Jump to Mothers bear persons Why the Church fought over one word Honour for Mary is Christ-centred The icon always points somewhere What the title does not mean
Orthodox services call the Virgin Mary Theotokos so frequently that a visitor may wonder whether the word is being used as her name.
It is a Greek title. Theos means God; tokos refers to bearing or giving birth. It is commonly translated “God-bearer,” “Birthgiver of God,” or “Mother of God.”
To modern ears, the title can sound impossible. God is eternal. Mary did not create the divine nature, exist before the Trinity, or give the Son His divinity. How, then, can she be called the Mother of God?
Because the One she bore is God.
Mothers bear persons
A mother does not give birth to a nature floating separately from a person. She gives birth to someone.
Mary gave birth to Jesus Christ. The child in her womb was not a human person temporarily associated with the eternal Son. He was and is the eternal Son Himself, who took complete human nature from her without ceasing to be divine.
The subject of every action in the Gospel is the one Person of Christ. The One who slept in the boat is the Lord of creation. The One who thirsted at the well is the giver of living water. The One who was born in Bethlehem is the Word through whom all things were made.
Mary is therefore not the mother of the divine essence. She is the mother, according to His humanity, of a Person who is truly God.
St Elizabeth gives the logic in St Luke’s Gospel when she asks why “the mother of my Lord” has come to her. The title Theotokos protects that confession.
Why the Church fought over one word
The title became central during the controversy associated with Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople, in the fifth century. Nestorius objected to Theotokos and preferred language that appeared to separate more sharply what belonged to Christ’s divinity from what belonged to His humanity.
The Third Ecumenical Council, held at Ephesus in 431, affirmed the title. The council was not attempting to elevate Mary into the Godhead. It was defending the unity of Christ.
If Mary bore someone who can only be called “Christ-bearing” in a way that avoids saying God was born in the flesh, then the danger is that Jesus has been divided into two subjects: one human and one divine, closely connected but not truly one.
The Church confesses one Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son and Word of God, perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity. What He experiences in either nature belongs to the one Person. God the Son was born as man. God the Son suffered in the flesh. God the Son died according to His humanity and rose bodily.
Theotokos is therefore a boundary around the Gospel.
Honour for Mary is Christ-centred
Orthodox devotion to Mary can appear excessive only if it is detached from the doctrine it carries.
The Church honours her because God chose her freely, because she answered freely, and because the Incarnation was not accomplished through an imaginary humanity. The Son received real flesh from a real woman.
At the Annunciation, Mary does not understand everything being asked of her. She asks how it can be, receives the angel’s answer, and says, “Let it be to me according to your word.” The Church hears in that response obedience, humility, courage, and the willing human answer to divine grace.
She is not worshipped. Worship belongs to the Holy Trinity alone. She is venerated as “more honourable than the Cherubim” because of her unique relation to Christ and her place in the mystery of the Incarnation.
Her own prophecy in the Magnificat is unembarrassed: “All generations will call me blessed.” Orthodox Christians take the verse seriously.
The icon always points somewhere
In many Orthodox icons, the Theotokos holds Christ and gestures toward Him. Even when she occupies much of the image, she is not its final subject.
She shows us the Son.
This is also why Orthodox prayers ask for her intercession. The Church does not imagine that Mary has mercy while Christ must be convinced to acquire it. Her entire holiness is the fruit of His grace. She prays as the foremost member of His redeemed people and as His mother according to the flesh.
What the title does not mean
Calling Mary Theotokos does not mean she is a goddess, a fourth person of the Trinity, the origin of Christ’s divinity, or a replacement for the one Mediator, Jesus Christ.
It also does not give Christians permission to speak carelessly. Marian devotion must remain what the Church’s worship makes it: inseparable from Christology, the Incarnation, the Cross, and the Resurrection.
The title is great because Christ is great.
The Church calls her Mother of God because it refuses to reduce the child she carried to anything less than God the Word made flesh.
A note. These articles explain what the Orthodox Church teaches and why. They are not spiritual direction. Anything touching your own rule of prayer, fasting or confession belongs with your priest or spiritual father, who knows you and your circumstances.
- The Virgin Mary: A Celebration of Our Faith, Orthodox Church in America
- Holy Fathers of the Third Ecumenical Council, Orthodox Church in America
- Luke 1:26–56; John 1:1–14
- St Cyril of Alexandria, letters associated with the Council of Ephesus
One passage. One week with it.
Words for the Narrow Way takes a single saying of Christ and gives it seven days — the passage in full, what the Greek is doing, how the Fathers read it, and one practice small enough to actually do.