On the Ever-Virginity of Mary

In Orthodox iconography, the three stars on Mary's veil represent her virginity before, during, and after the Nativity of Christ

 

Given my past writings, you might expect me to reject the Orthodox doctrine of the Ever-Virginity of Mary. In my post The Problem with Orthodox Tradition on Female Virginity, I argued that the Church's obsession with the virginal status of female (and only female) saints is fetishistic and demeaning. You might infer that Mary is another saint in this category--perhaps even the quintessential example.

But I think Mary is different. There are reasons besides misogyny why Christians up until the Protestant Reformation universally affirmed her Perpetual Virginity. I would like to explain why this doctrine makes sense to me, despite all my skepticism about Orthodox Tradition around women and virginity.

But the Bible says...

Many Protestants point to the supposed references in the Bible to Mary's other children, Jesus' "brothers." Orthodox and Catholic apologists, in turn, have disputed Protestant interpretations of these verses. The disagreement hinges on the Greek word adelphos, often translated as "brother," which in other places in the Bible clearly conveys the looser meaning of "male relative." I have no scholarly insight to add to this argument.

No, there is no Bible verse that directly states that Mary remained a virgin throughout her life. I can't prove it to you by simple citation.

Instead, I will argue from this fundamental Christian premise: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). One need not be Orthodox or Catholic to follow my argument, only to accept this basic tenet.

 

Why not?

Why shouldn't Mary have lived a normal married life after Jesus' birth? By insisting on her Ever-Virginity, aren't Catholics and Orthodox implying there is something wrong with sex in marriage? What about poor Joseph?

 

Won't somebody think of St. Joseph?!

 

 

There are bad reasons for believing Mary had to be Ever-Virgin. Disgust for non-virginal women is a bad reason. But that doesn't mean there can't be a good reason.

The good reason has everything to do with the Incarnation of Christ and how that event transformed our material world, including and especially the woman who bore him. Mary could never be a normal married woman after she became the Theotokos, the God-Bearer, the one human being from whom the Eternal Son of God took flesh.

 

The Tomb was just some rocks?

Suppose, Christian reader, you knew for certain the location of the real Tomb of Christ. Suppose you could touch the stone that was rolled away, walk inside, touch the slab where the Lord's body rested.

Would you fall to your knees and weep? Would you kiss the rocks? Would you pray? Would you cover your face in awe and terror at the realization that you, a sinner, are in the very place where the Son of God conquered death?

The first Christians did know the location of Christ's Tomb, since they were the ones who laid his body in it. Perhaps Joseph of Arimathea, upon finding the tomb available again, decided to reclaim it as his own future burial place. What could be wrong about that? After all, Jesus wasn't using it anymore. It would be a shame to let a perfectly good tomb go to waste. Tombs were expensive! Rocks are just rocks. Who would care?

By the way, some Christians do believe they know the location of real Tomb. They built a church over it, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and it is a pilgrimage site for tens of thousands of faithful every year.

A lot of fuss over some rocks

The Cross was just wood?

Suppose you found yourself standing before the Cross-- the real, physical, wooden structure upon which Jesus died for our salvation.

Would you throw yourself prostrate before it?

Or would you merely see wood-- a potentially useful raw material? Perhaps it could be used in the construction of a new house, or chopped up for firewood.

 

Or turned into toothpicks

Mary was just a woman?

There is nothing wrong with burying the dead. There is nothing wrong with using wood to make things that humans need. These are good things.

There is something wrong, however, with taking something incredibly sacred and using it like any other ordinary object.

If rock and wood can be holy, why not a woman?

There is nothing wrong with a woman having marital relations with her husband. This is a good thing. But Mary was no ordinary woman, just as the Tomb was no ordinary bunch of rocks, and just as the Cross was no ordinary wood.

Moreover, unlike rock and wood, Mary was not an inanimate object. The Tomb and the Cross did not willingly consent to participate in the salvation of mankind. Mary did.

"Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38)

One last thought experiment.

Suppose, Christian reader, you find yourself standing before the Mother of your Lord. It is really her, physically there in front of you. Her face, her hair, her hands. You can recognize her Son's likeness in her features-- or rather, you can recognize her likeness in His features, since He inherited His humanity from her. This is she, Theotokos, God-Bearer, Ark of the New Covenant, whose body grew and carried and birthed and nursed the Savior of Mankind, she who loved Him first and best.

Will you greet her as you would any ordinary woman?

 

The Problem with Orthodox Tradition on Female Virginity

St. Pelagia of Antioch, Virgin-Martyr

 
The Orthodox Church grants special honor to saints, particularly female saints, who remain virgins throughout their lives. I used to explain this tradition to myself by reasoning that virgins, whether men or women, eschew worldly pleasures and the blessings of family life in order to devote themselves more fully to God. It makes perfect sense for the Church to honor people who were especially devoted to God, right?

However, I have come to realize that this explanation doesn't fully account for Orthodox Tradition on virginity. There is a dark side to Orthodox teachings on virginity which undermines the dignity and spiritual worth of women in the Church.

If the Orthodox elevation of virginity were all about honoring devotion to God, one would expect equal emphasis on male and female virginity. But this is clearly not the case. Only female saints are given the official title of "Virgin." Often this title is combined with the title of "martyr," as in "St. Daria the Virgin-Martyr." Many unmarried male saints presumably died as virgins, but their virginity is not usually specifically noted in stories of their lives, nor is there a title specifically for male virgin saints. What is going on here?

Another clue lies in a peculiar pattern in the lives of female saints: although many suffered torture and martyrdom, there are NO well-known female saints who were victims of rape. How can this be? Is it plausible, given the prevalence of sexual violence, that two millenia of Church history has not produced a single noteworthy woman saint who was a victim of sexual assault?

There are numerous examples of virgin saints who were threatened with rape, but who were saved from the loss of their virginity by divine intervention. St. Agnes of Rome was forced into a brothel, but when she was stripped, long hair miraculously grew from from her head and covered her nakedness. St. Juliana was also sent to a brothel, but God blinded anyone who tried to touch her. St. Daria was guarded by a lion. St. Markella of Chios was sealed in a rock up to her waist so that her father could not rape her (although he still could still behead her). There are many more examples.

Some female saints even chose death over the loss of their virginity. St. Pelagia jumped off a roof to avoid being defiled by Roman soldiers. St. Euphrasia of Nicodemia tricked her would-be rapist into beheading her. St. Domnina drowned not only herself but also her two daughters to protect them from rape (according to St. John Chrysostom's version of the story). Although the Church usually considers suicide to be a serious sin, Church Fathers such as St. Ambrose and St. John Chrysostom affirmed the virtue of women committing suicide (and apparently, in St. Domnina's case, murder) to preserve their chastity. These Fathers of the Church did not extend their acceptance of suicide to men in the same situation.

What conclusion are we to draw from these patterns? Why would God allow His saints to suffer all manner of torments for His name, but never rape? One begins to wonder whether being a victim of sexual violence disqualifies a woman for sainthood.

Clearly, this preoccupation with female virginity is about more that just honoring women for their devotion to God. No one is less devoted to God for having been raped, any more than one is less devoted to God for having endured torture. This isn't about honoring the purity of virginal women's souls, but about fetishizing their unpenetrated bodies. It was the physical state of virginity that St. Pelagia killed herself in order to preserve; her purity of soul was not under threat. God (supposedly) intervened to protect the virginity of St. Markella, St. Agnes, St. Juliana, and others because losing that physical state would have meant losing their glory in heaven, even if it were against their will. It was a woman's physical state of virginity, the state of never having been penetrated by a man, that St. John Chrysostom and St. Ambrose valued even more than her life.

What this means is that while both men and women are judged for the state of their souls, women are additionally judged for the state of their bodies. Virginity, the imaginary (not medically verifiable) physical state of never having been penetrated, is not something that can be restored by any amount of repentance. Thus, the loss of virginity (even by rape) becomes the one unforgivable sin. This perverse tradition of fetishizing female virginity directly contradicts core Church teachings about salvation and the dignity of all human beings.

The Church is supposed to be a “hospital for souls,” but it has failed to heal one of my deepest wounds because it is unable to unequivocally affirm my worth as a woman— specifically, my worth as a woman who is not physically “pure,” and as a woman who has experienced sexual trauma.

I am saddened to find myself drifting away from the Orthodox Church, which I have loved so much. I still see so much goodness and beauty in it. But until I can figure out how to disentangle the poisonous snake of misogyny that is entwined in Church Tradition, I will be standing out in the narthex during Communion.