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To: Forest Keeper

For obvious reasons, none of the traditions of the Church deal with the genetics or embryology of what happened at the time of the Annunciation.

The terminology of the Church has been to say that he took flesh from the Virgin. His flesh was not created "de novo" and inserted into her womb, and she wasn't just some kind of "surrogate mother." She was Christ's mother in the flesh.

As to how this exactly took place from the point of view of modern biology, it is probably best not to pry and speculate, just as we Orthodox do not speculate on what happens with the bread and wine at the Divine Liturgy. We know that it is bread and wine, and that by the time we receive it, it is *also* the Body and Blood of Christ -- how this can be is a Mystery beyond our comprehension, thus our usual terminology is to say that we "receive the Holy Mysteries" when we commune.

We do not feel the need to explain everything, nor do we think that we have permission from God to explore beyond the bounds of what he has revealed to us.


6,730 posted on 05/16/2006 8:03:44 AM PDT by Agrarian
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To: Agrarian
The terminology of the Church has been to say that he took flesh from the Virgin. His flesh was not created "de novo" and inserted into her womb, and she wasn't just some kind of "surrogate mother." She was Christ's mother in the flesh.

Thanks for the clarification. If I'm following you, then this is my view as well. It's interesting to note that some of His, er, flesh could not have come from Mary. :) She didn't have the chromosomes for Jesus to be male.

6,935 posted on 05/20/2006 3:56:07 PM PDT by Forest Keeper
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