The creation of the world began with God’s fiat, his “let there be” (Gen. 1:3). Today, the recreation of the world begins with the fiat of the most holy Theotokos, her “let it be” (Lk. 1:38). St. Gregory Palamas in not exaggerating for rhetorical effect or using Byzantine hyperbole when he says that the Theotokos “made the human race divine, turned earth into heaven, made God into the Son of man, and men into the sons of God.” Indeed, he calls her a “newly-established world higher than the world,” “a mysterious paradise” wherein a New Adam appears (Homily on the Nativity of the Theotokos). God once planted a garden and there made man; today the Theotokos is shown to be that garden enclosed whence springs forth God (Songs 4:12).
Most holy Theotokos, higher than all creation and Mother of the new creation, O most pure and holy Lady, save us!