Editor's note

Mary of the village of Magdala first appears in Luke's Gospel in a short list of women who travelled with the Lord and the Twelve through Galilee, providing for them out of their own means. Luke mentions her by name and notes, almost in passing, what had brought her into that company. The seven demons are not described and the manner of her deliverance is not told; the Gospel records only that she had been freed, and that her gratitude took the form of a life of service.

Editor's note

The Gospel of John names by name the women who did not leave the Lord at his death. The disciples had fled; Mary the Mother and the disciple whom Jesus loved had been given to each other from the Cross; and at a small distance, watching, stood the women who had served him from the days in Galilee. Of these John names three, and Mary Magdalene is one. She had been given much, and she did not turn away when the cost was demanded.

Editor's note

Of all the Gospels' Resurrection accounts, John's is the most personal. He tells the encounter as if Mary herself had told it to him. She comes to the tomb while it is still dark, finds the stone rolled away, and runs to fetch Peter and the beloved disciple. They look in, see, and go home. She remains, weeping. And when she turns, the Risen Lord himself is standing in the garden, and she does not know him until he speaks her name. The whole Church has read the scene ever since as the pattern of every soul that finally hears itself called.

Editor's note

A widely-repeated tradition relates that after the Lord's Ascension Mary Magdalene travelled to Rome to bear witness, and was received in audience by the emperor Tiberius. Holding out an egg as a sign of new life, she greeted him with the words that have echoed through every Orthodox Pascha since: Christ is risen. The Church does not place the tradition in the Gospels, but keeps it in her hymnody, and the painted red egg of the Paschal feast is held to be its memorial.