By Fr. George Dorbarakis
March 25th is “a festival of faith and freedom,” according to the poet. It is a day on which we are called to remember the struggles undertaken by our heroic forefathers in order to cast off the four-hundred-year slavery under the Turks. It is a sacred landmark, since it is considered the starting point for the acquisition of our national freedom. But it is also a day that more deeply calls us, the faithful — who perceive the depth of these events — not merely to remember something or to take example from something, but to participate in the greatest event ever realized in human history: the incarnation of the Son and Word of God within the All-Holy Virgin. And if the one feast is great because it marks the beginning of our national freedom, the other — the Annunciation — is a most great feast, because it marks the beginning of our existential and eternal salvation.
The Apolytikion (Dismissal Hymn) of the day helps us approach the meaning of the feast, and so we will comment briefly on it below:
“Today is the beginning of our salvation and the manifestation of the mystery from all eternity. The Son of God becomes the Son of the Virgin, and Gabriel proclaims the good tidings of grace. Therefore we also, together with him, cry aloud to the Theotokos: Rejoice, O Full of Grace, the Lord is with You.”
The first point that the Apolytikion highlights for us is how we ought to stand in relation to the Theotokos. We are called to see her as filled with the grace and light of God — not because she possesses this distinction of herself, but because God Himself looked upon her and overshadowed her with His All-Holy Spirit. The Panagia, especially after the Annunciation, is never alone. Although even before the Annunciation she possessed the grace of God because of her sanctified life — let us not forget that from the age of three she entered the Temple and lived with continual prayers and fasting — it was at her Annunciation that she received the fullness of grace in this respect. From that point onward, the presence of Christ accompanied her in every step and in every expression of her life. For this reason, in the person of the Panagia the very quality of the faith of Christians is judged: acceptance of the Panagia as the one who is Full of Grace and as the manifestation of Jesus Christ signifies a right acceptance of Him as well. Rejection or diminution of the Panagia simultaneously signifies rejection or distortion of the image of Christ.
In this stance toward the Theotokos, we have as our models the angels. Especially in the Archangel Gabriel we see the proper attitude toward the Mother of the Lord: the grace-filled recognition of her relationship with her Son. For this reason, honor toward her is a characteristic both of human beings and of angels. “In you rejoices, O Full of Grace, all creation, the ranks of angels and the race of men…” according to the expression of the well-known hymn. And this confirms the truth of our faith that “the angels are light for human beings.” Just as the Archangel taught us to address her as “Full of Grace,” so also the life of the angels in general becomes a model for the entire life of Christians, according to the word of the Lord Himself, who instructs us to do the will of God “on earth as it is in heaven.”
A second fundamental point of the Apolytikion is the reason it gives for the exalted position held by the Panagia and for the great grace with which she was endowed: through her the Son of God becomes man. The Panagia became “the vessel through whom God descended.” She lent her flesh to her Son and God, so that the human nature of Christ thereafter bears also the seal of His All-Pure Mother. More specifically, with the archangelic greeting, God becomes an embryo in the womb of the Panagia. With her cooperation, God follows the entire process of gestation. God saves us in every stage of our life.
Let the advocates of abortion now come and say that the embryo is not yet a human being. Whether knowingly or not, they reveal — beyond the terrible sin of murder into which they fall — the atheism of their life: they also call into question the Annunciation itself as the incarnation of God in an embryonic state.
It is, of course, unnecessary to remind ourselves that God’s choice of the Panagia to become His Mother was grounded in her sanctified life. The Panagia was the most select and the finest that humanity had to offer. The purity of her soul became the attractive force that “drew” divine love. In her person we observe the participation of the human being in the entire process of salvation that God accomplishes for his sake. And what humanly confirms God’s choice is her humble obedience to His call: “Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38).
We do not sufficiently realize the significance of the Theotokos’ response to the divine summons. For we remain only on the surface, judging things after the fact. “But it was a great honor for God to call her,” we say. “What else could she have done?” Yet we say this because we know the subsequent course of events: the Passion and also the Resurrection of Christ, the almighty power of His miracles. At that very moment of the Annunciation, however, the Panagia stands alone, facing something unknown. She is called to say yes to an event that would expose her to public disgrace and, most likely, even to the loss of her very life. For an unmarried girl to be found pregnant in those times meant being stoned. Yet the Panagia — for this very reason she is the Panagia — does not hesitate. Once she learns that it is a call from God, she submits to His will, knowing that the cost may even be death. But this does not concern her. What concerns her is obedience to the divine will. Thus the Panagia is revealed also as a martyr — not bodily, but a martyr “in conscience.” Pure in soul, therefore, and with a martyr’s mindset, the Panagia becomes the Mother of God.
A third point also highlighted by the Apolytikion: with the coming of God into the world, the eternal mystery is revealed. The Annunciation constitutes the fulfillment of God’s eternal will for the salvation of the world. God, as many Fathers of our Church teach, would have come into the world as man even apart from the fall of man into sin. Saint Maximus the Confessor, in particular, notes that the incarnation of Christ — of which the Annunciation is the beginning — constitutes the final stage of the creation of man. That is, God would certainly have come into the world in order to lead man decisively to the attainment of the purpose set for him from the beginning: the “likeness” (to God).
But apart from this understanding, the Annunciation had already been foretold in the Old Testament through the so-called Protoevangelium. In the Protoevangelium — that is, God’s promise to the first-created humans after their sin, that the offspring of the woman would crush the devil — our Church sees the prophecy of the Annunciation. For in the Annunciation we have the woman who gives birth to Him who crushes the devil. Therefore, already in the creation of man we have the beginnings of the Annunciation.
A fourth point from the Apolytikion: not only is the eternal mystery revealed, but this very fact also constitutes the recapitulation of man’s salvation. What does recapitulation mean? The reintegration of man once again into the plan of God. Sin, which fragmented man and derailed him from the right course of his life, is abolished and trampled down. Through Christ, who is incarnate in the Panagia, sin is taken away, and the gate of Paradise is opened once more. Man experiences in the person of Christ his salvation: to encounter God truly once again.
And all this — the fifth point, as the troparion tells us — takes place today. Although all that has been mentioned was experienced in the past, it loses nothing of its present relevance. The past — the coming of Christ, His conception in the all-holy body of the Theotokos — is lived in our Church also as a present reality, because of the continual presence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit — that is, God Himself — perpetuates the saving events of the past and pours them into each present moment. This is what theologians of the Church call liturgical time.
And this means the following: since the saving past in Christ, such as the Annunciation, becomes present each time, then the only thing we need in order to make it our own event, in order to feel the power of its action, is our faith: the unconditional entrusting of our life into His hands and into His promises. Such true faith will enable us to see our own self within the Annunciation of the Panagia — that is, to experience God Himself becoming incarnate also within us.
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
