Orthodox Churches, and Eastern Rite

[frjohnmorris]

Marys death was a consequence of what sin?

So what supernatural death are we defining?

We do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but believe that she was born in ancestral sin. We know that because she died. This is a very important point. Christ received His human nature from the Blessed Virgin. If He did not receive full and complete human nature, He could not have saved us. Remember the words of St. Gregory the Theologian, “That which is not assumed is not saved.” In Christ God assumed and healed sinful humanity because the human nature of Christ was deified by its union with the divine nature. The Holy Spirit prepared Our Lady from birth to become the Theotokos. Therefor we also believe that she committed no actual sins. On Thursday, we celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. Our Lady was brought to the Temple when she was a girl where she lived and was prepared to become the Theotokos.

Fr. John

 

[Tomdstone]

We do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but believe that she was born in ancestral sin. We know that because she died. This is a very important point. Christ received His human nature from the Blessed Virgin. If He did not receive full and complete human nature, He could not have saved us. Remember the words of St. Gregory the Theologian, “That which is not assumed is not saved.” In Christ God assumed and healed sinful humanity because the human nature of Christ was deified by its union with the divine nature. The Holy Spirit prepared Our Lady from birth to become the Theotokos. Therefor we also believe that she committed no actual sins. On Thursday, we celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. Our Lady was brought to the Temple when she was a girl where she lived and was prepared to become the Theotokos.

Fr. John

This is an extremely serious difference in doctrine between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic. I don’t see how the E. Orthodox could agree to a reunion with the Roman Catholics, while Roman Catholics hold a doctrine in total opposition to what E. Orthodox believe.

 

[frjohnmorris]

This is an extremely serious difference in doctrine between Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic. I don’t see how the E. Orthodox could agree to a reunion with the Roman Catholics, while Roman Catholics hold a doctrine in total opposition to what E. Orthodox believe.

I actually think that this can be worked out because we both affirm the sinlessness of Mary and that the Holy Spirit prepared Mary to become the Thtotokos. We have the same idea, but express it differently. The issue is not really the Immaculate Conception, but the difference between the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ancestral sin which is uninfluenced by Augustine, and the Roman Catholic doctrine of original sin that is highly influenced by Augustine. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception was only proclaimed by Pius in 1854.

Fr. John

 

[prodromos]

This is something I posted in another thread.

I would like to quote some comments from St John Maximovitch on The Orthodox Veneration of Mary the Birthgiver of GodThis teaching, which seemingly has the aim of exalting the Mother of God, in reality completely denies all Her virtues. After all, if Mary, even in the womb of Her mother, when She could not even desire anything either good or evil, was preserved by God’s grace from every impurity, and then by that grace was preserved from sin even after Her birth, then in what does Her merit consist? If She could have been placed in the state of being unable to sin, and did not sin, then for what did God glorify Her? if She, without any effort, and without having any kind of impulses to sin, remained pure, then why is She crowned more than everyone else? There is no victory without an adversary.

The righteousness and sanctity of the Virgin Mary were manifested in the fact that She, being “human with passions like us,” so loved God and gave Her*self over to Him, that by Her purity She was exalted high above the rest of the human race. For this, having been foreknown and forechosen, She was vouchsafed to be purified by the Holy Spirit Who came upon Her, and to conceive of Him the very Saviour of the world. The teaching of the grace-given sinlessness of the Virgin Mary denies Her victory over temptations; from a victor who is worthy to be crowned with crowns of glory, this makes Her a blind instrument of God’s Providence.

 

[dvdjs]

We do not accept the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but believe that she was born in ancestral sin. We know that because she died.

The mortality of the Theotokos has nothing to do with the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Nothing.

 

[dvdjs]

This is something I posted in another thread.

I would like to quote some comments from St John Maximovitch on The Orthodox Veneration of Mary the Birthgiver of GodThis teaching, which seemingly has the aim of exalting the Mother of God, in reality completely denies all Her virtues. After all, if Mary, even in the womb of Her mother, when She could not even desire anything either good or evil, was preserved by God’s grace from every impurity, and then by that grace was preserved from sin even after Her birth, then in what does Her merit consist? If She could have been placed in the state of being unable to sin, and did not sin, then for what did God glorify Her? if She, without any effort, and without having any kind of impulses to sin, remained pure, then why is She crowned more than everyone else? There is no victory without an adversary.

The righteousness and sanctity of the Virgin Mary were manifested in the fact that She, being “human with passions like us,” so loved God and gave Her*self over to Him, that by Her purity She was exalted high above the rest of the human race. For this, having been foreknown and forechosen, She was vouchsafed to be purified by the Holy Spirit Who came upon Her, and to conceive of Him the very Saviour of the world. The teaching of the grace-given sinlessness of the Virgin Mary denies Her victory over temptations; from a victor who is worthy to be crowned with crowns of glory, this makes Her a blind instrument of God’s Providence.

It sounds as though he believes that the IC “placed her in a state if being unable to sin”, or that she was without “human passions”. That is not the Catholic doctrine.

It also sounds like he might be saying that her purification did not occur until the Annunciation. Byzantine liturgical texts for the Entrance are not compatible with this view.

Finally, his problem with “grace-given sinlessness” is intriguing. Is sinlessness possible for a human being - fallen, after Adam - without grace? Who would not see the grace of God in any success in struggle against sin to anyone but God?

Yes, she “so loved God, and gave Herself over to Him” in a unique way, but had every freedom to depart from this love and deny this call.

 

[dvdjs]

I looked at both Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic (Melkite and Byzantine Catholic) translations and they all contain multiple references to the death and burial of Our Lady. Then after her death and burial she rose from the dead and ascended body and soul to Heaven.

Her burial - yes. Death - yes. I noted this many posts ago. But her death? Not so much I don’t think that the point that I am making is too subtle. The feast is about death being vanquished. About Death no longer being death, as Schmemann wrote. About the dormition being deathless, as explicitly is stated in the liturgical texts.

The death, resurrection and ascension of Mary has significance because it shows that we too will rise from the dead.

1. We know from Pascha and the teachings of the Apostles that we will rise from the dead. I do not believe that the development of the feast of the Assumption was considered to be critical evidence of this fact that was not in doubt among Christians. Was the feast celebrated before Chalcedon?
2. Our rising is not at all like her rising. We will not, within a maximum of three days, be assumed body and soul into heaven. That privilege is exceptional and unique to her.

 

[GaryTaylor]

The argument in itself makes no sense, how could it? If Tradition/tradition becomes a point of contention which it has. Then why is it the visionaries who talk about the purifying fires are dismissed. Its a double standard, in which one attempts to prove and badly I might add. They who hold the one and only “Holy Tradition”.

That’s the path of ego not of truth. Look here…

"Then the Lord held forth His right hand, Blessed His Mother and said to Her; “Let your heart rejoice and be glad, O Mary Blessed among women, for every Grace and Gift has been given to you by my heavenly Father, and every soul that calls on your name with holiness, will not be put to shame, but will find mercy and comfort both in this life and the age to come” "

St Maximus the Confessor; Life of the Virgin, pg136 chp 110. His Life of the Virgin is thought to be the earliest complete biography of Mary, the mother of Jesus.

“As She escaped the pains of childbirth in the ineffable nativity, so the pains of death did not come upon Her at the time of Her Dormition, for both then and now the Lord of natures altered nature.”

The first can in fact be defined through Tradition, why is it we don’t shout this from the top of roofs instead of some illusive idea of Marys death?

And the second doesn’t graphically define a human death and is tradition, so we should dismiss this why?

 

[frjohnmorris]

The mortality of the Theotokos has nothing to do with the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Nothing.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the Our Lady was born free of original sin. According to Orthodox doctrine, original sin or as we prefer to call it, ancestral sin is the inheritance of the consequences of Adam’s sin which is mortality, not the guilt. We are guilty of our own sins. Our Lady died. Therefore she was born in ancestral sin.

Fr. John

 

[GaryTaylor]

The guilt conversation is a dead solider. Geez, we could raise it up the flagpole and salute it by now.

There is no difference in the moment of conception, just after birth, the annunciation, the incarnation. All are the same path which leads to one truth.

We know Mary suffered the human condition as we all do, disobedience of sin and the Redeemer born into it, are not part of the equation.

 

[dvdjs]

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the Our Lady was born free of original sin. According to Orthodox doctrine, original sin or as we prefer to call it, ancestral sin is the inheritance of the consequences of Adam’s sin which is mortality, not the guilt. We are guilty of our own sins. Our Lady died. Therefore she was born in ancestral sin.

No. and the error in your understanding of the IC has been pointed out to you before in this thread. Most important is the quote from the Catholic encyclopedia in:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11406468&postcount=425
Key quote:

. We shall examine the several effects of Adam’s fault and reject those which cannot be original sin:

(1) Death and Suffering.- These are purely physical evils and cannot be called sin. Moreover St. Paul, and after him the councils, regarded death and original sin as two distinct things transmitted by Adam.

(2) Concupiscence.- This rebellion of the lower appetite transmitted to us by Adam is an occasion of sin and in that sense comes nearer to moral evil. However, the occasion of a fault is not necessarily a fault, and whilst original sin is effaced by baptism concupiscence still remains in the person baptized; therefore original sin and concupiscence cannot be one and the same thing, as was held by the early Protestants (see Council of Trent, Sess. V, can. v).

(3) The absence of sanctifying grace in the new-born child is also an effect of the first sin, for Adam, having received holiness and justice from God, lost it not only for himself but also for us (loc. cit., can. ii). If he has lost it for us we were to have received it from him at our birth with the other prerogatives of our race. Therefore the absence of sanctifying grace in a child is a real privation, it is the want of something that should have been in him according to the Divine plan. If this favour is not merely something physical but is something in the moral order, if it is holiness, its privation may be called a sin. But sanctifying grace is holiness and is so called by the Council of Trent, because holiness consists in union with God, and grace unites us intimately with God. Moral goodness consists in this, that our action is according to the moral law, but grace is a deification, as the Fathers say, a perfect conformity with God who is the first rule of all morality. (See GRACE.) Sanctifying grace therefore enters into the moral order, not as an act that passes but as a permanent tendency which exists even when the subject who possesses it does not act; it is a turning towards God, conversio ad Deum. Consequently the privation of this grace, even without any other act, would be a stain, a moral deformity, a turning away from God, aversio a Deo, and this character is not found in any other effect of the fault of Adam. This privation, therefore, is the hereditary stain.]

There is the sin of Adam = ancestral sin.
That sin has numerous consequences for us, including death and concupiscence, but these are NOT what is meant by the “stain of original sin”. That stain is the ontological deficit, the separation, to whatever degree, from God. Or, as stated in the Orthodox catechism from which I quoted: spiritual death. That IC affirms that Mary was born without that deficit, but filled with grace - in effect, baptized from the first moment of her existence. It does not say that she was not human, not mortal, not open to temptation. It simply does not.

To conflate ancestral sin and the hereditary stain of original sin is the root of your misunderstanding. The passage from the CEnc could not be more clear on this point. To say that since Mary died that the IC is wrong is a total non sequitur. Perhaps, it does give some insight into your idea of the importance of her having laid dead for some time - an importance that you promote over the deep meaning of the feast, the deathless dormition.

 

[GaryTaylor]

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is the Our Lady was born free of original sin. According to Orthodox doctrine, original sin or as we prefer to call it, ancestral sin is the inheritance of the consequences of Adam’s sin which is mortality, not the guilt. We are guilty of our own sins. Our Lady died. Therefore she was born in ancestral sin.

Fr. John

So if we are in agreement here, we should find the problem, because I believe just like you and I don’t see where the Church is teaching different. Augustine is not infallible, no Saint is, the teaching authority is.

Unless your saying the point of the IC or the Incarnation makes a difference, how? A singular act of Grace either way, She is human either way.

So your saying its traditional, as per the history. I’m saying if the debate went on for centuries as it did, feasts in Russia, Greece and England, and its not binding on the East, then what could be the issue?

 

[frjohnmorris]

No. and the error in your understanding of the IC has been pointed out to you before in this thread. Most important is the quote from the Catholic encyclopedia in:
forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=11406468&postcount=425
Key quote:

There is the sin of Adam = ancestral sin.
That sin has numerous consequences for us, including death and concupiscence, but these are NOT what is meant by the “stain of original sin”. That stain is the ontological deficit, the separation, to whatever degree, from God. Or, as stated in the Orthodox catechism from which I quoted: spiritual death. That IC affirms that Mary was born without that deficit, but filled with grace - in effect, baptized from the first moment of her existence. It does not say that she was not human, not mortal, not open to temptation. It simply does not.

To conflate ancestral sin and the hereditary stain of original sin is the root of your misunderstanding. The passage from the CEnc could not be more clear on this point. To say that since Mary died that the IC is wrong is a total non sequitur. Perhaps, it does give some insight into your idea of the importance of her having laid dead for some time - an importance that you promote over the deep meaning of the feast, the deathless dormition.

There is no such thing as a deathless dormition, because the word dormition means death. Ancestral sin is the inheritance of consequence of the sin of Adam, which is mortality, not guilt for his sin. That consequence is mortality. Because we are mortal we sin and become guilty of our own sins. We do not lose free will, the Image of God, or access to God’s grace. Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that God prepared Mary from childhood to become the Theotokos. That is what we celebrated on Thursday, November 21, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. Our Lady was brought to the Temple as a child and was taken into the Holy of Holies by the High Priest, because she was being prepared by God’s grace to become the real Holy of Holies when she would carry God Incarnate in her womb. She spent several years in the Temple in prayer and learning the Holy Scriptures. By the gift of God’s grace and the cooperation of her free will she was sinless. However, she was not preserved from ancestral sin for she died a natural death. However, she shared in the victory of her Son, Our Lord, God and Savor Jesus Christ, and rose from the dead and was assumed body and soul into Heaven. This important because Christ was fully human and took upon Himself our sins that He might die for our sins on the Cross. Because Our Lady carried ancestral sin the human nature that Christ received from her also had original sin otherwise the Incarnation could not have healed us of ancestral sin. As St. Gregory the Theologian taught “That which is not received is not healed.” Through the Incarnation God the Son became all that we are so that through the deification of His human nature (the communication of attributes) He could deliver us from ancestral sin. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception makes it impossible for Christ not to receive and heal us of ancestral sin.
It was not taught by the Holy Fathers or endorsed by one of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. Instead it developed during the Middle ages and was rejected by St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the most important medieval Western theologian. It only became doctrine by a decree of Pop Pius IX in 1854. If it were theological truth, the Church would have always taught this doctrine. It would be found in the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Fathers and the decisions of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. Since it is not, it is not a true doctrine of the Church.

Fr. John

 

[dvdjs]

There is no such thing as a deathless dormition, because the word dormition means death.

The liturgical texts of the feast in the Byzantine rite - Orthodox and Catholic explicitly use this phrase. Explicitly. Deal with it.

Ancestral sin is the inheritance of consequence of the sin of Adam, which is mortality, …

This is all nice, but very repetitive; it does not address in any way the points made in the post that you are responding to.

I have pointed out that what you say is but ONE teaching in EOC; I have quoted other Orthodox clergy in posts 425 and 426 who teach a perspective that is more aligned with Catholic teaching. In particular that through sin of Adam, we are born with a deprivation of sanctifying grace - a “stain” that is removed in Baptism… And this deprivation is what Catholics call, in the sense of sin contracted by the descendants of Adam, “original sin”. Judging by the Orthodox leaders who adhere to this perspective without censure, this teaching is perfectly Orthodox.

Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that God prepared Mary from childhood to become the Theotokos. That is what we celebrated on Thursday, November 21, the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. Our Lady was brought to the Temple as a child and was taken into the Holy of Holies by the High Priest, because she was being prepared by God’s grace to become the real Holy of Holies when she would carry God Incarnate in her womb. She spent several years in the Temple in prayer and learning the Holy Scriptures.

This is a highly novel perspective. The liturgical texts of the feast make it clear that she was already sanctified at the time of the Entrance.

By the gift of God’s grace and the cooperation of her free will she was sinless. However, she was not preserved from ancestral sin for she died a natural death.

This is perfectly Catholic, although in the CC her humanity was not in question, so there is no need to “prove” it through this odd emphasis on her physical death. And as your restricted use of “ancestral sin”, diverges from the use of “original sin” by Catholics and many Orthodox, this natural death has no bearing whatsoever on the doctrine of the IC, which specifically pertains to that component of “original sin” that you, against other Orthodox, leave out.

This important because Christ was fully human and took upon Himself our sins that He might die for our sins on the Cross.

This sounds very Western to my Eastern ear.

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception makes it impossible for Christ not to receive and heal us of ancestral sin.

This statement is absurd on its face. God’s plan of salvation cannot possibly be thwarted by our understanding, or even our misunderstanding of it. However, here again you are simply mistaken on the teaching of the doctrine of the IC. I thought that the passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia makes this all very clear. Perhaps you would like to address that passage so that the misunderstanding can be sorted out.

It was not taught by the Holy Fathers or endorsed by one of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. Instead it developed during the Middle ages and was rejected by St. Thomas Aquinas, perhaps the most important medieval Western theologian. It only became doctrine by a decree of Pop Pius IX in 1854. If it were theological truth, the Church would have always taught this doctrine. It would be found in the Holy Scriptures, the Holy Fathers and the decisions of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. Since it is not, it is not a true doctrine of the Church.

Fascinating.

What scriptural passage, or ecumenical council weighed in on the Dormition? Some EOC posters here, have stated that they feel that that teaching is non-binding, since - just as your criterion indicates - it is not “theological truth”. Ditto on the sinlessness of Mary, which even has the added impetus of a highly respected father contradicting it. I think that you need to re-think your criterion of “theological truth”. Especially since you earlier espoused a rigorous* lex orandi, lex credendi* perspective.

There were medieval scholastics who had objections to formulation of the IC that were already under discussion in their times (vitiating, btw, arguments from silence). These objections were addressed in the formulation of Pius IX - see the CEnc for more details.

Finally, it should not come as a surprise that timing of a pronouncement is connected to the timing of a problem and the fining of a resolution. One could ask why the theological truth “Theotokos”, was not resolved at early ecumenical councils, or why the Palamas perspectives on essence/energies and hesychasm was not fully articulated in the scriptures, by earlier fathers, or within the first seven councils. This argument is without merit.

 

[frjohnmorris]

The liturgical texts of the feast in the Byzantine rite - Orthodox and Catholic explicitly use this phrase. Explicitly. Deal with it.

I RESPOND: The liturgical texts for the feast make many references to her death and burial. Look at the icon for the feast. It shows Our Lady dead. Look at the web site of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese for the complete Orthodox teaching on the Dormition of the Theotokos. goarch.org/special/listen_learn_share/dormition Our Lady died and then after her death was assumed body and soul into heaven. That she died shows that she was born in ancestral sin.

This is all nice, but very repetitive; it does not address in any way the points made in the post that you are responding to.

I have pointed out that what you say is but ONE teaching in EOC; I have quoted other Orthodox clergy in posts 425 and 426 who teach a perspective that is more aligned with Catholic teaching. In particular that through sin of Adam, we are born with a deprivation of sanctifying grace - a “stain” that is removed in Baptism… And this deprivation is what Catholics call, in the sense of sin contracted by the descendants of Adam, “original sin”. Judging by the Orthodox leaders who adhere to this perspective without censure, this teaching is perfectly Orthodox.

I RESPOND: We do not use the scholastic definition of grace, including sanctifying grace. In Orthodox theology, grace is an uncreated and fully divine energy of God flowing from His hidden essence. No Orthodox theologian denies the doctrine of ancestral sin which is the inheritance of mortality which is the consequence of the sin of Adam. Read the section on ancestral sin in Fr. John Meyndorff’s Byzantine Theology pp. 143-146 for a correct explanation of the Orthodox doctrine of ancestral sin. He wrote, “There is indeed a consensus in Greek patristic and Byzantine traditions in identifying the inheritance of the Fall of the inheritance of essentially of mortality rather than sinfulness, sinfulness being a consequence of mortality.” p. 145. He also noted that Western theologians have taken “passages out of context,” from the Eastern Fathers to support the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. p. 147.
The Orthodox Church does not teach that as a result of the Fall, God deprived mankind of His grace. Fr. Michael Pozamazansky in his Orthodox Dogmatic Theology wrote, “On the other hand, we see that God did not deprive, even after the fall, of His Grace-giving gifts…" He also wrote, "The most Holy Virgin was born subject to the sin of Adam together with all mankind, and with him shared the need for redemption.” p. 195
St. John (Maximovitch) of Shanghai and San Francisco wrote, “None of the ancient Holy Fathers say that God in miraculous fashion purified the Virgin Mary while yet in the womb and many directly indicate that the Virgin Mary, just as all men, endured battle with sinfulness, but was victorious over temptation and was saved by her Divine Son.” Ibid. , ffn 9.

CONTINUED

 

[frjohnmorris]

CONTINUATION OF THE ABOVE

This is a highly novel perspective. The liturgical texts of the feast make it clear that she was already sanctified at the time of the Entrance.

I RESPOND: Fr. Pomazansky, whom as I have pointed out above taught that Our Lady was born in ancestral sin, wrote, “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 upon her.”

This is perfectly Catholic, although in the CC her humanity was not in question, so there is no need to “prove” it through this odd emphasis on her physical death. And as your restricted use of “ancestral sin”, diverges from the use of “original sin” by Catholics and many Orthodox, this natural death has no bearing whatsoever on the doctrine of the IC, which specifically pertains to that component of “original sin” that you, against other Orthodox, leave out.

I RESPOND: I know the teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Don’t you think that it is rather presumptuous for someone who is not Eastern Orthodox to tell an Eastern Orthodox Archpriest what the Eastern Orthodox Church believes. I sat with some of the most highly respected Orthodox theologians in the United States as we discussed this issue during the North American Orthodox Lutheran Dialogue. I know what we believe about ancestral sin. According to Orthodox theology ancestral sin is the inheritance of mortality. It is not inheritance of guilt or total depravity from Adam, nor is it the loss of God’s grace. That Mary died shows that she was born in ancestral sin.

This sounds very Western to my Eastern ear.

I RESPOND: Because you are Catholic, you do not have an Eastern ear. You may use our Liturgy, but your theology is not Orthodox, nor is it Eastern. It is the attitude that you express is what makes real Orthodox so offended by Eastern Catholics. I do not tell Catholics what they believe. A Catholic should not tell a real Eastern Orthodox Christian what his Church believes.

This statement is absurd on its face. God’s plan of salvation cannot possibly be thwarted by our understanding, or even our misunderstanding of it. However, here again you are simply mistaken on the teaching of the doctrine of the IC. I thought that the passage from the Catholic Encyclopedia makes this all very clear. Perhaps you would like to address that passage so that the misunderstanding can be sorted out.

Fascinating.

What scriptural passage, or ecumenical council weighed in on the Dormition? Some EOC posters here, have stated that they feel that that teaching is non-binding, since - just as your criterion indicates - it is not “theological truth”. Ditto on the sinlessness of Mary, which even has the added impetus of a highly respected father contradicting it. I think that you need to re-think your criterion of “theological truth”. Especially since you earlier espoused a rigorous* lex orandi, lex credendi* perspective.

I RESPOND: The sinlessness of Mary is part of the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church and is express constantly in our liturgical texts.

There were medieval scholastics who had objections to formulation of the IC that were already under discussion in their times (vitiating, btw, arguments from silence). These objections were addressed in the formulation of Pius IX - see the CEnc for more details.

Finally, it should not come as a surprise that timing of a pronouncement is connected to the timing of a problem and the fining of a resolution. One could ask why the theological truth “Theotokos”, was not resolved at early ecumenical councils, or why the Palamas perspectives on essence/energies and hesychasm was not fully articulated in the scriptures, by earlier fathers, or within the first seven councils. This argument is without merit.

I RESPOND I do not know what you mean. The 3rd Ecumenical Council, Ephesus 431 was an early Ecumenical Council and denounced Nestorius because he denied that Mary was the Theotokos.
The Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs of 1895 states, “The one holy, catholic and apostolic Church of the seven Ecumenical Councils teaches that the supernatural incarnation of the only-begotten Son and Word of God, of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary, is alone pure and immaculate; but the Papal Church scarcely forty years ago again made an innovation by laying down a novel dogma concerning the immaculate conception of the Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary, which was unknown to the ancient Church (and strongly opposed at different times even by the more distinguished among the papal theologians).”

Fr. John

 

[dvdjs]

Not sure what to make of this.

• You do not respond, but simply go off on tangents that avoid a direct response.
• You have not come to grips with the simple fact that the liturgical texts use the phrase “deathless dormition” even though you claim that that is an impossibility.
• You have not responded to the fact that Orthodox catechisms do diverge from your narrow, and as Moss would have it, recent and innovative view of ancestral sin.
• You have not addressed the fundamental point, clearly made in the CEnc passage, that “original sin” as seen by Catholics (and some Orthodox) is different than that narrow sense of “ancestral sin”, and that given that difference - given the actual definition of the IC - the IC fully compatible with Orthodoxy - a point that has been made by Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware).
• You have evaded the insurmountable difficulties in your idiosyncratic definition of “theological truth” and quibbled over whether the third of seven councils is early rather in the middle of councils.

Having said that:
I like the quote of Fr. Pomazansky, “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 upon her.” The only question is, when was that abundance of Grace poured upon her. The CC would say from the first instance of her existence, and that is the doctrine of the IC. Some EOs what to argue for a later time, for some reason.

Finally:
I take exception to your personal comments about my Easterness. I am a cradle BC of nearly sixty years - and that is significant - unless you want to contradict, yet again, your own lex orandi, lex credendi sentiments. I have been connected to and in dialog with Orthodox all of my life at the level of family and friends. I was at services in Antiochian Orthodox churches when they were still Syrian Orthodox, and have been a regular at Orthodox services for over a decade. In my youth, Orthodoxy still had a distinct flavor of Mohila and Dositheus. Since then, the EOC in America has been subject to the new theologizing of the offspring of the Paris school, and has been laden with the baggage brought by people whose religious formation was Protestant and often anti-Catholic. And for whom the praxis is an inorganic graft. It has changed. It is not presumptuous to say this, it is a simple, and rather widely appreciated fact. Many Orthodox - including ones that I have quoted - see this. In particular, the Orthodox from abroad that I have befriended see this very clearly. And not one of them has ever thought for a second that somehow I am not Eastern.

 

[GaryTaylor]

Difficult conversation, we are close to unlocking the door here though. Open minds we pray for, Enoch. Elijah. “never died” Marys resurrection, and the particular/general judgment, the communion of Saints come to mind.

Catholic-New Advent ,General Judgement- When Jesus Christ comes to judge “The Living and the Dead”

Return of Enoch and Elijah

The belief that these two men, who have never tasted death, are reserved for the last times to be precursors of the Second Advent was practically unanimous among the Fathers, which belief they base on several texts of Scripture. (Concerning Elijah see Malachi 4:5-6; Sirach 48:10; Matthew 17:11; concerning Enoch see Sirach 44:16)

 

[frjohnmorris]

To Dvdjs

Both Mohila and Dositheus represent a period in which Eastern Orthodox theology was highly influenced by Western ideas. Contemporary Orthodox theologians call the period of Mohila, “The Western Captivity of Orthodox Theology.” That you consider them representative of Orthodoxy instead of a great theologian like Vladimir Lossky, shows that you are not truly Eastern. The Paris School led a renewal of Orthodoxy through a return to its patristric roots and the casting off of Westernisms that had crept into Orthodoxy through people like Mohila. That you criticize the great theologians who led this renewal shows that you are not truly Eastern. That you argue in support of the Western view of the Dormition against the Eastern view shows that you are not truly Eastern. You are even more Western when you argue in support of the Western doctrine of original sin. Even the highly Westernized Confession of Dositheus did not adopt the Western view of original sin, but stated:
“We believe the first man created by God to have fallen in Paradise, when, disregarding the Divine commandment, he yielded to the deceitful counsel of the serpent. And as a result hereditary sin flowed to his posterity; so that everyone who is born after the flesh bears this burden, and experiences the fruits of it in this present world. But by these fruits and this burden we do not understand [actual] sin, such as impiety, blasphemy, murder, sodomy, adultery, fornication, enmity, and whatever else is by our depraved choice committed contrarily to the Divine Will, not from nature. For many both of the Forefathers and of the Prophets, and vast numbers of others, as well of those under the shadow [of the Law], as well as under the truth [of the Gospel], such as the divine Precursor, and especially the Mother of God the Word, the ever-virgin Mary, did not experience these [sins], or such like faults. But only what the Divine Justice inflicted upon man as a punishment for the [original] transgression, such as sweats in labor, afflictions, bodily sicknesses, pains in child-bearing, and, finally, while on our pilgrimage, to live a laborious life, and lastly, bodily death.”

Fr. John

 

[GaryTaylor]

“We believe the first man created by God to have fallen in Paradise, when, disregarding the Divine commandment, he yielded to the deceitful counsel of the serpent. And as a result hereditary sin flowed to his posterity; so that everyone who is born after the flesh bears this burden, and experiences the fruits of it in this present world. But by these fruits and this burden we do not understand [actual] sin, such as impiety, blasphemy, murder, sodomy, adultery, fornication, enmity, and whatever else is by our depraved choice committed contrarily to the Divine Will, not from nature. For many both of the Forefathers and of the Prophets, and vast numbers of others, as well of those under the shadow [of the Law], as well as under the truth [of the Gospel], such as the divine Precursor, and especially the Mother of God the Word, the ever-virgin Mary, did not experience these [sins], or such like faults. But only what the Divine Justice inflicted upon man as a punishment for the [original] transgression, such as sweats in labor, afflictions, bodily sicknesses, pains in child-bearing, and, finally, while on our pilgrimage, to live a laborious life, and lastly, bodily death.”

Fr. John

I don’t know, closer, we are getting closer.

Genesis 3:16-Foward

"To the woman he said, “I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.”

(St Mary had no birth pains according to tradition, and She resolved “the rule over you part” at least according to St Maxinus)

"To Adam he said(God), "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’ "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life.

(Note-because he disobeyed the Lord and transgressed, Mary didn’t do any of that)

“It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.”

(and it did/does)

“By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; from dust you are and to dust you will return.”

(I think that’s a guilty conversation, Enoch and Elijah)

“Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living.”

(And Mary is the New Eve)

"And the LORD God said, “The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”

(inclination to sin, the closer to the Lord the less is has any influence, course Mary was perfectly Graced and of course the tree of life is none other than Jesus Christ and the tree the Cross, Mary was good here!)

“So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.”

(And it so it was to till the Word of God became fully-human/divine…Marys yes and the Tree of Life…RISEN!!!)

“After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.”

(Tree of Life no problem, And the Heaven is now open by Christ, and Mary -resurrected)

Lovely story, surely we are not saying again Mary “had to die”, most fitting She chose to of course.

Mary chose to do just as Her Son, and of course the supernatural rest is indeed a mystery, I really think its the best,

And the East can believe in the Incarnation/IC and the West the IC.

Jesus comes to judge the “Living and the Dead”