Three Chapters, Two Statements and One Ex-bishop's old views

[Paul Younan]

Shlama Akhi Jerzy,

Akhan Paul, just one more question - what are in your opinion the impliactions of this subtle theological difference?

Pharaoh was a god-man, was he not? In that his actual flesh was divine?

But Meshikha is not like all the other god-men that blessed the land of the Copts with their presence, Akhi. Meshikha is at once both God and Man. His flesh is not Divine, nor His Divinity human.

He is literally God. And His flesh is literally no different than our own. It hungered and suffered and experienced all of the same things that we in our human condition experience. God and Man, at once. Unless it were so, our salvation is null and void...because it would not have been our very humanity that was sacrificed in our place on the Cross.

The Mystery of the Incarnation that Mar Ephrem so eloquently describes in his homily above. A truly ineffable mystery.

I can see one - since there are two natures and human cannot give birth to the heavenly follows rejection of the title theotokos for the Blessed Virgin Mary, as inappropriate.

It's not that the title of Theo-Tokos is inappropriate so much as it is incomplete. For the title literally means "God-Bearer."

Since it is universally understood by all the Orthodox branches of the Church, that by "Meshikha~Christ" we mean God and Man.....wouldn't a more complete title be "Christo-Tokos?"

If we call Maryam "Theo-Tokos", that's just fine...but it's incomplete. She really is "Christo-Tokos", since we mean by "Christos" the Subject of the Incarnation....that is, both God and Man.

When you say "Theo-Tokos" you are leaving out the Man. When you say "Christo-Tokos" you are including both God and Man. So the title is more complete...."Christo-Tokos" would be "Christ-Bearer", or ..... "God/Man-bearer".

Isn't that a more complete title? That's why Nestorius favoured the term "Christo-Tokos" over "Theo-Tokos." Theo-Tokos only tells part of the story. It leaves out the Man.

By calling Maryam "Christo-Tokos" we are not necessarily defining what Meshikha is.....nor are we necessarily defining what Maryam is not. We are simply using what we consider to be a more complete term.

After all, Maryam did not give birth to a god, like Pharaoh's mother. <!-- sarcasm: --><img src="{SMILIES_PATH}/sarcasm.gif" alt="arcasm:" title="Sarcasm" /><!-- sarcasm: -->