>>9361
>you are not a Christian
Anyone who is not a Catholic cannot be saved, thus they cannot be called "Christian"
>The "veneration" (idolatry) of anything doesn't even go back to Constantine.
Communion of the Saints is explicitly taught by the Fathers who were instructed by Saint John the beloved Apostle. John the Apostle was an idolator?
Ὑπὸ τὴν σὴν εὐσπλαγχνίαν, καταφεύγομεν, Θεοτόκε. Τὰς ἡμῶν ἱκεσίας, μὴ παρίδῃς ἐν περιστάσει, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ κινδύνων λύτρωσαι ἡμᾶς, μόνη Ἁγνή, μόνη εὐλογημένη.
Which translates:
Beneath your compassion,
We take refuge, O Mother of God:
do not despise our petitions in time of trouble:
but rescue us from dangers,
only pure, only blessed one.
(250AD–not only does this show the immaculate view of the Blessed Virgin, they're also praying to her)
''O purest one
O purest virgin
where the Holy Spirit is, there are all things readily ordered.
Where divine grace is present
the soil that, all untilled, bears bounteous fruit
in the life of the flesh, was in possession of the incorruptible citizenship,
and walked as such in all manner of virtues, and lived a life more excellent than man's common standard
thou hast put on the vesture of purity
has selected thee as the holy one and the wholly fair;
and through thy holy, and chaste, and pure, and undefiled womb
since of all the race of man thou art by birth the holy one, and the more honourable, and the purer, and the more pious than any other: and thou hast a mind whiter than the snow, and a body made purer than any gold''
(Gregory Thaumaturgus, early 3rd century)
Eastern Fathers called her Panagia, Achrantos, Theotokos, Aeiparthenos.
>Deacon: Remembering our most holy, pure, blessed, and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever virgin Mary, with all the saints, let us commit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.
From the Divine Liturgy of Chrysostom.
>It most certainly doesn't date back to the 1st century
You can visit the painting of the Virgin Mary by Saint Luke (it dates to the Apostolic age), it's in India. It was carried all the way there by Saint Thomas.
