The members of this New Israel are a new, “holy nation, a peculiar people,” an ethnos without tribes or ethnicity, a nation with no abiding or ruling city here. In the New Israel, not only priests and kings but all the people are anointed with a new anointing, the holy chrism and seal of the Holy Spirit, into “a royal priesthood”39 inherited not through “the will of the flesh,”40 not through a family, tribe, or ethnic birthright, but through “the adoption as sons of God”” by grace, Only by the royal priesthood and the consent of the sons of God can the liturgical priesthood be conferred.
The Theotokos is the mother of the Church because she is the mother of the lifegiving body and blood of Christ. Without the Theotokos there is no Christ and no Church. Fathers even identified her with the Church and the Church with her. “We hymn the Ever-Virgin Mary, which is to say, the Church.”42
In the name “Theotokos” the whole meaning of the Church is contained. This is symbolized by the holy icon called the Platytera, “She who is broader than the Heavens” (Πλατυτέρα των ουρανών), in which she bears Christ enthroned in her womb. Her womb is represented by a circle or oval containing the Infant Christ, Standing with her arms open, ever receiving all who are present, she is a precise figure and symbol of the Church with Christ in her midst.
Traditionally placed in the apse of the church building, the Platytera overlooks the sanctuary and the holy table and us her children.43 All people are her children, Christians and non-Christians alike, because she mediated human life to God and divine life for all mankind and not for chosen races.
Because of her consent to the incarnation, creation itself took place. She was our mother ontologically in the eternal will of God before the ages, and our mother in history who gave flesh to the Lord that we may be reborn of that same flesh. Therefore, whether we call her Mediatress, or Mother of Life, 44 we say the same thing.
She is creation’s own chosen Mediatress to the Lord. In a Nativity vesper hymn, all creatures, rational and irrational, visible and invisible, earthly and heavenly, are represented with their own unique thanksgiving offerings to Christ in anticipation of His imminent appearance on earth:
“The angels offer a hymn, the heavens the star, the Magi the gifts, the earth the cave, the wilderness the manger, and we a Virgin Mother.” She is the only offering that Adam’s children are able to bring to the economy of salvation. Naturally we supplicate her saying, “In you alone do I hope.”45
~Adapted from George S. Gabriel, Mary: The Untrodden Portal of God
39. 1Pet. 2:9
40. Jn. 1:13
41. Gal. 4:5; Jn. 1:12
42. Cyril of Alexandria. Quoted by A. Yevtich in The Theotokos: Four Homilies on the Mother of God by St. John of Damascus, p. 270, n26.
43. The placement of the Theotokos’ image in this location predates iconoclasm. The Platytera icon visually expresses the words “Our God Who existed before the ages made your womb a throne and your belly broader than the heavens.” (From the Theotokion “All creation rejoices in you who are full of grace …”)
44. Cf. the Anthem Hymns (Apolytikion and Kontakion) of the Dormition Feast.
45. Fourth Ode of the Great Supplicatory Canon.
