By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos, first of all, should be recalled as belonging to the tradition of the Church: after the great event of God’s coming into the world for the salvation of humanity, the person who played the central role in that event is celebrated. Thus, after the Nativity of the Lord we have the Synaxis of the Theotokos — she who became the “bridge by which God descended” — just as after His Baptism we have the Synaxis of Saint John the Baptist. It is, of course, unnecessary to say that the event itself, the feast proper, is in direct relationship with the central person; in other words, each Synaxis constitutes an extension of the feast, emphasizing and repeating its very meaning, and to a great extent even its hymns.
The Synaxis of the Theotokos, therefore, once again emphasizes the Nativity of the Lord, with particular insistence on the reality of His Incarnation. This element may not be especially perceptible today, after so many centuries of proclamation and lived experience by the Church of its theological significance. In the early Christian years and centuries, however, it was of the utmost importance, since the reality of the Incarnation was being challenged by heretics who recoiled at the thought that God had taken real human flesh — that is, that He had assumed the material of this world. What lay behind their denial? The conviction that this world is an evil world, the creation of another, non-good god. Thus they revealed the non-Christian nature of their concerns, or rather the expression, under the guise of Christianity, of Eastern dualistic beliefs about God. In other words, these heretics were in reality followers of the so-called Iranian Parsism, according to which there exist two gods: the god of good and the god of evil, the latter being the creator of the world. How, then, could the evil matter of the evil god be assumed by the good God, who came to save the soul — certainly not the body — of man?
Our Church therefore reacted vigorously, for the prevalence of these views (the so-called docetic or imaginary appearance of the Son of God) would have meant a complete distortion of the truth and a denial of the real Christ. With great force, then, she emphasized that Christ, the Son and Word of God, assumed human nature truly and not in appearance — body and soul — so that by incorporating them into Himself He might save humanity, and through humanity the whole of creation. The reason for this, of course, was the fact that the entire world — matter and the human body — are creations of the one God, the God who is by nature good and who is indeed the Creator of the world. This truth was so important that already in the New Testament, Saint John the Theologian stresses that acceptance or rejection of the reality of God’s Incarnation reveals whether one is a Christian or not: “Everyone who does not confess Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is not of God,” and “everyone who confesses Jesus Christ as having come in the flesh is of God.” On this truth, that is, truth was distinguished from heresy. And this is precisely what the Synaxis of the Most Holy Theotokos emphasizes today, as it extends, as we have said, the Nativity of the Lord: “For what He was, He remained, the true God; and what He was not, He assumed, becoming man out of love for mankind.”
The reflection of the Most Holy Theotokos in the kontakion oikos of today’s feast proclaims this truth with equal force: “Seeing the seal of my virginity remaining unbroken, I proclaim You to be the immutable Word, made flesh.”
And, indeed, today’s feast of the Synaxis again reminds us that before the all-marvelous event of God’s coming into the world as man, all creation responds with thanksgiving, offering its gifts. The greatest of all these gifts, however, was that of humanity itself, for it offered what is most beautiful and exalted ever to appear as a creature: the All-Holy Virgin. “Each of the creatures made by You offers You thanksgiving: the angels their hymn; the heavens the star; the Magi their gifts; the shepherds their wonder; the earth the cave; the wilderness the manger; and we offer a Virgin Mother.”
Let us not forget: the All-Holy Virgin is our representative in heaven. She who gave her blood and her flesh so that God Himself might become man constitutes our “dignity” and remains always our consolation and our hope. For her sake every prayer of ours is heard by God, since He willed to become like us through her.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.