Immaculate Conception obligation

[griego_catolico]

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Wife and I while being officially RC have visited EC churches and agree more with their theology, especially in view of IC. Although we have gone back to a closer RC church for practical reasons. The feast of IC is a holy day of obligation for RC’s and seems strange to celebrate something we don’t particularly believe in. Anyone in similar boat?

Dear brother in Christ,

Whether one is Eastern or Roman Catholic, the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is truth revealed by God. All Catholics are obligated to believe it. Catholics are not free to “pick and choose” cafeteria-style what they want to believe and not believe.
Blessed John Paul II wrote the motu propio, Ad Teudam Fidem, in which he added new canons to both Latin and Eastern Codes of Canon Law, stating that Catholics are obligated to accept all that is taught by the magisterium of the Church:

**Roman Canon 750 and Eastern Canon 598: **
§ 1. Those things are to be believed by divine and catholic faith which are contained in the word of God as it has been written or handed down by tradition, that is, in the single deposit of faith entrusted to the Church, and which are at the same time proposed as divinely revealed either by the solemn Magisterium of the Church, or by its ordinary and universal Magisterium, which in fact is manifested by the common adherence of Christ’s faithful under the guidance of the sacred Magisterium. All are therefore bound to avoid any contrary doctrines.

§ 2. Furthermore, each and everything set forth definitively by the Magisterium of the Church regarding teaching on faith and morals must be firmly accepted and held; namely, those things required for the holy keeping and faithful exposition of the deposit of faith; therefore, anyone who rejects propositions which are to be held definitively sets himself against the teaching of the Catholic Church.
Source:vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/motu_proprio/documents/hf_jp-ii_motu-proprio_30061998_ad-tuendam-fidem_en.html

Or as Bishop John Elya, former eparch of the Eparchy of Newton said:

There is no ‘Eastern truth’ vs ‘Western truth’. Truth is one. It may be articulated according to various cultural expressions, but truth is super-cultural. Truth should not be restricted by “party line” positions. We should accept or reject ideas for their worth and not for an artificial attachment to a given “identity.” **The Church teaches truth. If something is true, it would be absurd to say “Oh, we don’t believe that in the East.” **This seems to be where we get short-circuited in ecumenical “dialogue.” All too frequently, such “dialogue” seems to presuppose a relativism where you speak “your truth” and I’ll speak “my truth” and we’ll just leave it at that. A sort of ecumenical schizophrenia.
Source:melkite.org/Questions/R-9.htm

Sincerely in Christ,
GC