The conclusion of the fourth-century Trinitarian controversies, which saw in the First Council of Constantinople a reaffirmation of the mystery of communion between the Father, Son, and Spirit, left room for new questions that shifted theological reflection from the problem of God to that of the Incarnation. The transition to this new phase occurred with the response to the theses of Apollinaris, against whom orthodoxy simultaneously reaffirmed the full divinity and full humanity of Christ, but without yet being able to propose a dogmatic formula that conceptualized the relationship between them. Having overcome the problem of the completeness of the two natures that constitute Christ, it was now necessary to explain the manner of the union of God and man in Him.

On one side, the Alexandrian tradition, reconnecting with the language of Johannine Christology, saw the mystery of God made man within the framework of the relationship between the Logos (Word) and the sarx (flesh); on the other, the school of essentially Antiochene origin, but with significant convergences in Latin Christology, centered its conception of the Incarnation on the Logos-anthropos (Word-man) model. Apollinarianism, which represented a reaction to the weaknesses of the theology that had developed in the Antiochene milieu, especially with Diodore of Tarsus, also highlighted the inherent limits within the Alexandrian model itself.

Both theological currents contained elements of imbalance: Alexandrian Christology was oriented toward seeing the Logos as the human subject of the sarx, thus coming to question or obscure the existence of a human soul in Christ, or at least not fully valuing it. In contrast, Antiochene Christology, concerned with the full consistency and human autonomy of Jesus, the new Adam, gave the impression of conceiving the indwelling of the Logos in the anthropos as a moral rather than an ontological relationship. Therefore, while the former had the advantage of strongly supporting the union of God and man in Christ, it risked affirming a fusion of this dual reality. Conversely, the latter, by emphasizing the clear distinction between God and man, did not avoid the danger of their separation and laid itself open to the accusation, already made by Apollinaris, of professing two Christs.

The Alexandrian School, to emphasize the intimate union of the natures, spoke of a mingling of them, compromising the integrity of the natures. It is true that St. Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (+444), taught the true unity of the two natures in the one person of Christ, without mixtures—a physical and real union. Later, however, the School ended up exceeding in the doctrine of the real union of the two natures in the one person of Christ. Two exponents of this theological current, the monk Eutyches (+451) and Dioscorus (+454), Patriarch of Alexandria, led their doctrine toward the heterodox shore, which culminated in Monophysitism: they explained that the union between the two natures is so intimate as to guarantee not only the unity of the person of Christ but to become one single nature—the divine one that has absorbed the human nature.

Meanwhile, the Antiochene School insisted on the reciprocal distinction and their completeness, as taught by Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. The former spoke of a simple indwelling of the Logos in the man and distinguished two Sons of God in Christ: one natural and one adoptive by grace. Theodore also did not admit a true incarnation because, according to him, this implied the transformation of the Logos into a man; he recognized only an indwelling of the Logos in the man Jesus. He therefore spoke of one person and unity of will and claimed that the Virgin did not give birth to the Son of God but to a man in whom God dwelt, calling Mary the Mother of Christ and not the Mother of God. The contrast between the two schools, Antiochene and Alexandrian, later had political repercussions: behind these façades, the central government and the periphery (Constantinople, New Rome, and Alexandria) faced off.

The Title Theotokos Before the Council of Ephesus

To understand the divine maternity, it was necessary to reflect on the biblical data that connected Mary’s role with the divine person of Jesus Christ. One of the most expressive passages was that of Paul: “When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman” (Gal 4:4). Thus, the Son of God, who already has divinity in himself, also assumes humanity by being born of a woman; with the Incarnation, he is at the same time God and man.

Mary’s maternity was emphasized by the Church Fathers who opposed the Docetic and Gnostic heretics, who denied the true humanity of Christ. For the Docetists, Christ would not have truly been born of Mary; he would have assumed only an apparent flesh and would have died only in appearance. For the Gnostics, Christ would have passed through Mary’s womb like water through a channel, without taking true flesh from the mother, but bringing with him a celestial body.

Against the Docetists, among the earliest Fathers, Ignatius of Antioch presents Mary as the true mother of Christ, having conceived and given birth to him, and realistically affirms that Christ was carried in Mary’s womb according to the economy of God, from the seed of David but by the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the Lord is truly of the lineage of David according to the flesh, the Son of God according to the will and power of God, who was truly born of a virgin. Christ was born both of Mary and of God; thus, he is true God and true man.

Against the Gnostics, Irenaeus declares that those who say that Christ did not receive anything from the Virgin are wrong; furthermore, he reiterates: Jesus, born of Mary, was Christ, the Son of God in person. Later, Cyril of Jerusalem reinforces Irenaeus’s idea: the Incarnation of the Word did not occur in an apparent or fantastic way but in a real way. He did not pass through the Virgin as one would pass through a channel but truly took flesh from her and was truly suckled by her, truly eating and drinking like us.

The great Alexandrian exegete and theologian Origen, according to the historian Socrates, had expounded the reasons why Mary was called Theotokos, but unfortunately, the passage has not been transmitted to us in Rufinus’s Latin translation. Therefore, this testimony is uncertain.

The oldest Marian prayer, the “Sub tuum praesidium,” handed down to us from an Egyptian papyrus written in Greek between the mid and late third century, invokes Mary as Theotokos (later translated into Latin as Dei Genitrix): the devout Christian people thus recognize the divine maternity and, trusting in this peculiar prerogative of Mary, express all their confidence in being protected in the hour of danger.

The term Theotokos was also used in the Alexandrian environment as early as the second century to indicate the “divine mother” (meter theon), as she who had given divinity to the gods. Christians, however, while using such a title (Theotokos), obviously did not understand it in that sense but as she who gave human nature to the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity.

In 320, we find an important and indisputable testimony of the title Theotokos in the writings of Alexander, Bishop of Alexandria, who—in refuting the Arian heresy—in a letter writes to another bishop (Alexander of Constantinople): “Our Lord Jesus Christ truly and not apparently received a body from the Theotokos Mary.” It thus seems that it was a common title in the Alexandrian church and would be taken up again in 324–325 by the Synod of Antioch against Arius: “The Son of God, the Word, was born of the Theotokos Mary and became flesh.”

The First Ecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325, against the Arians who denied the divinity of Christ, implicitly recalls Mary’s maternal function by declaring that [Jesus Christ, Son of God] “for us men and for our salvation came down, was incarnate, and became man…”

Other Fathers between Nicaea and Ephesus delve deeper into Mary’s role in the plan of salvation as the mother of Christ. Athanasius refers to the title Theotokos about a dozen times (more in a devotional than theological sense) and declares that no Christian can doubt that the Lord born of Mary is the Son of God by substance and nature. It is especially the Cappadocian Fathers who highlight the importance and value of Mary’s divine maternity in the Trinitarian and Christological context.

For Basil of Caesarea, Mary is the Mother of God (Theotokos) and has given to the Son a God-bearing flesh. For Gregory of Nazianzus, the title Theotokos is an undoubted criterion of orthodoxy, declaring that believing in the divine maternity is indispensable for accessing divinity: “If anyone does not believe that holy Mary is Mother of God [Theotokos], he is separated from the Divinity. If anyone asserts that Christ only passed through the Virgin as through a channel but denies that he was divinely formed within her—because without the intervention of man—and humanly, that is, according to the laws of conception, he is equally godless.” For Gregory of Nyssa, Mary is truly and rightly Theotokos, being the flesh that becomes the dwelling place of the Spirit.

The First Ecumenical Council of Constantinople in 380, which defined the divinity of the Holy Spirit, recalls Mary’s maternity in the Creed: [Christ] “for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and became man.” The phrase expresses in an essential way the contribution given by Mary to the Incarnation as the mother of Christ, despite the lack of insertion of the term “mother,” with the intervention of the Holy Spirit. The Son of God inserted himself into history by taking human flesh from Mary, who is therefore the true Mother of God. This salvation is a collaboration of the Trinity: the Father sends the Son, the Son is conceived by the work of the Holy Spirit who descends upon Mary, who in turn cooperates, offering to God her role as mother for the Incarnation of the Son of God.

In the West, Ambrose defines Mary as Mother of God (Mater Dei) and explains that “Mary has given birth to God.” Augustine of Hippo, writing of Mary as Mother of God and Virgin, defined her as all-holy, who must necessarily be recognized without sin. Moreover, he highlights that she put her maternity at the service of faith and charity: “Mary, who, if she was blessed for having conceived the body of Christ, was even more so for having accepted faith in Christ. Regarding the Virgin his Mother, who did not conceive him according to the law of the flesh […] but deserved by the dedication of her faith that that holy Offspring would sprout in her, he was the Creator who chose her, and chose her to be his creature. [God] made the Virgin’s womb fruitful, making her mother not by the work of others but by himself; he united to himself the rational soul and through it also the human body…”

The Confrontation Between Nestorius and Cyril

After the death of Sisinnius, second successor of John Chrysostom on the see of Constantinople, Emperor Theodosius II in 428 called Nestorius, already a monk and priest of Antioch. According to the historian Socrates Scholasticus (c. 380–c. 450), who wrote about the new patriarch, Nestorius had a beautiful voice, spoke well, but was light, passionate, and vain. It was he who introduced Antiochene theology to Constantinople. From his inaugural address, he asked the emperor to vigorously pursue the heretics: Arians, Apollinarians, and Novatians. Five days after his enthronement, the police raided their meeting places in Constantinople, and a few weeks later, an imperial law renewed the prohibitions already issued against the heretics.

It was correctly said that the Word, consubstantial with the Father, was born of the Virgin, that he grew with the humanity that served as his temple, that he was buried with his body. The term Theotokos, unknown to the Scriptures and ignored by the Fathers of Nicaea, was used to indicate the Virgin. But in speaking, they confused in the Incarnation the divinity and humanity of the Son of God; they forgot that the Fathers of Nicaea had defined the Lord Jesus Christ as “Son of God, incarnate by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary.” Correctly, two natures were recognized: the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father, and the man born of Mary, whom we adore united. The faithful have always believed that Jesus Christ is at the same time God and man, a faith thus summarized by John: “The Word became flesh.” The Virgin is the mother of a man, but this man is at the same time God; having given birth to a son who is God, it can well be said that Mary is the Mother of God.

Of a different opinion, however, was the presbyter Anastasius, an Antiochene whom Nestorius had brought with him to Constantinople. He, in his sermons, began to criticize the ancient and beloved title of Mother of God (Theotokos) attributed to the Virgin Mary. Nestorius did not take Anastasius’s side; nor did he speculatively address the relationship between the two natures in Christ. He was concerned only with expounding a theology of the Christian life, which has as its point of reference the Pauline conception of the “second Adam,” and rejecting the expression “anthropotokos” (Mother of Man), proposed by Anastasius. Not taking into account the patristic tradition on the term Theotokos, he proposed an intermediate solution, using the expression “Mother of Christ” (Christotokos). His theological method was coherently based on the authority of Scripture and councils. He addressed the problem of Christ not from the aspect of unity but starting from the duality of the two natures. However, incapable of distinguishing between nature and person, he tended to conceive the two natures of Christ as two persons. A lively opposition arose against him, not only in Constantinople—on the part of monks, laity, and ecclesiastics—but also in distant regions. One of the major opponents was Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria, who, already in 429, in an Easter letter directed to the Egyptian bishops and in a long encyclical to the monks of Egypt, denounced Nestorius. Then he wrote a letter also to Nestorius, asking for explanations of his doctrine.

At this point, to assert their reasons, the two turned to the Bishop of Rome, Celestine I (423–432). The pope convened a synod in Rome for August 430, which condemned Nestorius. It was then that Cyril, on behalf of the pope, ordered Nestorius to retract his doctrine under penalty of exile and sent him 12 anathemas he had formulated in a synod of Alexandria containing the errors to be abjured. Nestorius then turned to Emperor Theodosius II to convene an ecumenical council. Pope Celestine did not oppose this but declared that he did not retract the condemnation of Nestorius.

The Ecumenical Council of Ephesus 431

With a letter dated November 19, 430, Theodosius II ordered all those who had been summoned to be in Ephesus on June 7, 431 (Pentecost). Only the metropolitans of the East were invited to the council, with another bishop from the province; from the West, only the bishops of Rome and Carthage. Augustine of Hippo, who was supposed to be present at the council as a papal representative, died on August 28 of that year. Celestine therefore sent some legates in his place, with the instruction to act in accord with the work of Cyril of Alexandria.

On June 7, 431, the opening date of the Council, many bishops, particularly the Eastern supporters of Nestorius, had not yet arrived. The emperor wanted an agreement to be reached between the two theological currents; therefore, he insisted that the Council be presided over by his representative, Count Candidianus. Cyril, despite the protests of some bishops and the emperor’s representative, nonetheless started the synod. With a stratagem, Cyril excluded the presidency of Candidianus, placing the book of the Gospels in his place. Count Candidianus wrote a report of what happened to the emperor. On June 22, although neither the Roman legates nor the Eastern bishops led by John of Antioch had yet arrived, Cyril of Alexandria began the Council in the church of Ephesus dedicated to Mary Theotokos. The first session took place on the same day with the participation of about 150–160 bishops. Nestorius, summoned three times, did not appear; his doctrine was examined, and the council concluded already in the first session with the condemnation pronounced against him and signed by the bishops. The Council approved the doctrine contained in the second letter of Cyril to Nestorius:

“This is what everywhere proclaims the doctrine of the right faith; thus, we will find that the holy Fathers thought. Thus, they had the courage to affirm that the holy Virgin is ‘Mother of God,’ not because the nature of the Word—that is, of divinity—took its beginning of being from the holy Virgin, but because from her was born the holy body animated by a rational soul. After he was united according to hypostasis to this, we affirm that the Word was born according to the flesh.”

However, the 12 anathemas against Nestorius, included in the third letter, despite their reading, were not the object of the vote; nevertheless, they were included, along with the letter of Pope Celestine, in the Acts of the Council. Cyril wrote his report to Theodosius II.

The situation worsened with the arrival of the bishops John of Antioch and representatives of the Syrian church on June 26. They immediately rejected Cyril’s actions, began a separate synod, whose sole act was the deposition of Cyril and Memnon—bishop of Ephesus—signed by about fifty bishops. John also sent information of the events to the emperor, the clergy, the senate, and the people of Constantinople. On June 29, a rescript of Theodosius, in response to Candidianus’s report, annulled everything that happened on the 22nd, forbade the bishops to leave Ephesus, and announced the arrival of another official to investigate the facts.

At the beginning of July, the representatives of Pope Celestine finally arrived; therefore, on the 10th, the Council met again in Memnon’s episcopal seat. On July 11, the papal legates, after reading the documents of June 22, also deposed Nestorius, explicitly confirming, on behalf of the Apostolic See, the work of Cyril and the Council. On July 16, this time “in the church called Mary,” another session took place dedicated to Bishop John of Antioch, who refused three times to receive the delegates. Inevitably, on the 17th, he was excommunicated along with about thirty bishops. On July 22, in another session, the issue of the church of Philadelphia and the Nestorian-flavored Creed used there, attributed to Theodore of Mopsuestia, was addressed. The symbol was condemned, and the composition of any other different from the Nicene one was prohibited. Furthermore, other questions of local churches were examined. Everything seemed concluded; instead, the “council” of the Orientals was convened, which deposed Cyril and appealed to the emperor.

At the beginning of August, Count John, an imperial official, arrived with the letter from Theodosius II. The document declared deposed Nestorius, Cyril, and Memnon and invited the bishops to return to their respective sees. Due to protests, the three deposed bishops were arrested. For the entire month, there were all possible attempts at court by the three to have the decisions changed in their favor. Meanwhile, the bishops linked to John of Antioch submitted to the imperial representative their profession of faith, where they confessed:

“Our Lord Jesus Christ, only-begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man [composed] of a rational soul and body, generated from the Father before the ages according to divinity, and in these last days for us and for our salvation, from the Virgin Mary according to humanity, consubstantial with the Father according to divinity, consubstantial with us according to humanity. The union of the two natures took place, and therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this concept of union without confusion, we confess that the holy Virgin is Mother of God (Theotokos) since the Word of God was incarnate and made man, and, from his conception, united to himself the Temple he took from her.”

It seems that the problem was solved, but this was illusory because the theological difficulties were neither smoothed out nor sufficiently explained. Moreover, the problem of annulling Cyril’s work remained, especially his anathemas, but the Orientals could not change the emperor’s position.

In September, Theodosius II proclaimed the dissolution of the Council, and the bishops, except Cyril and Memnon, could return to their homelands. However, Cyril, without waiting for the new decree with permission to return to Alexandria, fled from Ephesus and arrived at his see on October 30, received triumphantly by the whole city. Nestorius was led back to his monastery in Antioch; instead, the patriarchal see was given to Maximianus. Due to continued difficulties in Antioch, Nestorius was exiled to Petra in Idumea, and after a few years, to the Great Oasis of el-Khārga, in the Libyan desert, where he died after 451.

The principal dogmatic act among the documents of the council of Cyril’s followers—the only one considered ecumenical—is:

1. The judgment of congruence of the second letter of Cyril to Nestorius and the second letter of Nestorius to Cyril with the Nicene Creed, read at the opening of the conciliar works. Cyril’s letter is declared by the fathers to be in conformity, while Nestorius’s is condemned.
2. The 12 anathemas and the explanatory letter that precedes them, sent to Nestorius by Cyril and the Synod of Alexandria in 430, texts read at Ephesus and included in the Acts.
3. The condemnation of Nestorius.
4. The letter of the Council communicating to all the bishops, clergy, and people the condemnation of John of Antioch.
5. The decree on faith approved in the sixth session on July 22, in which the Nicene faith is confirmed, the formulation of new symbols is prohibited, and adherence is obligatory only to that subscribed by the 318 fathers.
6. The definition against the Messalians.
7. The decree on the autonomy of the Church of Cyprus.

Ephesus is the first Council whose original Acta have been preserved, but they are not the official Acta but individual collections that bring together the verbal report of the meetings and documents of various kinds. The main of these collections was compiled under Cyril’s direction immediately after the closing of the Council and has come down to us in three Greek collections: the Vatican, the Seguerian, and the Atheniensis. They were translated into Latin already at the beginning of the sixth century and have been preserved in various collections, such as Turonensis, Palatina, Veronensis, Casinensis (Monte Cassino). A collection from Nestorian circles was translated into Latin by the deacon Rusticus (564–565) and has been preserved under the title of Synodicum in the Casinensis.

The Aftermath of the Council

Both councils sent legates to the emperor, who did not approve either side. Meanwhile, the council was approved by Sixtus III shortly after his ordination, which took place on July 31, 432. In the East, the council had given rise to a schism that Theodosius II strove to heal. This happened when John of Antioch, after renouncing the request for condemnation of Cyril’s anathemas, which had been the cause of conflicts, sent a letter to Alexandria for Cyril, where he declared the double birth of Christ, from God the Father and from Mary, and therefore his double consubstantiality with God and with man; he recognized that in the Incarnation the union of the two natures occurred without diminishing the distinction between them and that precisely by virtue of this union Mary can be called Mother of God. Cyril acknowledged this in the “Laetentur caeli,” the epistle of peace addressed to the bishop of Antioch, and in April 433, he could announce to his faithful the composition of the schism. Pope Sixtus III sent warm congratulations to Cyril and John in letters dated September 17, 433. In the subsequent Council of Chalcedon (451), the fathers affirmed adherence “to the ordinances and all the doctrines of faith of the Holy Synod held long ago at Ephesus under the guidance of Celestine of Rome and Cyril of Alexandria.”

The Council had condemned Nestorius and his “impious preaching” in general terms; it did not want to define or proclaim a faith different from that of Nicaea. But a positive expression of the theses shared by the conciliar fathers was exposed in the letter of Cyril that was read and approved in the first session. In brief, Cyril argued that the nature (physis) of the Word did not undergo any change in becoming flesh. The Word is united according to hypostasis to the flesh made alive by a rational soul. The two natures are united in a true union and constitute one Christ and the only Son. The difference in natures is not suppressed by the union, but the indescribable meeting of divinity and humanity produces one Christ. The Word himself is born of the Virgin and has assumed human nature. It is not the nature of the Word that suffered on the cross; but since his own body suffered, it can be said that He suffered and died for us. There is one Christ and Lord; the Christian therefore does not adore a man with the Word but adores one and only Christ. To reject the union according to hypostasis is to speak of two sons. Scripture does not say that the Word is united to the person (prosōpon) of a man but that the Word became flesh. Thus, it can be said that Mary is Theotokos, being the mother of the person of the Word, who is God, even if only concerning his human nature.

Since Cyril’s anathemas were not approved by the Council, we cannot certainly affirm that these are to be considered as a solemn definition of the Council itself. However, in the overall facts and context, apart from some formulas that still needed further clarification, we can say that they represent the thought of the Council and that they were understood as such by the subsequent ecclesial tradition.

Regarding Mary’s maternity, the Council did not provide a formal dogmatic definition. Here too, however, one must consider the context and atmosphere. “All this debate on faith,” wrote Cyril, “was undertaken only because we were convinced that the Blessed Virgin is the Mother of God” (Epist. 39 to John of Antioch in 433). The letter of Cyril that the council adopted as an expression of its faith recalls the traditional use of the word Theotokos and explicitly teaches the divine maternity of Mary in intimate relation with the mystery of the hypostatic union. Tradition is therefore not wrong in seeing in the decisions of the Council the equivalent of a true dogmatic definition.

The Title Theotokos After the Council of Ephesus

The Ecumenical Council of Chalcedon, held in 451, issued the following formula regarding Mary’s divine maternity, which denotes the theological development of the concept:

“We confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, perfect in his divinity, perfect in his humanity. True God and true man, composed of a rational soul and body, consubstantial with the Father according to the divinity, consubstantial with us according to the humanity, similar to us in all things except sin, begotten of the Father before the ages according to the divinity, and in these last days for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary and Mother of God, according to the humanity, in two natures without confusion, unchangeable, indivisible, inseparable…”

In it, the proper name of Mary personalizes the Theotokos and specifies the virgin who gives birth. The definition was the effect of composing two phrases, combining the term from the Council of Constantinople “from the Virgin Mary” and that from the Council of Ephesus “the holy Virgin is ‘Mother of God.'”

By defining Mary as “Mother of God” (Theotokos), the conciliar fathers adhered to the biblical data and more accurately interpreted the event of the Incarnation from a unitary and non-divisive perspective: the same and only Christ, begotten of the Father as God, was incarnated in the womb of the Virgin Mary as man. Mary is therefore truly the Mother of God, not because she gave birth to a God, but because she gave birth as a man to a son who is at the same time also God. Also at Chalcedon, as before at Ephesus, the divine maternity was not the direct and main subject of the disputes and definitions, but it was logically and necessarily connected to the Christological discourse, this time dedicated to solving the problem of Monophysitism.

The Nestorian Church After the Council

After the Council of Ephesus, a strong Nestorian party survived in eastern Syria around the theological school of Ibas of Edessa, who was apparently a convinced Nestorian. After the theological peace reached in the agreement of 433 between Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch, a number of bishops who rejected that agreement approached the Syriac Church of Persia, which officially adopted Nestorianism at the Synod of Seleucia in 486. The Nestorians were expelled from Edessa in 489 by Emperor Zeno and emigrated to Persia. Thus, the Nestorian Church separated from the faith of the Church of Constantinople and the Byzantine Empire. The Nestorianism of the Persian Church was notably reinforced at the Synod of 612 when it adopted the heterodox principles of Catholicos Babai the Great: two natures, two hypostases, one prosōpon, with the term Theotokos formally excluded. This Church continued to survive despite periods of persecution under the Sassanids and even after the invasions of the Turks and Mongols. Its strength is testified by the theological schools of Seleucia and Nisibis, its monasticism, and its missionary expansion into Arabia, India (Malabar), Turkestan, Tibet, and even China, where the bilingual inscription (in Syriac and Chinese) of Xi’an attests its presence in 781. The bloody persecution of Tamerlane (1380) subsequently almost destroyed the Nestorian Church, which today has very reduced dimensions in Iraq, Iran, and Syria and counts a certain number of congregations in the United States. A reunion of the Nestorians of Cyprus with Rome took place in 1445. In 1553, the Nestorian Patriarch John Sulaqa professed the Catholic faith in Rome and was recognized as Patriarch of Mosul. The union thus achieved continues to this day. Since 1696, the Chaldean Patriarch has held the title of Patriarch of Babylon. The Nestorians of Malabar reunited with Rome in 1599.

The Liturgical Feast of Mary’s Maternity

According to historical research, the feast of Mary Mother of God was celebrated in the East from the sixth century around Christmas, which continues to this day in the various Eastern rites. In Rome, it entered during the seventh century, precisely on the octave of Christmas, with the title “Natale sanctae Mariae.” Only later, under the influence of the Gallican liturgy, did the octave of Christmas assume the character of the feast of the Lord’s circumcision. In the eighteenth century, a movement arose in Portugal to obtain a feast dedicated to Mary’s maternity, but detached from the ancient memory of the octave of Christmas. In 1751, Benedict XIV granted the feast to be celebrated on the first Sunday of May in the Portuguese dioceses, with the formulary composed by the pontiff himself. Subsequently, the feast of the divine maternity was extended to other dioceses and religious orders and established in 1914 for October 11. Pope Pius XI in 1931, as a perpetual memory of the fifteenth centenary of the Council of Ephesus, imposed the feast on the entire Latin Church, still on October 11. The Roman calendar of 1969 restored the ancient feast on its date of January 1 with the title “Solemnity of Mary Most Holy Mother of God.” This change also had ecumenical value regarding the liturgies of the Byzantine and Syriac Churches, as well as non-Roman Western rites, for example, in Milan, where Mary’s maternity was celebrated on the Sunday before December 25; in Gaul on January 18; in Spain from 656—the Tenth Council of Toledo—on December 18.

Pope Paul VI in the encyclical *Marialis Cultus* of February 2, 1974, established:

“The reform of the Roman Liturgy presupposed a careful restoration of its General Calendar. Ordered to set forth, on certain days, the celebration of the work of salvation with due prominence by distributing throughout the year the entire mystery of Christ, from the Incarnation to the expectation of his glorious return, it allowed the memory of the Mother to be inserted more organically and with a closer bond into the annual cycle of the mysteries of the Son. […] In the reorganized arrangement of the Christmas period, we think that common attention should be directed to the restored solemnity of Mary Most Holy Mother of God; placed according to the ancient suggestion of the Liturgy of the City on the first day of January, it is destined to celebrate the part taken by Mary in this mystery of salvation and to exalt the singular dignity that derives for the Holy Mother… through whom we have received… the Author of life; and it is also a propitious occasion to renew adoration to the newborn Prince of Peace, to re-listen to the joyous angelic announcement (cf. Lk 2:14), to implore from God, through the mediation of the Queen of Peace, the supreme gift of peace. For this reason, in the happy coincidence of the Octave of Christmas with the auspicious day of January 1, we have instituted the World Day of Peace, which is gathering increasing adherence and is already bearing fruits of peace in the hearts of many men.” (*MC* 2.5)

Conclusion

Mary’s divine maternity helps us also to understand the very person of Jesus, who is at the same time God and man—the Incarnate Word: Christ who in eternity lived the interpersonal dialogue with God the Father, by incarnating in Mary, inaugurated the interpersonal dialogue with man, pitched his tent among us (Jn 1:14). With the Incarnation, the maximum point of encounter between God and man is realized, and this happens thanks to Mary’s maternal availability. Mary’s divine maternity goes back to God’s eternal plan: She was predestined and prepared by God to carry out her role as Mother of God. Moreover, the divine maternity was prepared by Mary’s personal holiness: she accepted God’s will, declared herself the servant of the Lord (Lk 1:38), and became the most perfect disciple of Christ. In view of her highest mission, Mary was preserved from original sin. Since her divine maternity involved the descent of the Holy Spirit upon her (Lk 1:26–38), Mary was transformed and reached a very high degree of purity and holiness. Her person is entirely consecrated to Christ forever and also plays an active role as the new Eve alongside Christ, the new Adam. Finally, the virginal maternity also marks the beginning of Mary’s spiritual maternity for the whole Church. This spiritual maternity is confirmed at the foot of the cross, when Jesus gives Mary as mother to John, the icon of the faithful disciple. The divine maternity places Mary above every creature, as she who is full of grace (Lk 1:28), with the deepest personal relationship that a creature can have with the Creator. It establishes her in a special relationship with the Most Holy Trinity as the beloved daughter of the Father, mother of the Son of God, and temple of the Holy Spirit. Thus, Mary realizes her supreme vocation as a creature and becomes an exemplary model for every Christian who can spiritually generate Christ in his life.