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Obviously there is no "tradition" for the Immaculate Conception otherwise the East would follow that same tradition. Either it is true or it isn't. Either the Church has ALWAYS held the tradition of the Immaculate Conception or it hasn't

There certainly IS a tradition that Mary was sinless. The quesiton never came up before Council (before the Great Schism) so that it could be finally defined. However, there are a number of Fathers, as well as the Liturgy of the Church, that expresses the belief, guided by the Spirit in the Church, that Mary was sinless from birth. All of the Counciliar definitions, whether before or after the Schism, are in seed form in the Apostolic Teachings. The questions are not resolved until the Church mulls over the question of "so what DO we believe on this issue?" when someone teaches a sense not held by the Church. Apparently, the Spirit didn't desire His Church to define the issue until 1854, which nicely refutes Darwin's idea of the end and destiny of man...

Regards

The Orthodox Church certainly has a tradition that the Theotokos was sinless, but not that she was conceived without original sin or the effects of the ancestral sin.

On our feast of her conception, however, (which has been commemorated in the East longer than in the West) our services mention absolutely nothing about her being conceived without sin, or without the effects of the ancestral sin, or anything remotely resembling it. The emphasis is on the miraculous fact of her being born to very elderly parents beyond childbearing age.

And of course, like all Orthodox services, the service is a rather long one, with many, many chances to mention this belief. When we discussed this once before, I did some research, and the parts of the services that are attributed to a specific saint (most hymnology is anonymous) go back to the 12th century and 9th century, as I recall.

There certainly IS a tradition that Mary was sinless.

I'm not saying a tradition that Mary was sinless. I'm talking about the Immaculate Conception. New Advent states:

In the Constitution Ineffabilis Deus of 8 December, 1854, Pius IX pronounced and defined that the Blessed Virgin Mary "in the first instance of her conception, by a singular privilege and grace granted by God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin."

The Orthodox do not believe in original sin, thus there is no reason Mary needed to be "preserved". She simply didn't sin.

Now if this decree comes from "the chair of Peter", as it does, and if any ruling from the chair is infalible, then how can it be wrong? It means that original sin infects mankind and Mary was preserved from it. That's the "infalible" teaching from the Church. It also means that the Orthodox are wrong in their teaching of original sin which they claim tradition support their view.

BTW-While reading about the Immaculate Conception, it is interesting that the original Feast of the Immaculate Conception did not talk about Mary's sinlessness-only honor her for carrying our Lord.