E
Eden
Guest
Fr Ambrose:
Key word here being “if”…
- Status
F
Fr_Ambrose
Guest
I would like to see the reference for this. Kucharek is plainly wrong in his following statement (below) and I wonder whether he has not bothered to read Palamas correctly also?
F
Fr_Ambrose
Guest
Well, if the **“if” ** is meant to lead to a positive answer then the Patriarch is saying not just that he agrees with the Immaculate Conception but that he also agrees with…
- the addition of the filioque to the Creed
- the doctrine of a purgatorial fire
- sprinkling instead of baptism,
- the immaculate conception of the ever-Virgin
- the temporal power, the infallibility and absolutism of the Bishop of Rome
S
Sacramentalist
Guest
Fr Ambrose:
Anyway, the answer to your question should be obvious: The Oriental Orthodox do not believe in Papal Primacy or Infallibility. My understanding, actually, is that they are closer to uniting with the Orthodox than reuniting with we Catholics. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I believe the condemnations amd misunderstandings were mutual. I believe your question could just as easily be asked of the Orthodox who, acording to my understanding, have also reached the consensus that the Christological doctrine of the Oriental Orthodox is, indeed, orthodox after all.
I for one don’t appreciate your excessive sarcasm and facetiousness. It’s very condescending. Very unbecoming for a priest-monk . . .
Anyway, the answer to your question should be obvious: The Oriental Orthodox do not believe in Papal Primacy or Infallibility. My understanding, actually, is that they are closer to uniting with the Orthodox than reuniting with we Catholics. Correct me if I’m wrong.
F
Fr_Ambrose
Guest
I have to concede after skimming through your postings that you would be well acquainted with these dialectical methods
S
Sacramentalist
Guest
Fr Ambrose:
Father Ambrose is right on this one. The “if” is clearly a rhetorical device used to illustrate a point: that the Latin Church holds certain heretical doctrines, including, supposedly, that of the Immaculate Conception.
Bishop Kallistos Ware, however, in his book The Orthodox Church, says that this dogma is not considered heretical by Orthodoxy.
To each his own, I suppose . . .
Eden:Well, if the **“if” ** is meant to lead to a positive answer then the Patriarch is saying not just that he agrees with the Immaculate Conception but that he also agrees with…
To say that he is agreeing with these four teachings as well as the Immaculate Conception is absurd but your line of logic demands this conclusion
- the addition of the filioque to the Creed
- the doctrine of a purgatorial fire
- sprinkling instead of baptism,
- the immaculate conception of the ever-Virgin
- the temporal power, the infallibility and absolutism of the Bishop of Rome
Father Ambrose is right on this one. The “if” is clearly a rhetorical device used to illustrate a point: that the Latin Church holds certain heretical doctrines, including, supposedly, that of the Immaculate Conception.
Bishop Kallistos Ware, however, in his book The Orthodox Church, says that this dogma is not considered heretical by Orthodoxy.
To each his own, I suppose . . .
S
Sacramentalist
Guest
Fr Ambrose:
I reply in kind.I have to concede after skimming through your postings that you would be well acquainted with these dialectical methods
E
Eden
Guest
O.K. I’ll accept that the Orthodox encyclical was not opening its doctrine up to debate wherein the Latin Church was to be given the opportunity to prove that its doctrines where in accordance with the pre-schism Church. Fr. Ambrose, what is the Orthodox response to this part of Fr. Kucharek’s work?
**Fr. Casimir Kucharek in his magnus opus The Byzantine-Slav
Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (1971; Alleluia Press, pp. 355-357)
marshals the evidence that the early Eastern Church did believe in and
commemorate the Immaculate Conception of the Theotokos:
Also, from end to end of the Byzantine world, both Catholic
and Orthodox greet the Mother of God as archrantos, “the
immaculate, spotless one,” no less than eight times in the
Divine Liturgy alone. But especially on the feast of her
conception (December 9 in the Byzantine Church) is her
immaculateness stressed: “This day, O faithful, from saintly
parents begins to take being the spotless lamb, the most pure
tabernacle, Mary…”; “She is conceived…the only immaculate
one”; "or “Having conceived the most pure dove, Anne
filled…” [References: From the Office of Matins, the Third
Ode of the Canon for the feast; From the Office of Matins,
the Stanzas during the Seating, for the same feast; From the
Office of Matins, the Sixth Ode of the Canon for the same
feast.]
**
**
**
C
Coptic
Guest
Bingo! Obviously christology was not the only difference between the Oriental Orthodox and Catholic. Hopefully in time we’ll be able to work through the rest of our differences.
God Bless,
Elizabeth
F
Fr_Ambrose
Guest
See message #10. This is Eastern hymnology. It can be both doctrinal (and often is) but it can also be awash with hyperbole, especially when it comes to singing the praises of the unique woman who gave birth to God. The Orthodox have no problems with finishing every Service (apart from the Eucharistic Liturgy) with the prayer to the Mother of God: “Most Holy Mother of God, Save Us” and we have never thought that She is our Saviour. I don’t doubt that if the RC Co-redemptrix doctrine ever gets to be dogma that this Orthodox prayer will be roped in to prove that the Orthodox have always believed it
In the same way Mary is often addressed with divine attributes especially in the lengthy servces on her numerous feastdays. One phrase which is repeated over and over, in all private and public prayers, is “Pan-agia” and yet we know that only God is holy and certainly only He is All-Holy. In spite of Her well loved title of “The All-Holy One” the Orthodox do not attribute divinity to her.
I find it odd that Kucharek has his own unique way of re-interpreting Orthodox hymnology to suit his own doctrinal agenda. It is as if he is saying that the Orthdox hold his doctrines and they don’t even know it. Even when they deny that they believe such things, Kucherak’s response appears to be: Dumb Orthodox, it’s in your own services, you’re just too obtuse to notice it!!
D
David_E.Mahony
Guest
An interesting thread. I do not know the answers. The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is an utter irrelevance outside the context of an inherited stain of Original Sin. The latter is central to the former. Where such an inheritance is denied, the IC is not needed. It is called forth only in a milieu where a belief in inherited OS is de rigeur to explain how God could choose one, who would otherwise be stained with inherited OS, to bear the Saviour of the world. It is called forth to iron out a contradiction – to steam clean the inherited moral stain.
I understand that Pope Gregory the Great claimed emphatically that Christ alone was conceived without sin. Mary is not Christ.
The sex act always involved sin. Mary was conceived normally, therefore in sin. Jesus was conceived virginally, therefore without sin.
Ambrose and Augustine argued that Mary committed no actual sin; various Church Fathers disagreed: Tertullian, Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Origen, Basil, Cyril of Alexandria all made use of scripture, biblical texts to argue that Mary was conceived in sin. According to da Rosa some even argued that she did actually commit sin.
Amselm, holding that she was personally sinless, wrote ‘The Virgin herself was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did her mother conceive her, and with original sin was she born because she too sinned in Adam in whom all sinned.’ That she did not commit sin in her life and therefore was in her life sinless is another matter.
In the middle of the twelfth century a new feast in honour of the conception of the virgin was celebrated in Lyons. St Bernard of Clairvaux was alarmed. He wrote to the canons of Lyons (Fr. Ambrose quotes from the letter). Mary came as a fruit of sexual intercourse, she was conceived in sin. He did however hold that Mary was born sanctified; something was ‘done’ to her, ‘happened’ to her at some stage during her period of gestation in the womb of Anna.
Peter Lombard followed the Greek Father John of Damascus – Mary was conceived in original sin and was not cleansed of it until she consented to bear the Saviour. Innocent III approved this view.
Bonaventure denied that Mary was free from inherited sin. Aquinas using Aristotle claimed that the animation of the foetus is a gradual process. Initially, the conceptus was for him vegetative. He did however believe that the Virgin Mary was sanctified at some, unspecified time before her birth. His difficulties with it, if I understand them properly, seem to centre upon technicalities.
The one important theologian whose views looked to an ‘Immaculate Conception’ was Duns Scotus. (His follower summed up the doctrine: ‘Potiut, decuit, ergo fecit’). Thus the Franciscans were ranged against the Dominicans: the Maculist Thomists v. the Immaculist Scotists. (Then there is the grisly hilarity of the Brother Lester incident in Berne, 1507 – somewhat risible.) Sixtus IV ordered the ‘Feast of the Conception’ to be kept in all churches. In 1622 Gregory XVI specifically forbade the use of the word ‘immaculate’ in the ‘Feast of the Conception’, though no one could even in private disagree with a ‘Feast of the Conception’ as such.
All this shows is that there was an argument, in fact a raging debate over the centuries, with great figures taking up sides on the issue. Moreover, Fr. Ambrose may be correct when he p(name removed by moderator)oints a time in history – the Middle Ages, when the cult of devotion to the Virgin really took off in a grand way. Popular groundswell supported it (a sort of troubadour love-longing) – regardless of what specific theologians and Fathers may have thought to the contrary.
Even as early as the 9th century – with encouragement from Eadmer the doctrine took root in England. The Normans were not that keen on it whilst in Paris Bonaventure called it ‘this foreign doctrine’ referring to its acceptance in England.
I think, though I may be mistaken here, that the Orthodox idea is that we may all be like Mary in that we none of us inherit the stain of original sin. We are born into a fallen world corrupted by original sin but we personally inherit no stain of original sin. For the Orthodox perhaps the doctrine is irrelevant; there is no need for it.
David E. Mahony
I understand that Pope Gregory the Great claimed emphatically that Christ alone was conceived without sin. Mary is not Christ.
The sex act always involved sin. Mary was conceived normally, therefore in sin. Jesus was conceived virginally, therefore without sin.
Ambrose and Augustine argued that Mary committed no actual sin; various Church Fathers disagreed: Tertullian, Irenaeus, Chrysostom, Origen, Basil, Cyril of Alexandria all made use of scripture, biblical texts to argue that Mary was conceived in sin. According to da Rosa some even argued that she did actually commit sin.
Amselm, holding that she was personally sinless, wrote ‘The Virgin herself was conceived in iniquity, and in sin did her mother conceive her, and with original sin was she born because she too sinned in Adam in whom all sinned.’ That she did not commit sin in her life and therefore was in her life sinless is another matter.
In the middle of the twelfth century a new feast in honour of the conception of the virgin was celebrated in Lyons. St Bernard of Clairvaux was alarmed. He wrote to the canons of Lyons (Fr. Ambrose quotes from the letter). Mary came as a fruit of sexual intercourse, she was conceived in sin. He did however hold that Mary was born sanctified; something was ‘done’ to her, ‘happened’ to her at some stage during her period of gestation in the womb of Anna.
Peter Lombard followed the Greek Father John of Damascus – Mary was conceived in original sin and was not cleansed of it until she consented to bear the Saviour. Innocent III approved this view.
Bonaventure denied that Mary was free from inherited sin. Aquinas using Aristotle claimed that the animation of the foetus is a gradual process. Initially, the conceptus was for him vegetative. He did however believe that the Virgin Mary was sanctified at some, unspecified time before her birth. His difficulties with it, if I understand them properly, seem to centre upon technicalities.
The one important theologian whose views looked to an ‘Immaculate Conception’ was Duns Scotus. (His follower summed up the doctrine: ‘Potiut, decuit, ergo fecit’). Thus the Franciscans were ranged against the Dominicans: the Maculist Thomists v. the Immaculist Scotists. (Then there is the grisly hilarity of the Brother Lester incident in Berne, 1507 – somewhat risible.) Sixtus IV ordered the ‘Feast of the Conception’ to be kept in all churches. In 1622 Gregory XVI specifically forbade the use of the word ‘immaculate’ in the ‘Feast of the Conception’, though no one could even in private disagree with a ‘Feast of the Conception’ as such.
All this shows is that there was an argument, in fact a raging debate over the centuries, with great figures taking up sides on the issue. Moreover, Fr. Ambrose may be correct when he p(name removed by moderator)oints a time in history – the Middle Ages, when the cult of devotion to the Virgin really took off in a grand way. Popular groundswell supported it (a sort of troubadour love-longing) – regardless of what specific theologians and Fathers may have thought to the contrary.
Even as early as the 9th century – with encouragement from Eadmer the doctrine took root in England. The Normans were not that keen on it whilst in Paris Bonaventure called it ‘this foreign doctrine’ referring to its acceptance in England.
I think, though I may be mistaken here, that the Orthodox idea is that we may all be like Mary in that we none of us inherit the stain of original sin. We are born into a fallen world corrupted by original sin but we personally inherit no stain of original sin. For the Orthodox perhaps the doctrine is irrelevant; there is no need for it.
David E. Mahony
J
jimmy
Guest
Anima Christi:
His view was that Mary was concieved with Original Sin, but sometime soon after that, she was sanctified. He says that Mary could not have been sanctified before animation because then she would not have had original sin. Here is the relevant section of the Summa that discusses it.
St. Thomas Aquinas and Mary’ sanctification
The Catholic teaching is not that she was sanctified before animation. It is that she was sanctified at the time of animation. Although she was born of the human race, and that incurs Original Sin, God filled her with grace at the time of conception and sanctified her.
Aquinas believed that Mary was cleansed of all sin and attachment to sin sometime in the womb. There was no definition of the Imaculate conception at the time, so there was nothing that he rejected.
His view was that Mary was concieved with Original Sin, but sometime soon after that, she was sanctified. He says that Mary could not have been sanctified before animation because then she would not have had original sin. Here is the relevant section of the Summa that discusses it.
St. Thomas Aquinas and Mary’ sanctification
The Catholic teaching is not that she was sanctified before animation. It is that she was sanctified at the time of animation. Although she was born of the human race, and that incurs Original Sin, God filled her with grace at the time of conception and sanctified her.
F
Fr_Ambrose
Guest
So the term “Immaculate Conception” is a misnomer and we should be speaking of the “Immaculate Animation.”
J
jimmy
Guest
David E. Mahony:
I am not going to mention all your statements. Whether some of the Church Fathers disagree does not matter on the issue. There were disagreements on many issues, but the Church still teaches what it teaches. It is the Church that has been given the authority, not individual men like Peter Lombard.
Your understanding of the IC, along with OS, is not accurate with what the Catholic Church teaches. I suggest you read the Catholic Encyclopedia article on it if you want to get an understanding of what it is.
You have a false understanding of what Original Sin(OS) is. OS is not a stain, it is nothing more than a loss of Original Justice or Original Holyness. There is no actual positive thing called OS. It would be more accurate to describe as a squandered inheritance. You can see it in St. Thomas’ writings and several other saints.
Whether the pope said this, I don’t know. If it is going to be used, you should give a reference.
You have a misunderstanding of what the Immaculate Conception means. It does not mean that she just wasn’t concieved with OS. What it means is that, even though OS may have been passed on through her conception, her soul was not touched because God acted and gave her sanctifying grace. At the time of conception, God sanctified her, just like John the Baptist was sanctified in the womb.
I don’t think Irenaeus makes any mention of Mary sinning. The others I do not know. Most of what he says about Mary is her as the new Eve.
Ambrose’s view is in agreement, along with Bernards, view with the current Catholic view. Mary was concieved by sexual intercourse, which means that OS was passed on to her, but at the time of conception God also gave her sanctifying grace.
I am not going to mention all your statements. Whether some of the Church Fathers disagree does not matter on the issue. There were disagreements on many issues, but the Church still teaches what it teaches. It is the Church that has been given the authority, not individual men like Peter Lombard.
Your understanding of the IC, along with OS, is not accurate with what the Catholic Church teaches. I suggest you read the Catholic Encyclopedia article on it if you want to get an understanding of what it is.
S
Sacramentalist
Guest
When the doctrine of co-Redemption is properly understood, it’s a very Eastern concept, and in fact many Catholic theologians and apologists appeal to the Eastern tradition on this matter. But please, let’s save this for another thread.
Father Ambrose, a conceptus is an animated human being. Some of the ancients, relying on the faulty science of Aristotle (I don’t know where he himself got it from) doubted this, but today we don’t.
It’s impossible to sanctify something before it exists.
S
Sacramentalist
Guest
The older Catechisms, along with every pre-Vatican II treatments of this subject I have seen, treat Original sin as a stain and an inheriting of guilt. Or are we to understand “stain” and “guilt” in an analogical or metaphorical sense?
S
Sacramentalist
Guest
Fr Ambrose:
Catholics read into these hymns their own understanding and see an affirmation of Our Lady’s complete purity: namely, that from the moment of conception she was filled with the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit.
What makes this all the more confusing is the fact that both our Churches consider these liturgical texts to be their own. We Catholics see these texts to be Eastern Catholic compositions which were continued to be used by your schismatic Church after the Great Schism.
You, of course, don’t see it that way.
I guess my question to you, Father Ambrose, would be: What would we Catholics have to show you to demonstrate that Mary’s All-Holiness (to the extent that a human being can be all-holy) is one that is grounded in the authentic Tradition of the undivided Church? It seems that any evidence we present to you, no matter how explicit, can be regarded as “just hyperbole.”
Using the Fathers to debate Orthodox is a lot like Protestants using Scripture to debate with Catholics. (I don’t mean to equate your heresy with Protestantism.) That is to say, whenever Protestants, or even sects like Jehovah’s Witnesses, point out what they believe to be Biblical contradictions to Catholic (and Orthodox) beliefs, our response is: “It’s nice that you Protestants feel that way and have come to this interpretation, but this is not how the Church has always understood her Scriptures to mean.” Then follows a discussion of “to whom” the Scriptures belong.
Ditto with the Fathers, when discussing these things with Orthodox.
I’m sure you feel the same way, no?
Ultimately, it seems all questions boil down to authority in the Church . . .
Well, Father Ambrose, I suppose it’s a matter of perspective. Orthodox read into these hymns their own understanding of Mary’s sanctity and interpret them as mere hyperbole.See message #10. This is Eastern hymnology. It can be both doctrinal (and often is) but it can also be awash with hyperbole, especially when it comes to singing the praises of the unique woman who gave birth to God. The Orthodox have no problems with finishing every Service (apart from the Eucharistic Liturgy) with the prayer to the Mother of God: “Most Holy Mother of God, Save Us” and we have never thought that She is our Saviour. I don’t doubt that if the RC Co-redemptrix doctrine ever gets to be dogma that this Orthodox prayer will be roped in to prove that the Orthodox have always believed it
In the same way Mary is often addressed with divine attributes especially in the lengthy servces on her numerous feastdays. One phrase which is repeated over and over, in all private and public prayers, is “Pan-agia” and yet we know that only God is holy and certainly only He is All-Holy. In spite of Her well loved title of “The All-Holy One” the Orthodox do not attribute divinity to her.
I find it odd that Kucharek has his own unique way of re-interpreting Orthodox hymnology to suit his own doctrinal agenda. It is as if he is saying that the Orthdox hold his doctrines and they don’t even know it. Even when they deny that they believe such things, Kucherak’s response appears to be: Dumb Orthodox, it’s in your own services, you’re just too obtuse to notice it!!
Catholics read into these hymns their own understanding and see an affirmation of Our Lady’s complete purity: namely, that from the moment of conception she was filled with the sanctifying grace of the Holy Spirit.
What makes this all the more confusing is the fact that both our Churches consider these liturgical texts to be their own. We Catholics see these texts to be Eastern Catholic compositions which were continued to be used by your schismatic Church after the Great Schism.
You, of course, don’t see it that way.
I guess my question to you, Father Ambrose, would be: What would we Catholics have to show you to demonstrate that Mary’s All-Holiness (to the extent that a human being can be all-holy) is one that is grounded in the authentic Tradition of the undivided Church? It seems that any evidence we present to you, no matter how explicit, can be regarded as “just hyperbole.”
Using the Fathers to debate Orthodox is a lot like Protestants using Scripture to debate with Catholics. (I don’t mean to equate your heresy with Protestantism.) That is to say, whenever Protestants, or even sects like Jehovah’s Witnesses, point out what they believe to be Biblical contradictions to Catholic (and Orthodox) beliefs, our response is: “It’s nice that you Protestants feel that way and have come to this interpretation, but this is not how the Church has always understood her Scriptures to mean.” Then follows a discussion of “to whom” the Scriptures belong.
Ditto with the Fathers, when discussing these things with Orthodox.
I’m sure you feel the same way, no?
Ultimately, it seems all questions boil down to authority in the Church . . .
J
jimmy
Guest
I don’t know what your sources are, but here is what Aquinas says,
Accordingly the privation of original justice, whereby the will was made subject to God, is the formal element in original sin; while every other disorder of the soul’s powers, is a kind of material element in respect of original sin. Now the inordinateness of the other powers of the soul consists chiefly in their turning inordinately to mutable good; which inordinateness may be called by the general name of concupiscence. Hence original sin is concupiscence, materially, but privation of original justice, formally.
newadvent.org/summa/208203.htm
Many other saints call OS the privation of Original Justice. In another question Aquinas uses a quote from Anselm mentioning it.
J
jimmy
Guest
Fr Ambrose:
Fr Ambrose, you need to think before posting. Animation and Conception occur at the same time. Aquinas did not have that understanding. He understood, falsely, that animation occured sometime after conception.
F
Fr_Ambrose
Guest
This is indeed what the contemporary Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches and since it is moving Catholic teaching on this point closer to Orthodox teaching, the Orthodox rejoice.
But it would be dishonest, as people such as Fr Robert Taft have pointed out, to attempt to portray modern teaching as not being contrary to the traditional Catholic teaching on Original Sin. There are threads in this Forum where Catholics themselves discuss this discrepancy. You seem to be in a transition period where older Catholics have kept hold of the Catholic Original Sin teaching of past centuries and younger Catholics, educated in the wake of Vatican II, have very little idea of the former teaching of Popes and theologians.
God is the one loveable who is always rejoicing without end in infinite happiness.
~St.Gregory, Bishop of Nyssa, died 395
- Status