Mother Zion

Words cannot be sufficient enough to describe the honor and praise of our Holy Mother Saint Virgin Mary. Fortunate to us, for we are willed to use the words revealed to Saints in talking about and praise of her. “Our spiritual love towards the Savior Jesus Christ and His mother is deep-rooted in our hearts, and appears in our daily life. We love Saint Mary, the Virgin and mother of God, through whom we discover the nature of her Son as the Incarnate Son of God. Her life speaks of God’s redeeming deed, and explains man’s role in attaining the heavenly life by the divine grace. Saint Mary is our Mother, who became an archetype of the Church, receiving a universal maternity to man. She loves the whole world, longing for the perfect salvation of everybody…” says Father Tadros Yacoub Malaty in his book “Saint Mary in the Orthodox Concept)

Title and Symbols of Holy Mother Saint Mary

1. The Queen who is by the Right Side of The King. In this, we mention the words of the psalm “At your hand stands the queen in gold from Ophir” (Psalm 45:9). That is why, in her icon, she is portrayed at the right hand of the Christ our Lord. And we say about her in the divine mass “the Lady and the Queen of us all”

2. Our Mother the Holy Virgin. When the Christ our Lord was on the Cross, He said about that to his disciple the beloved saint John: “Behold your mother” (John 19:27).

3. The Ladder of Jacob. That ladder which “was set up on the earth, and its top reached to heaven” (Genesis 28:12). That is the symbol of The Virgin who, by her giving birth to Christ, made the inhabitants of the earth reach to heaven.

4. The Bride. Because she is the true bride of the Lord of glory. The word of the

Lord in the psalm was realized in her: “Listen, O daughter consider and incline your ear; forget your own people also, and your father’s house; so the King will greatly desire your beauty; because He is your Lord, worship Him” (Psalm 45:10- 11). That is why she was called the friend of Solomon, who is the virgin of the Song of Songs. It was said of her in the same psalm: “The royal daughter is all glorious within the palace; her clothing is woven with gold. She shall be brought to the king in robes of many colors” (Psalm 45:13-14).

5. The Beautiful Dove: This is in remembrance of the beautiful dove that carried to our father Noah an olive tree branch, as a symbol of peace, bringing to him the good news of the deliverance from the waters of the flood. (Genesis 8:11). With this surname, the priest burns incense in front of her icon when he goes out of the sanctuary and says: “Hail to you, O Virgin Mary, the beautiful dove”. The Virgin is compared to the dove in her simplicity and her purity and the action of the Holy Spirit in her. She resembles the dove which brought the good news of the deliverance after the flood, because she brought the good news of the deliverance by Christ.

6. The Cloud; because of her height on the one hand, and because the prophecy of her coming to Egypt, compared her in this manner. It was mentioned about this in the book of the prophet Isaiah: “The burden against Egypt. Behold, the Lord rides on a swift cloud, and will come into Egypt; the idols of Egypt will totter at His presence, and the heart of Egypt will melt in its midst” (Isiah. 19:1). The expression “cloud” is a symbol of the Lord who will come upon the clouds. (Matthew 16:27).

7. Theotokos. The Mother of God. This surname has been called upon her by the sacred ecumenical council of Ephesus in 431 AD. Saint Cyril
the Great insisted on that surname in his response to Nestorius. Saint Elizabeth addressed her with that surname “the mother of my Lord” (Luke 1:43).

8. The Golden Censer. We call her }sour/ n~noub that is the golden censer in Coptic; and sometimes the censer of Aaron. As for the fire which it contains inside her, coal in it symbolizes the human nature of Christ, and fire symbolizes His divine nature, as it has been said in the Holy Bible: “our God is a consuming fire” (Heberew 12:29). The censer symbolizes the womb of The Virgin where divinity was united with humanity. The censer being of gold, that points to the greatness and the purity of The Virgin.

9. The Second Heaven. As heaven is the abode of God, so The Virgin Mary was an abode of God during the sacred pregnancy.

10. The City of God. The prophecy in the psalm is realized in her: “Glorious things are spoken of you, O city of God” (Psalm 87:3). Or what was said of her “the city of the great King”, or certain prophecies which were said about
Jerusalem, are realized in her or Zion as it was also said in the psalm: “And of Zion it will be said, “This one and that one were born in her; and the most High Himself shall establish her” (Psalm 87:5).

11. The Vine where was Found the Cluster of Life. That is Christ. The Church asks for her intercession with that surname in the prayer of the third hour, saying to her: “O mother of God, you are the true vine who bears the cluster of life”

12. The mother of the true light. Considering that it has been said of the Christ our Lord, that He is “the true Light which gives light to everyman coming into the world” (John 1:9).

13. The Golden Lamp. She bears the Light. And also: “the mother of the Holy One”, considering that the angel, when he announced her with the birth of Christ, said to her: “also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35).

14. The Mother of the Savior. The Christ our Lord is the Savior of the world: “and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

15. The Burning Bush (Exodus 3:2). We say in the song: “The bush which the prophet Moses saw in the desert is the symbol of the mother of Light, blessed be she. She has carried the fire of divinity in her womb, without being touched by any harm”. It was said of the Lord that He is “a consuming fire” (Hebrew 12:29) to which the fire which is burning inside the bush, is a symbol, and the bush symbolizes The Virgin.

16. The Ark of the Covenant. This ark was made of acacia wood that cannot decay and was covered with gold from inside and outside (Exodus 25:10, 22), as a symbol of the purity and the greatness of The Virgin. It also symbolized the things which were inside the ark that were a symbol of the Christ our Lord. There was kept “the golden pot that had the manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant” (as a symbol of the incarnated Word of God).

17. The Pot of the Manna. The Manna was a symbol of the Christ our Lord, as being the Bread of Life who came down from heaven, everybody who eats from Him lives by Him, that is also the Bread of Life (John 6: 32,48,49). Since the Lord Christ is compared to the Manna, so it is possible to compare the Virgin to the Pot of the Manna, who carried this celestial Bread inside her.

18. The rod of Aaron which budded. She miraculously sprouted and carried the buds of life,(Num.17:6 -8); although a rod has of course no life in it that can produce blossoms and yield fruit. This symbolizes the virginity of The Virgin who could not sprout or produce posterity; but she gave birth through a miracle. This description is mentioned in the Midnight Psalmody of the Sunday Theotokia.

19. The Tabernacle of Meeting (the Dome of Moses). The tabernacle of meeting was the place upon which The Lord used to come, and The Virgin is she upon whom The Lord came. God manifested his love for his people in the two cases. That is what we say in the Holy Psalmody Book “You have been compared, O Virgin Mary, to the tabernacle which Moses made on the mountain of Sinai, where God was inside”.

20. The Eastern Gate. That which the prophet Ezekiel saw, and of which the Lord said: “This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter by it, because the Lord God of Israel has entered by it; therefore it shall be shut” (Ezekiel 44: 1 -2). The prophet saw the glory of the Lord at this gate which is in the East, and the house was filled with it (Ez. 43: 2,4,5). That symbolizes the virginity of the Virgin who was from the countries of the East; and how this virginity remained sealed.

21. The Gate of Life: It was said about our Lady the Virgin in the book of Ezekiel: “As for the prince, because he is the prince, he may sit in it to eat bread before the Lord; he shall enter by way of the vestibule of the gateway, and go out the same way” (Ezekiel. 44:3). Since the Lord is the Life, then she is the Gate of the Life. The Lord said: “I am the resurrection and the life” (John 11:25). That is why the Virgin is the gate of the Life, that gate out of which the Lord came out, granting life to all those who believe in Him. It is not astonishing that we surname the Virgin “the Gate”, because the Church also was surnamed “the Gate”. Our father Jacob said about Bethel: “How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven!” (Genesis 28:17)

22. The Holiest of All. As the chief priest entered once a year, to make atonement for all the people. The Lord of glory came once inside the Virgin Mary for the redemption of the entire world.

(From the article “Titles and symbols of the Holy Theotokos Virgin Mary, posted by Father Moses Samaan)