The Veneration of the Holy Virgin in the Ancient Church
It is only in relatively recent times that we have Christians teaching that Mary had children after the birth of the Saviour. All the early reformers, including Luther and Calvin, believed Mary to be Ever Virgin. The practice in biblical times was to refer to all cousins as siblings, and none of the early Christians believed Mary had borne any children other than Jesus.
The veneration of the Virgin did not begin with the Medieval Church, but began in the Early Church. The designation of Mary as Theotokos (Birthgiver of God) is found on an Egyptian papyrus fragment from the year 250 A.D., proving it was not a later invention. The prayer reads, “Under your mercy we take refuge Mother of God; may our petitions not be abandoned into temptation, but from danger deliver us, only pure and blessed.”
The problem with viewing the Bible as the only authority for the Christian life, is that everyone who buys into the personal interpretation of Scripture becomes the authority, and the memory of the teachings and practices of the Early Church are forgotten, replaced with the mess that followed the division of the Western Church into denominations.
When we do not have Holy Tradition and Holy Scripture held side by side in importance, we go astray. The key to Orthodoxy’s claim to being the Ancient Apostolic Church preserved in all her purity, can be seen in her insistence that Holy Tradition has kept her way of worship, and her dogma, unchanged. No need for change, for the Church knows the truth of the words, “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints (Jude 1:3)”.
It is liberating to discover we need not search the Bible to understand the meaning of the Word of God for ourselves. There is no need to reinvent Christianity for this modern age, in a feeble attempt to make Christianity relevant. We can even avoid the prideful arrogance of thinking we can decipher the meaning of the Bible, for we need only look to the Church for the truth that has been preserved from the very beginning. We can say with certainty that we keep to the faith of our fathers. The veneration of the Holy Virgin Mary is but one example of our connection, unbroken, with the Early Apostolic Church.
Abbot Tryphon