www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Immaculate conception - eastern view?

Dearest Father Ambrose,

As you know, I came into the Catholic Church not by rejecting my Coptic Traditions, but by rejecting misconceptions and misreprentations of the Catholic Faith. This is an example of that paradigm I hold. Indeed, in line with what HH Pope Shenoute stated, I reject any teaching that causes Mary not to have a Savior. But that is not what the IC teaches.

Humbly,
Marduk

Dear brother ES,

First of all, the Ethiopians are considered a Patriarchal Church.
Secondly, contrary to the wishes of some, the IC is not generally considered a heresy in OO'xy.
Thirdly, there are also those within EO'xy who think that the IC is a heresy, and those that think it is a legitimate theologoumenon (i.e., not a hersy). Does that mean there is a doctrinal inconsistency within EO'xy? If not, then you should have a kinder assessment of OO'xy.

Blessings

As far as I know, there are no Orthodox bishops forcing anyone to accept or reject the immaculate conception. I also don't know of any saint within Orthodoxy with a status comparable to Severus of Antioch among the monophysites, where some churches uphold his teaching as orthodox and others anathematize it.

A theologoumenon is whether cows and elephants and dogs go to heaven. To call such an important doctrine about the All-Holy Mother of God a theologoumenon is a great insult to her, from either side of the belief. Either it is true and must be accepted as the Church's authentic tradition and therefore as dogma obligatory on all right-believing Christians, or it is false and must be rejected.

So please! Do not say it can be a theologoumenon!

The Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not a matter of theological opinion but, in the words [vatican.va] of the Servant of God John Paul II, a "wonderful Dogma of the Catholic faith."

I agree. But then, on your end, there is more testimony from the Eastern Fathers of those who speak directly of the subject to support it favorably, than otherwise. No Father in the early or Medieval Eastern Church sought to oppose the sinlessness of Mary's Nature with the dogma that "God saves" (though, ironically, that argument was found in 1 or 2 Medieval Latin Fathers).

Similarly, Father Seraphim Rose (in one of his books - I forget the namme; I checked it out of the library several years ago) gave a long list of testimony from Eastern Fathers to support his position that the doctrine of "Toll-houses" should be dogmatically true. But today, there are those who deny it outright, or say it is merely theologoumenon.

Blessings

I love the toll houses - dogma for the theologically challenged. It is surely the only "dogma" in the universe which has no definition and its proponents cannot even begin to provide one.

I go with Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, Russia's best theologian at the time of the Revolution who became the First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad - "The toll houses? Something the village people might believe."

Dearest Father Ambrose,

Forgive me if I am misunderstanding, but I thought what is dogmatic within EO'xy is not always formally defined. The Catholic Church has the same principle (though she has a few more formal dogmas). In the Catholic Church, a teaching can be De Fide (i.e., dogmatic) with evidence of moral unanimity in Sacred Tradition, even without a formal definition by the Extraordinary Magisterium. I've always thought that is even more generally the case within EO'xy.

Humbly,
Marduk

Indeed yes, for example unlike RC-ism the Orthodox have no conciliar definition of the real presence in the Holy Gifts. The knowledge simply forms part of our Tradition. The same for the Dormition and the Assumption which has no concilar definition but is part of our Tradition.

The problem with toll houses is that they fail to meet the criteria of what composes our Tradition. As a rule of thumb, Saint Vincent of Lerins' "What is believed by everybody, in all places at all times" is usually sufficient. The toll houses do not meet even such basic criteria.

May I offer the opinion of an archpriest at the cathedral in Irkutsk. In January and February 2003 we had an Archpriest from Irkutsk, Fr Rodion Sivtsev, in our Wellington, New Zealand parish. He is back in Irkutsk where he is first priest at the Theophany (Bogoyavlenski) cathedral. We keep in touch via e-mail and I decided to ask him his opinion of the toll-houses. He is a serious man given to conciseness. He sent back a brief answer...

"The opinion about the toll-houses among the people is quite positive (based on popular translations of Seraphim Rose) and they love to talk about them. But among the clergy and theologians there are diverse opinions, and they consider them to be a uniate-catholic influence stemming from purgatory."

So what do we see here? There is NO consensus in Russia. It seems impossible to claim that this is a "universal" and "non-debatable" element of our tradition or that they are an integral strand of Orthodoxy piety.

Dear Marduk,

Not sure how interested you are in the toll houses, but here is a small article.

Do Eastern Catholics have a belief in the toll houses?

"Toll Houses: dogma, a logic of damnation, and taking the implications seriously"

Part 1
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,2145.msg300562.html#msg300562

Part 2
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,2145.msg300616.html#msg300616

Part 3
http://www.orthodoxchristianity.net/forum/index.php/topic,2145.msg300770.html#msg300770

Do you remember that Fr Seraphim himself admits in the intro to his book promoting the toll houses that virtually no Orthodox have ever heard of them?! He saw it as his mission to popularise this unusual minority belief among American Orthodox.

Interesting enough, and as a small aside, the traditional Latin Church list of the seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit - including piety - are based on the SEPTUAGINT version of saiah 11:2. Only six of these are listed in the Masoretic text.
http://www.scripturecatholic.com/septuagint.html

About the sense of "culpa" (guilt) early discussed, in the field of the original sin, I was thinking about the distinction the Brazilian Law make between "dolo" and "culpa". You are accused of "dolo" when you do a bad act, with clear intention. But of "culpa" when you haven't had a precise will to do the act, being moved by imprudence, negligence or inability.

So "culpa" in Law have a different meaning than the usual sense of "culpa", guilt, we have. And as I have just found, "culpa" and "dolus" seem to appear in English Law as either.

Maybe it has nothing to do with the discussion, but at least it confirms "culpa" in Latin must not have the sense we usually think. So as to remember, I brought a text saying Trent used the Latin word "reatum" to express the "guilt" we inherit of Adam, not a "guilt" in the sense of being responsible, but of being affected by the act of someone really "guilty".

Common Law has a parallel in "specific intent" and "general intent" crimes.

Some crimes require the specific intent of the wrong deed done, while others (including murder) simply require a general wrongful intent. When a person has general intent, it carries over to any general intent crime, but specific intent does not.

Also, voluntary intoxication can negate specific intent, but not general intent (voluntary intoxication can be general intent all by itself). Involuntary intoxication can negate either.

hawk, esq.