Eastern Orthodox Versus The Immaculate Conception

[Lavacorn430]

For Lent, I offered to answer questions about the Catholic faith, my Mom’s friends on Facebook have been the ones asking me questions on her post. One lady is in a continual conversation with me about the Immaculate Conception and she is Eastern Orthodox and well educated about her faith. I was wondering if there were any good key points I could make in our conversation that could at least leave an impression on her or plant a seed of curiosity in her.

-Evelyn

 

[TigerLily-1]

Here’s a link to a very recent discussion in the CAF Eastern sub-forum about ancestral vs. original sin and the Immaculate Conception to get you started before others jump into the discussion:

Orthodox Perspective: On Ancient Sin and the Immaculate Conception Eastern Catholicism

I now come to understand that the concept of original sin in the West is the same as the concept of ancient sin in the East (although there is mostly confusion and misunderstanding of Orthodox about Catholics and vice versa on the ground about this). As I view it, according to Orthodox, it is Adam who is guilty of sin, but the whole human race continues to receive the penalty of this sin though are not guilty. There is a difference in formulation (without using words like guilt, penalty, etc.; …