When, how and why did Mary start to be called "Queen of heaven"?
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Finding the very first instance of this is difficult; there are (as a severe underestimate) thousands of works by hundreds of writers who may have mentioned Mary. I'm relying strongly in this answer on the article I linked for you above, "The Queenship of Mary during the Patristic Period", which in turn relies heavily on an article by an "H. Barré" in the French journal Recherches de science religieuse. Unfortunately this article, "La Royaute de Marie pendant les neuf premiers siecles", is unavailable to me.
This article cites a poem attributed to Venantius Fortunatus, which though it does not use the specific title "Queen of Heaven" for Mary, does refer to her "heavenly throne":
Conderis in solio felix regina, superno,
i.e.
You are seated, happy queen, on your heavenly throne
The author notes that the attribution of the poem to Fortunatus is contested. He adds a reference to a homily of Archbishop John of Thessalonica (I don't see a quick reference to him on the web, but he appears to have been Archbishop of Thessalonica between 610 and 649). This homily, on the Dormition of Mary, begins (in Latin translation; I can't get at the Greek):
Admirandae et gloriosissimae et vere magnae totius mundi dominae, Matri semper virgini Salvatoris nostri et Dei Jesu Christi ...
that is,
To the admirable and most glorious, and truly the great lady of the whole world, the ever-virgin Mother of our Savior and God Jesus Christ ...
which again doesn't appear to use the exact phrase "Queen of Heaven", but "Great Lady of the Whole World" is certainly approaching the concept.
The idea of "Queen of the Universe" is fully present in a sermon on the Dormition by Saint John of Damascus, who depicts Christ saying to Mary:
Come, my Mother, to thy Son; reign with him who was poor with thee.
This being the history, the first evidence I can see of the specific title Queen of Heaven is in the Latin anthem Regina Coeli, which appears to have been composed about the 12th century (several hundred years after the above citations):
Queen of Heaven, rejoice, alleluia! For he whom you deserved to bear, alleluia, Has arisen, as he said; alleluia! Pray for us to God; alleluia!
Considering the wide range of writers who used the title "Queen" or "Great lady", and the length of time the idea seems to have been around before the use of the title, I'd be surprised if there were any opposition to its use. The idea that Mary was Queen, Lady of the Universe (kosmou despoina), and similar titles had been around for at least six centuries before this hymn, and no one had objected.
As far as the possibility of syncretism: this might be thought to be the case if there were a specific goddess (for example) whose cultus was local to the places where the title "lady" or "queen" began to be used. I don't see any evidence of such a being, though: if the poem I refer to above is correctly attributed to Fortunatus, then we need a Germanic goddess with such a name; if not, we're looking for a Greek one. I can't think of one that fits the bill in either case.
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