Abstract
The Virgin Mother Mary has always been venerated in Eastern Christianity far beyond her scriptural role. In this paper, we propose a symbolic framework of deep culture and apply it to understanding the prominence of Mary and the manner in which she plays a role in people’s lives through a bewildering variety of Marian icons. The framework begins with a mystical/esoteric perspective to appreciate Mary as a symbol that is multivalent, irreplaceable, archetypal, interior, and manifest yet hidden. We analyze images and stories of five highly venerated icons in Greece, Russia, Finland, and amongst diasporic Orthodox Churches, as well as associated hymns. Our analysis reveals that Mary’s significance for Orthodox faithful is best understood in her role as symbolic doorway to mystical religiosity. This role is highly agentic, although not in the sense in which agency is typically—exoterically—understood as analytical and external, but rather as esoterically affective and internally transformative. We show how a deep culture framework adds to our knowledge of Mary in Orthodox Christianity and how it can be used to examine similar figures in other contemporary and historical religious traditions.
Highlights
In Eastern Christianity, Mary has long held a place of prominence (Honkasalo 2015; Keinänen 2010; Kupari 2016; Seppälä 2010; Tiaynen-Qadir 2016; Vuola 2010)
We show that what seems to be a suppression of Mary or the notion that she embodies a stereotypical gender role in some traditions, is due to the use of inappropriately defined categories such as “agency.” Once we link the literal/exoteric to the symbolic/mystical dimension through deep culture, we can appreciate the role of Mary and thereby see the agency of the Virgin
We set out to understand the widespread devotion to Mary through a variety of images amongst Eastern Orthodox Christians
Summary
In Eastern Christianity, Mary has long held a place of prominence (Honkasalo 2015; Keinänen 2010; Kupari 2016; Seppälä 2010; Tiaynen-Qadir 2016; Vuola 2010). We approach the mystical role of Mary in the lives of Orthodox faithful through the theoretical framework of deep culture (Qadir and Tiaynen-Qadir 2016), which sees religious praxis generally as poetic phenomena that point to some deeper sense of meaning and significance. We find that Marian agency is inherently multiple, and that the Virgin Mother has different faces in different depictions to perform somewhat different roles In this way, we show that what seems to be a suppression of Mary or the notion that she embodies a stereotypical gender role in some traditions, is due to the use of inappropriately defined categories such as “agency.” Once we link the literal/exoteric to the symbolic/mystical dimension through deep culture, we can appreciate the role of Mary and thereby see the agency of the Virgin. Neither in the physiology of the brain, the structure of language, the organization of society, nor the analysis of behavior, but in the process of imagination” (Hillman 1975, p. xi)
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