here are four official Catholic doctrines related to the Virgin Mary, often referred to as the Four Marian Dogmas. These are: 1) Mary as the Mother of God. 2) The Immaculate Conception. 3) The Perpetual Virginity of Mary. 4) The Assumption of Mary. While some of these dogmas are relatively recent official additions, their formation, belief, and acceptance go back centuries, with the oldest going back to the Council of Ephesus (AD 431). Each has an interesting and highly documented history. We’ll address each one briefly, going from the oldest to the newest. Mary as the Mother of God All Christian churches teach that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. As a result Mary is the mother of Christ—the mother of Jesus, the Son of God. As we also believe that Jesus is God, the second part of the Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), we can infer that Mary is therefore the mother of God. Immaculate Conception The second of these doctrines is the Immaculate Conception. This Catholic doctrine embraces the teaching that from the moment of her conception, the Virgin Mary was preserved from original sin. The Catholic Church has taught since the fourth century that the sin of Adam was passed on to all succeeding generations and represented the original sin of mankind that was removed through baptism. As God picked the Virgin Mary to be the mother of the Christ child, she was preserved from the stain (Latin: macula) of original sin. Further, as Mary was declared full of grace by the angel Gabriel, this condition was a declaration of what was, not what would be. The Perpetual Virginity of Mary One of the more historically and culturally interesting doctrines regarding the Virgin Mary—one that Roman Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox accept almost universally, though other Christians reject it—is the Perpetual Virginity of Mary, the mother of Jesus. For many who attend my classes on Roman Catholic theology and the history of the church, this is the one dogma, the one teaching of the Catholic Church that leads to the most discussion and dialogue. The Assumption of Mary The official doctrine of the Assumption of Mary is very recent, added only in 1950 by Pope Pius XII. However, Pope Leo IV was known to have permitted an annual feast celebrating her assumption as early as the eighth century. Church historians agree that there is nothing written in either the biblical or other historical records regarding Mary’s demise, departure, death, or assumption.