Mary of Bethany

Saint Mary of Bethany was the sister of Lazarus and Martha, a family whom the Lord loved, in the village of Bethany, on the slope of the Mount of Olives near Jerusalem. The Gospels of Luke and John remember her as the one who sat at the Lord's feet to hear His word and who anointed Him with costly ointment before His Passion. The Orthodox Church keeps her memory with her sister Martha on 4 June, and again on the Sunday of the Myrrh-⁠bearing Women.

At the feet of the Lord

Luke tells that Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha received Him into her house. Her sister Mary sat at the Lord's feet and listened to His word, while Martha was busy with much serving. Martha asked that her sister be told to help her. The Lord answered that Martha was anxious and troubled about many things, but that one thing is needed, and that Mary had chosen the good portion, which would not be taken from her (Luke 10:38-42).

Sitting at the feet of a teacher was the place of a disciple. The Fathers read the two sisters as two aspects of one Christian life, service and attention to the Word, which are not set against each other. John later makes clear that the sisters lived in Bethany, and that Jesus loved Martha, her sister and Lazarus.

The raising of Lazarus

When Lazarus fell ill, the sisters sent word to the Lord. Jesus came when Lazarus had already been in the tomb four days. Martha went out to meet Him, while Mary stayed in the house until she was called. When she came to Him she fell at His feet and said what her sister had said: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

John records that when Jesus saw her weeping, and the people with her weeping, He was deeply moved in spirit and troubled, and He wept. He then went to the tomb and called Lazarus out of it (John 11).

The anointing at Bethany

Six days before the Passover, a supper was made for Jesus at Bethany. Martha served, and Lazarus was at table. Mary took a pound of very costly ointment of pure nard, anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped them with her hair, and the house was filled with the fragrance. Judas Iscariot objected that the ointment could have been sold for three hundred denarii and given to the poor. The Lord answered: "Leave her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you always have with you, but you do not always have me" (John 12:1-8).

Matthew and Mark tell of a similar anointing in Bethany, at the house of Simon the Leper, by a woman whose name they do not give. There the Lord said that wherever the gospel is preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.

Tradition and veneration

The Church of the West long identified Mary of Bethany with Mary Magdalene and with the sinful woman of Luke 7. The Orthodox Church has always honoured them as different persons.

Orthodox tradition holds that Mary and Martha believed in Christ even before their brother was raised. After the martyrdom of the Archdeacon Stephen, a persecution broke out in Jerusalem, Lazarus was driven out of the city, and his sisters helped him to proclaim the Gospel in other lands. According to the tradition of Cyprus, Lazarus became the first bishop of Kition, today Larnaca. The Greek synaxarion says that both sisters were counted worthy to die in peace, not in persecution, but the place of their repose is not known. Other, Western traditions bring her to Ephesus with the Apostle John, or to Gaul.

The Church counts Mary and Martha among the myrrh-⁠bearing women, and they are remembered on the third Sunday after Pascha. Mary also stands in the services of Lazarus Saturday, the day before Palm Sunday.