www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West EOC & Immaculate Conception

Hi Ghosty,

Quote:
And I think the clear sense of Trent which is still operative in the current CCC is that by being implicated in Adam's sin, we are judged guilty from the moment of conception. Even though the sin is not one of "personal fault" we still contract it and with it we are judged by God.

Please don't laugh
Maybe this is why I have somehow connected conjugal relations with original sin.
still can't figure it out, although you have it well said.

Also, from what you say about the darkness of the soul meaning "out of grace", but what about the Saints who had darkness of the their soul, are they considered out of God's Grace aka sin?

Thank You if you take time in explaining it to me,

Dandelion

Ghosty,


This is the first time I have encountered this teaching, and it has me flummoxed. Obviously personal sin is one thing, but how would you address this teaching that those who are completely without personal sin but suffer from original sin alone are damned? Are we not then, unless I am misreading it, facing a position where unbaptized infants are condemned to hell? I thought that this had been clarified somewhere...

Curious about your thoughts...

Gordo

From the Catholic Catechism:
and These seem to contradict Trent.

Dave

Gordo,

Historically, there are two options in the Latin Tradition,

1) unbaptized infants go to hell but suffer the mildest of all punishments. Generally, this has meant (according to Scholastic theologians) that infants suffer the loss and sadness of not being with God, but they do not experience the actual torments of fire.

2) according to some scholastic theologians (Aquinas for example) infants experience "Limbo" a place that is neither heaven nor hell. In limbo, they are "naturally" happy, but do not enjoy the vision of God.

The notion that unbaptized infants who die without baptism can, in some way, be saved, is relatively modern (at least in Latin Theology). The best the CCC can do is say that we can "hope" that they might be saved. But, that is about as strong a statement as one can get. Until recently, it was simply assumed in practice that such infants were either in hell or in limbo.

From the point of view of Latin theology, this is not a problem though. Since, according to Augustinian theology (and the medieval theology that was semi-Augustinian), every single human being (except the blessed Virgin Mary) is, from the moment of conception, under the wrath of God and deserving of eternal punishment. The protestant reformers accepted this point of view and Luther held unequivocally that unbaptized infants who died were damned. Calvin held that unbaptized infants would be saved if they were predestined to be saved, but that God also created a mass of unbaptized infants in order for them to die and be damned to hell in order to glorify God's power and justice (this is also the view of Augustine, who has all unbaptized infants damned). Calvin held that those born of Christian families might be saved since it could be seen as a sign of their predestination.

In Orthodoxy theology, there are also two options, but two different options. St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Gregory Naziansus both treated the question and I can't remember who gave which answer, but here they are:

1) infants are neither good nor evil. They are innocent but they have not achieved theosis so they go to a place like the Latin Limbo.
2) infants, being innocent, are indeed saved and grow in Christ since it is only the rejection of the Gospel that damns.

I have never met a contemporary Orthodox who holds to the former position. In practice, the latter position seems to be assumed. I favor the latter position (now that my memory is returning, I believe that it is Nyssa who advocates the salvation of unbaptized infants).

By the way, someone might try to appeal to the baptism of desire, yet, infants have no implicit faith so this won't work. Baptism "by blood" does work in the case of the holy innocents who died for Christ. They are considered martyrs. Some have suggested that aborted children are saved by a "baptism of blood," but this won't work because aborted fetuses are not martyrs for Christ. This is why Traditional Roman Catholics are not happy with the current Catechism's teaching. They see it as trying to sidestep something that has been defined by the magisterium. You will note that Florence's decree does not make any exceptions. If it had been a concern to them, I would imagine that they would have said something.

Joe

Dear Joe,

The Conceptions of both the Theotokos and the Forerunner are celebrated precisely BECAUSE of their important roles that they played in the plan of salvation.

Yes, in both cases the Conceptions were miraculous - the Church associates the physical miracle with the presence of Divine Grace.

And Theosis is a process that began at their Conceptions and continues to this day.

A birth can be miraculous - but it need not be associated with the holiness of the person born in that way.

Alex

Alex,

Broadly speaking, for every single one of us (in God's foreknowledge) theosis begins at conception (in fact, it begins from all eternity in the mind of God). The Lamb of God was slain "before the foundation of the world," as John the Revelator says.

The miraculous conception of St. John the Baptist is a biblical event. That is why it is only natural to celebrate it as a feast day (just as we celebrate many biblical events such as the prodigal son, the pharisee and publican, Christ's greeting of the woman at the well, the Annunciation, just to name a few). There is nothing in either the biblical text nor in the most ancient traditions that suggests that St. John the Baptist was fully divinized at conception. In fact, we believe that both the baptist and the Theotokos were divinized throughout their life just as we are.

There is no reason that this is not compatible with the idea, held by St. John Chrysostom and some of the other fathers, that the blessed Virgin Mary suffered from venial faults that needed to be overcome through her cooperation with God's grace. Mary became immaculate through her obedience. We will all be immaculate, someday, through our obedience.

Joe

Joe,

You wrote:


I don't think I can agree with this. I know this is off topic and probably belongs in another thread, but I'll make my comment here and we can move it if necessary.

Exactly what faith is has not, I believe, been dogmatically defined by any apostolic Church. The general consensus seems to include the notions of "trust" "assent" "belief" and perhaps even "acquiescence".

Holy Scripture provides us with several instances in which some of these concepts are applied to infants such as Psalm 22:9 "Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother's breast." Also, Psalm 71:6 "From birth I have relied on you; you brought me forth from my mother's womb. I will ever praise you." And there are others.

I think it is wrong to think of faith primarily in terms of THE Faith, ie: the objective CONTENT or SUBSTANCE of the faith as in historical and theological facts and propositions. This is a very Western way of thinking as is made clear by the creation of such notions as the "age of reason" etc...

Rather, I think we should return to a proper Eastern, and in this instance I do NOT mean to imply specifically Eastern Orthodox, modes of thought. I am thinking primarily of Hebraic/Semitic concepts.

The concept of subjective faith is closely related to the concept of knowledge. Not intellectual knowledge, but the knowledge of the heart or conscience. It is symbolized by the "knowledge" obtained through marriage between a man and a woman. "And Adam KNEW Eve and she conceived." It is an intimate joining of two things which produces a third. In the case of subjective faith, it runs something like this: God "knows" the heart of a person (as Adam knew Eve) we cooperate in this knowing/sharing and the result is faith...trust. As we mature as persons (not just physically or intellectually or psychically) our faith matures as well. There is faith that is appropriate to an infant...that which is appropriate to a child...a teenager...young adult...etc. You get the point. As it (faith) matures it takes things onto itself such as the objective content of THE faith...but also such things as deliberation...making deliberate choices in regard to ones relationship with God. It is all a very organic process.

So, in this sense, I do think it is appropriate to speak of the baptism of desire in regard to infants.

Just my unworthy thoughts.

Jason

Dear Joe,

I think I understand where you are coming from - and I cannot agree.

We do not celebrate the feasts of Saints except on their "heavenly birthdays" and it is only in the case of the Theotokos and the Forerunner that we celebrate these two who were "least unworthy of Christ our God" on their nativities and even their conceptions respectively.

This is NOT the same as the feasts marking the prodigal etc. The events of their conception would be a simply addendum to their hagiographies were it not that they were related to their sanctification in advance to prepare them for the exalted role they played in our salvation.

Alex

Dear Joe,

Also, what is meant by "fully divinized?"

In what sense? Divinization is an ongoing, dynamic process that never ends, not even in Heaven. Am I missing something?

In addition, we cannot compare ourselves to the Theotokos and the Forerunner in terms of the Grace they received versus what we receive.

IF that is what you are saying . . .

Alex

Dear AMM,

I don't think anyone is saying that Florovsky was a Muscovite ideologue of any kind.

But he does make a value judgement of the Orthodox teachers of the Kyivan Baroque who believed in the Immaculate Conception by referring to romanticism et al.

My response was to see the "good" in cultural terms of romanticism and that it is a cultural characteristic that has nothing to do with religion (although it can condition religious perspectives, as Florovsky himself affirmed).

You raise a further important point with respect to Orthodoxy and the West of that period - to what extent was the attractiveness of Western theology to Orthodox based on what appeared to be a more comprehensive and developed, better defined theological system than what was to be had in the East at that time?

For example, Joe here gave his view as to what the liturgical celebration of the Conception of St Anne is about (i.e. the miraculous event itself). But is there an "official" Orthodox definition of this to be had? And if not, why not?

This is what I mean. The Latin West's highly developed academic perspectives captivated even Orthodox Christians at that time. And even when Orthodox leaders sent Orthodox students to study in Western universities to "get to know the enemy" so to speak, they came away from their experiences having adopted numerous Latin perspectives and also devotional practices (such as the Immaculate Conception devotion).

As for St Dmitri of Rostov, St Ivan Maximovych, St Paul Koniuskevych, St Joasaf Horlenko, St Sophronius Krystalsky, St Innocent Kulchitsky and the other representatives of the Kyivan Baroque (all of whom were highly trained theologians, academics, tonsured at the Kyivan Caves Lavra to become Orthodox Church leaders), at no time did they suggest that those who did not accept their devotions and perspectives were "heretics."

They believed in and were devoted to the Immaculate Conception (along with other Western devotions) but within the legitimate, acceptable bounds established by Orthodoxy. Otherwise, they would not have been glorified as Orthodox saints.

Halia above referred to this as an "aberration" - an unfortunate choice of term since what those Orthodox saints did was in keeping with Orthodox tradition pertaining to theological opinions and private views.

A large part of this issue could also have been not the IC itself (which in that time was a private view held by Catholics as well since it was not yet defined by Rome), but the understanding of Original Sin and its impact. I don't know.

Orthodoxy (and Eastern Catholics) may well reject the Western theology underpinning the IC dogma. But the IC has its own tradition in Orthodox history and that is an unchangeable fact.

Alex

Alex, the problem is I don't think it exactly happened that way. Unfortunately the meeting of East and West during this period was under the worst possible circumstances. The West was essentially tearing itself apart in the Thirty Years War (and the ultimate victor of that struggle was secularism), and this crisis landed on the doorstep of the Orthodox world. The East Slavic lands were particularly ill equipped to handle the dual confrontation of Protestantism and Catholicism, and they struggled to find they only resources they could in order to formulate an organized response. Under the political and intellectual sway of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, it is easy to understand why things developed the way they did. There may have been an attraction on the part of some, but it was probably just out of desperation for others that the Latinization of Orthodox thinking was necessary just to get by. To my knowledge, at least what I know of in the Orthodox world, the period is not looked on as one of a flowering of authentic Eastern thought and praxis; but as Fr. Florovsky believed, a period of profound distortion of the church's Eastern heritage.


Not that I'm aware of for that celebration or St. John the Forerunner. I prefer the least amount of definition possible myself, so this is not a point that troubles me.


Which may be the case, but I think you're saying one thing and meaning two things in that case. It happens with the word "primacy" as well.

AFAIK Joe summed up pretty well what the most common Orthodox approaches are to the issue. The Theotokos was born as all other humans, but through the exercise of her will showed obedience above all others. Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos IIRC states that she received God's grace fully at the time of the Annunciation, or something along those lines. It is not however exactly defined, nor do I believe does it need to be.

The Ecumenical Patriarch's response to a an interview question on the Immaculate Conception:

http://www.30giorni.it/us/articolo.asp?id=6794

In response to the event of Christmas and to the mystery of Mary�s motherhood the Akathist hymn depicts two attitudes, two different reactions. On the one hand there are the shepherds, the angels, the Magi. On the other those who are described as mythmakers or sophists (�for you dried up the inventors of myths� you ripped the Athenians� meshes�). Those who think themselves in command of the Mystery�
Bartholomew I: The shepherds, the angels, the Magi and believers in general marvel at and acknowledge the event of the Divine Economy and glorify God and the All-holy Mother of God His co-operatrix in it. The wise people of the world � who want to subdue the actions of God to human reasoning � are unable to marvel and trust. They are concerned to explain and understand the events of the Divine Economy, which however go beyond the knowledge of the wise, while they shine before the hearts of believers, as the third stanza tell us. We then, the faithful, �marveling at the mystery of the incarnation of God, we sing with faith�: �Hail, O you Reproof of foolish philosophers; Hail, O confusion of speechless wise men� (stanza 17). What is incomprehensible for the mind, the faith brings close � substance of hoped-for things, proof of things not seen � that makes the heart certain of their real, and not imaginary, existence.
Jesus is fount of life and of pardon for sinners, gives them the grace lost. But in this work Mary, too, is involved, �indulgence of many who have fallen�, �stole for those who lack freedom to speak�, because it was her who gave him flesh. How is the work of Mary in this unimaginable succour to the human condition, lapsed after original sin, expressed in the Akathist?
Bartholomew I: In fact, the sublime love of God for mankind chose a way of salvation that could not be foreseen by the mind of man, accustomed to conceive God in his immensity. Kenosis, that is the emptying out of God, his manifestation as man, was unimaginable. Even more inconceivable was, and is, his conception in the womb of a woman, and the very existence of a woman worthy of welcoming the divinity in her own body and to become Mother of God incarnate. That constituted scandal or foolishness, and for many it is still so today. Human logic attributes to God the qualities that it imagines the great man must or does possess; so not humility, abasement, love to the point of self-sacrifice.
Despite that, the unimaginable � though it was also prophesized � did happen. On the one hand, a woman was found of such purity to be worthy of conceiving, giving birth to and rearing the God-Man Jesus Christ. On the other, God emptied himself of the glory of his magnificence and manifested himself on earth as �humble man�. This happening fills with wonder and awe the author of the Akathist, who thus throughout the whole hymn shows his boundless wonderment both toward God, and towards the All-holy Mother of God, through extraordinary poetic expressions such as: �Hail, O Message unsure to men without faith; Hail, O Glory most certain to those who believe!�. �Hail, O you who reconciled opposites; Hail, O you who combined maidenhood and motherhood�; Hail, O you through whom transgression was erased; Hail, O you through whom Paradise was opened�.
In phrases like these salvation is not attributed to the Virgin Mary, but her cooperation is exalted to her, through the bounty of God. The fact is hymned that God, who wants mankind to be saved, sought � and in the person of the Mother of God, found � the unconditioned and immediate collaboration of mankind. After the corruption of the human race through the sin of our first parents, God incarnated himself in the new man, the God-Man Jesus, he who is extraneous to corruption, and calls on all to embody themselves in Jesus Christ so as to partake of the incorruptibility and eternity of his life and truth. And this incarnation came about through a woman. Indeed very great and magnificent is the work of God and the participation of the All-holy in it, hymned in the Akathist.
As the Epistle to the Hebrews says, after the unique and perfect sacrifice of Jesus, there is no need for other sacrifices. The Akathist also speaks of the participation of Mary, Mother of God, in this work of liberation: �Hail, O Light of those who search the Trinity�. �Hail, O you who cleansed us from the stain of pagan worship�. �Hail, O you who exposed the fraud of idols�. �Hail, O Downfall of the Demons�.
Bartholomew I: One can�t quote all the multitude of references in the Akathist to the contribution of the Ever-Virgin Mary to the salvific work of Jesus Christ. Beginning from that �Hail, O you, through whom Joy will shine forth; Hail, O you, through whom the curse will disappear�, put into the mouth to the Angel. These and all the other epithets of the Mother of God, that fill the whole Akathist hymn, are fine poetic ways of presenting the participation of the All-holy in the mystery of salvation. Thus the All-holy is called: kingly throne, renewal of creation, mother of the Creator, star that manifests the sun, forecast of the prodigies of Christ, celestial ladder, by whom God came down, bridge leading earthly ones to heaven, yielder of abundant mercies, she who has quenched the flame of error, she who threw down the oppressor, wound ever-hurting to the demons, she who gave birth to the guide of the lost, source of life of the captives� release, indulgence of the fallen, and so on.
The Church recognized from the beginning that in Mary�s virginity is manifest the resplendent beauty that enamored God and drew him to us. How is God�s predilection for the virgin beauty of Mary expressed in this hymn?
Bartholomew I: The virginity of the Mother of God, as deep, existential, free and total absorption of her love in God, as spiritual situation during which her mind and heart were not turned towards another earthly being, is continually sung in the Akathist hymn, along with God�s predilection for this virginal devotion of the All-holy toward Him. One line even says that the Lord who dwelt in her womb, he who contains all things, �sanctified and glorified� her. Another says that the Creator of heaven and earth shaped the All-pure, dwelling then in her uterus.
The Catholic Church this year celebrates the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the proclamation of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. How does the Eastern Christian and Byzantine Tradition celebrate the Conception of Mary and her full and immaculate holiness?
Bartholomew I: The Catholic Church found that it needed to institute a new dogma for Christendom about one thousand and eight hundred years after the appearance of the Christianity, because it had accepted a perception of original sin � a mistaken one for us Orthodox � according to which original sin passes on a moral stain or a legal responsibility to the descendants of Adam, instead of that recognized as correct by the Orthodox faith � according to which the sin transmitted through inheritance the corruption, caused by the separation of mankind from the uncreated grace of God, which makes him live spiritually and in the flesh. Mankind shaped in the image of God, with the possibility and destiny of being like to God, by freely choosing love towards Him and obedience to his commandments, can even after the fall of Adam and Eve become friend of God according to intention; then God sanctifies them, as he sanctified many of the progenitors before Christ, even if the accomplishment of their ransom from corruption, that is their salvation, was achieved after the incarnation of Christ and through Him.
In consequence, according to the Orthodox faith, Mary the All-holy Mother of God was not conceived exempt from the corruption of original sin, but loved God above of all things and obeyed his commandments, and thus was sanctified by God through Jesus Christ who incarnated himself of her. She obeyed Him like one of the faithful, and addressed herself to Him with a Mother�s trust. Her holiness and purity were not blemished by the corruption, handed on to her by original sin as to every man, precisely because she was reborn in Christ like all the saints, sanctified above every saint.
Her reinstatement in the condition prior to the Fall did not necessarily take place at the moment of her conception. We believe that it happened afterwards, as consequence of the progress in her of the action of the uncreated divine grace through the visit of the Holy Spirit, which brought about the conception of the Lord within her, purifying her from every stain.
As already said, original sin weighs on the descendants of Adam and of Eve as corruption, and not as legal responsibility or moral stain. The sin brought hereditary corruption and not a hereditary legal responsibility or a hereditary moral stain. In consequence the All-holy participated in the hereditary corruption, like all mankind, but with her love for God and her purity � understood as an imperturbable and unhesitating dedication of her love to God alone � she succeeded, through the grace of God, in sanctifying herself in Christ and making herself worthy of becoming the house of God, as God wants all us human beings to become. Therefore we in the Orthodox Church honor the All-holy Mother of God above all the saints, albeit we don�t accept the new dogma of her Immaculate Conception. The non-acceptance of this dogma in no way diminishes our love and veneration of the All-holy Mother of God.

I'll stick with the patriarch on this.

Joe

I think the Ecumenical Patriarch has stated it very clearly.
Frankly, I don't understand why this topic keeps appearing and why Catholics insist on trying to convince us Orthodox to disagree with our own beliefs.

Dear Friends,

I am not trying to convince Orthodox of anything, other than a position that is compatible as a theological opinion within Orthodoxy and that was held, legitimately, by Orthodox in the past and today.

The EP's statement above is confusing on the score of the Orthodox understanding of Original Sin and we discussed this before.

Alex

I suggest an attentive reading of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery's December volume of the Menaion - not only 9 December, but a couple of days both before and after. The texts are of considerable interest, particularly since the Monastery which published them has no reputation for Latin-mindedness.

Fr. Serge