Immaculate Conception in Eastern Catholicism

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I have never been to an Eastern Catholic church for reasons of extreme distance, but I want to learn and would like to be an Eastern Catholic perhaps.

Do Eastern Catholics have the same doctrine as the Roman Catholics about Original Sin and the Immaculate Conception? :confused:
 
Depends who you ask. There have been many IC and OS sins in this forum and it seems Greek Catholics generally believe in Ancestral Sin like their Orthodox counterparts.

That being said, if a Catholic from one of the Syriac Churches tried to profess their belief in the mercy of Adam’s expulsion and the time of Mary’s purification (this purification in itself being mystical) being a theologoumenon I’m sure it would not be eagerly received even in the Syriac Catholic Churches. Since lay Maronites are just taught Latin theology I’m sure 95 in 100 would say we believe in IC (and 4 of those 5 who don’t would say so because they’re either Melkite-influenced or something to that affect).
 
Original Sin, the Consequences of the Fall, and the Immaculate Conception

A Byzantine Catholic perspective on what Western theologians term Original Sin:

The consequences of Adam’s fall (aka Original Sin) is physical and spiritual death. When a man dies, his soul is separated from his body (physical death) and his soul is placed in hades (spiritual death).

Christ’s soul was separated from his body and his soul went into hades. He being Life itself abolished the power of hades. He brought the righteous who were held captive in hades into heaven. The unrighteousness remain in hades until the final judgement.

Today, we are still born with the consequences of Adam’s sin. However, at baptism we are born again and, when we physically die while in Christ’s grace, our soul will go to heaven (I am not going into the purification process in this post). There is no spiritual death because we were born again in baptism and practiced repentance for our sins while on earth.

Since Christ destroyed the power of death and hades by his death and resurrection, we will be resurrected at the last day and live in the New Jerusalem with Christ forever.

The consequences of the Fall is the separation of soul and body with the soul being placed in hades. The Mother of God did not give into temptation just as Christ did not. In the East, we do not teach that man cannot have grace because of the fall, therefore, we have no need to teach the immaculate conception.

Christ was fully man. He voluntarily submitted to having his soul separated from his body and his soul sent to hades since that is what happens to man and he was (and is) a man. Christ was made like us in all things except for sin. The Mother of God was subject to the same consequences of the Fall as her Son, Christ, was.

We do not teach that losing God’s grace is a part of the consequences of the Fall. Therefore, we cannot use the Latin defined, teaching of the Immaculate Conception because it is foreign to the theological language of the East. The Mother of God was born with all of the consequences of the Fall and was full of God’s grace at the same time. She chose out of her free will to never sin.

Here is the Byzantine view presented by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky in his book, Orthodox Dogmatic Theology:
According to the Roman teaching, the burden of the sin of our first ancestors consists in the removal from mankind of a supernatural gift of grace. But here there arose a theological question: if mankind had been deprived of the gifts of grace, then how is one to understand the words of the Archangel addressed to Mary: “Rejoice, thou that art full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art thou among women . . . Thou hast found grace with God?” One could only conclude that the Most Holy Virgin Mary had been removed from the general law of the “deprivation of grace” and of the guilt of the sin of Adam. And since her life was holy from her birth, consequently she received, in the form of an exception, a supernatural gift, a grace of sanctity, even before her birth, that is, at her conception. Such a deduction was made by the Latin theologians. They called this removal a “privilege” of the Mother of God One must note that the acknowledgement of this dogma was preceded in the West by a long period of theological dispute, which lasted from the 12th century, when this teaching appeared, until the 17th century, when it was spread by Jesuits in the Roman Catholic world.

…]

On the one hand, we see that God did not deprive mankind, even after its fall, of His grace-giving gifts, as for example, the words of the 50th Psalm indicate: “Take not Thy Holy Spirit from me… With Thy governing Spirit establish me;” or the words of Psalm 70: “On Thee have I been made fast from the womb; from my mother’s womb Thou art my protector.”

On the other hand, in accordance with the teaching of Sacred Scripture, in Adam all mankind tasted the forbidden fruit. Only the God-man Christ begins with Himself the new mankind, freed by Him from the sin of Adam. Therefore, He is called the “Firstborn among many brethren” (Rom. 8:29), that is: the First in the new human race; He is the “new Adam.” The Most Holy Virgin was born as subject to the sin of Adam together with all mankind, and with him she shared the need for redemption (the Epistle of the Eastern Patriarchs, Par. 6). The pure and immaculate life of the Virgin Mary up to the Annunciation by the Archangel, her freedom from personal sins, was the fruit of the union of her spiritual labor upon herself and the abundance of grace that was poured out upon her. “Thou hast found grace with God,” the Archangel said to her in his greeting: “thou hast found,” that is, attained, acquired, earned. The Most Holy Virgin Mary was prepared by the best part of mankind as a worthy vessel for the descent of God theWord to earth The coming down of the Holy Spirit (“the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee”) totally sanctified the womb of the Virgin Mary for the reception of God the Word.
Read more: intratext.com/IXT/ENG0824/__P1N.HTM

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St John Chrysostom says:
[Romans 5] Ver. 18. “Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of One the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”
And he insists again upon it, saying,
Ver. 19. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of One shall many be made righteous.
What he says seems indeed to involve no small question: but if any one attends to it diligently, this too will admit of an easy solution. What then is the question? It is the saying that through the offence of one many were made sinners. For the fact that when he had sinned and become mortal, those who were of him should be so also, is nothing unlikely. But how would it follow that from his disobedience another would become a sinner? For at this rate a man of this sort will not even deserve punishment, if, that is, it was not from his own self that he became a sinner. What then does the word “sinners” mean here? To me it seems to mean liable to punishment and condemned to death. Now that by Adam’s death we all became mortals, he had shown clearly and at large.
Source: [ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf111.vii.xii.html]](http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/npnf111.vii.xii.html])

St Cyril speaking on the consequences of the Fall and of Christ’s Incarnation:
Therefore we say that, since from the transgression of Adam human nature suffered corruption and since our intellect within us is tyrannized by the pleasures of the flesh or by the inborn motions of the flesh, it became necessary for the salvation of us who are upon the earth that the Word of God be made man in order that he might make his own the flesh of man although it was subject to corruption and sick with the love of pleasure. Since he is life and life-giver, he would destroy the corruption in the flesh and rebuke its inborn motions, plainly those which tend toward love of pleasure. For thus it was possible that the sin in our flesh be killed.

We recalled also that the blessed Paul called this inborn motion in us the “law of sin.” Wherefore since human flesh became the Word’s own, the subjection to corruption has come to an end, and since as God, he who made it his own and proclaimed it as his own “did not know sin,” as I said, he also put an end to the sickness of loving pleasure. And the only begotten Word of God has not corrected this for himself, for he is what he always is, but obviously for us. For even if we have been subject to evil from the transgression of Adam, by all means there will come upon us also the good things of Christ, which are immortality and the death of sin.
  • St Cyril of Alexandria, Letter 45:9
The East and the West have different theological language, terminology, and patrimony.
 
Zekariya,

When a normal human being is born, from a byzantine perspective, are they not lacking something? Is it not the case that a person is born without being filled with the Grace of Christ, Grace which we have to get in Baptism.
 
We are born mortal: physically and spiritually. We do not teach the Western concept of sanctifying grace and lack thereof.
 
TRH1292 said:
Yes, I understand that. But are we born with it fully dwelling within us? I surmise not.
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This is the Byzantine teaching:
The consequences of Adam’s fall (aka Original Sin) is physical and spiritual death. When a man dies, his soul is separated from his body (physical death) and his soul is placed in hades (spiritual death).

We do not teach a removal of God’s grace at the Fall. Certainly the Sacraments confer God’s grace but this has nothing to do the Fall. We do not teach that sanctifying grace is what made Adam alive and by sinning it was removed from him causing him to die.
 
Zekariya, I don’t see much difference

“We do not teach a removal of God’s grace at the Fall.”

I view this as no different than committing a mortal sin. So then what do you call this state of Grace? Imperfect?

“Grace is the uncreated Energies of God.”

This is true, which is why I don’t see much difference.

" Certainly the Sacraments confer God’s grace but this has nothing to do the Fall."

Sure it does which is why we all baptize, its a supernatural imposed virtue of grace. So the question becomes when was St Mary Baptized. Then the creed.
 
“State of Grace” is foreign to Byzantine theology. 😉 We live in a process of Theosis. When we fall, we must get back up. There are grave sins that must be confessed before receiving the Eucharist. However, we do not teach a “state of Grace” versus a “state of mortal sin”. Abraham certainly had Grace but he still went into hades until Christ died and redeemed him. We do not teach multiple types of graces.

We are both Catholic; these are just differences in our patrimonies and traditions. 🙂
 
Zekariya - given that you accept the Orthodox understanding of sin and grace, how do you interpret the Immaculate Conception? I assume that this since this is a Catholic dogma, it must be held by all Catholic faithful.
 
The Immaculate Conception was defined in the context of Western theology. We cannot mix Western theology with Byzantine theology because there is no context to place it in.

We believe that the Theotokos is All-Holy, most pure, full of grace, and never sinned just like the West but the Immaculate Conception can only exist in the context of the Western view of Original Sin.
 
I accept it in the context of Western tradition. However, I belong to the Byzantine tradition. The Theotokos is immaculate but Byzantines do not need to explain a cleansing of Western Original Sin.
 
Zekariya said:
I accept it in the context of Western tradition. However, I belong to the Byzantine tradition. The Theotokos is immaculate but Byzantines do not need to explain a cleansing of Western Original Sin.
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I think I understand. This is an issue I’ve been trying to understand better and see if I can reconcile it with Orthodox theology.
 
I have a hard time seeing how this is not moral relativism. Or in this case, doctrinal relativism.
 
Perhaps this explains things better than I do (note the quote of Blessed Pope John Paul II).

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, Savior 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 moment 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.

Source: east2west.org/doctrine.htm#IC
 
TRH1292 said:
I have a hard time seeing how this is not moral relativism. Or in this case, doctrinal relativism.
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From the Melkite Eparchy of Newton’s website:

The “stain of original sin” was described by the 16th century Council of Trent as “the privation of righteousness that each child contracts at its conception.” There is no such understanding in Eastern theology and so to say that Mary was free of it has little meaning in the East. Perhaps this is why many Eastern Catholics, when they hear of “the Immaculate Conception” assume that it refers to the conception of Christ.

East and West agree that, the Theotokos was fully human like the rest of us: what Fr Thomas Hopko calls “mere human” unlike her Son who is a “real human” but not a mere human because He is the Word of God incarnate. In his book The Winter Pascha he writes, “We are all born mortal and tending toward sin. But we are not born guilty of any personal sin, certainly not one allegedly committed ‘in Adam.’ Nor are we born stained because of the manner in which we are conceived by the sexual union of our parents.”

The Byzantine Churches celebrate the fact of Mary’s conception on December 9, but commemorate her holiness on another feast: that of her Entrance into the Temple (November 21) In the kondakion for that feast we sing “The most pure Temple of our holy Savior, and the most precious and bright bridal chamber, the Virgin, sacred treasury of the glory of God, openly appears today in the Temple of the Lord, bringing with her the grace of the Most Holy Spirit. Wherefore, the angels of God are singing: This is the heavenly Tabernacle!” She did not become holy in the temple – she brought the grace of God with her. When and how did she acquire it? Human reasoning does not help us there. Nevertheless we ceaselessly proclaim her as our “all-holy, immaculate, most highly blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and ever virgin Mary.
Source: melkite.org/faith/sunday-scriptures/the-burning-bush-now-blossoms
 
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