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I have a question about the birth of Christ. Did Christ take flesh from Saint Mary, or did God put the flesh in her womb? Also, was it a natural birth, as one would occur in modern day? Could you please give an explanation?

The authors of the Nicene Creed purposed to include the role of the Virgin Mary in the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Athanasius was the main hero of the 1st Ecumenical Council and the main architect of the Nicene and Orthodox Creed up to the affirmation of our faith in the Holy Spirit. Thus, we recite in the Creed, "... Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary, and became man..."

The Lord's divinity remained the same, but it was His humanity that He took from the Virgin Mary. Her virginity remained before, during, and after the Lord's birth. There is nothing to indicate that the Blessed Mother would not have given birth in the most natural way. If it was a supernatural birth, only angels could have been witnesses. However, the holy tradition teaches that Salome, the cousin of St. Mary and the mother of St. James and St. John the Beloved—the sons of Zebedee, was the mid-wife who attended and witnessed the delivery of our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Mary nursed our Lord as any mother would and raised Him from infancy to adulthood as any mother and child.

In his book, On the Incarnation of the Word, St Athanasius says, "Not even His birth from a virgin, therefore, changed Him in any way" (http://www.ccel.org/ccel/athanasius/incarnation.iv.html). The Lord accepted every aspect of His humanity from the womb of the Theotokos to His death on the cross. His mother, the Blessed Virgin, embraced every second of His being, from His immaculate conception, His birth from her who was and remained a virgin, to His suffering and death.