www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West The Roman Catholic Doctrine of Mary's Impeccability

Mardukm, for an Oriental Catholic you really do have a very Latin approach to things, because you seem to always be looking for a problem to solve. That really is not a very Eastern way of looking at things.

Could God do that? Yes, He could make a choice like that. After all, he chose the people of Israel and they were often unfaithful to Him. Neverthelss, He remained steadfast even when they were not.

You are asking hypothetical questions that can have no solid answer. In fact, only God can definitively answer the question you are asking here.

You are not looking at the big picture. God did not have JUST the physical nation of Israel in mind, but also the spiritual Israel, the Church. As Scripture points out, the situation of the physical Israel would become a lesson for the spiritual Israel. He did not force Israel to become sinful. But the physical Israel had a much more far-reaching purpose in God's plan according to His foreknowledge.

In any case, God COULD have made such a choice about Mary, but did He? What is the Church's Tradition on the sinlessness of Mary (or what Latins would call "impeccability"?) - despite the opinions of one or two Church Fathers? Did Mary ever sin - separate herself from God - according to the Tradition (doctrinal and liturgical) of the Church?

Blessings,
Marduk

I'm just following in the footsteps of all the Orthodox and Catholics who are trying to find solutions to our current state of schism. If they be accused of being Latin for wanting solutions/unity, then I'm proud to be counted among them.

I dread the possibility that this thread could have degenerated to a simple "yup, look at how wrong those Latins are" free-for-all.

I'll do more of that later, when I have time to mull over the texts. The apparent paradox the texts present in the face of Traditional Latin Catholic teaching on free will/Grace is a quandary, to be sure.

So long, for now.

Blessings,
Marduk

Dear Brother Marduk,

Don't you think that our Todd will make a great Orthodox priest?

And he doesn't even need to go through too much seminary for that either!

He just needs to be received into an Orthodox Church and the rest will take its course.

Otherwise, his approach to being Orthodox without actually belonging to Orthodoxy will forever constitute the most (modern) Latin of perspectives . . .

A great man that Todd, a man of God who has searched for the truth all his life and continues to do so.

And that is said in all seriousness!

God bless our Todd!

Alex

I think Todd would be a great Orthodox priest, especially in the Melkite Church!

Yes, he certainly has a lot of knowledge of the Orthodox Faith.

Could you briefly summarise the teachings which differentiate the Orthodox faith and the Byzantine Catholic faith. I have always assumed (apart from the dogmas focused on the papal office)that they are identical. Don't the various Statements of union with the Pope guarantee that Byzantine Catholics will continue to possess their Orthodox faith.

I imagine this may require its own thread if a discussion ensues?

I thought the same thing!

No offense, Todd!

I've not met many Melkite priests except through a school-time friend whose family is Melkite. They have been real gentlemen, well educated, and men of piety. Todd could well be one of them.

Dear Mardukm, could you please go back in this thread and look at message #400548. Many thanks!

Responding to #400548:
Father Ambrose,

This is a good topic for another thread. But your conclusion is a valid one. It is true that the various union agreements between individual Eastern Churches and Rome generally hold such a guarantee, but it is also true that over the centuries Rome felt it had no obligation to hold to it's part of the agreement. Things have changed and - since Vatican II - are now considerably better. [And I won't get into the fact that people are a product of their formation and that many Byzantine Catholics could use some additional formation.]

The best way to look at this is that Byzantine Catholics (and all Eastern Catholics) are perfectly free and are expected to maintain Byzantine theology, except in the areas where Rome has specifically stated otherwise (i.e., papal authority). The only stipulation here is that Byzantines cannot state that the Latin theological formula are wrong or in some way heretical. This is sort of like how a Greek might state that Latin is a perfectly good language, but just not the one he chooses to speak since it is not his own. [Any Catholic is free to state the the Church's theology on any topic is clumsy.]

One example often discussed here is the Immaculate Conception. As stated by the Latins, this dogma makes no sense from the Eastern perspective. But there is nothing whatsoever preventing Byzantines from speaking to the the question of Mary and original sin. And, really, Byzantines should speak to this starting with the standard Byzantine definition of original sin (which we more commonly call 'ancestral sin' - that we inherit from Adam and Eve (in addition to death) the propensity (inclination) towards sin).

Regarding the topic of this thread ("Mary's Impeccability") it needs to be understood that Rome does not teach that Mary was incapable of sinning ("Impeccable" can mean faultless or flawless, not liable to sin, and incapable of sin - as used in Roman theology it only means she did not sin). Her being freed from original sin could be understood that she was freed from the propensity towards sin. But she certainly retained her free will and could have chosen to sin if she wanted to. Latin doctrine states that she didn't sin. Byzantines generally don't feel it necessary to have a formal position on the question.

I appreciate many of these discussions. While they sometimes take a strange path in the end they tend to allow some understanding of terms across the different theological cultures of East and West. I get a lot of these questions at the website and I typically tell people trying to understand Byzantine theology the following story: "If you're an American and walk in to McDonald's in Washington, DC and order 'French Fries" you will be handed a box containing fried potatoes shaped like sticks. If you are an American in France and walk in to a McDonald's in Paris and ask for "French Fries" you will get nothing but an ugly, blank stare. But if you ask for "Les Frites" the server will hand you that familiar box of fried potatoes." Hopefully, people who read the treads here on the Forum leave knowing more than the proper way to purchase French Fries should they ever visit France.

John

Thank you for going to the trouble of this lengthy response. I probably need to give it a second or third reading before making any reply.

It is the teaching of the Eastern Orthodox Church that Our Lady was sinless because she used her free will to cooperate with God's grace, not because she could not sin. Because she was willing God prepared her by His grace to become the Theotokos. Last week, we celebrated the Feast of the Presentation of Mary in the Temple. The texts for this feast teach that when she was a little girl her parents brought her to the Temple in Jerusalem where the High Priest took her into the Holy of Holies. She then spent several years in the temple, praying and studying the Holy Scriptures while God prepared her with His deifying grace to become the Theotokos.
However, we do not teach the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, but believe that like all other humans she was born in ancestral sin. However, the Orthodox Church does not teach the Augustinian view of original sin popular in the West. According to Orthodox theology through ancestral sin, we inherit mortality from Adam. Because we are mortal we sin. Thus there is no place for the teaching of inherited guilt, total depravity, or the loss of free will in Orthodox teaching. We also believe that Our Lady died before she was assumed body and soul into Heaven.

Fr. John W. Morris