In presenting the ideas of the Eastern Fathers of the Church, I am attempting to emphasize the fact that the spirituality of our Eastern Church is different from that of the Western Church. It is a long and noble tradition and our union with the Western Church has not changed our spirituality and understanding of the Good News of Jesus Christ.
For example, as early as Justin and Irenaeus, Christian tradition, especially as we hold it, established a parallel between Genesis 2 and the Lucan account of the Annunciation, and the contrast between two virgins, Eve and Mary, to symbolize two possible uses of created freedom by man: in the first, a surrender to the devil’s offer of false deification, in the send, humble acceptance of the will of God.
Although it was superseded after the Council of Ephesus by the veneration of Mary as Mother of God, the concept of the New Eve who, on behalf of all fallen humanity, was able to accept the coming of the new “dispensation,” is present in the patristic tradition throughout the Byzantine period. The Patriarch of Constantinople, Proclus, frequently used this idea in his homilies. The Virgin Mary is viewed as the goal of the Old Testament history, which began with the children of Eve. Our Father Palams writes:

Among the children of Adam, God chose the admirable Seth, and so the election, which had in view, by divine foreknowledge, her who would become the Mother of God, had its origin in the children of Adam themselves, filled up in the successive generations, descended as far as the King and Prophet David…. When it came to the time when the election should find its fulfillment, Joachim and Anna, of the house and country of David, were chosen by God….It was to them that God now promised and gave the child who would be the Mother of God.

The election of the Virgin Mary is, therefore, the culminating point of Israel’s progress toward reconciliation with God, but God’s final response to this progress and the beginning of new life comes with the Incarnation of the Word. Salvation needed a new root, writes Palamas in the same homily, for no one, except God, is without sin; no one can give life; no one can remit sins. This new root is God the Word (Jesus) made flesh; the Virgin Mary is His temple.
It should be noted that we call Mary by no other name than Mother of God. This, the Eastern Church professes, is the greatest title that can be afforded her and, if we address her by any other title, we lessen her significance in salvation history.
So what is revealed by this Eastern approach to our understanding of Mary, the Mother of God, is that she brought us a new way of thinking about our relationship with God and changing our natural, human way of responding to Him!