Through the hymnology of our Church, which borrows expressions and is based on events of the Old Testament, the mystery of the Most Holy Virgin is prefigured . Among other things, hymn writers attribute four unique characteristics to them. They call her the dwelling place of God, the tabernacle of heaven, the temple of God and the gate of heaven.
God’s dwelling place means that her face reveals the presence of God, since she herself hosted him in her womb and the Lord sanctified her. She exists to show God’s consorts, His place, His presence, and as shown by her enlightened exhortation to Cana of Galilee, “Whatsoever she shall say unto me, do ye” (John b. 5), she exists to exhort us to the obedience of her Son. Whoever sees her sees God.
But it is also called the tabernacle of God, which means not merely a place of dwelling or manifestation of God’s presence, but a place of His rest. A place that truly pleases God, satisfies His eternal will and expresses His infinite love and His eternal will.
It is also characterized as the temple of God, which means that through the Virgin Mary God reveals the mystery, the signs and wonders of God, those that surpass our reason, those that abolish our fatness and littleness, those that reveal the other reason and reveal the other life, they show another world than the world of the Fall, a true world beyond the real world, a world in which each of us is called to enter and live. This means that God entrusts her with his secrets, and she shares them with people.
The Virgin Mary therefore shows the presence of God, expresses His will and reveals His mystery. All these are not privileges or even gifts to her, which she keeps for herself, but gifts which she shares with the Church, that is, with the whole world, given to her to give. Consequently, anyone who can re-establish a spiritual relationship and communion with the person of the Theotokos not only knows the Virgin Mary, but above all enters into the niche of the presence, will and mystery of the Trinitarian divinity.
Finally, the Virgin Mary is also a gate. This means that she is a passage to heaven. The desire of every believer is to become a heavenly person, “whose citizenship is in heaven” (Philippians c 20), “we seek the things above, we care for the things above” (Colossians c 1,2). The gate through which one enters this heavenly state, the kingdom of God, is the person of the Most Holy Mother of God. Just as a door is needed to enter a room, so in the mystery of God we do not enter through the wall of reason, nor through the trap of the immanent life, but through the central entrance of the Theotokos’ person. Her moral model, the recourse to her maternal protection, her intercessions, her grace, her mystical relationship with her, facilitate the soul’s entry into the space of God.
This relationship with the person of the Virgin Mary is abundantly expressed through the sequences of the two Paraclete Canons and the Acathist Hymn, which are so popular among the Orthodox. The first two emphasise the importance of the Virgin in the daily needs of life, while the second is a prayer of praise that helps us to become partakers of her eternal glory. The Paracels bring her to us, while the Salutations bring us up to her.
In the Rules of Supplication, the immediacy of the relationship of the faithful with the Virgin Mary and her deep understanding of human nature, the need to protect it in circumstances of danger, afflictions, illnesses, needs and misfortunes is expressed. The tradition and experience of the Church confirms the power of her prayers and intercessions, since ‘there is much prayer to the grace of the Mother of God’. Her intercessions support the struggle for our salvation as perhaps nothing else, which is why we invoke them in our liturgies, singing them: “To the intercessions of the Virgin Mary, O Sovereign Mother, save us”.
With the sequence of greetings, we confess the mystery of the virgin birth of Christ, which we can neither understand, nor describe, nor explain; “And the mind of thee shall understand the token”. But this, instead of scandalizing the thought, humbles the heart and creates admiration and gratitude to the Lord for His wisdom, His love and His extreme condescension. In other words, by living the mystery of the Blessed Virgin, one confesses the mystery of the Triune God.
I wish that God will give the Virgin Mary to be our mother in our daily life, the helper of our salvation, the companion and at the same time the person who will constantly reveal to us the truth of God.
Metropolitan Nicholas of Messogaia and Lavreotiki
