How to Eastern Catholics accept the Immaculate Conception?

[MarcoPolo]

I like your post too, but I was curious why you said this:

I don’t believe it should have been Dogmatized both because of this historical debate between the Saints, and the fact that it has little theological import to the foundation of the Faith.

And yet this:

In short I believe that Easterns, whether Catholic or Orthodox, shoot themselves in the foot by arguing against the Immaculate Conception on theological grounds, as all these attacks on the teaching actually rebound back on Christ.!

If this is truly a doctrine about Christ, then should it not be very important? And more importantly, is not the question whether or not the Holy Spirit revealed the doctrine?

 

[Vico]

MarcoPolo, I interject:

The Immaculate Conception dogma is that: God let Mary share beforehand in the salvation Christ would bring by his death, and kept her sinless from the first moment of her conception.

If the Cross itself is made possible only through Mary’s consent, then denial of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception makes our salvation dependent on the power of consent of one creature Mary. So denial of this dogma leads to Pelagianism, and salvation hinge on a human work!

At the time of the promulgation of the dogma it was considered to be a counter to Pelagianism (or semi-Pelagianism).

 

[Ghosty]

Also, from the Liturgy of Saint Basil:

“He lived in this world, and gave us precepts of salvation. Releasing us from the delusions of idolatry, He guided us to the sure knowledge of You, the true God and Father. He acquired us for Himself, as His chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. Having cleansed us by water and sanctified us with the Holy Spirit, He gave Himself as ransom to death in which we were held captive, sold under sin. Descending into Hades through the cross, that He might fill all things with Himself, He loosed the bonds of death.”

Thanks for posting this. Yes, Christ as a Sacrifice and Ransom is our Byzantine tradition, written into our Liturgy. To deny it in the interest of distancing Eastern Romans from Western Romans mutilates our own heritage. Anti-Latinizations can be just as damaging as Latinizations, IMO.

One of the saddest things to me is that St. John of Damascus, and many other Eastern Fathers who inspired Western Thomism, are basically ignored and written off precisely because the West drew so much from them. Perhaps they aren’t explicitly attacked, but the substance of their theologies is often utterly destroyed in the interest of being “no Latin”. This goes beyond the current discussion, but it’s relevant because it’s a disturbing trend I’ve noticed when it comes to East vs. West matters: the East too often denies its own theological history in order to maintain a kind of rigid consistency, while the West tends to embrace all of it’s legitimate, diverse theological trends and expound upon them depending on the need of the situation. There was a time in Eastern history when we were just as good as the Latins in bringing together our diverse theological thoughts, but sadly it has been lacking in recent times, with some notable exceptions.

MarcoPolo: What I mean is that the theological arguments that are often put against the Immaculate Conception by modern Eastern Orthodox and some Eastern Catholics. There are reasonable theological arguments against the Immaculate Conception, such as the ones raised by St. Thomas Aquinas and many other Latin theologians (people forget that for most of history the Immaculate Conception was much more controversial in the West than in the East), but they can all be answered by equally reasonable responses. Arguing that Mary died, therefore she couldn’t have been Immaculately Conceived rebounds against Christ who died and yet was sinless, but simply pointing out that there is no consensus among the Fathers about the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and no tradition in the West of honoring her Conception until the second millenium (it was honored in the East long before it was in the West, ironically), plus the fact that Mary could have been cleansed of all sin at the Annunciation and she still would have been a perfect vessel for Christ, makes the Dogmatic need for the Immaculate Conception very minimal to non-existent.

My point is that the kind of attacks often used by certain people lead to theological weakness, if not outright heresy, but this doesn’t make the teaching absolutely true or necessary. Just because something can’t be proven false doesn’t mean it’s proven true.

Again I want to say that not only do I accept the teaching as a Catholic (no matter how much I disagree with its Dogmatization), I personally believe in it regardless of its Dogmatization. As I said, it only makes sense that God would bless Mary in such a way, and it’s a very small thing in comparison to what we all accept that God granted her. To say that God made her Queen of Heaven, but didn’t Grace her with His Indwelling at her Conception seems like buying your mother a palace but refusing to pay for her dinner.

Peace and God bless!

 

[MarcoPolo]

honoring her Conception until the second millenium (it was honored in the East long before it was in the West, ironically)

Do you know off-hand which Eastern Father or tradition demonstrates this?

, plus the fact that Mary could have been cleansed of all sin at the Annunciation and she still would have been a perfect vessel for Christ, makes the Dogmatic need for the Immaculate Conception very minimal to non-existent.

You are free to consider the dogmatization of the IC to have a minimal or non-existent “need,” but I feel like one could play “could have been this other way” about Christ-specific doctrines or God’s plan altogether in order to minimize any dogmas about Christ or God. Yet, I think speculating that she could have been cleansed after her conception is not an alternative in light of Mary as the superior antitype of the Garden of Eden, the Ark, Eve, etc… I’m glad to hear you embrace the dogma all the same.

MarcoPolo, I interject:

The Immaculate Conception dogma is that: God let Mary share beforehand in the salvation Christ would bring by his death, and kept her sinless from the first moment of her conception.

If the Cross itself is made possible only through Mary’s consent, then denial of the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception makes our salvation dependent on the power of consent of one creature Mary. So denial of this dogma leads to Pelagianism, and salvation hinge on a human work!

At the time of the promulgation of the dogma it was considered to be a counter to Pelagianism (or semi-Pelagianism).

Thanks.

 

[Ghosty]

Do you know off-hand which Eastern Father or tradition demonstrates this?

There are several listed in post #95 of this thread. Don’t get too excited, though, there are just as many Fathers who deny or contradict the Imacculate Conception.

You are free to consider the dogmatization of the IC to have a minimal or non-existent “need,” but I feel like one could play “could have been this other way” about Christ-specific doctrines or God’s plan altogether in order to minimize any dogmas about Christ or God.

God’s plan could have gone a different way, but given what we know about how the plan did go we can’t reach any other conclusions about Christ. He must have been both God and man, must have been fully God and fully man, must have really died on the Cross and risen from the grave, ect. If any of these things are missing then the plan of Salvation doesn’t work. The Immaculate Conception, however, lends nothing that is necessary to the other core Dogmas, and therefore can’t be considered foundational, IMO. It is true, but then so is the fact that I was born with blonde hair; facts don’t make Dogma.

Yet, I think speculating that she could have been cleansed after her conception is not an alternative in light of Mary as the superior antitype of the Garden of Eden, the Ark, Eve, etc… I’m glad to hear you embrace the dogma all the same.
Thanks.

Adam is the type of Christ, but he wasn’t God and didn’t rise from the dead. Christ is the anti-type of Adam, but He is our brother and not our father. Types and anti-types don’t need to be such perfect mirrors, and Mary certainly doesn’t need to have been conceived Immaculate for her to be the anti-type of Eve. It is fitting, but not necessary. What’s more, Mary being the anti-type of Eve is not a Dogma, so there is no need to Dogmatize the Immaculate Conception in order to support it.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Marybeloved]

The Eastern understanding is that man should, by nature, possess the grace of God within him. Adam’s sin changed that and we are born without grace. Thus we are born dead, and with baptism we are “born again” (not in the Protestant sense of course). Our nature is not different, but damaged.

This is exactly the definition of original sin! And yet Easterns insist all the time that they don’t believe in original sin!

Peace!

 

[dvdjs]

Great posts Ghosty, as usual.

… pointing out that there is no consensus among the Fathers about the Immaculate Conception of Mary, and no tradition in the West of honoring her Conception until the second millenium (it was honored in the East long before it was in the West, ironically), plus the fact that Mary could have been cleansed of all sin at the Annunciation and she still would have been a perfect vessel for Christ, makes the Dogmatic need for the Immaculate Conception very minimal to non-existent.

Two points:

It should also be remembered, as noted by Fr. Lev (post 95) that there was no consensus against the Immaculate Conception until very recently in the East. The consensus opposition is an innovation just barely over a century old; it is actually foreign to authentic Orthodoxy. I am tempted to suggest that, aside from weak catechisis, this opposition affords a test to discern streams of authenticity versus Romophobic branding within contemporary Eastern Christianity.

As you suggest, Mary could have been cleansed at the Annunciation, or, as has been suggested elsewhere (post 95) at Golgotha. However, such perspectives violate the clear teaching of Eastern Christians given in the vigil of the Presentation of the Theotokos in the Temple.

 

[Warrenton]

I am tempted to ask another question, but am afraid of derailing the conversation.

Carry on!

 

[ThatOneGuy92]

 

[Warrenton]

Do you know off-hand which Eastern Father or tradition demonstrates this?

Let me help Ghosty here. The feast day is December 9 (nine months prior to her birth on September 8, also celebrated). St. John Damacene, (a saint in both Latin and Greek traditions) preached on the event (Homiles II) and the miracle of her conception is mentioned in the Greek Matins for September 8, and I think, on the feast of her mother, St. Anna.

None of us have mentioned it yet, but our Lady’s birth was itself a miracle after the manner of the birth of Isaac, as taught by the Protoevengelion of James. In the West, St. Anna and Joachim are no longer accorded the honor they once were. The prevalence of the name Anna and Joachim (in Spanish and German lands) preserves the memory of what was a living tradition.

If we start with the recognition that our Lady’s birth was miraculous, it allows us examine the question in a little different light. Is the miracle sufficient as it is, or do we need to examine and define it further?

This, perhaps, also sheds light on the concerns regarding Pelagianism. Does it make sense that God would perform a miracle, and not bring about the circumstances needful for the person to act her role in salvation history? But, to what extent does this alter how we view our Lady? Do we worship her as a living embodiment of God’s saving power (like we would bless ourselves at the parting of the Red Sea), or in the manner of a saint like St.Simon, or St. Francis, who fought the good fight against the passions?

Perhaps part of the Greek problem with the IC as defined - or at least as understood - is that it seems to lessen our Lady’s saintliness. She was humble before the Lord, and accepted his will though she could not understand it under circumstances which she knew would make others question her purity. What a trial to be accused of promiscuity when one is in fact pure!
But if she never was tempted to say no, to say “take this cup from me” then, while she remains holy, she remains holy in way that we ordinary men and women are not.

 

[Marybeloved]

Perhaps part of the Greek problem with the IC as defined - or at least as understood - is that it seems to lessen our Lady’s saintliness. She was humble before the Lord, and accepted his will though she could not understand it under circumstances which she knew would make others question her purity. What a trial to be accused of promiscuity when one is in fact pure!

I don’t understand how the IC lessens Mary’s saintliness?

But if she never was tempted to say no, to say “take this cup from me” then, while she remains holy, she remains holy in way that we ordinary men and women are not.

The virgin was never tempted? Who ever makes such a claim anywhere in Christendom, East or West? If the God-man was tempted, why not Mary? Was Eve not tempted? Wasn’t Adam? Didn’t they in fact make that choice that you’re saying was not available to Mary?

This is yet another misconception about Western theology. The virgin Mary was sinless- not impeccable. This latter quality means incapable of sin. We confess it only in our Lord, precisely because he was God himself!- It is unthinkable that God would ever make a choice contrary to his own will/self! Christ may have had two complete (different) natures but he was only one person- A divine person.

We do not, and cannot, and have absolutely no basis to believe it (impeccability) of anyone that is not God. To do so would require confessing that a spiritual creature of intelligence was made without free will! Mary was her own distinct human person with free will, like Adam and Eve before the fall, like the Angels in Heaven who are not human but intelligent creatures nonetheless. Having the nature that God made does not take away freedom of the will! God is the author of human freedom- not sin! How can we think that freedom is the result of sin/fallenness?- It was God himself that put the will in the perfect human nature he made with all its freedom and its limits!

Such a reasoning is saying principally that sin gives freedom! That unless one is born in a state of separation, he is not/cannot be free! Yet Adam and Eve chose to disobey God while they had perfect human nature and Grace and the fallen angels rejected God from the great heights God had given them. Yet all our faith tells us that this state of fallenness is not freedom but bondage to lower nature, to the flesh, to the world and to the Devil. Sin compromises freedom, our choices stop being truly ours because we are pulled along according to the weights of attachments tied to our soul. A creature that is unfallen is truly free. His choice is a true choice-He loves only what he wants to love because he chooses it. Mary chose because, she in the truest and fullest sense of the word, truly chose God’s will, just as Eve truly chose disobedience. Disobedience was perfectly available as an option to Mary, as obedience was to Eve.

So, saying that Mary had no option to say No to the Divine will is as foreign a concept to the Western mind as it is to the East .

Blessings!

 

[Warrenton]

I don’t understand how the IC lessens Mary’s saintliness?
The virgin was never tempted? Who ever makes such a claim, East or west?

I’m not saying what I think, I am trying to understand the nature of Greek objections to the IC.

As I understand it, one of their problems is that if the Blessed Virgin was immaculately conceived, then she would not be tempted to sin.

I suppose, as you suggest (and it is quite insightful, one must add!) that our Lady could have had the same free will that Adam and the angels had.

But does not that imply that her will was different from the rest of humanity’s?

 

[Marybeloved]

As I understand it, one of their problems is that if the Blessed Virgin was immaculately conceived, then she would not be tempted to sin.

Yes, I’ve seen this objection before, but just like the others, it’s truly built on sand. If you follow it to its logical conclusion, it falls apart. It would mean that they believe that sin and/or fallen nature is the author of human freedom, not God! Or that Grace destroys freedom! :shrug:None of these are true, so the objection is false.

I suppose, as you suggest (and it is quite insightful, one must add!) that our Lady could have had the same free will that Adam and the angels had.

In fact, it’s not a matter of speculation, but of faith. To believe that Mary had no free will is heretical.

But does not that imply that her will was different from the rest of humanity’s?

I’ve also heard these objections- *“But that would make her different” *Well…she was/is the MOTHER OF GOD! Can anyone even begin to imagine what special burdens might come along with that? Can anyone claim to share her experience in that regard at all? Of her alone, God required so much more than any other human (save our Savior)- Witnessing and accepting the horrible death of your son whom you know is the Lord himself, is one that comes to mind. Mary is already in deep ways different! The IC is a special privilege that goes with her special burdens.

I, myself, have zero qualms about Mary getting “special treatment”. Why wouldn’t we expect special graces for so special a burden? Being God’s mother already puts you in a category all of your own, what is the IC?

Peace!

 

[MarcoPolo]

There are several listed in post #95 of this thread. Don’t get too excited, though, there are just as many Fathers who deny or contradict the Imacculate Conception. God’s plan could have gone a different way, but given what we know about how the plan did go we can’t reach any other conclusions about Christ. He must have been both God and man, must have been fully God and fully man, must have really died on the Cross and risen from the grave, ect. If any of these things are missing then the plan of Salvation doesn’t work. The Immaculate Conception, however, lends nothing that is necessary to the other core Dogmas, and therefore can’t be considered foundational, IMO. It is true, but then so is the fact that I was born with blonde hair; facts don’t make Dogma. Adam is the type of Christ, but he wasn’t God and didn’t rise from the dead. Christ is the anti-type of Adam, but He is our brother and not our father. Types and anti-types don’t need to be such perfect mirrors, and Mary certainly doesn’t need to have been conceived Immaculate for her to be the anti-type of Eve. It is fitting, but not necessary. What’s more, Mary being the anti-type of Eve is not a Dogma, so there is no need to Dogmatize the Immaculate Conception in order to support it.

Peace and God bless!

I don’t agree with your rationale, but don’t feel a “need” to further articulate why. Thank you and and God’s blessing to you as well.

 

[Vico]

The following are the seven dogmas of faith of the Catholic Church involving Mary, given in Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Ludwig Ott:

1. Christ was truly generated and born of a daughter of Adam, the Virgin Mary.
2. Mary is truly the Mother of God.
3. Mary was conceived without stain of Original sin.
4. Mary conceived by the Holy Ghost without the co-operation of man.
5. Mary bore her Son without any violation of her virginal integrity. (general doctrinal promulgation)
6. After the Birth of Jesus Mary remained a Virgin.
7. Mary was assumed body and soul into Heaven.

 

[Alfonsus]

The Eastern understanding is that man should, by nature, possess the grace of God within him. Adam’s sin changed that and we are born without grace. Thus we are born dead, and with baptism we are “born again” (not in the Protestant sense of course). Our nature is not different, but damaged.

Thanks for your reply.
My confusion in following this thread is because sometimes you said about “fallen nature.”
It gives me some thinking, is that means man nature before and after fall changed, morphed, became different… or it is still the same nature albeit losing grace (stained or wounded or whatever…).

 

[ConstantineTG]

Thanks for your reply.
My confusion in following this thread is because sometimes you said about “fallen nature.”
It gives me some thinking, is that means man nature before and after fall changed, morphed, became different… or it is still the same nature albeit losing grace (stained or wounded or whatever…).

Of course. Man changed after the fall, that is why unlike Adam and Eve, we do not see and experience God the same way they do. We became subject to sin and death, something Adam and Eve were not subject to before The Fall.

 

[ConstantineTG]

This is exactly the definition of original sin! And yet Easterns insist all the time that they don’t believe in original sin!

Peace!

No. People are born with original sin, that is the Western definition. Eastern theology doesn’t believe people are born with something or anything.

 

[James924]

Here is an Eastern Orthodox perspective:

Metropolitan Kallistos Ware says, *“Orthodoxy, for the most part [denies] the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of Mary.”*However, he also says this:"The Orthodox Church calls Mary ‘All-Holy;’ it calls her ‘immaculate’ or ‘spotless’ (in Greek, achrantos); and all Orthodox are agreed in believing that Our Lady was free from actual sin. But was she also free from original sin? In other words, does Orthodoxy agree with the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, proclaimed as a dogma by Pope Pius the Ninth in 1854, according to which Mary, from the moment she was conceived by her mother Saint Anne, was by God’s special decree delivered from ‘all stain of original sin?’ The Orthodox Church has never in fact made any formal and definitive pronouncement on the matter. In the past individual Orthodox have made statements which, if not definitely affirming the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, at any rate approach close to it; but since 1854 the great majority of Orthodox have rejected the doctrine, for several reasons. They feel it to be unnecessary; they feel that, at any rate as defined by the Roman Catholic Church, it implies a false understanding of original sin; they suspect the doctrine because it seems to separate Mary from the rest of the descendants of Adam, putting her in a completely different class from all the other righteous men and women of the Old Testament. From the Orthodox point of view, however, the whole question belongs to the realm of theological opinion; and if an individual Orthodox today felt impelled to believe in the Immaculate Conception, he could not be termed a heretic for so doing.Link.

The thing about Orthodox and original sin that has to date still confused me is whether they think baptism of infants does anything but “incorporate into the Church” the infant. If that is the case, then I do not believe the Orthodox would consider it an important matter one way or the other if the infant is baptized since there is no stain of original sin to be cleansed.

Great info. Thanks.

 

[James924]

Not an Ecumenical Council we accept.

Eastern Catholics don’t accept all of the Ecumenical Councils? Looks like I’ve got a great deal left to learn. Can you point me to a good article on the issue of Eastern Catholicism and the Ecumenical Councils?