I would like to offer some thoughts on the Council of Trent in its decrees on Original Sin, and see how Eastern Catholics would understand them. I’ll give the original in quotations, then respond in bold:
“1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema.”
This seems to say that death is a punishment which God inflicted upon man in wrath for his sin. This is contrary to the Orthodox teaching that death is the natural result of sin, which creates alienation from God, the source of life. This language reminds of strongly of Anselm of Canterbury in “Cur Deus Homo” who argued that the purpose of the Incarnation was to appease the wrath of God. Our problem is not the wrath of God, who “desires all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth”, but of our bondage to sin, death, and the Devil.
“2. If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:–whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.”
The translation in the Vulgate “in whom all have sinned” is incorrect. The verse actually reads “because all men have sinned”. We would disagree that we inherited sin in the sense of a thing, but rather that we inherited a corrupt nature, death, and alienation from God. We are not guilty of Adam’s sin, but we do face the consequences of that action.
“3. If any one asserts, that this sin of Adam,–which in its origin is one, and being transfused into all by propogation, not by imitation, is in each one as his own, --is taken away either by the powers of human nature, or by any other remedy than the merit of the one mediator, our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath reconciled us to God in his own blood, made unto us justice, santification, and redemption; or if he denies that the said merit of Jesus Christ is applied, both to adults and to infants, by the sacrament of baptism rightly administered in the form of the church; let him be anathema: For there is no other name under heaven given to men, whereby we must be [Page 23] saved. Whence that voice; Behold the lamb of God behold him who taketh away the sins of the world; and that other; As many as have been baptized, have put on Christ.”
The idea of the “merit” of Jesus Christ is foreign to Orthodoxy, but otherwise I have no disagreements with this paragraph.
“4. If any one denies, that infants, newly born from their mothers’ wombs, even though they be sprung from baptized parents, are to be baptized; or says that they are baptized indeed for the remission of sins, but that they derive nothing of original sin from Adam, which has need of being expiated by the laver of regeneration for the obtaining life everlasting,–whence it follows as a consequence, that in them the form of baptism, for the remission of sins, is understood to be not true, but false, --let him be anathema. For that which the apostle has said, By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men in whom all have sinned, is not to be understood otherwise than as the Catholic Church spread everywhere hath always understood it. For, by reason of this rule of faith, from a tradition of the apostles, even infants, who could not as yet commit any sin of themselves, are for this cause truly baptized for the remission of sins, that in them that may be cleansed away by regeneration, which they have contracted by generation. For, unless a man be born again of water and the Holy Ghost, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
The assertion here seems to be that infants require Baptism because they possess sin itself, not just the consequences of Adam’s sin. Again we see the quotation of “in whom all men have sinned” as the key passage for this understanding.
cont.
), and solid in their faith, however, have come to a different conclusion than mine, namely that authentic Eastern theology (the same theology used by the Orthodox) is not incompatible with beliefs held by the Roman Catholic Church, expressed primarily in Latin theology.
I know I’ve read them somewhere. Perhaps they are in the documents of Vatican II. I’ll have to check there and get back to you. 
If the Catholic Church ever said that the “Orthodox Churches possess the fullness of salvation”, I would be pretty surprised. That is quite a radical statement, and out of line with what everything I’ve read so far. :flowers: