Well, for the East, “Original Sin” means death. So if the Mother of God died, then she indeed had “Original Sin.”
The question is really about what constitutes Original Sin. In the East, this is the impact of Adam’s sin of disobedience on our human nature which we have inherited from him.
In the East, in the case of BOTH the Mother of God and St John the Baptist, the feast of their Holy Conceptions are celebrated liturgically.
Since only the feast of a saint can be celebrated, this means that the Mother of God and John the Baptist were already saints i.e. sanctified at their respect Conceptions and in lieu of the tremendous role they played in salvation history.
So if the Mother of God was sanctified at her Conception, does this mean she was conceived without Original Sin? IF by OS, we mean some sort of stain such as what we contract in actual sin - then no, absolutely. The Mother of Christ our God had no sin - PERIOD.
By being sanctified in a dynamic manner (which means she was also sanctified at the Annunciation etc.), her All-Holiness completely mitigated the impact of Original Sin in her case. So, for example, she felt no pain when giving birth to Christ and her death was so gentle that it was a “falling asleep” or a “dormition.”
I don’t really know for sure what the West means by the “stain of Original Sin” and I’ve read explanations that appear to differ one from the other. So I just can’t say.
Kallistos Ware states in his “The Orthodox Way” that if he were Roman Catholic and believed in the “stain of Original Sin,” he would want the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception to assert that Mary was born free of any such stain.
However, in the Orthodox Kyivan Baroque era where there were such Orthodox Saints as St Dmitri of Rostov, St Peter Mohyla, St John Maximovych, St Sophronius Krystalsky, St Paul Koniuskevich and others (mentioned favourably by Dom Aelred Graham and other Roman Catholic writers), the veneration of the “Most holy and Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God” was highly honoured.
The Orthodox Kyivan Academy was even famous for trying to outdo the Catholic West in praising Mary’s Immaculate Conception in the 17th and 18th centuries. Orthodox students who went to study in Paris and Rome, came back home with a strong devotion to the Immaculate Conception. There were even Orthodox Brotherhoods of the Immaculate Conception (understood in the Western sense) where members wore medals similar to the Miraculous Medal and also took the “bloody vow” to defend to the death the Immaculate Conception of our Lady. The “Panaghia” prayer they said was, “All-Immaculate Theotokos, save us!” The western Akathist to the Immaculate Conception was also used widely by them. I recently saw a translation of this Akathist on a Russian Orthodox website - it was given in full with the qualifier that the IC was an “heretical doctrine.”
St Dmitri Tuptalo, Metropolitan of Rostov, was very influenced by Western devotions and was known to have prayed the Angelus at the turn of EVERY hour of the day and night (he loved the Rosary and devotion to the seven joys and sorrows of our Lady as well).
His positive views on the Immaculate Conception caused concern in Moscow and he was actually summoned to give an account of his writings on this before the Synod there. Of course, he wouldn’t change his mind on the matter!
I think that Roman Catholics should get to know some of these pro-Western devotions Orthodox Saints, including St Dmitri and St Nicodemos of the Holy Mountain and even included them in their calendar (you read correctly . . .).
I almost fell off my chair the other day when I read how St Nicodemos defended the veneration of the Sacred Heart of Christ (as did St Nicholas Kabasilas).
Nicodemos also translated the Spiritual Exercises of St Ignatius Loyola into Greek (without referencing the author, of course . . .). This book is still to be found in the spiritual literature on Mt Athos.
I think Roman Catholics would find themselves to be right at home among such Orthodox Saints, don’t you?
Alex
