more honorable than the Cherubim

[Olga Meerson]

Mary is definitely above angels for the Orthodox (cf. the subject title--from the most famous hymn to Her in the Orthodox Church). But that is only because having flesh, in Christianity, is more honorable than not having it--because of the importance of Incarnation. Many Hymns for Christ's own Ascension state that the angels were stunned by beholding the Son of Man (a Man!) rising above themselves. When you are an angel and have no flesh, you comprehend neither what it is nor how it can be honored above the angelic state. Having flesh is also tied with having freedom--including trhat of rejecting God. Humans have it but angels don't--after the lapse of demons, that is. Christ has become Man, not Angel. But this is a predication about Incarnation, not about divinity. Moses, Enoch and Elijah are mortal although it is likely (for a believer) that they were taken to heaven in the flesh. 
Now on apostasy. It just means that you stop believing (i.e., trusting) and confessing God. Any moral connotations (of betrayal) come from the point of view of a believer, to whom God is still real. For someone who has lost, or is convinced of having lost, their faith, there is no betrayal, as the reality of God, as a person to whom you may be faithful or unfaithful, doesn't seem to be present. I keep crying and praying when I hear about such things but I cannot force anyone to see that reality. Apostasy is immoral only if you still believe He is real and betray Him out of cowardice, lack of love for Him, or/and all those things we usually consider to be betrayal when we speak about our real and live friends. So in a sense, you are right: what kind of personal loyalty can be betrayed if you no longer believe there is a person to be loyal/faithful to? I stand corrected.
None of this, however, including even the Palamist notion of theosis, has much to do with a creature being, or becoming a deity (the ancient Greek APOtheosis). For the Orthodox and the Catholics (unless we talk sects and folk religious syncretism), saints are not gods. But they have indeed partaken of God's nature through the uncreated light He shines on them, and they are pure enough to reflect. This is what theosis means for the Orthodox--not becoming gods but becoming one in and with God, through the Communion, and through partaking of His light (Palamas' energeia).  This is Palamas, not me speaking. The same is true about Mary, only the degree is greater: she has become God's temple. She contains Him in an exemplary fashion, as the one who gave Him flesh. We the Orthodox don't believe not only in the dogma of Coredemptrix but also in another relatively new (and arbitrary) dogma, of Her being determined to be exempt from sin (the so-called Immaculate Conception, different!
  f!
rom Her own conceiving Jesus as a Virgin). This dogma actually seems to detract from Her merit of beeing freely and "effortfully" sinless.

I would not say apostasy is less common among the Orthodox. But reasons for it are usually not because of some serious disagreement with a formulation in speculative theology.  In other words, these reasons are less "Kantian". 

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