It might be interesting to juxtapose this insistence on a miraculous, hymenically circumvented birth with the insistence of some Orthodox that the immaculate conception of Mary somehow diminishes her full humanity in a way that undermines her ability to stand forth as our Champion Leader.
To what extent, one wonders, does this fixation upon Mary's hymen reflect a growing concern with ritual purity in the late patristic Church, a development addressed by Mother Vassa (Larin) in her article
On Ritual Impurity [
theinnerkingdom.wordpress.com].
It strikes me that, for the early Church, virginity was more than just a physical state, it was a state of mind, a spiritual disposition, and that Mary manifested this disposition, as well as physical virginity, better than any other woman. Thus, having virginally conceived her Son through the power of the Holy Spirit, it seems superfluous to me that she should give birth in an utterly inhuman and unlikely manner. Her virginity remains intact, even as she gives birth in normal human fashion, because her virginity is more than a hymen. On several occasions, during the persecutions, the barbarian invasions and the Muslim conquest, nuns and consecrated virgins were subjected to rape and other sexual abuse--yet the Church insisted their status as monastics and virgins was not altered thereby.
On the other hand, this hymen fixation strikes me as prurient and reflective not of true piety, but of the machismo code of Mediterranean cultures, which insists that blood be shed in the nuptial bed on the wedding night as proof of the purity of the bride. The Most Holy Theotokos is beyond such childish preoccupations, and so should we all.
I also agree with Father Deacon Lance that Christology demands that Mary's Son be born as other men, so that he might experience the pain and shock of childbirth, for is Christ not like unto all men in all ways saving sin? And is it not true that that which is not assumed cannot be redeemed? So, Mary would have to give birth in the normal way, in order that Christ could be born in a normal way, and redeem that element of our humanity with all the rest of it.
