www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Mary's Sinlessness

Dear Joe,

The Lord bless you.

I'm not quite sure why you are not getting the distinction between the Mother of God inheriting the effects of Ancestral Sin, which St John and the vast majority of Orthodox Theologians would say that she inherited, and her committing actual sins. The Orthodox quotes that you seem to be eager to produce 'proving' that the Theotokos committed sins actually only state that the Orthodox do not accept the doctrine of her Immaculate Conception.

I'm just wondering if you were perhaps a Protestant converted to the Orthodox Church (though your screen name implies that you were Greek Catholic at one time)? Many Protestant converts just find it hard to accept what cradle Orthodox know instinctively: That our Panaghia did not sin.

Here are some quotes you heard many times in the Liturgy:

"Calling to remembrance our most holy, most pure [or immaculate], most blessed and glorious Lady, the Theotokos and Ever-Virgin Mary...."

"It is truly meet to bless thee, O Theotokos, ever-blessed and most blameless and the Mother of our God. More honourable than the cherubim, and more glorious beyond compare than the seraphim, who without corruption barest God the Word, the very Theotokos, thee do we magnify."

Dogmatic Theotokion, Tone I —
Let us hymn the Virgin Mary, * the glory of the whole world, * who sprang forth from men and gave birth unto the Master, * the portal of heaven, and the subject of the hymnody of the incorporeal hosts; * for she hath been shown to be heaven and the temple of the Godhead. * Having destroyed the middle-wall of enmity, * she hath brought forth peace and opened wide the kingdom. * Therefore, having her as the confirmation of our faith, * we have as champion the Lord born of her. * Wherefore be of good courage! * Yea, be ye of good cheer, O people of God, * for He vanquisheth the foe, in that He is almighty!

Resurrectional Aposticha Theotokion, Tone IV —
Mercifully regard the supplications of thy servants, * O all-immaculate one, * quelling the uprisings of the cruel demons against us, * delivering us from every sorrow; * for thee alone have we as a steadfast and sure confirmation, * and we have acquired thine intercession; * let not us that call upon thee be put to shame, O Mistress. * Haste thou to answer the entreaty * of those who cry out to thee with faith: * Rejoice, thou help, joy and protection of all, * and salvation of our souls!

Resurrectional Aposticha Theotokion, Tone VIII —
O unwedded Virgin * who ineffably conceived God in the flesh, * Mother of God Most High: * accept the entreaties of thy servants, * O most immaculate one, * granting unto all cleansing of transgressions; * and, accepting now our supplications, * pray thou that we all be saved.

Quotations from the services could be given ad infinitum, but these will do.

Remember that you will stand before our Saviour one day, as well as the Queen who stands at His right hand. Do not let the accusation be read against you that you called the Mother of God a sinner.

With the hope that you will realise that I am trying to help you, I remain,

Yours in Christ,

Fr David Straut

Father David,

Thank you so much for explaining things to me. I do try to keep within the boundaries set by the Church. You are also right that I was originally Baptist, then Melkite Catholic, now Orthodox. I really don't have a strong opinion on this issue and, in fact, if we can say definitively that the Mother of God, sharing in the effects of ancestral sin, received from Adam fallen, wounded flesh under the curse of death and sin, but was able to refrain from committing any actual sin and so was purified & sanctified in response to her faith, then I have no problem with the idea of the Theotokos' sinlessness. It just seems to me to be a problem if we exclude the Theotokos from the common fall of humanity and from any actual, personal sins.

In fact, I was just thinking about the fact that an infant, who has not committed personal sin, is still called a sinner in the bible because the infant partakes of wounded, sinful flesh. A child could be baptized and then die before reaching the age of reason, so that the child would be both redeemed and would never have committed any personal sin.

God bless you father and thank you for continuing to discuss this with me.

Joe

None of the quotes in mind actually definitively resolve the issue of personal sin before purification. To my mind it simply remains a matter of speculation, and one as I said that the importance of is lost on me.

It is precisely because it does not seem to matter too much whether the Theotokos had some minor faults prior to her sanctification as temple of the Word made flesh that I do not have a particularly strong opinion on the matter. I neither believe nor disbelieve that she had minor faults. I do believe that if the Church decides in Council or if it is shown to me that there is an Orthodox consensus on the issue, then I will submit my judgment to the Church in the matter.

Joe

Dear Joe,

I just wanted to add some further reflections on this matter which are "biased," to be sure, in favour of the total holiness and sinlessness of the Mother of God.

The Orthodox Church need not ever "define" this as it was not nor ever will be a point of contention for the Christian East. The RC definition of the Immaculate Conception came about not only because of the growing devotion to the Virgin Mary (and to Lourdes), but also because there was something of an ongoing argument between those RC's (including saints and doctors of the Church) about this. There was some necessity, therefore, to decide in favour of one "party" while silencing the other, once and for all.

And, as you well know, this all had to do with the theology of Original Sin in the West and what its impact on human nature was. The East had a decidedly different understanding which is why Orthodox teachers like St John of Shanghai and San Francisco addressed the Immaculate Conception and why this formulation as it was in the West was foreign to the East. (In Augustine's time, St John Cassian and the bishops of southern Gaul criticized him in a similar vein - to which Rome later responded by limiting Cassian's cult of veneration to Marseilles only, even though he is a full Saint in the East).

The Orthodox East celebrates the Theotokos' Nativity and her Conception. Liturgically, this means that she was in-filled with the Holy Spirit and sanctified in view of her mission on earth at those two times in her life.

The only other Saint whose Conception and Birth we celebrate in similar manner is St John the Baptist.

Other very holy Saints have similar liturgical celebrations that point to their important role in the Body of Christ - St John the Theologian who was translated bodily to Heaven and St Nicholas of Myra in Lycia whose holy birth is also feted liturgically on August 11th. We also celebrated the bodily translation to heaven of the Holy Prophet Elias and God is said to have taken the body of Moses.

So my point is that it isn't surprising that God would so treat the Mother of His Son at His Incarnation when He does so with others. In fact, one would expect the highest possible sanctification for the Mother of the Word Incarnate.

To the important point you raise with respect to the Mother of God and Original Sin, Original Sin, as you know, simply has to do with the weakening of human nature as a result of the sin of Adam. We are all born with this weakened human nature, this tendency to temptation and sin, even though Adam's actual sin cannot be imputed to us (simply because we did not commit it, Adam did).

The sanctification of the Theotokos at her Conception (and of the Forerunner at his) does not "take" them out of the order of things. The Holy Spirit simply sanctified them as His special dwelling from the very beginning. He did not take away their ability to feel temptation - which is something our Lord Himself felt. He gave them the great Grace over concupiscence so that they would be free and ready to do the special mission God gave them to do. They prayed in their lives, and meditated on the Word. They grew and developed in God - they continue to do so even in Heaven.

But their closeness to Christ in the mystery of our salvation in the Incarnation is what necessitated their greater need for God's Grace.

If we were called to a special mission as they, would not we require great Grace? We would!

And what we celebrate liturgically having to do with the Theotokos and the Forerunner is what we believe by faith as well.

The Church has therefore already "pronounced" on this matter through her sacred Liturgy.

What need have we of councils or popes to achieve anything further in this respect?

Alex

Dr. Alex, Then what does St. John the Wonderworker mean by this?

This teaching contradicts also Sacred Tradition, which is contained in numerous Patristic writings, where there is mentioned the exalted sanctity of the Virgin Mary from Her very birth, as well as Her cleansing by the Holy Spirit at Her conception of Christ, but not at Her own conception by Anna.

Or what does his holiness Patriarch Bartholomew mean when he says this?

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.

I guess I have two more questions then:

When we say in some of our prayers, such as the memorial service, that Christ is alone with sin and that there is not a man that liveth and sinneth not, then what do we mean by this? Is it true what we pray? "You alone are without sin..."

Secondly, when Fr. John Maximovitch says that the teaching that the Virgin Mary was completely sinless is not in accordance with Holy Scripture (and Tradition) then what does he mean to say? Here are his words again:

The teaching of the complete sinlessness of the Mother of God (1) does not correspond to Sacred Scripture, where there is repeatedly mentioned the sinlessness of the One Mediator between God and man, the man Jesus Christ (I Tim. 2:5); and in Him is no sin U John 3:5); Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth (I Peter 2:22); One that hath been in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15); Him Who knew no sin, He made to be sin on our behalf (II Cor. 5:2 1). But concerning the rest of men it is said, Who is pure of defilement? No one who has lived a single day of his life on earth (Job 14:4). God commendeth His own love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life (Rom. 5:8-10).

Dear Joe,

Then in what way, from the standpoint of Orthodoxy, is Original Sin something from which we are to be "cleansed?"

Now this is something I don't understand. Could it be that the two sources have, unwittingly, accepted, to some extent the Augustinian view of Original Sin?

However this may be, to what extent is St John writing in reaction to the RC Original Sin dogma to differentiate it from the view of Orthodox Mariology only?

In any event, he could have gone too far in this, and that doesn't take away from his sanctity in the least.

Kallistos Ware's "Orthodoxy" mentions how certain Orthodox teachers reacted to, for example, the RC dogma of the Assumption by saying that "Orthodoxy doesn't accept this."

But Orthodoxy's liturgy does indeed extoll the Most Holy Theotokos and her being taken to heaven bodily by her Son. He simply contradicts the zealousness of those teachers and commentators.

One other thing that is somewhat perplexing and even amusing about these quote is that one gets the impression that the Most Holy Theotokos was somehow in dire need of cleansing from heaven knows what kind of sins (!). What kind of sins could such a young, holy woman have committed that she needed cleansing from them? If she "needed cleansing" at her Conception (and according to St John and His All-Holiness, didn't receive it) then what did she need cleansing from? Unless those two sources accept the RC doctrine pertaining to Original Sin, the answer is, "nothing."

For me, the context for St John's comments ultimately has to do with the fact that his mentor was Anthony Khrapovitsky, Metropolitan of Kyiv (venerated locally as a saint?) who was involved in Galicia with the bringing over of Eastern Catholics to Orthodoxy (together with the great New Hieromartyr, St John of Latvia) and so was heavily involved in polemics (even with Bl. Andrew Sheptytsky).

And the problem with polemicists is that they can and do overstate their case to make a point.

Orthodoxy's view of Original Sin and the sanctity of the Most Holy Theotokos is different from that of Roman Catholicism.

To make that case, we need not (and should not) say things that cannot be verified by the ultimate measure of Orthodoxy's faith which is the liturgy that brings together Holy Scripture and Tradition (Councils and teaching of the Fathers) but in accordance with how the living Body of Christ, which is what the Orthodox Church is, understands and interprets in accordance with the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

St John Damscene, when he was writing in defence of the Holy Icons, denied that St Epiphanius of Cyprus ever denied their validity.

However, he also added that even if it could show that it were true and that Epiphanius had said things to that effect, "Just because one sparrow has sung does not mean that spring is here!"

I choose to remember St John of Shanghai as the holy Hierarch who walked about barefoot, to the holy amazement of the French, for example, with a very large icon of Our Lady of Kursk hanging from a band around his neck.

He was a truly devoted slave of the Most Holy Mother of God and if I have misinterpreted anything in reference to that Holy man of God or if I have spoken out of turn due to my ignorance of what he intended (since I do not speak with the power of the Spirit as he did), then I ask for forgiveness.

Most Holy and Glorious Lady and Ever-Virgin Theotokos, save us all and me a sinner!

Alex

Ah, never mind, I read Dr. Alex your post again and found the answer to a question that I was asking.

Joe

I think it's best left the way it is. It's an opinion and a point of speculation.

Perhaps we can understand what St. John of Shangai means regarding the Theotokos' being purified and sanctified by the Holy Spirit in response to her obedience and faith if we hold that the blessed Virgin Mary inherited the same fallen, corrupted flesh that all human beings inherit. She did not commit any personal sins but just as all human beings suffer the consequences of Adam's sin and need to be regenerated, so the blessed Virgin Mary needed to be redeemed and regenerated as well and God bestowed this upon her in response to her obedient faith at the Annunciation. This would explain how St. John of Shanghai could reject the notion of the Theotokos' "absolute sinlessness," and would explain both St. John's and his Holiness' view that the blessed Virgin Mary was purified from the effects of ancestral sin sometime after her birth (probably at the Annunciation). Of course, if my explanation is correct, then it does exclude the notion of an Immaculate Conception. But it allows us to say that the Virgin Mary needed to be redeemed and regenerated from the fall and that she personally committed no actual sins.

Joe

Given this and our common dogma, that Jesus is a divine person who is true God and true Man, and our scripture, John 1:14 And the Word became flesh, how is the term "flesh" to be understood?

Why the necessity of this being "sometime after her birth"?

Being careful to distinguish that what is taught is taught, but only what is defined is defined:

Ineffabilis Deus [newadvent.org]

Dear Dr Alex,

Thanks for your excellent posts on thus subject. I found them very illuminating and helpful. God bless you.

Fr David Straut

Father David and friends,

It is still unclear to me what St. John and His Holiness mean by saying that the Theotokos was purified after her birth. Also, what does St. John mean when he says that the Theotokos was not absolutely sinless? Does anyone know? I'm still a bit confused.

Joe