all prayer is worship all right prayer is simply communication so you can pray to Jesus Christ you can pray to the Virgin Mary and ask her to pray to Christ for you the Virgin Mary can't do anything for you directly all she can do is intercede for you just like anybody else can and I don't know I don't know about you but I need all the help I get all right I need all of you praying for me I need all of you watching to pray for me I need all the Saints praying for me I'm not just joking we need prayer we need people lifting our names up to God why would we sell ourselves short and not ask the Saints to pray for us - we're not worshiping them is that idolatry to pray to the Saints we're talking to them they're alive so we honor the Saints but we honor Christ's like we honor Christ's work through those things their willingness to be martyred their miracles many of the Saints have performed miracles so those types of things that's what we honor the Saints we don't honor them for anything else other than the work of private all right so that's the Virgin Mary and the Saints I think that kind of now there's so much more I mean whole books have been written but I want you to the general context of the Virgin Mary and the Saints and their services to all these people know we do services in the church for example to the Theotokos every month the practices we do every every month during Lent we do it every week to the Theotokos there are just like this the practices to the Theotokos there's also Pericles to other Saints so there might be for example I mean I know there is for example a practices to st. John Chrysostom it prophesies the Saint Harlem bus especially in monasteries that are named for them there are services just like we pray to the Theotokos they pray to the Saints and so there's many many more services of the church that that can be done that we just don't do in our in our contemporary context especially here in the big city as compared to the monasteries somewhere yes normally the date of their death okay uh so if they died on you know on such a day that's no the day they're commemorated that goes back to the ancient tradition that on the annual commemoration they were honored now there are some saints talking about the calendar there are some saints who are placed on a particular day for a particular reason okay for example we celebrate Saint John the Baptist on the day following Epiphany not because he died on January 7th but because he is one of the main players on the day of Epiphany so we celebrate the Epiphany of Christ the theophany on January 6th the very next day we celebrate John the Baptist just like on Christmas the very next day we celebrate the Theotokos ok because she's a key player in that event so so sometimes they're placed strategically because of the calendar because there's other influences going on ok so we're going to press stop so we can answer any kind of questions and just as a as a side note to those of you watching online this will be our last class that we that we put online I hope you've enjoyed the classes please use the comment section if you have any other questions we'll be answer them god bless you all

Channel: Be Transfigured Ministries

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Keywords: O101VirginMarySaints

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Length: 34min 7sec (2047 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 11 2012