Combined with other things I have learned, I take this to mean that you are saying that man was ordained to be physically immortal. Is that right? If so, is there any teaching on how man would have ever been able to go to heaven? Or, presumably, would mankind have remained on earth forever?
"Combined with other things I have learned, I take this to mean that you are saying that man was ordained to be physically immortal. Is that right? If so, is there any teaching on how man would have ever been able to go to heaven? Or, presumably, would mankind have remained on earth forever?"
I suspect that that may have been true, but I certainly don't know. The Fathers teach that all creation was created for theosis, to be a place where the lion lies down with the lamb. We all agree that sin entered the world through Adam. The burden of that sin has distorted not only our own nature, tranforming it into something which is not our true nature, but also has distorted creation. The Desert Fathers tell stories about how creation surrounding a holy person in a state of advanced theosis actually changes to a state like that of Paradise. The story of +Gerasimos, whose feast we celebrated on March 4, the Lion and the Ass is a very good example of
this http://goarch.org/en/chapel/saints.asp?contentid=449. There are similar stories, including physical changes in the saints themselves, about other saints, +Mary of Egypt, whose feast we celebrate April 1 http://www.goarch.org/en/special/lent/saint_mary_of_egypt/ springs to mind.
The Fathers never said that. Man was created potentially mortal and immortal. With the Fall, we lost that potential, which was restored through Christ.