Saint Nicholas Kavasilas Concerning Panagia

She is the cause of all beauty and magnificence, and of everything that humankind honors with hymns. All praise is to be ascribed to her alone. Indeed, she has even to be regarded as the cause of our very existence as human beings. And not only that, but it is moreover because of the Blessed Virgin that heaven and earth, the sun and the whole universe, have come into existence and attained well-being ... Christ chose her to be his Mother not only because she is the best of mothers, but because she is, in an absolute sense, the best of all (III,2; II,8).

The Incarnation of the Word was not only the work of the Father, of his Power [the Son], and of his Spirit – the first consenting, the second descending, the third overshadowing – but it was also the work of the will and the faith of the Virgin. Without the three divine persons this design could not have been set in motion; but likewise the plan could not have been carried into effect without the consent and faith of the all-pure Virgin. Only after teaching and persuading her does God make her his Mother and receive from her the flesh that she consciously wills to offer him. Just as he was conceived by his own free choice, so in the same way she became his Mother voluntarily and with her free consent (II, 4-5).

It was right that her all-holy soul should be separated from her most sacred body – separated, and so united to the soul of her Son, the second light united to the first. Her body remained for a short time in the earth, and then departed thence to be together with her soul. For it was right that she should traverse all the paths which were trodden by the Savior, that she should shine upon both the living and the dead, and so in every way should sanctify our human nature, before receiving as her dwelling-place the region appropriate to her. Thus the tomb received her body for a little while, and then heaven in its turn received this new earth, this spiritual body, this treasure of our life, more venerable than the angels, more holy than the archangels.... So the Tree was restored to the Fruit, and the Mother to her Son (III, 12).