Cult of the Virgin Mary
More than 500 years after the death of Jesus, Pope Gregory I (540–604) draws an image of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene. The representation of Medieval women in history could be said to be colored by the iconography of the Virgin Mary and of Mary Magdalene. This in turn could have its gestation in the way the disciplined and reforming Pope Gregory I created a mythological image around Mary Magdalene. He drew her as a the repentant prostitute, warding off a spiritual plague to fight off an actual plague, the backdrop to that period in European history.
At the same time, Gregory elevated the Virgin Mary to a new high status, that of venerated virginity. So the two Marys together, forged a vision of womanhood, the sexuality of Mary Magdalene, her corruption and shame, followed by her repentance and forgiveness, to the absolute purity of the Virgin Mary. By doing this Pope Gregory took power away from women in the church. He reduced both of them by describing them in terms of their sexuality. They were no more than that, each in her own way to be considered a sexual vessel, one temptation, the other veneration. Thus it was that priests became celibate, women were excluded because they offered temptation, the only women was one who was untouchable, the Virgin Mary.
Pope Gregory set in place the image of Mary, an image that the church would not waver from for the next thousand plus years. He had interpreted the Bible in a manner that would color how Christianity unfolded itself throughout Europe and thus alter the perceived role of women from the 6th century onward.
The Mythologizing of Mary
Pope Gregory's reading of the role of Mary would be repeated by monks and priests. They would weave in to the Gospels his readings as if they were Gospel themselves soon forgetting that it was myth. The words of Gregory soon became a reality. The birth of the cult of the Virgin Mary had begun. She became a pure and perfect form of womanhood, an expectation of perfection within the female form. At the same time alongside was a reminder of another Mary, the harlot, the temptress, forgiven by man and made whole again by the power of man.
Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary
In the lands of Jesus's birth, Mary the Virgin had been a symbol of love and adoration since the earliest times. Saint Luke, the sensitive Gospel writer is thought in Byzantine to be an artist and painted a picture of the Virgin. It is believed he painted a half-length portrait from life of the Virgin holding Jesus in her arms on the Mountain of Jerusalem. The portrait is then thought to have been given to Theophilus to whom Luke had dedicated the Acts of the Apostles. What then became of this image? It is thought that Eudokia (580-612), wife of Emperor Theodosius II (575-641), acquired the picture when she made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. It was places in a sanctuary near the banks of the Bospherus in Constantinople. Here it was given the title "Hodegetria", one who points the way and many images show the hand of the virgin pointing.
A tradition tells us that the image was captured during the Crusades and brought back to the West and copied in all manner of forms. From East to West the Cult of the Virgin Mary was established.
The Cult of the Virgin Mary developed
Feast days abounded, churches committed to her, flowers dedicated to her, the lily, iris and rose. Shrines, official and unofficial were dedicated to her, perhaps one of the most well known include the shrine at Walsingham in Norfolk which became a huge pilgrimage site.
Source: Intriguing History: Cult of the Virgin Mary
26 Feb 2020, 9:34 am
