Mary becomes Mother of God: The year 431 A.D. was a momentous one in the history of the Queen of Heaven.  That’s the year the church fathers, meeting in Ephesus in modern day Turkey,  officially declared that Mary is Theotokos, literally, in Greek, the one who gave birth to God. More commonly her title is paraphrased as Mother of God.  This was an important political step, as it clarified for the theologians that Jesus was both God and man.  Perhaps just as importantly, however, it pacified the people, who were demanding that Mary be acknowledged as a divinity.

Technically, the church denied Mary as divine, as a Goddess, but in practical terms, it conveyed a sense of holiness which made her a viable rival to that other popular Roman/Greek/Egyptian hybrid Goddess of the time, represented variously as Diana, Cybele, and Isis.  As a result of their decision, Mary’s divinity has…