[redgolum]

Mariology first came into the Church in the middle of the Christlogical controversies. At that time(300's if I remember right), there were vast differences in how different leaders protrayed Christ. Because of the confusion, many no longer felt as strong a connection to Jesus, He was to unknowable.

Veneration of Mary began to creep in at this time also. Mary was a human that was the mother of Jesus. Since she was definatly human, she was on one level easier to understand. By the time the Christological controversies were done, Mariology was big in the West and she was begining to be refered to as God Bearer.

In the East, this smelled a bit to close to Mary worship. The E. Orthodox refused to call Mary the Mother of God, saying that implies she is a goddess herself, but did call her Mother of Christ. This, along with the "proceeds from the Father and the Son" part of the Nicene Creed was the major reason that the RC and EO split.

Since then, Mairology has grown vastly. It was not as universal as most RC's want to believe, or even as developed.
Mary is the most blessed woman, she was the mother of Jesus. The danger is that so many can get so wrapped up in Mary that they forget Jesus.

[irishtenor]

Thank you. My thought also.

[Catholicguy]

The Second Council of Nicaea (787), the seventh Ecumenical Council, which is fully accepted by the Orthodox, declared:

The Lord, the apostles and the prophets have taught us that we must venerate in the first place the Holy Mother of God, who is above all the heavenly powers . . . If any one does not confess that the holy, ever virgin Mary, really and truly the Mother of God, is higher than all creatures visible and invisible, and does not implore, with a sincere faith, her intercession, given her powerful access (parrhésia) to our God born of her, let him be anathema.

[Catholicguy]

"The danger is that so many can get so wrapped up in Mary that they forget Jesus."

The danger is some get so wrapped up in polemics they forget what The Orthodox are required to believe or be declared anathema

[Catholicguy]

Ephesus 431 A.D.

Formula of union between Cyrill and John of Antioch

We will state briefly what we are convinced of and profess about

—the God-bearing virgin and

—the manner of the incarnation of the only begotten Son of God

—not by way of addition but in the manner of a full statement, even as we have received and possess it from of old from

—the holy scriptures and from

—the tradition of the holy fathers,

—adding nothing at all to the creed put forward by the holy fathers at Nicaea.

For, as we have just said, that creed is sufficient both for the knowledge of godliness and for the repudiation of all heretical false teaching. We shall speak not presuming to approach the unapproachable; but we confess our own weakness and so shut out those who would reproach us for investigating things beyond the human mind.

We confess, then, our lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God perfect God and perfect man of a rational soul and a body, begotten before all ages from the Father in his godhead, the same in the last days, for us and for our salvation, born of Mary the virgin, according to his humanity, one and the same consubstantial with the Father in godhead and consubstantial with us in humanity, for a union of two natures took place. Therefore we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord. According to this understanding of the unconfused union, we confess the holy virgin to be the mother of God because God the Word took flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple he took from her. As to the evangelical and apostolic expressions about the Lord, we know that theologians treat some in common as of one person and distinguish others as of two natures, and interpret the god-befitting ones in connection with the godhead of Christ and the lowly ones with his humanity.

Third letter of Cyril to Nestorius; Therefore, because the holy virgin bore in the flesh God who was united hypostatically with the flesh, for that reason we call her mother of God, not as though the nature of the Word had the beginning of its existence from the flesh (for "the Word was in the beginning and the Word was God and the Word was with God", and he made the ages and is coeternal with the Father and craftsman of all things), but because, as we have said, he united to himself hypostatically the human and underwent a birth according to the flesh from her womb