page_title: Queen of Heaven
section_title: Biblical basis
hierarchical_section_title: Queen of Heaven / Biblical basis
caption_attribution_description: English: I've took the photo myself.
context_page_description: Queen of Heaven is a title given to the Virgin Mary, by Christians mainly of the Catholic Church and, to a lesser extent, in Anglicanism, Lutheranism, and Eastern Orthodoxy. The title is a consequence of the First Council of Ephesus in the fifth century, in which Mary was proclaimed "Theotokos", a title rendered in Latin as Mater Dei, in English "Mother of God".
  The Catholic teaching on this subject is expressed in the papal encyclical Ad Caeli Reginam, issued by Pope Pius XII. It states that Mary is called Queen of Heaven because her son, Jesus Christ, is the king of Israel and heavenly king of the universe; indeed, the Davidic tradition of Israel recognized the mother of the king as the Queen Mother of Israel.
  The title “Queen of Heaven” has long been a Catholic tradition, included in prayers and devotional literature, and seen in Western art in the subject of the Coronation of the Virgin, from the High Middle Ages, long before it was given a formal definition status by the Church.
context_section_description: In the Hebrew Bible, under some Davidic kings, the gebirah, the "Great Lady", usually the Mother of the King, held great power as advocate with the king. In 1 Kings 2:20, Solomon said to his Mother Bathsheba, seated on a throne at his right, "Make your request, Mother, for I will not refuse you." William G. Most sees here a sort of type of Mary.
  In the New Testament, the title has several biblical sources. At the Annunciation, the archangel Gabriel announces that [Jesus] "... will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David. He will rule over the house of Jacob forever and his reign will be without end."(Luke 1:32) The biblical precedent in ancient Israel is that the mother of the king becomes the queen mother.  Mary's queenship is a share in Jesus’ kingship.
  The Roman Catholic Church views Mary as the woman clothed with the sun in the Book of Revelation 12:1–3: "A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth. Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads." The Church accepts Revelation 12 as a reference to Mary, Israel, and the Church as a three-fold symbolism through the Book of Isaiah and affirms Mary as the mother of Jesus as the prophetic fulfilment described in Revelation 12 (cf. Isaiah 7:14, 26:17, 54:1, 66:7).
  In the Hebrew Bible, the term "queen of heaven" appears in a context unrelated to Mary. The prophet Jeremiah writing circa 628 BC refers to a "queen of heaven" in chapters 7 and 44 of the Book of Jeremiah when he scolds the people for having "sinned against the Lord" due to their idolatrous practices of burning incense, making cakes, and pouring out drink offerings to her. This title was probably given to Asherah, a Canaanite idol and goddess worshipped in ancient Israel and Judah. For a discussion of "queen of heaven" in the Hebrew Bible, see Queen of heaven (Antiquity).
caption: A statue of the Assumption of Mary typically crowned with 12 stars. A reflection of the biblical image in Revelation 12. Statue by Attard, Malta.
exif: {}