By Metropolitan Seraphim of Kastoria
The person of the Panagia, much more so her ministry in the unexplainable mystery of the Incarnation of the Son and Word of God, is truly a miracle. How did God become man in the womb of a woman and how did a woman carry God in her immaculate womb and in her warm embrace?
The God-bearing Damascene, the great dogmatician of our Church, describes it as a miracle. In one of his homilies he writes: "O Virgin full of divine grace, holy temple of God which the Spiritual Solomon, that Prince of Peace, constructed and inhabited; you are not adorned with gold and lifeless stones, but in place of gold you shine with the Spirit. Instead of precious stones you have Christ, 'the pearl of great price', the coal of divinity."1 Thus she became "the rectification of our foremother Eve" with the descent of God to the human race and the ascent of man to God. The new Eve rectifies the erroneous action of our foremother Eve and at the same time lifts the human race from corruption and sin. With particular astonishment at this rectification the sacred hymnographer of the kontakion of the Akathist Hymn chants: "Rejoice the rectification of humanity."
