Feast Days Of The Blessed Virgin Mary (Part One).

Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia,
unless otherwise stated.

The Virgin at Prayer.

Artist: Giovanni Battista Salvi da Sassoferrato (1609–1685).

Description: Giovanni Battista Salvi "Il Sassoferrato", Jungfrun i bön (1640-1650). 

National Gallery, London.

Date: Between 1640 and 1650.

Current location: National Gallery, London.

Source: Web Gallery of Art: Image Info about artwork.

(Wikimedia Commons)

Marian Feast Days are specific Holy Days of the Liturgical Year, celebrated by Christians as significant Marian Days for the Celebration of events in the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary and her veneration. The number of Marian Feasts celebrated, their names (and, at times, dates) can vary among Christian denominations.

The earliest Feasts, that relate to Mary, grew out of the Cycle of Feasts that celebrated the Nativity of Jesus. Given that according to the Gospel of Luke (Luke 2:22–40), forty days after the birth of Jesus, along with the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, Mary was purified according to Jewish customs, the Feast of the Purification began to be celebrated by the 5th-Century, and became the Feast of Simeon in Byzantium.

A separate Feast for Mary, connected with the "Nativity of Jesus" Cycle of Feasts, originated in the 5th-Century, even perhaps before the First Council of Ephesus took place in 431 A.D. It seems certain that the Sermon, by Proclus, before Nestorius (the Archbishop of Constantinople, whose Nestorianism rejected the title of Theotokos), which began the controversy that lead to the 431 A.D. Council, was about a Feast for the Virgin Mary.

Our Lady of Sorrows, by Moreno,Warfhuizen, Holland.

The venerated image of Our Lady of Warfhuizen.

Photo: 10-08-2007.

Source: Own work.

Author: Broederhugo.

(Wikimedia Commons)

In the 7th- and 8th-Centuries, four more Marian Feasts were established in the Eastern Church. Byzantine Emperor, Maurice, selected 15 August as the date of the Feast of Dormition and Assumption. The Feast of the Nativity of Mary was perhaps started in the first half of the 7th-Century in the Eastern Church.

In the Western Church, a Feast dedicated to Mary, just before Christmas, was celebrated in the Churches of Milan and Ravenna, in Italy, in the 7th-Century. The four Roman Marian feasts of Purification, Annunciation, Assumption, and Nativity of Mary, were gradually and sporadically introduced into England and, by the 11th-Century, were being celebrated there.

Over time, the number and nature of Feasts (and the associated Titles of Mary), and the venerative practices that accompany them, have varied a great deal among diverse Christian traditions. Overall, there are significantly more Titles, Feasts and venerative Marian practices among Roman Catholics than any other Christian tradition.

English: Blessed Virgin Mary with the Infant, Jesus, with Pope Sixtus II and Saint Barbara.

Deutsch: Sixtinische Madonna, Szene: Maria mit Christuskind, Hl. Papst Sixtus II. und Hl. Barbara.

Artist: Raphael (1483–1520).

Date: 1513 - 1514.

Current location: Gemäldegalerie, Dresden, Germany.

Note: Deutsch: Urspr. Hochaltar von San Sisto in Piacenza.

Source/Photographer: The Yorck Project: 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei. DVD-ROM, 2002. 

ISBN 3936122202. Distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH.

Permission: [1].

(Wikimedia Commons)

Some differences in Feasts originate from Doctrinal issues - the Feast of the Assumption is such an example. Given that there is no agreement among all Christians on the circumstances of the death, Dormition or Assumption of Mary, the Feast of Assumption is celebrated among some denominations and not others. In his early years, Martin Luther used to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption, but, towards the end of his life,  he stopped celebrating it.

While the Western Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Assumption on 15 August, some Eastern Catholics celebrate it as Dormition of the Theotokos, and may do so on 28 August, if they follow the Julian Calendar. The Eastern Orthodox also celebrate it as the Dormition of the Theotokos, one of their 12 Great Feasts. The Armenian Apostolic Church celebrates the Feast of Dormition not on a fixed date, but on the Sunday nearest 15 August. Moreover, the practices that go beyond Doctrinal differences also vary, e.g. for the Eastern Orthodox, the Feast is preceded by the fourteen-day Dormition Fast.

Feasts continue to be developed, e.g. the Feast of the Queenship of Mary was declared in 1954 in the Papal Encyclical "Ad Caeli Reginam" by Pope Pius XII. The initial Ceremony for this Feast involved the Crowning of the Salus Populi Romani icon of the Virgin Mary, in Rome, by Pope Pius XII, as part of a Procession in Rome, and is unique to Roman Catholics.

PART TWO FOLLOWS.