Posted on 05/27/2005 8:00:05 AM PDT by sionnsar
**Our quarrel is concerning the things that have been added. “**
I guess this author has never heard of Holy Tradition. Too bad.
It's not hard to find 'em today.
Your quotation from St. Ephrem says nothing about the conception of the Theotokos.
Eastern Orthodoxy has always taught that she was all-pure -- our prayers have the equivalent of "immaculate" in them many places. Sometimes it is translated that way, other times "blameless," other times "most pure," etc...
In every case, including that of St. Ephrem (and many other Fathers who refer to her as "immaculate," this refers to her morally guiltless life, and not to her conception -- which was no different from ours.
What was different about the Theotokos was what she did with her life, at every point responding rightly to God. She therefore had achieved theosis by the time of the Annunciation, and the archangel Gabriel thus greeted her as one "full of grace."
She is also in Orthodox teaching the pinnacle of humanity -- not because of special grace given to her at conception, but because of that life of ascetic discipline and obedience to God, that made her a worthy vessel of Christ's incarnation, with him taking his human flesh from hers.
She is even viewed in Orthodoxy as having achieved a level of theosis that no other human ever will be able to again, because God physically dwelt within her in the flesh for 9 months. She was, by this, sanctified in a way beyond imagining.
But this, too, is something that we can and do experience, although not to quite the same degree, when we receive the Body and Blood in Holy Communion.
"Do the Orthodox consider that Adam and Eve were ontologically different from the rest of us?"
At their creation, yes, I do.
I can certainly see your point of view but, as you know, would disagree with your conclusion. The necessity of salvation for her indicates, in my mind, that she is ontologically the same as any other human. If we are also saved, will we not remain human, our nature unchanged but perfected by the power of God?
I thought this was an interesting summary page on the Orthodox belief regarding this matter. It's from a Latin perspective, so it is looking for similarities in the way we phrase our beliefs. I found the last sentence most interesting:
From my perspective, part of the objection is really similar to the objection of the writer of the original article. It's an objection to the pope's role in this.
The disputes were solely over whether she was sanctified at conception, or shortly after conception, and these disputes mostly resolved around theories of ensoulment. There was never any question that she was born and lived an immaculate life without sin.
You know, if we focus simply upon the complete sinlessness of Panagia, leaving out anything about "Original Sin" and the stains and spots +Pius IX wrote of, our beliefs about Panagia, in full conformity with the consensus patrum (if not all of the Fathers individually at least in some speculations)then we believe the exact same things about her. It is the imputation of what seems to have become the Western idea of Original Sin to her (or to you or me for that matter) which causes the problem. It is of course also fair to say that +Pius IX's declaration of the dogma of the IC also causes a problem, but for very, very different reasons having to do with what we see as only a part of The Church declaring dogma for the whole Church. The same would hold true for the dogma of the Assumption, though as I said earlier, this is a broadly held and ancient pius belief among the Orthodox, probably as a matter of fact very nearly dogma, but for us it has never been declared as such. Doesn't mean we don't believe it.
I think we do.
Hmmmm. I'm not sure about all this use of Latin terms like 'sua sponte'. :)
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