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Part IV: Dogma and Ritual Questions · 52

Concerning the Honouring of the Body of the Virgin Mary

Faith Q&A › Many Years with People's Questions › Part IV

The question

One of the Plymouth Brethren said that the body of the Virgin Mary was not different from that of any other believer, and that her earthly body must have been subjected to decay and decomposition. Also the writer denies that Mary's body ascended. What is your view?

The answer

The Virgin's body was distinct from any human's body, and had its own special dignity, because it was the body in which the Lord of Glory spent nine months, and which the Holy Spirit sanctified with His coming upon it to place the Lord within. (Luke 1:35)

Is it likely that God would then leave that special body to decay and decompose, to be eaten by worms and rot without being honoured or respected, when He is the one who has honoured the bodies of so many of the saints?!

And would that body, which was the purest body that a human being ever had, not receive a special honour after death from the Lord?

Those who do not honour the Virgin Mary and who also do not honour the rest of the saints are ignorant of what the Lord said of His saints, that those who honoured them were also honouring Him.

The body of the Virgin will not only be honoured after the Resurrection, by being clothed in a glorious body, but has already been honoured by the Lord after her death. The Lord in a similar way, honoured the body of Moses before the Resurrection, when He let it appear on the Mount of Transfiguration. The question of the ascent of St. Mary's body is one that history records, and which history cannot deny. It is not just we who record it, but many other churches too.

Those who attack the Virgin gain nothing but actually lose a blessing.

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Thrice-Blessed Pope Shenouda III of Blessed Memory

Thrice-Blessed Pope Shenouda III of Blessed Memory, Many Years with People's Questions, Part IV: Dogma and Ritual Questions. Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate. Translated by Mrs. Glynis Younan, London. Revised by Mrs. Wedad Abbas. First edition, August 1992. Revised COEPA 1997. ISBN 977-5319-0-2-1.