I knew that the Orthodox do not believe in original sin. However, I don't understand how God can have foreknowledge of sin, create Adam as He did anyway with the full power to create him otherwise, and then say that God did not ordain it.
Let's say that you create a vase with your own hands. At the bottom of the vase you specifically leave a hole. You couldn't do it by accident, because you are a master of your craft. :) Then you give the vase to me. I inspect it and accept it as a gift. Then I put flowers in it and pour water into it. The result is a mess. Now, I can't blame you for what happened, you were free to make the vase any way you wanted, and I inspected it (obviously poorly :). However, once I discover the problem, I would certainly conclude that you ordained the hole.
I am certain that I read recently that the early Protestant reformers, that would include Luther and Calvin, made the same distinction that Kolokotronis makes between God's foreknowledge and God's will. All the Protestant churches I am familiar with do make this distinction and do not ascribe the creation or ordaining of evil to God.
Obviously, if God wanted perfectly obedient machines, He would have made Adam and Eve as robots. God, however, obviously chose to create man endowed with reason and free will, with foreknowledge of each man's choices.
We can, of course, only speculate why would God do that. Most Christians believe, and have always believed, that God wants us to come to him freely because we know that love which is not free is no love. Arranged marriages are not based on free love. Neither is an arranged covenant that compels.
God did the same thing with angels, bodiless noetic beings. We and the angels have a potential to sin. That sin is based on our common denominator, our intellect, with which we can make (ir)rational choices. Animals are free of culpability of sin because their choices are made by necessity, not by reason.
God did not create robots when He created angels and man.
Let's say that you create a vase with your own hands. At the bottom of the vase you specifically leave a hole... once I discover the problem, I would certainly conclude that you ordained the hole [but not blame you for being free to make it any way you wanted]
This example reflect your unfortunate view of God which is unrecognizable to us Orthodox Christians, Catholics and apparently many of our Protestant brethren. It is a God Who, as Kolokotronis once put it, "set us up." God does not deceive. He gave us everything we need to make paradise on earth. He didn't make secret holes that would surprise us and then say "Oh well, you could have checked better; don't trust me; trust yourself." You make Him sound like a used car dealer! That's sad.