Part of "a Christmas carol from the Syriac of Mor Ephraim titled "Song of Mary".

In this beautiful hymn, our great poet-theologian, Saint Ephraim, wonders at the mystery of the sacred relationship between mother and Child, between Virgin Mary and our Lord Jesus Christ. The poet is awe struck by the divine design; how God is made man and how the Virgin is baffled and overjoyed for mothering God Himself.

However, divisive doctrines disturbed the peace of the Holy Universal Church for centuries. The Virgin birth and motherhood of Mary to Christ were questioned and challenged in the middle of the 5^th. century A.D. Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople, claimed that Jesus was the Son of Mary; and that she did not give birth to the Son of God, the Word, but to an ordinary human being. He went on to say that Jesus was deified after He was baptized.

Thus, Nistorius undermined the church dogma in general and Christ and His mother in particular. And although he had won converts in the Middle East and the Far East, their controversial church became weaker and weaker over the centuries. However, in the nineteenth century, some Christian sects, namely Protestant, proselytized and absorbed a big number of them and adhered to their unorthodox teachings and theology.

No matter how holy, venerable and good a person is, there are people, with doubting minds who maliciously and deliberately, will degrade Jesus, His mother or the church. Since the Translation of Virgin Mary to heaven, many fallacious stories were told about her person, her motherhood to Christ and especially about the Virgin birth. Since the inception of Christianity and until our present time, there have been found some controversial theologians and biased Biblical scholars who devised their own doctrines contrary to the belief of Apostolic, Catholic and Orthodox. They dismiss the Virgin birth, reject the motherhood of Mary to the Incarnate God and relate to her, erroneously, sons and daughters. They are stumbling blocks to wavering Christian believers.

How evil and ignorant man is. How short sighted and base he is also. If we truly believe that Jesus is the Messiah about Whom the prophets of the Old Testament testified and prophesied and Isaiah is one of them, then God can do the impossible. Isaiah prophesied about the Virgin birth and the Incarnation of the Son of God by saying, "Therefore the Lord, Himself, will give you a sign: Behold, the Virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Emanuel".Isaiah 7:14.

If we believe that Emanuel, the Messiah, Christ, is the Son of God, and if we believe that the Son of God, the Word, is God as Saint John proclaims in the very beginnings of his Gospel, "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." John 1:1: then we must submit unconditionally to certain facts about God. It is known to believers that God can do anything and everything that is impossible. Therefore, if the Virgin birth is unnatural and impossible, God or Jesus Christ, can make it natural and possible. Jesus can, then, be born of a Virgin and Mary can be Mother of God Himself. And God the most holy who is born from Virgin Mary in a supernatural way can unquestionably dedicate His Mother’s womb only to Himself and nobody else.

The belief that states Jesus had brothers and sisters born from Virgin Mary is utterly false and heretical. There was confusion around Jesus’ time about His so called "brothers and sisters". Virgin Mary had a sister by the name Mary also, John 19:25, the wife of Clopas and mother of James the Less and of Joses and Salome, Mark 15:40. Thus, Mary of Clopas’ children were confused as being Virgin Mary’s’ children, hence the notion of Jesus having brothers and sisters.

We believe that Virgin Mary stayed Virgin until her translation and conveyance to heaven. She had neither sons nor daughters other than giving birth to Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God. She is holy and blessed, she is revered but not worshipped. We respect, revere and honor her because she is the Mother of our Savior and God Himself. We seek her mediation in times of sickness and hardships.

Our church observes her Feasts* which are celebrations of birth, growth, fertility, prosperity and food. Her Feasts celebrate life, its vitality and continuity which are mirrored by the holiness and sacredness of the life of her Son, Jesus Christ, Who became the true food and the true drink for eternal life.

Virgin Mary’s Feast of the Grapes is a festival of happiness, joy and thanksgiving. Through her motherhood to Christ, we have been granted salvation and life eternal. On her Feast day we pray that peace, progress and prosperity spread throughout the world.

We pray that abundant food is available and offered to a hungry humanity. Ultimately, we pray that humanity hungers for the true food Who is Jesus Christ. He said, "I am the bread of life, he who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes in Me

shall never thirst." John 6:35 For Jesus indeed is the True Bread, the True Drink, the True Life and the True God.

Feast of the Seeds January 15^th.

Feast of the Harvest May 15^th.

Feast of the Grapes August 15^th.

Feast of the Birth of Virgin Mary September 7^th.

Annunciation to Mother of God November and March 25^th.

Visitation of Virgin Mary to Elizabeth December