An Orthodox reader writes

Last updated on: December 31, 2014 at 2:36 pm by Mark Shea

An Orthodox reader writes 2014-12-31T14:36:51-07:00 Mark Shea

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Happy Feast Day! Reading your essay discussing the Orthodox view of the Immaculate Conception, I think you are either mistaken, or not as clear as you need to be, about what Orthodoxy teaches. Specifically, it’s not that Orthodox don’t believe in original sin; it’s that we have a different understanding of what it means. That is, we agree that it is the result of disobedience and separation from God, and that it is part of the human condition. But, as you say in your essay, the Immaculate Conception is not a doctrine that was needed in the East, because the East’s understanding of what original sin is does not require it to explain Mary’s purity, or Christ’s dual nature. I know you know that Orthodox Christians do accept the idea of a sinful humanity needing a Redeemer, but I’m just concerned that a reader of your post might mistakenly conclude that Orthodox Christians do not believe that man’s condition is sinful.

In any case, we all agree that Mary is indeed immaculate, and Mother of us all.

This is good, by the way — the Ecumenical Patriarch explaining irenically the difference between the RC understanding of the Immaculate Conception, and the EO.

Actually, it’s that the Orthodox don’t believe in original sin, but in the more loosely defined “ancestral sin”. The central point of my piece is that Catholics and Orthodox are on the same page, both with respect to the claim that we are sinners “in Adam” and that (somehow) Mary is without sin. Go back and re-read the piece. Both the universality of sin and the sinlessness of Mary are affirmed in the East and the West. My point was that Evangelicals aren’t going to find any allies in the East if they try to enlist them to denounce Mary as a sinner. Evangelicals base their critique on the assumption that everybody takes original sin for granted. The East doesn’t take it for granted. Original sin is a theological explanation of *how* all are sinners in Adam, just as transubstantiation is a theological explanation of how “This is my body” is true. You can accept the truth of the mystery without accepting the attempt at the explanation. The West, broadly speaking, accepts the mystery and the explanation. The East tends to be comfy with the mystery and not be too interested in the explanation.

But on the central point you are exactly right: Both Orthodoxy and the Catholic communion hail Mary Immaculate. That’s far more important than our respective notions of how she got that way or how to square it with original/ancestral sin. As C.S. Lewis said of the mystery of the Eucharist, “The command after all was “Take, eat” not “Take, understand.” I swallow the sinlessness of Mary for the same reason I swallow the Body and Blood of Christ: because Holy Church teaches it by the authority of Jesus Christ, who oughtta know.

Happy Feast Day (belated)!

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