topcat54:
There view of Tradition was exactly what the Catholic Church hold to, as well as the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Fathers did in their writings allude to Mary being preserved from Original Sin by God’s Providence and Grace, at least in the Western Church which point to the Immaculate Conception. In the Eastern Orthodox Church, you will also see Mary as the Most Holy Theotokos and rather than define it as a Dogma, which is what the Catholic Church did, they see it as a dogma expressed from the Eastern Liturgical Tradition, which while a difference Tradition [Latin vs. Greek], results in the same thing as even in the Catholic Church, there is a constant Liturgical principle “Lex Orandi Lex Credendi”, or the rule of prayer leads to the rule of Faith
Here is an excerpt on the Orthodox Tradition from Prof. Kimball [Who is an Orthodox Theologian] that was delivered at the University of Dayton, a Catholic University.
“Within the Divine Liturgy, Mary is always granted esteem because she is the Theotokos. Immediately following the Anaphora (lifting up of gifts) and the Consecration in the Divine Liturgy of St. Chrysostom, the famous hymn Axion Estin is always sung, recognizing Mary’s role in the miracle of the Eucharist:
It is truly right to bless you, Theotokos,
ever blessed, most pure, and mother of our God.
More honorable than the Cherubim,
and beyond compare more glorious than the
Seraphim, without corruption you gave birth
to God the Word. We magnify you, the true
Theotokos.[3]
http://campus.udayton.edu/mary/maryorthodox.htm
If you read on, you will see that the Eastern Orthodox also refer to the Holy Mother of God as the “Panagia which closely relates to the Catholic concept of Immaculate Conception. From the Orthodox perspective, the Catholic Church’s tendency to define things means you sometimes “define things” that are in essence, a Holy Mystery and sometimes are “theological terms” can’t adequatly express the “Holy Mystery” that we are trying to define.
As for the Assumption of Mary, that comes from the Greek-Byzantine Tradition as well and finds its source in the Liturgy of the Greek and other Eastern Churches. It made it way to Rome in the 4th/5th century and of course was late defined as Dogma. It is not a defined dogma in the Orthodox Church but one that is celebrated in the Divine Liturgy of the Eastern Church.
Your view of Tradition is inconsistent with the Fathers, both West and East. I suggest you look to the Greek Church Fathers as well as with the split between Rome and Constantinopile in 1054 AD, you can’t look at the Eastern Orthodox Church today and say that its Dogmas and Doctrines that it believes, either via Council of the Early Church or what is confirmed in its Divine Liturgy, are the product of Rome’s views being incorporated by the East as those 2 Great and Ancient Traditions had been apart 500 years before Henry VII decided to make himself head of the Church of England and Luther and Calvin proposed novel ideas not found in either the Latin Fathers of the Early Church and “the Greek Fathers” and the Eastern Orthodox Church as well.