[Kolokotronis]

"Excellent point. In my Orthodox parish, the chanter had been using an English translation that rendered “Theotokos” as “Mother of God.” I had usually heard it translated “birthgiver of God.” When our bishop visited, he corrected the chanter during the service. Since then, he has chanted “Theotokos.” Θεοτοκος is of course the proper term. English is lousy for discussing or accurately expressing the theology of the early Church. But the truth of the matter is that "Mother of God", in English, is a translation of Θεοτοκος. So is "Birth-giver of God". The canons provide that we should pray in the language of the Laos tou Theou, which in many parishes here in America, is English (I wish it were 100% Greek, but that's just me). Your bishop probably did the right thing, but expecting English speaking Americans to appreciate the subtleties of Byzantine Greek might be a bit much. Unless your chanter was calling Panagia the "God Bearer" (θεοφορος) or the "Christ Bearer" (Χριστοτοκος), I suspect you weren't being subjected to heresy.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

I posted that just as something I observed, and thought there might be some significance to it. From my own limited knowledge, and from a practical point of view, it seems that "Mother of God" and "Theotokos" is six of one, half-dozen of the other. A birthgiver is a mother. The key is to understand how that designation is intended, what it means for Mary's role, and what it means christologically. And we have the term showing up in "Axion estin": μητέρα τοῦ Θεοῦ ἡμῶν. I don't remember what musical piece the chanter was chanting when the bishop corrected him, but I'm thinking maybe it was something that had Θεοτοκος in the original text, not μητέρα τοῦ Θεοῦ, and the bishop wanted him to stick with the original.

[Southside_Chicago_Republican]

Oh — one more thing. In regard to translations and especially the problems translating into English: I read that Jaroslav Pelikan translated “Theotokos” as “the one who gives birth to the one who is God.” I guess that is supposed to be pretty literal as far as the meaning goes, but would be one awkward mouthful if used liturgically!