Mary was just a vessel is something that I have actually heard said by some protestants when I ask them their thoughts on Our Blessed Mother Mary. When I first heard this I was astonished, mostly because I was raised in suburban Boston surrounded by almost exclusively Catholic families. As I looked into why they would say such horrendous things about one of the most important people in the plan of salvation I was not so shocked. Most protestants don’t hate the Mother of Jesus they just really don’t like the Catholic Church, a church where Mary plays a very central role in. Contrary to what many people outside the Catholic and Orthodox world Catholics do not worship Mary. We venerate her and ask her to pray for us, however just like Protestants we worship the one Triune God (Trinity). That is actually the sole purpose of every Catholic mass. The subject of Mary has been a hot button issue in the Church for a long time. There have been many councils and Papal Bulls that all come together to create what is called Mariology in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches. I am only going to focus on the issue of the Theotokos in this article.
Theotokos simply means “Mother of God” or “God Bearer”. Mary was given this title at the council of Ephesus in 431AD. The reason she was given this title is because of a dispute between two Bishops in the Church at the time. The First Bishop was Nestorius he was the Bishop of Constantinople (now mordern day Istanbul). The Nestorian heresy regarded Christ as a human person joined to the divine person of God’s Son.1 So Bishop Nestorius wanted Mary to be declared Christokos because he believed that Mary did not give birth to God, but to the Christ. On the other side of the argument was the Bishop of Alexandria named St. Cyril of Alexandria, who is also a Church Father. He argued that Christ Jesus was God right from the moment of conception. Meaning that while Jesus was in the womb of Mary he was God. To settle this argument the Emperor of Rome at the time Theodosius II convened a council led by St. Cyril of Alexandria in Ephesus in the year 431AD. The matter of Theotokos was not the only matter discussed in the council, but was by far the most important matter. It was declared in the first of twelve anathemas that came out of the council and read as follows. If anyone does not confess that Emmanuel is God in truth, and therefore that the holy virgin is the mother of God for she bore in a fleshly way the Word of God become flesh, let him be anathema.2
The declaration of the Theotokos is very important because it accurately describes who Jesus really is, if we get Jesus wrong then we are ultimately going to Christianity wrong in the process. I am not writing this to drag protestants and not all protestant churches hold this view, but if you get Christ Jesus wrong then you are going to Christianity wrong in the process. If we are going to truly save this world then we need to get Jesus right. I hope you all enjoy reading this and thank you all for your time.
Catechism of the Catholic paragraph; 466
Council of Ephesus 12 anathemas numer 1