Excerpt from:
Volume 5 Issue 2 Date 1st December 2001
The Mother of God and the Incarnation
Troparion to the Felixstowe Mother of God
Tone 2 (8/21 September)
O Mary, Mother of the Light and Mother of our God,
As thy name is now honoured anew on eastern shores,
To thee we cry aloud:
Do thou beseech thy Son and our God,
That the Orthodox faith may here be restored,
Vanquishing all the enemies of the Saviour Christ,
And renewing the true worship of the Trinity
Among all the peoples of Thine island.
Tone 2 (8/21 September)
In times of old thy sacred image was honoured
In Suffolk's holy land,
O most pure Maiden Mary and Mother of our God.
Then in times of darkness and impiety,
Thy holy shrine was taken across the sea.
But now as thou art honoured anew
In the town of thy servant Felix,
Do thou intercede for us with Thy Son, Christ our Saviour.
A hot and sultry August forenoon in 1976 in Ekaterinodar in Southern Russia. The noise
of the street traders, Gypsies, Georgians and Russians, drifts up to us from the market
below. We speak in hushed voices, for a Russian Patriarchal priest could be exiled or
even imprisoned for 'anti-Soviet activity' - talking to a foreigner about our Orthodox
Faith in Russia, its bitter persecution, the conditions of the diaspora and so many other
matters. The priest speaks: 'All theology is from the Holy Spirit and therefore all
theology is mystical, beyond the scope of human reason. If it is not mystical, then it
is only academic speculation, the amusement of idle minds', says Fr L., one of the most
learned clergy in Russia and the holder of a doctorate.
Spring 1979. My small second floor flat in the anonymous suburbs of Thessaloniki. 'What
is Mariology?' asks a Cypriot friend from the Theological School in the city. I answer
that it is what Roman Catholics call the study of the Mother of God. 'Ah, we Greeks', he
said, meaning 'we Orthodox', 'would call that "Theotokology". But then again we would not
use such a word, for all this is part of the Theology of the Incarnation. We would study
this under the heading "Dogmatics", and not make a separate study of it, for Her role
depends on that of Her Son'.
Two statements from two different parts of the Orthodox world, one uttered under tyranny,
the other uttered in freedom. Both have their conclusion in the existence of over six
hundred Icons of the Mother of God in the Orthodox calendar.
For in towns and villages throughout the Orthodox world, there has always existed a
longing - for 'folk to go on pilgrimages', as Chaucer put it, in other words to visit
shrines of the Mother of God (as well as of the Saints and Holy Places). For by the Holy
Spirit not only did the Mother of God become present in certain places, but also
particular presences carried particular virtues, the mystical theological graces of the
Holy Spirit. For example there are Icons of: The Mother of God Quick to Hear, Console my
Sorrow, Joy of all who Sorrow, Reigning, Seeking out of the Lost, Surety of Sinners,
Unexpected Joy. These all give special succour in special circumstances.
And then another mysterious longing has always emanated from Orthodox hearts - to
'locate' the Mother of God, to make Her present locally, to 'incarnate' Her. Thus in the
Orthodox tradition there are hundreds of Icons of the Mother of God of different places,
of Vladimir, of the Don, of Spain, of Vienna, of Tinos, of Harbin, of Jerusalem, of Kazan,
of Kursk, of Lesna. And in recent years, through the piety of Fr David of Walsingham,
there have come into being Icons of the Mother of God of Walsingham and of Glastonbury.
And now, by the prayers of those who guide us through the snares of this world, the
Felixstowe Mother of God.
Who was it who first said: 'Carry my blessing across the sea - carry it to the West?'
St Columba, or his Sovereign Lady, the Mother of God? We may wonder, but, whatever the
case, word of her blessing has now crossed the sea and reached the West once more.
Most Holy Mother of God, Save us!
Fr Andrew
THE MOTHER OF GOD OF FELIXSTOWE (8/21 September)
Introduction
There was a time when England was known as 'Mary's Dowry' and 'The Island
of Mary'. Indeed by the eleventh century England was the only land of Western Europe where
devotion to the Mother of God was so widespread and it is here that the Feast of the
Dormition was first introduced from Constantinople (1).
By the eleventh century there seemed to be shrines to the Mother of God everywhere (2). Thus
we know of shrines dedicated to Her at Glastonbury in 540, Evesham in 702 (3), Tewkesbury in
715, Canterbury in 866, Willesden in 939 (4), Abingdon before 955, Ely in 1020, Coventry
in 1043, York in 1050, Walsingham in 1061. Without doubt there were many other shrines and
holy images. Of some we know nothing, of others we know that they must have existed but we
hear of them only later in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. For after the
eleventh-century Great Schism, when most of Western Europe fell under Papal sway, devotion
to the Mother of God continued. Admittedly, this devotion began to take on the pietistic
forms of the Middle Ages and images were replaced by statues, unheard of in the Orthodox
world, East and West. Some of these statues were given specific names either of places or
else of particular virtues, for example: Our Lady of the Garden Gate (Somers Town, London),
Our Lady of the Crag (Knaresborough), Our Lady, Mother of Mercy (York), Our Lady of Grace
(Ipswich). This practice still mirrored the practice of the Orthodox Churches, in particular
of the Russian Church, where over 600 different Images of the Mother of God were venerated
before the Revolution and Russia was known as 'The House of the Mother of God'. Our interest,
however, is centred on Our Lady of Grace, the Ipswich Mother of God.
The Suffolk Connection
Suffolk in the early Middle Ages was renowned for its piety. Indeed when
the Danes invaded in the ninth century, martyring St Edmund, they found so many churches
and chapels that they called it 'Selig Suffolk', meaning 'Blessed' or 'Holy Suffolk', which
by corruption has today become 'Silly Suffolk'. Indeed we know of no fewer than sixteen
shrines to the Mother of God in Suffolk. These were: Beccles, Chevington, Eye, Ipswich,
Ixworth, Melford, Mildenhall, Mutford, Norton, Stoke-by-Clare, Stowmarket, Sudbury,
Thetford, Weston, Woodbridge and Woolpit. There may have been even more, but of them we
have no record. However, by the end of the twelfth century, although the major national
shrine was at Walsingham in Norfolk, second only to this was the Shrine of 'Our Lady
of Grace' in Ipswich.
Within the last generation archæologists have confirmed that Ipswich is the oldest of
all English towns, founded in the sixth century, when our forebears arrived across the
North Sea from northern Germany and southern Denmark. Minor settlements and small hamlets
on the south and east coasts there were indeed before Ipswich, but Ipswich was without
doubt the first English town. With its port and market, industries and trades, it became
famous especially for its pottery, known to historians as 'Ipswich-ware'. Later surrounded
by earthen ramparts built against the Danes, it became in the early Middle Ages a walled
town with four gates with thirty-nine Pre-Reformation churches and monasteries. The main
gate in the walls was the West Gate and leading up to it, still today, one may find 'Lady
Lane', where once stood the long ago demolished 'Chapel of Our Lady of Ipswich'. It was
here that the local population venerated from at least 1152, if not earlier, a statue of
the Mother of God.
Certainly in 1297, this chapel was recorded as 'a religious house of note at an early
period of our history'. All surviving records witness to the fame of the Image of the
Mother of God and the many marvels and healings of grace worked by it: 'The Image of the
Blessed Virgin, known as 'Our Lady of Ipswich' was held in high regard, to which many
pilgrimages were wont to be made'. 'The celebrated image of the Virgin there made the name
of Ipswich famous in ancient days on account of the miraculous powers of the curing of
diseases which this venerated image was reputed to possess'. Records survive describing
the image, even giving particulars of its colours ('blue and deep rose') and the pleats in
the robes of the Virgin.
There were several royal pilgrims. King Edward I's daughter, Elizabeth, was actually
married in the shrine chapel, Blanche, daughter of Henry IV, came on pilgrimage and there
are full details of the pilgrimage of Catherine of Aragon and Henry VIII. It has also
been suggested that Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales was inspired by pilgrimages to the
shrine, since 'The Father of English Poetry', it is claimed, was the son of an Ipswich
vintner. We also know that the notorious Machiavellian Cardinal Wolsey, an Ipswich man,
established a procession to the shrine on the 7 September, the eve of the Feast of the
Birth of Our Lady. And in recent times the local 'Guild of Our Lady of Ipswich' has
instituted an annual pilgrimage walk reviving that procession on the nearest Sunday to 7
September.
All of this may seem to the reader to be only of passing historical interest and no more
than this. However, the Ipswich Mother of God has a special interest for English
Christians today. Unlike all the other shrines of England, it is widely believed that
'Our Lady of Grace' survived the 'Reformation' and still exists.
At the Reformation, in July 1538, the statue was removed from its Ipswich chapel
and sent off by ship from the port of Ipswich to be burnt together with other statues
and relics in London. Here, in September 1538, Thomas Cromwell, charged by Henry VIII
with destroying 'Papist idols', lit a huge bonfire in which many objects of piety were
burnt, including the statues of Our Lady of Walsingham and of Willesden. There is a mass
of tradition and documentary evidence to suggest, however, that, despite the evil
intentions of the iconoclasts, 'Our Lady of Ipswich' was not among the statues consumed
by the fire.
The Italian Connection
On the west coast of Italy, half-way between Rome and Naples, adjoining the town of
Anzio, where some eleven thousand English and Allied soldiers lost their lives between
1943 and 1944, stands the little seaside town of Nettuno. In its main church, a majestic
basilica, there stands in a place of honour a statue of 'Our Lady of Grace'. It was
transported there, as the townspeople firmly maintain, in 1550 by sailors from the town
of Ipswich in England, who had rescued it from a fire. Locally it is known as 'The English
Lady'. This is not folklore, for the traditions go back hundreds of years and were recorded
in writing. From these we know, for example, that there was no shrine to the Mother of God
in Nettuno in the early sixteenth century. And a document of 1718, itself based on earlier
records, quite clearly states the origin of the statue as the otherwise unknown town of
Ipswich. According to this, the ship, headed for Naples, arrived in Nettuno in 1550, when
following a terrible storm, it found refuge there. The sailors gave the statue to the town
in thanksgiving and here the image was kept in a seashore church by the altar dedicated
to the Annunciation.
This manuscript description is confirmed by oral tradition. This insists on the origin of
the statue as 'Ipswich in England' and also on the name of the statue 'Nostra Signora
delle Grazie', 'Our Lady of Grace' (a title apparently unique in the history of English
devotion to the Mother of God). Moreover, there are other documents and a scientific
analysis of a sliver of wood from the base of the statue has been found to have a high
salt content - proving that it had at some point been in contact with seawater or sea
spray. Moreover, the style of the statue (made of oak, as was common in England), even
after Catholicising 'restorations', suggests an English origin. The fact that the Christ
Child is supported on the right knee of the Virgin was extremely rare in Western Europe
outside England at the time. (Continental images show the Christ-Child on the left knee).
Apart from the Catholicising re-paintings and 'restorations' (5) of the statue, apparently
in 1594, 1650 and 1959, the statue is otherwise accepted by experts to be in full accord
with English iconography of about the thirteenth century. This was confirmed when an
apparently mediæval English inscription on the statue was found in 1959, reading 'Thou
Art Gracious'.
An English Orthodox Conclusion
A specialist on the subject of mediæval statues of the Virgin, looking at photographs
before recent restorations and consulting records, has suggested what the original
'Madonna' looked like before the Catholicising 'restorations'. For since 1550 restorations,
among other things, have placed the Christ-Child in a reclining position and a throne has
been added for the Mother of God and Her veil removed and faces re-carved, in accordance
with Italian Roman Catholic taste.
It is from these suggestions that in 1998 Fr Theodore Jurewicz, the distinguished Orthodox
iconographer, was invited to paint a new Icon of the Mother of God, 'The Felixstowe Mother
of God', modelled on the reconstruction of the original Image revered there. This Icon is
not only a canonical Orthodox Icon but also it is faithful to the Orthodox traits of the
very conservative English Orthodox iconography as it survived in the Ipswich Mother of
God.
We believe this Icon to be the faithful re-creation, in Orthodox manner, of 'Our Lady
of Grace', the Holy Image venerated for centuries in the great Shrine of England at
Ipswich in 'Holy Suffolk'. It is this Image that is today honoured by the Orthodox
Christian people of Suffolk in St Felix and St Edmund Orthodox Church in Felixstowe.
Thus Our Lady's mysterious blessing of England returns from a seaside town of Italy
to a seaside town of England: history turns full circle and a historic wrong is redressed.
May this part of Suffolk once more become a place of pilgrimage in honour of Our Lady,
as Her Shrine is revived.
Most Holy Mother of God: Save Us!
(1) See the excellent 'The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Saxon England', Mary Clayton,
Cambridge Studies in Anglo-Saxon England, No 2
(2) I am indebted for much of the following to Stanley Smith's The Madonna of Ipswich,
Ipswich 1980.
(3) The town of Evesham takes its name from the cowherd Eoves who had in 702 a great
vision of the Mother of God in that place. The Monastery of Evesham, founded by St Egwin,
Bishop of Worcester, grew up on the site of that vision.
(4) This is very close to where now stands the Orthodox Convent of the Annunciation
in Brondesbury Park.
(5) Several Orthodox Icons of the Mother of God, most notably that of Czenstochowa
in Poland, have been subjected to such Catholic 'restoration', i.e. overpainting.
Underneath the layers of paint these Icons are fully Orthodox.
(c) Orthodox England - Published within the English Deanery of the Church Outside Russia: with the blessing of the Very Reverend Mark, Archbishop of Great Britain and Ireland.