When Pope Francis announced earlier this year that the Church would recognize Mary under a new title “Mary, Mother of the Church”, Fr. Elias Mallon, SA, was asked to author a series of articles about this title for the Catholic Near East Welfare Association (CNEWA), an organization co-founded by Servant of God, Father Paul Wattson, SA. Fr. Elias, a Franciscan Friar of the Atonement who works at CNEWA, took the series a step further by comparing devotion to Mary in the Western and Eastern (Byzantine and Orthodox) Churches.

In the first article, “Hail Mary, Mother of the Church”, Fr. Elias explains:

“The number of titles given to Mary in the Roman Catholic Church almost goes beyond counting. Some, like Mother of God (Greek: theotokos) are extremely ancient, while others like Mother of the Church seem more recent. In a sense,”Mary, Mother of the Church” is a title both ancient and recent.”

Read the rest here.

In the first article, he lays out a roadmap for the subsequent reflections, saying:

“In the next two weeks we will look at how two ancient traditions — Catholic in the west and Orthodox in the east — revere and honor Mary, Mother of the Lord and Mother of the Church. Each tradition can enrich and also act as a corrective to the veneration of Mary among Christians.”

You may find the second article Hailing Mary: Part 2 – Devotion to Mary in the West here. The third article, Hailing Mary: Part 3 – Devotion to Mary in the East may be found here.