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Article: What about Mary? Protestants and Marian devotion.
- Article from:
- The Christian Century
- Article date:
- December 14, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Christian Century Foundation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The name of the Theotokos expresses the whole mystery of God's saving dispensation.--St. John of Damascus (655-750)
In the doctrine and worship of Mary there is disclosed the one heresy of the Roman Catholic Church which explains all the rest.--Karl Barth (1886-1968)
THERE WOULD NOT seem to be much chance of reconciling these two descriptions of Mary, the mother of Jesus. For John Damascene, a touchstone figure for Orthodox and Roman Catholic theologians, calling Mary the theotokos', "Cod-bearer," orprovocatively, "Mother of God," is a thumbnail description of the entire saving work of Christ. The Council of Ephesus in 4:31 codified theotokos as ...