The long-term aim of the project, in collaboration with a group of international scholars, is to produce the first compendium of all reliably dated Greek, Latin and Syriac texts containing references to Mary up to the Council of Ephesus, as well as an alphabetical list of all Marian epithets that will be compared with artistic and archaeological evidence. The objective is to arrive at a comprehensive and balanced picture of the development of the Marian cult.
The project aims to produce, via an interdisciplinary, dispassionate and scientific study of early Mariology:
• a chronological inventory of all Greek, Latin and Syriac texts containing references to Mary and of all images of Mary and relevant archeological evidence up till the Council of Ephesus
• an alphabetical list of all Marian epithets
• an encyclopedia, drawing out in articles and surveys the implications of the data collected