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Ray,

You put things just fine. Please keep posting.

Joe

I don't want to speak for Fr. Serge, but I can only assume he's refering to this passage:


From this passage, and the expressed opinions of even the majority of the ultra-montane party of Vatican I, we can understand that the Pope utilizes the infallibility of Church rather than some kind of individual charism. The infallibility of the Church is certainly personally utilized in a unique way by the Pope, but it's not "the Pope's infallibility", but the same infallibility enjoyed by Councils, and all the Bishops teaching in unity.

Is this what you were getting at, Father?

Peace and God bless!

So when the Pope defined dogmatically the immaculate conception, he was speaking for, and with, the entire Church and was merely manifesting the Church's infallibility by defining what had always been held by all Christians?

Joe

Dear Joe,

The dogma of the Immaculate Conception confirmed what all Christians have believed, namely that the Mother of God was never guilty of any personal sin whatever.

One could see it as a "necessary" dogma in Roman Catholicism with its own tradition of the "stain of Original Sin" (however that is understood in the Latin Church today).

As Bishop Kallistos Ware said in the Orthodox Way - words to the effect that if Orthodoxy held to a view of the "stain of Original Sin" it might also find a way to exempt the Mother of God from it.

The East has no such view of Original Sin and therefore the Orthodox East sees the Mother of God as not being exempt from it, but, as a result of her exalted status in the role of salvation as Mother of the Divine Word Incarnate and the great Grace she participated and participates in, the effects of Original Sin were greatly mitigated in her (e.g. she felt no pain at Christ's Birth, but more than made up for that at the foot of His Cross later, her death was so light that it was a falling-asleep or "Dormition" etc.).

Those RC theologians who opposed the Immaculate Conception (as first theologically defined by Bl. Duns Scotus Eriugena - yes, an Irishman) did not wish to see the Mother of God as being "outside" the Old Testament when she is the quintessential bridge between the two Testaments etc.

In fact, to adopt the Orthodox position on the Theotokos is to be relieved of all of these theological problems and issues in this respect.

Which is why I join with you and Todd in so doing!

Alex

I don't mean to split hairs Dr Alex, but in the East, St Basil, St John Chrysostom, St Cyril of Alexandria, and Origen, all taught that Mary suffered from venial personal faults, such as ambition, and vanity, doubt about the message of the Angel, and lack of faith under the Cross.

The Immaculate Conception and the personal sinlessness of the Theotokos are two distinct teachings; the fact that one can affirm the latter without the former is sufficient to prove that the attempt to lump them together is futile. Also, the essential content of the Immaculate Conception cannot be universal Christian teaching if, as you assert, the Eastern Christian understanding of Original Sin demotivates it.



The dogma is not *necessary* even within the Augustinian framework; if that were the case it would be even harder to explain why St. Bernard and St. Aquinas so violently opposed it.

This test case alone proves to me that the dogma of papal infallibility is, at best, meaningless, and at worst, wrong.

Joe

Dear Lawrence,

There are other Eastern Doctors who would have disagreed with the Fathers you cite.

In any event, what they wrote is by no means to be taken as doctrine/dogma until the Church herself says it is.

Far better to follow what the liturgical prayer tradition has to say about the Theotokos.

And far better to see in those Fathers the residual effects of the shock of seeing a woman, not a man, raised to such high status in salvation history - at least I do.

Unless one wishes to read their own preconceived notions into the scriptural accounts - those accusations are patently false.

Also, whenever real doubt was evident in persons in the New Testament, it was formally punished in some way as with St John the Baptist's father, St Zachary.

The Fathers could give their own personal opinions - no one says they cannot. Not one of them ever went against the "lex credendi" on this matter as evident in the CHurch's "lex orandi."

Alex

Dear NeoChalcedonian,

Agree - her personal sinlessness and the IC are distinct items. But they would not be in the West when many believed the "Stain of Original Sin" implied that the Theotokos was somehow implicated in sin and sinful inclination.

That is precisely how the dogma of the IC is worded.

So IF one accepts the above view of Original Sin, then the Immaculate Conception is necessary IF one, as St Augustine always did, wants to exempt the Theotokos from that "sin."

Whether "stain" implies "inherited actual sin of Adam" or simply lack of grace etc., it is no matter.

And the Western saints who opposed it did so to prevent placing the Theotokos, with such an exalted role in the plan of salvation, outside that plan that would make her something other than the bridge between the Old and the New Testaments.

Again, the Orthodox view on Original Sin satisfies all on this score.

Alex

Dear Joe,

Not meaningless or wrong if it confirms that Mary is totally sinless and holy in the face of a recurring view of Original Sin that appears to negate this.

The Orthodox tradition has, by comparison, allowed for certain theological opinions about the lives of holy people to be even "codified" in liturgical prayer and the calendar - without proclaiming any ex cathedra dogmas, of course.

Thus, St John the Baptist's holiness is celebrated in his feast of his Conception. So is St Nicholas' holiness honoured with the feast of his Nativity on August 11 (OC).

If I were Orthodox, I would have no problem believing, in accordance with the lex orandi, that the Theotokos, John the Baptist, St Nicholas (and St John the Theologian) were sanctified at their respective conceptions - meaning not that they were outside the rule of salvation pertaining to Original Sin, but that God anointed them with His Holy Spirit for the role they were to play in salvation history.

Alex

Dear Alex
I think you'll find that the Irishman John Scotus Eriugena was a different person from Duns Scotus, from Duns in the Scottish Borders, who proposed the Immaculate Conception, and whose followers were called Duns-men (Dunces) by Thomists.

Blessings to you.

Dear Highlander,

Yes, indeed! John Duns Scotus was a 9th century Celtic theologian who opposed Augustine. He is honoured as a saint among some noncanonical Celtic groups in the U.S. (I've seen one of their places of worship dedicated to him).

Bl. John Duns Scotus Eriugena the Franciscan was beatified by Pope John Paul II even though he enjoyed a local cult in Italy having been locally beatified by an Italian bishop not too long after his death (and I've a picture of him from that area with "beatus' rays."

I once had a disagreement with a teacher who forced me to wear a "dunce-cap."

As it turned out, the teacher later apologised after looking up the reference that seemed to show I was in the right . . .

When he apologised, I simply said that no offence was taken at the cap which could be regarded as a "miter!"

The duns-cap later came to be placed on the heads of heretics, decorated with two devils attacking a soul with forks.

This same cap was worn by John Hus during his burning at Constance. An Orthodox understanding of Hus is to be found in St Nikolaj Velimirovic's "Saint John Hus" (sic).

Alex

Alex,
John Scotus Eriugena was the 9th Century Irishman, Bl John Duns Scotus was the 13th Century Franciscan, "Doctor Subtilis". Even in the Middle Ages there was confusion among hagiographers about who was which, but it helps if we keep the names straight.
It is a minor point, excuse my nitpicking search for accuracy, which comes from having been a schoolteacher.
Blessings.

I would be interested in these debates. Where might we find them?

Peace to you Father - and to your church.
-ray

Alex,

I don't think that was the reason. The controversy over what came to be known as the Immaculate Conception began in the West in the 12th Century, when the practice of celebrating Mary's conception was first introduced from the East.

A strange thing happened in the process of this transition, however: while in the East this feast celebrated an important event in Salvation History, in the West it was immediately assumed to be a celebration of the moment of Mary's sanctification.

Among the first to oppose this celebration was St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who opposed it on the grounds that it was celebrating a human, non-virginal conception. As the practice continued to spread, Aquinas opposed it on the grounds that Mary's sanctification would have taken place at the time of her animatio ("ensoulment"), which would have been about 20 days after her conception because she was a female! (I understand he later withdrew his objection, since it was impossible to know exactly when her animatio took place.)

Anyway, it was not so much a doctrine as the implications of a feast that had been introduced from the East that they were objecting to. I don't think either of them objected to the idea of Mary's sinlessness.

Among the Orthodox, there seems to be be more than one opinion with regard to Mary's sinlessness, but it the liturgical affirmation "preneporochna" certainly seems to confirm that the Church regars her as being without sin.


Peace,
Deacon Richard