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This innovative notion introduced and dogmatised by the RCC in the 19th century, is rejected not only by the Orthodox Church, but curiously enough, it was also rejected by great post-schism Fathers of the RCC, such as Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux.Mary was concieved without Original sin.
If you accurately portray the RCC understanding of St Mary’s sinlessness as being the voluntarily induced result of her voluntary submission to God, rather than the necessary result of her being involuntarily being immaculately conceived, then what purpose did the alleged Immaculate Conception really serve?She did not sin during her life, but it was not impossible for her to sin.
Whether or not she was truly deprived of her free will or not, according to your understanding of this dogma of your church, will depend on your answer to my above question. If your answer dictates that although St Mary could possibly have sinned despite being immaculately conceived, she could not have possibly been sinless without being immaculately conceived, then there is nonetheless a challenge to her free will to an extent, for it operates in a certain context where its abilities are enhanced so to speak.During her life she had just as much free will as any of us
Yet you miss the vital contrast, namely that Eve came into being via direct creation from God, whilst St Mary was born of a woman in a fallen world. The pre-fallen state of Eve was thus natural and logical, however an immaculately conceived state imputed upon the Virgin is not natural nor is it logical. The consequence of such a notion is that she is set apart from mankind according to nature; she can no longer be considered human like us.Some refer to her as the 'new eve'. Eve was also created free of sin, yet freely chose to sin and thus brought death into the world. Mary was also created free of sin, but where Eve said no Mary said Yes, and brought life into the world.
This does not sound Orthodox at all. Can you please define the term “stain”?Little children are baptized, and this removes from them the stain of original sin.
This reasoning is fundamentally flawed. IC was never optional in the pre-schism Church (whether we focus the point of schism to the fifth century in the context of the Coptic Orthodox understanding, or even to the 11th century in the context of the Eastern Orthodox understanding), and the fact it was never a formally condemned doctrine does not automatically render valid one’s ability to hold to it as a theological opinion.The Reason that the Immaculate Conception was optional was because No Anathema was given to those who did not believe.
Comments
I, too, am a Roman Catholic (as tu es Petrus). I think he may have needed a little back up, though I do not pretend to be a very wise person or the best theoligian out there.
One thing I do not understand about the Coptic dogma is (according to my Coptic friend) that the Holy Spirit cleansed St. Mary after her birth and Christ saved her on the cross.
If St. Mary was cleansed and sinless, what did Christ save her from exactly? Could it really have been her original sin (but wasn't she already cleansed)? And if she wasn't cleansed, wasn't she not sinless?
(I just think the Catholic doctrine of her being saved through God's mercy through not letting her be born with original sin makes more sense to me.)
I hope this is not the beggining of an RC raid of this Coptic forum. Just joking ;) Welcome to you also. It’s really very simple when one understands the fact that original sin in the Orthodox concept is the inheritance of a fallen humanity that is not only fallen/corrupt in its inability to perfectly discern the will of God towards which the initial perfect image of God within us was/is naturally inclined towards (which ultimately results in sin), but that corruption also lies in the fact humanity suffers, and is mortal.
The fact St Mary lived a sinless life, and was able to do so via her own free will co-operating with the Grace of God does not suffice in fulfilling her redemption. It implies the overcoming of one of the negative consequences of original sin; however death and corruption could not have been defeated without the Incarnation and Crucifixion of our Lord, and furthermore, the achievement of sinlessness itself would not have been possible without the incarnation of our Lord in the first place.
Another point that must be made here is the fact that St Mary was never cleansed of original sin in the sense of it being a “thing” existing in her nature at one stage, and being removed at the next - this is not what we believe. One of the false implications of the RC dogma that St Mary was freed of original sin by being born without it, is the implication that original sin was defeated via St Mary being given a modified or altered nature. As briefly mentioned above in my response to tu es petrus, this sets apart her humanity from the rest of us fallen humans, and has grave Christological and Soteriological implications, for it means that the humanity that Christ took from Our Lady was not in fact the one and same humanity as the rest of us.
According to Orthodoxy, original sin is overcome, not via a cleansing or removing of it i.e. an alteration of one’s nature, but rather via the transformation of it. All of us are capable of achieving a stage of sinlessness via perfect obedience to God in co-operation with His Grace. As for St Mary, she was unique in that she was capable of achieving this sinlessness in her entire lifetime. However, there is no difference between her nature and our own, and the method with which she was able to undergo the relevant transformation, is no different to the method according to which we ourselves are able to undergo such a transformation. Her uniqueness lies in the fact that she was such a pure person (i.e. her uniqueness lies in her personhood in contrast to her nature) from her very childhood years serving in the Temple, that her will-power co-operated more effectively with the Grace of God than anyone else in the world, such that she was able to live a life of sinlessness from the inception of her life.
Please pray for me always,
Believer in God
There is no need to apologise for anything my friend; this is not a commonly discussed topic - I myself used to assume that St. Mary was a sinner until someone in turn pointed out to me that the Orthodox Church upholds the truth that she was in fact so pure so as to defeat all her temptations, according to her free-will working in sync with God's grace.
I have edited my post above, and I have linked you to Fr. Tadros Malaty's book, and I have in fact quoted the relevant passages from that book. You are right; God alone is pure, but we must remember that God is pure by nature, because in His divinity He is perfect and infinite according to His Holiness, Morality, and Righteousness. God is pure, not because He chooses to be, but rather because that is what He is; it's a defining and fundamental quality of His essence, nature, and being.
St Mary cannot compare with Him in this respect, for she was a mere fallen human like the rest of us. However, she was unique and pure in her person i.e. her ability to co-operate with the Grace of God and overcome her temptations. Without the Grace of the Lord, this would have been impossible for her.
As I mentioned in my response to salve regina however, St mary is not unique in her ability to achieve sinlessness; we too, though we have all sinned, are capable of reaching this stage of sinlessness. That is why Christ our God commands us in the book of Matthew: "Be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect." The life of perfection is not out of our reach, but rather it is within our grasp by virtue of our Lord's incarnation, and the Grace of God that entered into the world through it.
Catholics do not believe Mary is sinless by nature but only by Grace.
The Catholic position is that God graces Mary in advance, through Christ, because she will bear His Son; this Grace does not make her less human nor deprive her free will.
This was originally taught by the Syriac Fathers, specifically the Great St. Ephraim.
The whole rationale behind the RC dogma of IC is that Christ could not be born from a sinful woman; it is thus logically implicit that the reasoning behind the alleged act of St Mary’s being immaculately conceived, was that she may be sinless.
As such, although according to RC theology St Mary is not sinless by nature (which I in fact never claimed was the RC position in the first place), her sinlessness is nonetheless the result of her nature being free of original sin (i.e. immaculate) by God’s grace, else the RC dogma of IC is superfluous – it would neither make sense, nor would it serve any relevant purpose. It does make her less human, because a natural human in the fallen world, is a fallen human who bears the consequences of original sin. According to Orthodoxy, St Mary was sinless because she overcame her fallen humanity by the Grace of God, and not because the Grace of God modified her humanity to a pre-fall condition. According to Orthodoxy, redemption is achieved via the transformation of our nature, and not the modification of it. Orthodoxy cannot compromise on this understanding of salvation - known as theosis - for it is fundamental to our soteriology.
Regarding her free will, it may not be considered deprived completely, but it is indeed challenged, for it operates in a different context to that of everyone else (the willing process is advantaged), and hence the virtues for which the Church exalts her become meaningless. No Father ever taught that St Mary was immaculately conceived. Any such interpretations of the Scriptures or patristic texts, are the result of abusive eisegetical twisting on behalf of RC apologists.
What I have said, is that possessing a fallen humanity is the natural human condition of those born in a fallen world. The Fathers most certainly agree with this, that is why St Ambrose declared Christ as being unique according to His being born in a state of perfection: “Of all those born of women, there is not a single one who is perfectly holy, apart from the Lord Jesus Christ...” To emphasise the fact He was not speaking about sinlessness per se, we have St Ambrose also quoted by Fr. Tadros Malaty as saying in relation to the Theotokos: "She is a virgin, not only in body but also in spirit, whose pure mind was never spoiled by any deceit." Yet these are all consequences of a fallen humanity introduced into the world by the original sin of Adam and Eve. So did St Mary possess a fallen humanity or not? If she did, then it makes no sense to claim that she was immaculately conceived; if she did not, then it makes no sense that she nonetheless incurred some of the consequences of original sin. One truly wanders why the RCC ever introduced a dogma so confused and inconsistent. Please see each and every one of my above posts in order to understand why the Orthodox Church cannot accept the idea that “Christ’s saving Graces” were applied in an act of IC (based on an anthropological, christological, soteriological, and plain logical basis). All points made have been expressed by prominent Orthodox theologians; they make sense, and they are yet to be addressed.
The solution to overcoming the obstacle of IC is not for the Orthodox to falsely accept it as theologoumena, but rather for the RCC to recognise that it is heresy at the worst, and superfluous and baseless at the best, and to discard it as such.
-If the Holy Spirit overshadowed St Mary so that Christ wouldnt inherit the original sin (which is the corrupt nature etc), then wouldnt this mean that He did not attain the full fallen human nature, which was to be redeemed? We also say in the Liturgy
that Christ has become like us in all ways, except in sin only (free translation, i have no english liturgy book). Or was He born with a pre-fall nature.
If not, then what exactly did the Holy Spirit cleanse St. Mary from?? ???
actually, i used to think too that we directly inherited the SIN of adam itself, not the fallen nature, so that would mean that this overshadowing cleansed St Mary from this sin (temporarly in some way, or partly) so that Christ wouldnt inherit it as well. But now since that whole concept of "original sin" has changed, i end up being really really really confused lol.
i'm sure u can help me out ;)
Another point that must be made here is the fact that St Mary was never cleansed of original sin in the sense of it being a “thing” existing in her nature at one stage, and being removed at the next - this is not what we believe. According to Orthodoxy, redemption is achieved via the transformation of our nature.
I was hoping you could explain to me how original sin is transformed, and not removed (I cannot find a better word for it, but what I mean is that when someone is cleansed of something, that something is no longer part of them). What does the transformation mean?
Does transformation mean that it is still there in St. Mary's nature? Is this why you believe Christ saved her on the cross?
And also, when someone says "inherit original sin" do you take that to mean that they inherit a sin or a corrupt human nature, or both?
Thank you and God bless,
Bart P.
1- The Person of the Holy Spirit, Hypostasis, covered the Virgin Mary all during the Holy pregnancy. We the believers in the Sacrament of Al- Myroon, the Holy Anointment, do not have the Person of the Holy Spirit but we receive the grace of the Holy Spirit. There is a big difference, and this happened only to the Virgin during the Holy time of pregnancy.
2- The Holy Spirit formed a fetus, I am not sure if the word is correct, from the body of the Virgin, without the presence of male cell.
3- The Holy Spirit unite the human nature to the Divine Nature from the first moment of conception to form the “ one united nature “ or “ one incarnate nature “ without separation or division or confusion or change.
Through baptism, we are cleansed from the corruption and defects of our fallen humanity (which include mortality, physical pain and suffering, emotional distress, the inability to discern objective moral goodness, the propensity to submit to sin which is perceived as apparent goodness at the moment it is mentally conceived etc. etc.). However, our baptism isn’t some sort of a magic trick by which we are automatically made “immaculate”, and hence immortal, pain-free, and perfect from temptation and sin. Despite our being baptised, we can still subsequently fall into sin through the faulty exercise of our free will, and furthermore we still possess a fallen humanity (which is why the offspring of a marital union of a baptised couple, inherit a fallen human nature, despite the baptism of the parents). That’s a big NO. You’re right in acknowledging that you were mistaken on this thought.
I think a big problem is the fact that we Copts living in the Diaspora are sometimes so influenced by mainstream Western Christianity, to the extent that concepts and notions which are exclusively Western, and in fact alien to Orthodoxy, get shoved under a general “Christian” category. The fact we inherit the guilt and sin of Adam simply becomes an assumed “Christian” truth, rather than a strictly Western Christian innovation that is opposed to Orthodox Church Tradition. Such assumptions last until we stand corrected by someone who is more cautious…which is what happened to me, and what has happened to you, and what you will hopefully cause to happen with someone else, and so on.
Would you like to define original sin from your understanding of RC theology? Because a lot of your questions seem to implicitly presume that original sin is some existential thing, a thing that can either remain or be removed - a thing that is either in one’s nature or not. Original sin however, according to Orthodoxy, is simply a condition of humanity – the fallen human nature. As our humanity is transformed, the condition improves (for example to a pre-fall state), and ultimately it is perfected once we are conformed to the perfect image of the Son of God (which is even better than the pre-fall state). No, we do not take it to refer to the inheritance of any actual sin, or even the guilt of any actual sin. It is the inheritance of a fallen/corrupt humanity alone.
If Christ had a post-fallen nature, just as we do, and St Mary was cleansed from it (meaning she still COULD sin though) , but Christ still had the post-fallen nature as well in order to redeem us, then what was the reason for the cleansing of St Mary in the first place??
i think if u can explain this part to me, i'll understand this whole overshadowing of the Holy Spirit part, and sorry for all the questions, alf shokran ;)
oh and btw, as a medicin student i was wondering ;D. At the conception the 23 chromosomes of the oocyte (female cell) and the spermcell unite, and then u haev a full human genome of 46 chromosomes. Now in the case of St Mary there was only an oocyte, now i assume that when the Holy Spirit overshadowed St Mary (on moleculaire scale lol), the 23 other chromosomes were created from nothing, and united to form a foetus, or does the church have some other view concerning this??
As I stated before, one of the actions that the Holy Spirit did by overshadowing the Virgin is to form a complete embryo “ body “ for the Lord.. The Holy Spirit did not use “ oocyte’ or Ovum for the creation of the embryo, but He used St. Mary’s own blood cells for that creation.
Any medical student or biology student knows that the body “somatic cells” have double the numbers of the zygotic cells “ oocytes and sperms”. So for a couple to conceives, both the male and the female would provide an ovum + a sperm. Each zygote has one half of the number of chromosomes, 32 pairs, the union will result in an embryo with 46 chromosome.
In the case of the Virgin St. Mary the holy Spirit used her own blood cells, which has 46 chromosomes. That is why it was miraculous birth.
strictly speaking if u would take the genes of the blood and form a foetus from it, that would mean a clone would be formed, in this case the clone of St Mary. Personally i'd still go for the creation of the other 23 chromosomes through the Holy Spirit ;)
i'll leave this matter for now, i'm sure the Holy Spirit formed the foetus in a miraclous way, which is above comprehension.
iqbal, i'd really appreciate it if u'd still answer the questions in my previous posts, that would really really help, thxn a lot man.
The Magnificat reads (in part):
My soul glorifies the Lord
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has been mindful
of the humble state of his servant.
From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me—
holy is his name.
I am not sure whether the Magnificat has ever been used to support the Immaculate Conception. But here is how I see it, and God forgive me for any errors.
The first bolded area states that God saved St. Mary, being her savior. But this is in the present tense. Doesn't mean that St. Mary has already been saved?
This is backed up by the next bolded area. God has done great things for St. Mary. She has been chosen to bear Christ, she will be praised for ages to come. These things are surely things she meant. But, I believe she also meant the Immaculate Conception and her saving through it.
Any thoughts?
Thank you and God Bless,
Bart P.
I hope this answer suffices; you won’t find anything more elaborate or specific than that in any of the writings of the Fathers. St Ephrem the Syrian for example, says in relation to this matter: “He dwelt in the womb and cleansed it and sanctified the place of the birth pangs and the curses. The flame which Moses saw was moistening the bush and distilling the fat lest it be inflamed. The likeness of refined gold could be seen in the bush, entering into the fire but without being consumed. This happened so that it might make known that living fire which was to come at the end, watering and moistening the womb of the Virgin and clothing it like the fire that enveloped the bush” (Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron 1.25)
Unlike Hos Erof who performs the medical surgery, I’m simply the one who sues Hos Erof if he is negligent in so doing ;) Therefore, my knowledge of the medical specifics and technicalities relating to the conception of a human being (chromosomes, oocyte, zygotes etc.) is not very sophisticated; however, I do have the perfectly Orthodox answer to the questions raised according to nature of your discussion. The answer is quite simple, and it should resolve these matters quite speedily.
In his exposition on The Orthodox Faith, John of Damascus in speaking about the operation of the Holy Spirit in general, makes it very clear that the work of the Holy Spirit "surpass[es] nature and cannot be discerned except by faith alone.” The two examples which he speaks of in the context of this remark are 1) the work of the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, 2) the Work of the Holy Spirit in the transformation of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ upon the Holy Altar during the Divine Liturgy. Allow me to briefly discuss the Orthodox approach to, and understanding of 2), in order that we may conform our approach to, and understanding of 1), accordingly.
As you may or may not be aware, one of the fundamental differences between the Orthodox and RC conception of the Holy Eucharist is the RC doctrine of “transubstantiation.” The problem the Orthodox have with the doctrine of transubstantiation, is that the RCC sought to rationalise the process by which the transformation takes place, via the imposition of philosophical language and concepts. In contrast, the appropriate and Orthodox answer concerning how the transformation takes place is simply: “by the Holy Spirit”, and the appropriate and Orthodox answer concerning how the Holy Spirit performs the transformation is even more simply: “we don’t know.” For authority from the Coptic Orthodox Church specifically in relation to this matter, I refer you to the answer of H.G Bishop Youssef on the suscopts.org Q&A section. I also refer you to lecture XII: The Question of The Real Presence (in the "Literature" section of the same website), which is in fact a lecture adapted from ‘The Church Sacraments’ by Archdeacon Habib Guirgess. In that lecture, John of Damascus is in fact quoted in relation to the matter as saying:
“And now you ask how the bread becomes the body of Christ, and the wine and the water become the blood of Christ. I shall tell you. The Holy Spirit comes upon them, and achieves things which surpass every word and thought … Let it be enough for you to understand that this takes place by the Holy Spirit”
Since the context of the above quoted passage from the work of John of Damascus, in fact also refers briefly to the work of the Holy Spirit in sanctifying and conceiving the Lord Christ in the womb of the Virgin, as an example of such works of the Holy Spirit which “surpass nature and cannot be discerned except by faith alone”, I think we can therefore rephrase the passage quoted in the previous paragraph in order to sufficiently answer Hos Erof’s inquiry from the Orthodox perspective:
“And now you ask how [Christ was conceived in the womb of the Virgin]. I shall tell you. The Holy Spirit [overshadowed her], and achieves things which surpass every word and thought … Let it be enough for you to understand that this takes place by the Holy Spirit”
We can, for example, refer to many examples in the Old Testament where God was considered a present tense Saviour, not just in a temporal sense (for e.g. by leading them to victory in war, or delivering them from earthly oppression), but in a more significant and eternal sense. Well, you are free to believe as you so choose, however surely you realise that your interpretation is a far cry from what St Mary is actually saying. As you pointed out: “God has done great things for St. Mary. She has been chosen to bear Christ, she will be praised for ages to come.” So honestly, what further evidence is there that necessitates or even implies that you should read anything further into that, especially anything to do with Immaculate conception? Ofcourse, the fact that IC is a dogma of your own Church, may compell you personally to read the verse like that, however I doubt that if you ever considered the verse objectively from an Orthodox (or generally just a non-RC ) point of view, that you would find anything that could objectively compell us to read anything to do with IC in the verse in question.
Hos Erof, It was simply befitting that the Holy One and Almighty Lord of Glory be conceived in the sanctified womb of a pure human; St Mary was pure till the moment of her sanctification by the Holy Spirit, according to her voluntary non-submission to the temptations of the enemy (with the help of the Grace of God ofcourse),This is what Latin Catholics call the Immaculate Conception - that with the help of the Grace of God, Mary was pure till the moment of her santification by the Holy Spirit. They just word it backwards, using scholastic language (this is my understanding from an Eastern Catholic perspective) Catholics have never believed that Mary purified herself. Baptised in water? or in the Spirit? I accept that the Theotokos is baptised in the Spirit, but where is it said that the Holy Virgin is baptised in water as we are? The great Latin theologian, St. Thomas Aquinas never says transubstantiation describes the process. Infact he says this cannot be known, because it is a mystery. Transubstantiation was decreed to counter the protestant innovation of "consubstantiation" - the idea that Christ is mixed with bread. The protestants used this innovation to claim that the Body and Blood could be thrown out after their liturgy, some now even claim grape juice and Wonder bread are good enough. This term - transubstantiation - is not meant to describe any process of the Mystery, only clarify that Jesus is present sacramentally, really, not only symbolically as protestants claim. The Latin term "transubstatiation" describes no more than the Greek term - metousiosis.
The idea that transubstantiation describes the process is a non-Catholic one. Latin Catholics will always deny this, especially because the Eucharist is in Latin the "Mysterium Fidei" - the "mystery of Faith".
You seem to implicitly be attempting to prove that the Orthodox and the RC are teaching one and the same thing. I will debunk this idea by observing three fundamental Orthodox Mariological points: St Mary a) was conceived like any other human being, b) possessed a human nature that was (always) the same as that of any other human being, and c) bore all the consequences of original sin, just as every other human being. Can you affirm a), b), and c), yet in the same breath uphold IC? If you can, then you have just personally re-invented and re-interpreted the concept of IC, and in that case I should ask you to define what IC is exactly, and why it possesses such a name if it has no implications with respect to St Mary’s conception. And I never said that RC’s believed this…I was simply making a point to Hos Erof.
What RC’s do believe however, and what we Orthodox cannot accept, is the idea that St Mary was born pure from the “stain” of original sin such that there was nonetheless an involuntary aspect of the manner of her being that accounted for her “immaculate” nature. I never said that St Mary was baptised by water. I simply likened the effects and purpose of the sanctification of St Mary’s womb by the Holy Spirit, to effects and purpose of the baptism of those entering the Church, without making any parallel to the external form or manner of such baptism.
Your comments on transubstantiation have been responded to in a new thread here: http://tasbeha.org/content/community/index.php?board=12;action=display;threadid=3069
Here is what Dr. Dragani (Byzantine Catholic theologian) says about it:
By Admin (Admin) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 03:06 pm:
How do Eastern Catholics understand the dogma of the Immaculate Conception? Does it differ from the Western understanding?
Concerning the Eastern Catholic understanding of the Immaculate Conception, I will offer a very brief summary of the issue. First, the theological seeds of the Immaculate Conception originated in the East, and were later spread to the West. Since the earliest centuries the Eastern Churches have celebrated "St. Anne's Conception of the Theotokos," on December 9. Only later was this feast transplanted to the West, where it is celebrated on December 8.
In the Eastern Catholic Churches we have maintained much of the theological heritage of the Eastern Church Fathers. We try to be very Patristic in our theology, and generally model our theological approach after the great Eastern Fathers. In the West theology has developed somewhat differently. Beginning in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries a whole new style of theology developed, known as Scholasticism. Scholasticism utilized a great deal of philosophical terminology from the writings of Aristotle. It essentially created a whole new way to approach theological questions, and answered them with very specific philosophical terminology. Scholasticism was the dominant theological system in the Western Church until the beginning of the 20th century.
In 1854 Pope Pius IX solemnly proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Being a good Western theologian, he used a great deal of scholastic terminology in the definition. Here it is, with the specifically scholastic terms emphasized by me:
"We declare, pronounce and define that the doctrine which asserts that the Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first moment of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of almighty God, and in view of the MERITS of Jesus Christ, Saviour of the human race, was preserved free from every STAIN of original sin is a doctrine revealed by God and, for this reason, must be firmly and constantly believed by all the faithful."
There are two terms used in the definition that are completely foreign to Eastern Christian theology: "merits" and "stain." Both of these terms are of very late origin, and came to mean very specific things in the scholastic system. But to us Eastern Christians, who still use only the theological expressions of the Church Fathers, these terms are completely alien. So is this a problem, or isn't it?
I don't believe that this a problem at all. If something is written in a language that you can't understand, you simply TRANSLATE it! With some very basic knowledge of scholastic theological terminology, what Pope Pius IX is saying becomes very obvious: From the very first momemnt of her existence, Mary was miraculously preserved from all sin. We Easterns would go even a step further: she wasn't just preserved from sin, but was graced with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Also, the definition speaks of Mary being "free from every stain of original sin." In the East we have always spoken of Mary's perfect holiness. The language "free from every stain of original sin" is really a somewhat negative formulation in comparison. In fact, this definition speaks of Mary as being "absent of something (the stain of sin)," while we would prefer to speak of her as being "full of something (the Holy Spirit)." In this regard I think that the Eastern approach makes a marvelous contribution to the understanding of this dogma. So does Pope John Paul II:
"In fact, the negative formulation of the Marian privilege, which resulted from the earlier controversies about original sin that arose in the West, must always be complemented by the positive expression of Mary's holiness more explicitly stressed in the Eastern tradition." (Pope John Paul II, General Audience June 12, 1996)
So, the Holy Father agrees that the Eastern understanding of the Immaculate Conception actually helps to elucidate the meaning behind the definition.
By Admin (Admin) on Wednesday, June 26, 2002 - 03:07 pm:
I have a friend who is Serbian Orthodox and she said that the Orthodox Church believes Mary did have original sin, but she still never commited a sin. What do Eastern Catholics believe?
The dispute with the Orthodox over Mary's immaculate conception is mostly about semantics. Traditionally Eastern and Western Christianity have arrived at very different definitions of "original sin," which means that we approach Mary's immaculate state from different perspectives. Both Orthodox and Catholic Christians readily admit that Mary never sinned, as you know from speaking with your friend. According to the Western definition original sin is a sinful nature, and anyone who has it is powerless to stop sinning. Because Mary was sinless, she must not have had original sin.
In contrast, the Eastern Fathers defined original sin first and foremost as the onset of mortality and death. Because (according to the Eastern Fathers) Mary died before her body was assumed into heaven, she must have had original sin... otherwise she would have not aged, and would have been immortal. Thus many Eastern Orthodox theologians have concluded that Mary must have had original sin - but remained sinless by God's grace.
As you can see, this entire dispute goes back to how one chooses to define "original sin." Because the Eastern Catholic Churches follow the guidance of the Pope of Rome, we believe that Mary was freed from original sin at the very first moment of her existence. Agreed I don't know what you mean by this - Adam is human, yet he had no 'original sin'; Eve is human, yet has no 'original sin' (according to the Latin definition) Ok That's good, but we Eastern Catholics don't accept this scholastic language either (nor are we obligated to) but we do accept the meaning behind it.
Whether we agree or not on everything right now, we must reconsider newly introduced doctrines that seriously interfere with us being true brothers and sisters in Our Lord Jesus Christ.
It is important to remember that Christian Faith is unique and in order to understand it we must first believe, then not to approach faith subjects like we are used to in philosophy or science, also it should not be hindered by language limitations or the choice of words and translational limits. Instead we should focus on the essence as taught by Our Lord Jesus Himself, by His Passion and by His Disciples whom He chose to teach us His Bible. Then all their teaching was given to their Disciples and Followers and so on.
There is no room for any new doctrine. Only extremely careful interpretations can be made to explain traditional doctrine to the faithful within the frame of the tradition, and also to reply to many scandals of wrong teaching and their heretic teachers.
For example as the Lord Himself revealed to St John in Revelation, He addressed seven churches each with its own "Angel". Nowhere can we find such doctrines as primacy or infallibility in the Holy Bible and these can only be attributed to Our Lord Jesus. He is the Head of the Church.
This shows that new doctrines are rather instruments to divide not to unite Churches. One-sided issued Creeds had thus inevitably divided the Church and could never be successful. Issued from only one member of the Church it could not serve faith, in fact it caused confusion, divisions. See what happened: this stained Christianity with scandalous hate and catastrophic wars between the faithful, further confusion, appearance of protesters, revolted people with loss of traditional faith who miss God's Love, science and philosophy tendency to take the upper hand under the name of modernism, loss of faith by the thousands and making what is right as being wrong and vice versa.
Due to that the Sacrements too have suffered in many Churches, as prominent examples the Sacrements of Baptism and the Eucharist are altered in the RCC (note that the Lord Himself showed them to the Disciples). I know RC friends who got very disappointed from their priest because they understood their Baptism was not performed as intended (they were not submerged).
Getting back to the thread topic, sorry for this lengthy introduction, now if a head of a Church starts by saying he has primacy in any area then starts applying changes to the basics of faith and practice he will only face strong opposition, this is not a political issue but a crucial faith issue.
I realise that you took the above quote from suscopts.org, but I think its conclusions on this matter should be dismissed. The argument is ultimately flawed, for it relies on the premise that only Christ is sinless. However, as I have shown from Fr. Tadros Malaty's book St Mary in the Orthodox Concept, according to patristic tradition St Mary too was sinless.
To understand why in light of the fact that St Mary too was sinless, the doctrine of IC is still heteredox, please read my first few posts.
The Orthodox object to the entire concept of IC, and not merely the semantic representations of it. This line most clearly reveals the fundamental and irreconcilable difference between Orthodoxy and Latin/Eastern Catholicism on this issue. According to the latter St Mary was “miraculously preserved” by virtue of her IC, whereas according to the former, St Mary preserved herself from sin by her own free will co-operating with the Grace of the Holy Spirit. This Grace was available to anyone and everyone at the time of St Mary; St Mary was unique exclusively upon the grounds that unlike everyone and anyone else, she managed to consistently exercise her free will in free submission to this Grace, to the extent that she never sinned. She is immaculate according to her personhood, by virtue of the manner in which she personally exercised her free personal will; she is not however immaculate according to nature due to an immaculate conception resulting in her being “miraculously preserved” from the possession of a "sinful nature". This is not only heterodox, but it also degrades the Virgin, stripping her of the genuineness of any due honour to her. As Eastern Orthodox Saint, John Maximovitch notes in his book Life of the Virgin Mary, The Theotokos:
“if Mary, even in the womb of Anna, when she could not even desire anything either good or evil, was preserved by God's grace from every impurity, and then by that grace was preserved from sin even after her birth, then in what does her virtue consist? She would have been placed in the state of being unable to sin.” Clearly it is not. The author of this article attempts to attribute the “sinful nature”, exclusively to the “western” definition of original sin. I’m sorry but this does not jive with the Orthodox understanding of original sin (or ancestral sin, or whatever you want to call it) which encompasses mortality, death, AND the sinful nature. It is a complete package. St Mary either had original sin, or she did not. You cannot pick and choose which consequences of original sin she had, and which she didn’t. This is simply arbitrary reasoning appealed to in order get out of a self-created difficulty - the Latin/Eastern Catholics really need to just drop this superfluous and non-Traditional doctrine.
According to Orthodoxy, St Mary possessed the sinful nature; she simply managed to overcome it. She was not miraculously and uniquely preserved from the sinful nature. You cannot compare the state of existence of Adam and Eve to anyone born of a woman, since Adam and Eve were themselves not born of women. Your reasoning is akin to that of the Muslim, who attempts to argue that the fact Jesus had no earthly father, does not necessitate that He was divine, since Adam himself had no father, and was not divine in any sense according to nature.
All humans in a fallen world have a fallen nature. Period. If St Mary, who was born of fallen parents, did not possess this fallen nature, then she was not consubstantial with us (i.e. fallen mankind whom Christ came to save), and hence neither was Christ. This is also the argument of the prominent EO theologian Fr. Sergius Bulgakov who states that IC: "would separate [the Virgin] from the human race, and she would then have been unable to transmit to her Son humanity." (The Orthodox Church)
I would like to read further Fr. Tadros Malaty's "St Mary in the Orthodox Concept" you mentioned, can i find it online or even an abstract ot it? I have recently bought and read some of his books and tapes (both in english and in arabic) and heard some of his sermons.
I would like to express my gratitude for your good efforts in administering and moderating this great forum.
Thank you for your kind comments and for your fruitful participation in this forum.