Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

On Praying to Mary

Dr. Alexander Roman alex@unicorne.org

In a recent email, a visitor asked where in the bible does it say we should pray to Mary.

Actually, if we look in the fifth chapter of the Epistle of St James in verse 16, we read: "Confess your faults one to another and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (King James Version).

We are commanded to pray for one another in this life. And we know, from the Book of Revelation, about the prayers of the saints that rise up to God as incense. In Christ, death is no longer. In Christ, we are one large family, on earth and in heaven. The saints pray for us constantly within the context of the Communion of Saints. We praise the Grace of God that was so active in their lives ie. "Let us now praise famous men!"

Heaven is involved with our affairs, especially the Angels (i.e. Tobit). The Saints pray for us before the Throne of Christ and the Holy Trinity, especially She who served God in the plan of redemption of humanity by becoming the Mother of Christ our God - from her, God the Word took flesh and St Elizabeth saluted Mary in the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 42: "Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the Fruit of thy womb. And whence is this to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me?"

At the Wedding at Cana in Galilee, Christ even allows His mother to change His own plans concerning when He would begin His public Ministry - His mother tells Him "They have no wine." He tells her that He wasn't ready to begin His miracles . . . but what can a Son do when He has such a persistent Mother?

And what does Mary tell the people there (and us today) to do? "Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it!" (John 2:5).

At the Cross, our Lord tells John "Behold your Mother!" And in giving His Mother to John, He also gives her to us all.

Under the Good News of salvation in Jesus Christ, death is no longer the barrier between us and those who have died ahead of us. In Christ, we are all alive, we are all one Church. And we pray for one another. As for the Virgin Mary, we simply follow the Archangel Gabriel and St Elizabeth in praising her and saying, "Rejoice, Full of Grace, the Lord is with you!"

The Church, as the Body of Christ in which the Holy Spirit dwells until the end of time, has defined the invocation of the Virgin Mary as the highest of all Saints and the Angels and Saints, as a doctrine for all Christians (Seventh Ecumenical Council). It was the Church, for example, that defined which books are to be the canon of the 27 books of the New Testament. I

n other words, whenever we read the New Testament, we are reading a book of the Church, because for every book the Church received into the canon, it rejected two or three others.

What we are to believe is not only set down in the Bible, but also in Tradition and the teaching of the Church in the Seven Universal Councils.

We also have archeological evidence from the early Church that shows that Christians always invoked the Martyrs and asked for their prayers in their own struggles to witness to Christ on earth.

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