recognition of the Virgin Mary as the goal and the fulfillment of the whole history of salvation, of that history of love and obedience, of response and expectation. She is the true daughter of the Old Testament, its last and most beautiful flower. The Orthodox Church rejects the dogma of the Immaculate Conception precisely because it makes Mary a miraculous “break” in this long and patient growth of love and expectation, of this “hunger for the living God” which fills the Old Testament.
