The Dogma of the Theotokos

Why the Church calls Mary the Mother of God. This section treats the Christological crisis of 428–431 and the Third Ecumenical Council that resolved it, showing that Theotokos is first of all a confession about Christ: the child of the Virgin is the eternal Word made flesh, one Person in two natures.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox

The title Theotokos (“God-bearer,” Mother of God) was defined at the Council of Ephesus not to advance a claim about Mary in isolation but to defend the unity and reality of the Incarnation against a Christology that seemed to split the one Christ into two subjects. To follow the dispute is to see how closely Orthodox veneration of the Virgin is bound to the confession of her Son.

Contents

  • The Nestorian Controversy — Nestorius, the Antiochene school, and Christotokos; St. Cyril’s response, the communicatio idiomatum, the letters and Twelve Anathemas; the Antiochene concern in its strongest form; and the modern debate over what Nestorius actually held.
  • The Council of Ephesus (431) — the Third Ecumenical Council: its convocation and procedural storm, the reception of Cyril’s Second Letter, the deposition of Nestorius, the definition of Theotokos, the Formula of Reunion (433), and the reaffirmations at Chalcedon (451) and Constantinople II (553).

See Also