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The Sedes Sapientiae: Orthodox Sculptural Images Of The Virgin Mary Derived From The Ancient Mother-Goddess Tradition, Carol King
Theses, Dissertations and Capstones
The Virgin Mary is rarely mentioned in the Bible yet legends about her abound throughout the centuries. Worship of the Virgin is recorded as early as the 3rd century, and soon thereafter visual representations emerged to serve as devotional objects for her patrons. Mary’s popularity among the people left the Church with a fundamental problem: they must either sanction her worship and bring the pagans into their fold; or they must diminish her role in salvation, totally rid Christianity of the female divine, and risk losing converts to older-world traditions. This dilemma was settled at the Council of Ephesus in …