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Tobias

Appearances Of The Virgin Mary

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In the Post Roman Empire section, a certain thread showed a drawing of how an appearance of the Virgin Mary allegedly inspired Byzantine soldiers and citizens during a siege in 1422. After reading a rather large book on the history of the Byzantines, it seems that the Virgin Mary was quite a symbol for the Byzantines, if not a patron spirit of the Empire. I was wondering if anyone else knows of alleged appearances during the history of the Byzantine Empire or even before?

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I'm not quite sure if this is part of what you are looking for, but there have been some who feel that the very strong belief in the Virgin Mary may be due in part to the old Eastern Magna Mater cult. The idea of a feminine god or spirit in the world was always a very big idea in the ancient european world. witht he rise of christianity, the advent of the Virgin Mary may have been a way for the very young Catholic church to reach out to a part of the population which worshipped the old ways.

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dont know of a sighting before 1422, however the most famous and most witnessed sighting was that from Zeitun (Egypt) in 1968,

 

some info at Wikipedia and Zeitun.org

 

regards

viggen

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Ah, now those were interesting. With all the "sightings" these days though, one wouldn't know what was real and what wasn't.

Magna Mater eh? I'll have to look into that in more depth. Thank you for your help

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There's a couple of big feminine forces you could look up. Magna Mater being one, also the Cybelline cults, and the strictly female Bona Dea rite of the Romans. Also the pagan/Celtic Gaia spirit. The Catholic church did alot of capitalizing on these "heretic" beliefs and might be a major reason that many modern latins hold the Madonna to such high regard.

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