The cult of mary and the annunciation scene in Byzantine painting

The subject of our dissertation consists of two chapters. In first chapter; the cult of Mary was studied. The elements which affected the developmental process of cult of Mary were examined in details. Within this context, cult of Mother Goddesses in the polytheistic period, holy women in monotheism, references to Mary in the Old and New Testament, cult of Mary in Byzantine society, Marian devotion in Byzantine aristocrat society, the place of Mary in Byzantine liturgy were examined in details and the effects of them on Byzantine painting were discussed. The Annunciation scene was studied in the second chapter of our dissertation. The Annunciation scene was compared with the other Annunciation scenes of Old and New Testament within iconographic style. Within this context, there exist many factors which affected the developmental process of Annunciation scene's typology and iconography. The most important of them are beliefs and social-cultural-political factors. Annunciation scene does not show homogeneity in the early period of Christianity, typologically and in iconographic way. Throughout the times, all of the iconographic elements of the scene continued to develop under many factors. The scene, which started to give its mature examples during the Middle Byzantine era, continued its development in the Eastern and Byzantine geographies in a slow-gradual-in consistent way. Keywords Mary, Mariology, Annunciation, Byzantine painting, iconography, cult.