FOR THE INTERPRETATION OF THE ICON OF MARY MAGDALENE IN GEORGIAN CHRISTIAN TRADITION

Abstract

Toward the personality of the saint Mary Magdalene in orthodox and catholic churches were different attitude during the long period. For example for the orthodox church she was recognized as a saint mother equal of the apostle. To define the right interpretation of the saint Mary Magdalene character we must look through the sources which are too much as in Georgian also in foreign languages. According to the New Testament saint Mary Magdalene was recovered from the seven devils spirit (the gospel of Luke 8,2: Mark‟s gospel 16,9). After this saint Mary Magdalene was always with the Christ everywhere (Mark‟s gospel 15,40; the gospel of Luke 8,3) she was with the Christ on the way to Calvary and had seen the crucifixion (Matthew Gospel 27,56 and others). She attended even the burning of the Christ (Matthew Gospel 27,61 and others) after third days of crucifixion, on the Easter day, early morning, she came toward the Christ vault by herself with candles and fumigations (Matthew Gospel 28,1; Mark‟s gospel 16,1-8). She was the first who had seen the Easter, was the first who believed and announced to the apostles about the Christ Easter (Joan 20, 11-18). According to the catholic church, she was considered as an anonymous sinful one, who washed the Christ foot by her tears in Svimeon Hypocrite‟s house and after nailed the oil to him (Luke 7,37-38), also she was considered as an anonymous lady who poured the oil to the head of the Christ in the Simon‟s house in Bethany (Matthew 26,6-7; Matthew 14,3-9) and also she was considered as an Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha (Joan 12, 1-8). There were several legends and later to the Mary Magdalene‟s life was added some plots from the life of sinful Mary from Egypt (V century) which strengthen the base about the idea being Mary the prostitute.
The several ladies taking part in the process of oiling by Chrism in the New Testament (sinful lady from the gospel of Luke, Mary from Bethany from Joan) to be considered as an equal of Mary Magdalene comes from the preaching of Roman Pope in 591 year. In New testament the no mentioned sins of Mary Magdalene and Mary from Bethany were explained as an prostitute. Such explanation was established also in the era of Growth and next period‟s paintings. Catholic church in XX century tried to correct this mistake and after the 1969 years reforms in the calendar of Novus Ordo we did not meet the Mary Magdalene as an sinful. In spite of this, in people‟s imagines for centuries the tradition (Mary as an sinful prostitute) was not changed, the idea about this was strengthen by the several artificial works. In the Oxford dictionary the word “Magdalene” has the meaning of sinful. It is the very interesting point of view that the prostitute name of saint Mary Magdalene from catholic church was spreaded in orthodox church, for example in the poetry _ M. Tsvetaeva, B. Pasternak and also within the holy writings, in Georgian conscious mainly she is considered as a prostitute lady. Even now days from the preaches of some Priests she is mentioned as a prostitute who was forgotten hard sins. In the III volume of the Life of the Saint (Tb. 2001) within the sins of Mary Magdalene the prostitute is mentioned as one of them, also in some internet resources with her name there is mentioned sin of prostitute. We are really astonished why Georgian church follow the idea about her sinful character came from the catholic church by mistake? Georgian orthodox church and Georgian Christina Culture about this items always were followed by the orthodox church doctrines, rules and tradition. Georgian original and translated exegetics writing, hymns and preaches shows the idea against the catholic church about saint Mary Magdalene character, she is not considered as an another lady from the New Testament. We confirm this from the explanations of Matthew‟s and Joan‟s Gospels in which there is given the explanation who is Mary Magdalene, also her character within the saint mothers who oiled the Christ. The character of Saint Mary Magdalene is given in several writings as: Joane Minchkhi, in hymns of Kvirike Kurdanai, in preaches of Joane Bolneli and Anton Chkondideli, in the “Heaven Gate” of Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani. The character of the saint Mary Magdalene is renewed in the poem of Teimuraz II “Speeches of day and night”.