Journey to the Kingdom. Fr. Vassilios Papavassiliou

us, have mercy on us, and keep us O God, by your grace.

      Commemorating our all-holy, most blessed and glorious lady, Mother of God and ever-virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us entrust ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.

      There are three sets of antiphons, though the third is not always chanted as a refrain with the psalm verses. On most Sundays throughout the year, the refrain for the first set of antiphons is: “At the prayers of the Mother of God, Saviour, save us”; while for the second set of antiphons, the refrain is: “Son of God, risen from the dead, save us who sing to you: Alleluia!” The refrain for the third set of antiphons is the principal hymn of the day, which is chanted during the Entrance of the Gospel.

      After the second set of antiphons, shortly before the Entrance of the Gospel, when the clergy bring out the Gospel book in procession to the middle of the church (see chapter 4), we sing a hymn that could be called a mini Creed:

      Only-begotten Son and Word of God, who, being immortal, accepted for our salvation to take flesh from the holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary, and without change became man; you were crucified, Christ God, by death trampling on death, being one of the Holy Trinity, glorified with the Father and the Holy Spirit: save us!

      This hymn was originally the beginning of the Liturgy, an Entrance Hymn (Eisodikon). The phrases of this short hymn sum up some of the most basic and fundamental aspects of our Orthodox Faith. Let us pause to consider them one by one.

      Only-Begotten Son and Word of God

      It is important to explain this term Word of God. When we speak of the Word (with a capital w), we are not usually speaking of the gospel, or the Bible; we are not talking about the written or spoken word. Instead, we are referring to a person, to the Second Person of the Trinity. We read at the beginning of St. John’s Gospel:

      In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.… He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.… The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. (John 1:1–4, 10–11, 14, NIV)

      St. John is referring to Jesus Christ. The Word is usually the term that is used for Christ before His Incarnation—that is, before His human birth. Christ is coeternal with God the Father. He always existed. He is, as we say in the Creed, “begotten of the Father before all ages. Light from Light, true God from true God.”

      Christ is not a mere prophet or moral teacher. He is God Himself, one of the Trinity. We have one God, and yet our God is not one person, but three persons in one Godhead.

      When we use the terms Father and Son in the Trinity, we must not get confused with how we normally think of father-son relationships. It does not mean that once there was just the Father, and then the Son came along. These terms, Father and Son, help us to understand the eternal relationship between the persons of the Trinity, but they cannot be pushed too far or be taken too literally.

      The Son and the Holy Spirit are coeternal with the Father. God was always, is always, and will always be Trinity. But it is the second person of the Trinity, the Only-begotten Son and Word of God, Who became a man and lived among us. It is because of this act of God becoming a human being like us that we are able to become one with God.

      Who, Being Immortal, Accepted for Our Salvation to Take Flesh from the Holy Mother of God and Ever-Virgin Mary

      The veneration of the Virgin Mary as Mother of God (Theotokos) is firmly rooted in the doctrine of the Incarnation—that is, the human birth of the eternal Son of God, Jesus Christ. In the very word Theotokos is revealed the mystery of the Incarnation. The Virgin Mary gave birth to God in the flesh, one person with two natures—human and divine. Since the salvation of the world through the Incarnation was effected by God through the Virgin Mary, we venerate her as the Mother of our God and as the ultimate example of synergy—of cooperation with God’s will. She is humankind’s offering to God, from whom He took flesh for our salvation.

      We venerate the Mother of God always in light of her role in the Incarnation. We do not venerate her simply on account of her own virtue but in virtue of the fact that Christ entered the world through her. This is why most icons of the Mother of God show her with Christ in her arms.

      Some non-Orthodox Christians are not comfortable with the veneration of the Mother of God. Many wonder, does all of this veneration of the Virgin Mary somehow overshadow Jesus Christ? I have found this to be an almost knee-jerk reaction of some people when looking upon the significant position of the Virgin Mary in Orthodox worship.

      The simple fact of the matter is this: there would be no Jesus without Mary. To venerate the Virgin Mary is to revere Christ becoming a man for our salvation, to fall down in awe before the great mystery of the Incarnation. He Whom heaven itself, even the highest heaven, could not contain is contained in the womb of a young woman! The Ancient of Days becomes a newborn child. He Who existed before the world began is born of a virgin. How can we worship God without revering His coming to earth and revealing Himself to us as flesh and blood? But how can we remember this without remembering the woman from whom He took flesh? And how can we remember her without wonder and adoration? This is why we have such a profound reverence for the Mother of God. For in this very word Theotokos is contained the whole mystery of the Incarnation and the salvation of the human race.

      The Mother of God is hailed also as Ever-Virgin (Aeiparthenos). The Church Fathers and hymns refer repeatedly to this paradox: virginity and motherhood are in nature mutually exclusive, but in the Mother of God the two opposites meet and are joined together. Christ was born not of man but of the Holy Spirit, and Orthodox Tradition, like Catholicism, holds that the Mother of God remained a virgin after the Birth of Christ as well as before. Some Christians contest this, quoting as their argument a passage in the Gospel of Matthew (13:54–56): “When [Jesus] had come to His own country, He taught them in their synagogue, so that they were astonished and said, ‘Where did this Man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is this not the carpenter’s son? Is not His mother called Mary? And His brothers James, Joses, Simon, and Judas? And His sisters, are they not all with us? Where then did this man get all these things?’” (NKJV).

      Orthodoxy understands these brothers and sisters as “siblings” from a former wife of Joseph, and not from Mary. Furthermore, “The terminology of Israel … made no distinction between brothers and cousins but referred to all as ‘brothers.’”¹¹ Mary had become the mother of all humankind through giving birth to God. She belonged completely and utterly to Him:

      Becoming the vessel for the Lord of Glory Himself, and carrying in the flesh Him whom heaven and earth cannot contain, surely would have been grounds to consider her life, including her body, as fully consecrated to God and sexual relations as unthinkable. Even in the comparatively minor (and strikingly parallel) incident of the Lord’s entry through the East gate of the Temple in Ezekiel 43–44, prompts the call: “This gate shall be shut; it shall not be opened, and no one shall enter by it, for the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut” (44:2).¹²

      And Without Change Became Man

      The Word of God, in becoming man, did not cease to be God. In Christ God and man, divinity and humanity, are joined. Christ is like the bridge between God and man, between heaven and earth. For only if He is God can we come to the Father through Him, but only if He is human can we humans meet with God through Him.

      You Were Crucified, Christ God, by Death Trampling on Death

      Humanity, through its own sin, through disobedience to God’s will, had become mortal, subject to death. So Christ, Who is immortal, became a mortal and died, that He may destroy death, because He is greater than death. He is the source of life. He is life itself. Thus by His own death, which could only be achieved by becoming a mortal man, He destroyed death, and He granted us immortality once more; as God death has no power over Him. He