How St Euphemia Saved Christmas

The martyr St Euphemia played a vital role in preventing the message of Christmas from being watered down.

451

Roman Empire 27 BC - AD 1453

Introduction

In 314, the Roman Empiror Costantine lifted all restrictions on Christianity, but intellectuals still held the philosophy of Plato in awe. Sometimes the Greek view of the Divine – remote, impersonal, unsullied by contact with Creation – tempted Christian clergy to back-peddle on the much more characterful God of Israel, who will dare all for love.

by Clay Lane

IN his Christmas sermons for December 428, Nestorius, newly-appointed Patriarch of Constantinople, expressed his reservations about a popular name for the Virgin Mary: Theotókos, God’s birth-giver. Call her birth-giver of a man, he said, or of Christ, but not of God. How could the Almighty undergo physical birth, or have a mother?

Some bishops agreed with him, but at a tumultuous synod in 451, held in the Cathedral of St Euphemia in neighbouring Chalcedon, the overwhelming majority declared Nestorius had gone too far. They reaffirmed the miracle of the Bethlehem cave – that God himself underwent human birth – and blessed the acclamation ‘Theotókos’ as a succinct way to safeguard it.

However, divisions remained on the wording of a statement of faith. So they drew up two, opened the tomb of the martyr Euphemia, and under the Emperor Marcian’s impartial eye placed them side by side on her body.

The tomb was resealed by the Emperor, and the bishops retired for three days of prayer and fasting.

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The modern name for Constantinople is Istanbul. It was the capital of the Roman Empire from 330 to 1453, when it fell to the Turks, remaining the capital of their Islamic empire until the Great War of 1914-1918.

Précis

In 428, a dispute arose over whether people should address the Virgin Mary as ‘God’s mother’. Bishops gathered at Chalcedon near Constantinople to defend the traditional practice in 451, but could not agree a form of words. So they put two texts into the tomb of the martyr Euphemia, resealed it, and left them there for three days.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Why did some people object to referring to the Virgin Mary as God’s mother?

Suggestion

They insisted God could not be born.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Ordinary people liked to call Mary ‘God’s mother’. Some clergy disapproved.

Clay Lane The Copybook