What do the various Churches teach in regard to Mary?

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Harpazo

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I had an interesting conversation with my priest (Maronite) the other day that told me that the Maronites and other Eastern Catholic Churches never accepted the Immaculate Conception.

It’s even in the Maronite Divine Liturgy, in some form. In one part, it talks about the “only one without sin, your only begotten Son.” I can understand the reasoning behind it, yet it seems to conflict with what I understood to be the Immaculate Conception. However, Maronites don’t traditionally believe in it, except for those who have become Latinized.😦

So what does your Church teach about Mary and the “Immaculate Conception.” Does that teaching even exist in your particular ritual Church? Also, if you could post a link to what your Church teachings regarding it, that would help too.

Discussion is welcome and encouraged.

Al-Masih Qam!
Andrew
 
Both the Catholic and Orthodox Church know that Mary was sinless at the conception of Jesus. The East, Catholic and Orthodox, tend to leave when she was first sinless in the area of mystery. We don’t object to the Western proclamation of her Immaculate conception. We simply don’t define the dogma.

BTW This is the same approach we take toward Purgatory. We pray for the dead and eventually ask them to pray for us but we have no defined doctrine of Purgatory.

CDL
 
Hakkan Qam!

To my understanding the problem arises with the differences in understanding of Original Sin. Since the east views original sin more as an Ancestral curse or a condition rather then actual guilt, it becomes clearer as to why Immaculate Conception is not a term used in the East.
 
I suppose it also depends on which church in the East you are referring to. The Chaldean church believes in the Immaculate Conception. We follow the Vatican in all the teachings.
 
cktravel said:
I suppose it also depends on which church in the East you are referring to. The Chaldean church believes in the Immaculate Conception. We follow the Vatican in all the teachings.
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Yes, the “we” he is speaking of must be some “other” group since the Immaculate Conception and Purgatory are dogmas of the Universal Catholic Church.
 
Chaldean_Rite said:
Yes, the “we” he is speaking of must be some “other” group since the Immaculate Conception and Purgatory are dogmas of the Universal Catholic Church.
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Not necessarily. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Many Eastern Churches, including yours do not use the term, nor have ever.

My pastor, who is also my spiritual director, told me that a majority, if not all of the Eastern Catholics do not subscribe the Immaculate Conception at all. They believe Mary was made pure upon Christ incarnating in her womb.

Al-Masih Qam!
Andrew
 
Harpazo said:
Not necessarily. That’s what I’m trying to figure out. Many Eastern Churches, including yours do not use the term, nor have ever.

My pastor, who is also my spiritual director, told me that a majority, if not all of the Eastern Catholics do not subscribe the Immaculate Conception at all. They believe Mary was made pure upon Christ incarnating in her womb.

Al-Masih Qam!
Andrew
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Harpazo this is what I’ve always believed. Think of what happens to anyone who was touched by Jesus in the NT. They were cleansed immediately. It doesn’t make sense to say that Mary being sinful can transfer that to Jesus. That’s saying that GOD can be infected by sin.

PEACE
 
Chaldean_Rite said:
Yes, the “we” he is speaking of must be some “other” group since the Immaculate Conception and Purgatory are dogmas of the Universal Catholic Church.
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CR,

Does this difference stem from your different history. Am I correct to say that the Chaldean Catholic Church traces much of it history back to the Jesuits of the sixteenth century? Am I correct in my assumption that the Assyrian Church traces its history back to Apostolic times but split with the Chalcedonian understanding of the dual nature of Christ? I.e., the Chaldean Catholic Church may be much closer to Roman Catholic whereas most other Eastern Catholic Church sprang from Orthodoxy.

CDL
 
NDfan said:
Harpazo this is what I’ve always believed. Think of what happens to anyone who was touched by Jesus in the NT. They were cleansed immediately. It doesn’t make sense to say that Mary being sinful can transfer that to Jesus. That’s saying that GOD can be infected by sin.

PEACE
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Well, there’s also a different understanding of Original Sin in the East, which is what I’m trying to understand in regards to this.

Al-Masih Qam!
Andrew
 
Harpazo said:
Well, there’s also a different understanding of Original Sin in the East, which is what I’m trying to understand in regards to this.

Al-Masih Qam!
Andrew
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From Ineffabilis Deus

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”[29]
Hence, if anyone shall dare – which God forbid! – to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.

Although differing interpretations of what original sin is can exist, no Catholic of whatever *sui iuris *church can deny the dogma. This is Catholic faith, not just Latin Church faith.
 
BillyT92679 said:
From Ineffabilis Deus

Wherefore, in humility and fasting, we unceasingly offered our private prayers as well as the public prayers of the Church to God the Father through his Son, that he would deign to direct and strengthen our mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. In like manner did we implore the help of the entire heavenly host as we ardently invoked the Paraclete. Accordingly, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, for the honor of the Holy and undivided Trinity, for the glory and adornment of the Virgin Mother of God, for the exaltation of the Catholic Faith, and for the furtherance of the Catholic religion, by the authority of Jesus Christ our Lord, of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own: “We declare, pronounce, and define that the doctrine which holds that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, in the first instance of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege granted by Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the human race, was preserved free from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore to be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful.”[29]
Hence, if anyone shall dare – which God forbid! – to think otherwise than as has been defined by us, let him know and understand that he is condemned by his own judgment; that he has suffered shipwreck in the faith; that he has separated from the unity of the Church; and that, furthermore, by his own action he incurs the penalties established by law if he should are to express in words or writing or by any other outward means the errors he think in his heart.

Although differing interpretations of what original sin is can exist, no Catholic of whatever *sui iuris *church can deny the dogma. This is Catholic faith, not just Latin Church faith.
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Thank God for His Orthodox Church. 👍
 
The Chaldean Catholic Church of the East does not deny the IC, however, since the Chaldean Church and the other Churches of the East (Assyrian/Ancient) are working towards unity and full communion, the IC and other Dogmatic pronouncements are being expressed using constructs and terms that are part of the “East Syriac” tradition.

The essentials of this teaching on the IC is accepted in both traditions (Latin and East Syriac), while the non-essential philosophy and terminology that is used to express the IC is an allowable difference across both traditions.

Some info. here on the IC from the perspective of the Assyrian Church of the East. It is a large pdf file. Scroll down to the section on the IC (page 11):

prounione.urbe.it/pdf/f_prounione_bulletin_n54_fall1998.pdf

The Bishop concludes by saying:

Thus, there is considerable evidence of the convergence of the truth taught by the Church of the East and by the Papal pronouncement of the Immaculate Conception. True there are distinct differences in philosophical and terminological constructs used to convey this theological and dogmatic truth. These differences can be ascribed to our human limitations and perhaps they are not totally irreconcilable, especially since both traditions hold that the sinlessness and the holiness of Mary are due to a unique preservative and divine act.​

God bless,

Rony
 
1…
**For in fact that which she had essayed to do, was of superfluous vanity; in that she wanted to show the people that she hath power and authority over her Son, imagining not as yet anything great concerning Him; whence also her unseasonable approach.

**3. Having then said these words, “He came out of the house.” Seest thou, how He both rebuked them, and did what they desired? Which He did also at the marriage.For there too He at once reproved her asking unseasonably, and nevertheless did not gainsay her; by the former correcting her weakness. by the latter showing His kindly feeling toward His mother. So likewise on this occasion too, He both healed the disease of vainglory, and rendered the due honor to His mother, even though her request was unseasonable. For, “in the same day,” it is said, “went Jesus out of the house, and sat by the sea side.”
newadvent.org/fathers/200144.htm

Not every utterance of the ECFs are infallible. Calling Our Lady’s actions * superfluous vanity* and unseasonably can not possibly be taken as anything other than what it is; a sin. This is an inference, and a pretty good one, from what St. John Chrysostom is saying.

And here is what another doctor says:
I answer that, The sanctification of the Blessed Virgin cannot be understood as having taken place before animation, for two reasons. First, because the sanctification of which we are speaking, is nothing but the cleansing from original sin: for sanctification is a “perfect cleansing,” as Dionysius says (Div. Nom. xii). Now sin cannot be taken away except by grace, the subject of which is the rational creature alone. ** Therefore before the infusion of the rational soul, the Blessed Virgin was not sanctified.** http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4027.htm#2

Both being doctors of the Church, both got it wrong, one to a greater extent. A dogma is a truth that has been made known by the Teaching authority of the Church. No one can go to Heaven unless he consents to all of the Truth taught by the Church. At the time of St. John Chrysostom and St. Thomas Aquinas, the Immaculate Conception was not a dogma thus they were not bound to believe it. We are.
 
CR,

Does this difference stem from your different history. Am I correct to say that the Chaldean Catholic Church traces much of it history back to the Jesuits of the sixteenth century? Am I correct in my assumption that the Assyrian Church traces its history back to Apostolic times but split with the Chalcedonian understanding of the dual nature of Christ? I.e., the Chaldean Catholic Church may be much closer to Roman Catholic whereas most other Eastern Catholic Church sprang from Orthodoxy.

CDL
 
GregoryPalamas said:
CR,

Does this difference stem from your different history. Am I correct to say that the Chaldean Catholic Church traces much of it history back to the Jesuits of the sixteenth century? Am I correct in my assumption that the Assyrian Church traces its history back to Apostolic times but split with the Chalcedonian understanding of the dual nature of Christ? I.e., the Chaldean Catholic Church may be much closer to Roman Catholic whereas most other Eastern Catholic Church sprang from Orthodoxy.

CDL
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The Chaldean Church, Assyrian Church of the East, and the other groups all stem from the “Church of the East” and for various reasons now we all have separate (although certain members of the ACoE are seeking union with the Catholic Church, thank God).

I’m not sure of the Jesuits influence you speak of, but I can say that in Iraq, no more than 20-30 years, they do have seminaries/churches/schools there. Not sure of the status today thou.

As far as the roots of the Church, we are as East as it gets. We recieved the Gospel from St. Thomas’ diciples, in the native toungue of the Jesus and the Apostles. So your analysis of the Chaldeans being somehow more western than the Assyrians, or other Eastern Churchs is not accurate IMO.
 
split with the Chalcedonian understanding of the dual nature of Christ?
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Carson,

This is not correct. The Church of the East, the “East Syriacs”, have always maintained the dual natures of Christ. The split occurred prior to Chalcedon.

God bless,

Rony
 
I still believe that the Eastern Catholics believe that St. Mary was sinless however they don’t believe in the Immaculate Conception because they don’t believe in the Original Sin in a Western sense.
 
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