www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology Why is the Immaculate Conception considered Ex-Catherda?

That is the last of the Lost Posts that I was able to retrieve.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming!

The IC is Mariology as it pertains only to Mary among human persons after the fall, but the link with Christology as stated here is true and important. The IC dogma does not distance Mary from Mankind as some (rather uninformed) objections claim; rather, as noted above, the IC shows how Christ's humanity -- the humanity of a Divine Person -- has an unambiguous and direct link to ours: As the Fourth Eucharistic Prayer of the Latin Mass says, He is "a man like us in all things but sin" and in the Letter to the Hebrews "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin" (Heb 4:15). Since Mary, a human person, is without sin, so too is Jesus, a divine person, without sin but still one of us in His -- in our -- humanity.

Just as we inherit death.

Significant details of the belief vary.

As shown in recent posts that may be lost, the Russian Church accepted the IC for some time and apparently understood the sense of "original sin." I think a subsequent Patristic renewal among the Eastern churches sought and seeks to reclaim indigenous Eastern terminology. This is good but does not erase history. The objections to Western or Latin or Roman Catholic terminology and vocabulary that was clearly understood and accepted in the past only further complicate and obscure a documented understanding that should be a given in these discussions.

Certainly not so for the Catholic and therefore Eastern Catholic. Is this even accepted Orthodox teaching?

The dogma (see below) is for the Church -- that is, East and West and North and South.

The timing does not go to veracity and the Truth, though not stated explicitly, was and is still the Truth. What is a Dogma before being declared other than a theologumenon?

Close enough even with the "": it's "dogma" i.e. Dogma. The answer to the thread's subject is, as inferred here, that it was so proclaimed. As to what falls "under the purview of dogma" the actual, public, solemn, clear actions of the Catholic Church speak against any private opinions to the contrary.

Oh, but I do like the answer: "...Mortality is the effect of the original sin..." as you say. But my actual question (the innermost quote above) remains unanswered. Here is the context:
And an interesting response, but not an answer to the question:

Thank you for re-posting the lost posts and for all the reformatting.

No, I have answered the question. Mary is conceived and born mortal, which means she is subject to death and all that follows from it, e.g., unruliness of the passions, a desire to maintain her mortal existence, weakening of the will, etc., but none of these things, which are all a part of being mortal, have anything to do with the idea that a person is somehow conceived or born sinful or guilty. There is no need for a theory of Immaculate Conception in the East, because there is no need to protect the Theotokos from the fiction that she would have been conceived or born sinful without it.

As to why babies are baptized, I answered that already, and so I see no need to repeat myself. No one is conceived or born sinful or guilty.

You're welcome.

You wrote: "...Mortality is the effect of the original sin..." You say "the original sin" by which I understand the personal sin of Adam: The personal sin of Adam resulted in his mortality, that is, "...Mortality is the effect of the original sin..." According to this, if I understand it, the sin of Adam has only an inherent existential consequence for us, his descendants, and that consequence is death and all that it entails. Is there not also an inherent spiritual consequence?

But I do not see it, nor does the Catholic Church, as "fiction." So, reconstructing:





"this state" = "No one is conceived or born sinful or guilty"; "All that has being exists naturally in the divine energy."

QUESTION: In what ways does "this state" differ from that of Adam before the Fall?

You did answer and I intend to return to it. This question of mine was included only as context in my last post although it does go to the point:

You say it again so I ask again:


"this state" = "No one is conceived or born sinful or guilty"; "All that has being exists naturally in the divine energy."

The spiritual consequence is the return to non-being, which Christ reversed through the incarnation by which ever-being was given to all mankind. Heaven and hell only became possible with the incarnation.

You seem to be confusing the theological tradition of one Church, i.e., the Roman Church, with the tradition of the Catholic Church.

The Byzantine Church is Catholic too, and its theological tradition has as much weight as the Roman tradition.

Problems have arisen because the Roman Church has tried to turn its speculations into dogma (e.g., the Roman view of the original sin, the theory of the Immaculate Conception, the idea that the bishop of Rome has supremacy over all the other bishops, the filioque, etc.), and that has brought about the present division between East and West.

The difference is this: Adam was created immortal but with the potential to fall into mortality, while we are conceived and born mortal but with the potential to have ever-well-being, that is, if we cooperate with the divine energy.

Not to butt in, but that's simple. Before the fall, Adam and Eve were not subject to death. After the Fall, they and humankind were and still is.

An infant's soul is in the same state that Adam's was, however, the difference you seek is that these souls are born into a world where death reigns. Sin is a result of death's grip.

It is why Jesus, through death, has conquered death, to redeem this world that was corrupted. Eve's rejection of God and "yes" to Satan is redeemed by Mary's acceptance of God and "yes" to Gabriel. Through Eve, Adam introduced death. Through the Theotokos, Jesus the new Adam conquered death.

Mary being filled with God's Grace to reject sin from her infancy makes sense to me in only one way: that she might, full of Grace as Eve was, say "yes" to God when Eve said "no". The free will of Mary redeeming the free will of Eve. Jesus then, through His death, conquering the death that Adam introduced. I don't understand this to be dogmatically true, and my apostolic faith and Christology are none the lesser if she was filled with this grace at the annunciation, or if she had sinned in her life anyways.

Are we really suggesting that Jesus would have sinned had Mary not been sinless? That is silly.

I have answered this question, but you do not like the answer, because you accept the Roman position, while I do not.

Re-read the quotation from St. John Chrysostom, because that summarizes my own position, babies - as he said - are sinless, but are baptized in order to give the other gifts associated with that holy mystery.

You are free to believe that babies are born guilty and sinful if you wish, but I will never believe such nonsense.

I agree. And thank you for "butting in."

I agree.

Well said! One of the problems with the Immaculate Conception theory is that it tends to make Mary's will irrelevant. Salvation is a synergistic process. I have even had Roman Catholic friends say that Mary could not sin, that she had no free will, because - in a sense - grace replaced her free will.

Ok, there is also a spiritual consequence. But it is "non-being"? And "Heaven and hell only became possible with the incarnation." Please explain.