That’s not why I posted it. I posted it because it says she is three years old when she entered the Temple.I have read it many times Mary…you did not need to post it. But thank you anyway…it is more beautiful each time I read it!
But I see no IC doctrine here.
And?
There was more to your story, and more to my response, than the bare facts that you reprise here. I am pleased though that you have pared your comments back to facts.It is not my story. It is a fact that we are not held to embrace this 1854 doctrine. And it is a fact that there was a time that it was not a mortal sin if you did not embrace it.
It clearly vitiates the claim that the cleaning from Original Sin did not occur until the Annunciation. We’re getting closer.I have read it many times Mary…you did not need to post it. But thank you anyway…it is more beautiful each time I read it!
But I see no IC doctrine here.
How do you figure? It does not say that she was cleansed from ancestral sin at age three. It does not say that she was cleansed from ancestral sin before the age of three.
Thank you. I believe the facts do not speak for the 1854 IC doctrine.
It’s easy. Her immaculate purity and holiness was present, manifest, and proclaimed already at the Entrance. It did not await the Annunciation as stated in the quoted Orthodox catechism. BTW, there was no explicit mention of original sin in the scriptural account of the Annunciation; that absence did not preclude the claim of cleansing from original sin at the Annunciation in quoted Orthodox catechism.
Perhaps. And not something that happened at conception.
It is a theologoumenon…just as the IC should be construed as a theologoumenon.
There is nothing to explain my friend. Catholics are held to a belief that was promulgated in 1854 under pain of mortal sin. The Orthodox have no such doctrine…it is not necessary. There are theological opinions on the matter (just as Limbo was/is a theological opinion for the Catholic church).
Discussion?
Furthermore, what does belief in the Immaculate Conception have to do with salvation? How can not believing in the IC endanger the soul? What was the need for it to be proclaimed as a dogma?There is nothing to explain my friend. Catholics are held to a belief that was promulgated in 1854 under pain of mortal sin. The Orthodox have no such doctrine…it is not necessary. There are theological opinions on the matter (just as Limbo was/is a theological opinion for the Catholic church).
The Orthodox love and veneration of the Most Holy Theotokos is profound.
Discussion?
I think it shows why this doctrine should have stayed in the realm of theologoumenon for the Latins.
There have been different opinions throughout history. Thomas Aquinas and Bernard of Clairvaux had some problems with the idea. Bonaventure was hesitant to accept it. Anselm says she was born with Original sin. The Dominicans and the Fransicans found themselves on opposite sides of the debate. I remember reading that Catherine of Sienna had a vision opposing the dogma. St Gregory Palamas believed that all generations in St Mary’s family tree were sanctified. Others believe that, at the moment when, through the power of the Holy Spirit, the divine nature was united with human nature in the womb of the Virgin Mary, the Virgin Mary first tasted her freedom from the so-called original sin and its consequences. Thus her womb became “more spacious than the heavens.” Still other great Fathers (St John Crysostom) claim that she even committed some minor sins, (what you would call venial), during her life.
To this day when I ask Roman Catholics about the IC doctrine, the vast majority think I am referring to Christ’s birth (or conception).
So you see…for the Orthodox, the 1854 doctrine is irrelevant; there is no need for it.
Yes. These are questions I have pondered also.
We sincerely pray you continue to ponder them.As I understand the timing and substance of the dogmatic clarification: it was because of the unique relationship that the Mother of God has with the Church as the Body of Christ, and her children in the Church. There is an excellent text by Cardinal Ratzinger and Father Von Balthasar, I believe, in which they discuss the Mother of God and the Church. That was the substantial impulse.
I believe this rash of Marian dogmas in the last 150 years from the RC Church is because of the heresies the anti-Catholic rhetoric of the Protestants. This is not a problem in the East as much as it is a problem in the West.
You are not alone in that opinion amongst Eastern Catholics.