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No one asserted the whole of the Godhead was Incarnate, just the Word, but since the Word is of one essence with the Father and the Son we cannot separate them, so in giving birth to the Word the Church recognised the Blessed Theotokos gave birth to God.
Dear Beamishboy,
So then, let's talk about the Romans.
Yes Paul spoke of these but what Paul did not do was venerate them and lift them up for us to pray to or bow down to. What Paul Did was show us what Faith is through the workings of these men..This is what Paul was speaking o here was faith.. Venerate is just a form of worship using a differen play on word so that those who do so cannot be said of worshipping them but vererating them.. Just a play on words..
Well from now on we will call you bouncingLLOJ..
How very sad.
1. Adoption at the Third Ecumenical Council As a title for the Virgin Mary, Theotokos was recognized by the Orthodox Church at Third Ecumenical Council held at Ephesus in 431. It had already been in use for some time in the devotional and liturgical life of the Church. The theological significance of the title is to emphasize that Mary's son, Jesus, is fully God, as well as fully human, and that Jesus' two natures (divine and human) were united in a single Person of the Trinity. The competing view at that council was that Mary should be called Christotokos instead, meaning "Birth-giver to Christ." This was the view advocated by Nestorius, then Patriarch of Constantinople. The intent behind calling her Christotokos was to restrict her role to be only the mother of "Christ's humanity" and not his divine nature.
Nestorius' view was anathematized by the Council as heresy, (see Nestorianism), since it was considered to be dividing Jesus into two distinct persons, one who was Son of Mary, and another, the divine nature, who was not. It was defined that although Jesus has two natures, human and divine, these are eternally united in one personhood. Because Mary is the mother of God the Son, she is therefore duly entitled Theotokos.
Calling Mary the Theotokos or the Mother of God (Μητηρ Θεου
The title "Theotokos" continues to be used frequently in the hymns of the Orthodox Church.
2. Translating the word Theotokos While some languages used by various Orthodox churches often have a single native word for Theotokos, it gets translated into English in a number of ways. The most common is Mother of God, though God-bearer and Birth-giver to God are also fairly common. There are difficulties with all these translations, however. The most literally correct one is Birth-giver to God, though God-bearer comes close. Theophoros (Θεοφορος
The most popular translation, Mother of God, is accurate to a point, but the difficulty with that one is that Mother of God is the literal translation of another Greek phrase which is found on nearly all icons of the Theotokos: Μητηρ Θεου (Meter Theou), usually in the standard iconographic abbreviation of ΜΡ ΘΥ. Additionally, a number of hymns employ both Theotokos and Meter Theou—translating both as Mother of God can yield some rather nonsensical language, and it destroys the distinction that the hymnographer intended.
The usage that seems to be dominant in English-speaking Orthodox churches in North America is to adopt the original term itself into English (something English speakers have traditionally done with foreign words almost since the earliest known history of the language), transliterating it simply as Theotokos. British usage gives preference to translating Theotokos as Mother of God.
Roman fever
