Sin & Roman Catholic Mariology
What do the Orthodox and the Catholics think about Mary? Why is the immaculate conception denied by Orthodox? Why does our view of sin influence this entire topic? What is the ultimate problem with Roman Catholic Mariology? I seek to give an answer to these questions in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Roman Catholic Church identifies corruption as a result of the guilt of Original Sin that mankind has inherited from Adam. This is not a mistake we make, we maintain that only Adam and Eve were culpable for Original Sin, we inherit the consequences of sin. These beliefs about sin directly affect our views of Mary in contrast between East and West. Roman Catholics and Orthodox agree we inherit the consequences of the Fall. We disagree on the inheritance of the guilt of it.
The immaculate conception in Roman Catholicism is the teaching that Mary was free of original sin. While Orthodox would agree Mary is sinless in her choices, she is the New Eve who made all the right choices. We disagree that she was without ancestral/original sin. The immaculate conception teaches that at the first instance of conception she was “preserved exempt from all stain of original sin.” (Bull of Pope Pius IX concerning the dogma).
This is an official dogma of the Roman church, but it was not always agreed upon, most famously by Thomas Aquinas.
St. John Maximovitch states the following, “We Orthodox believe that the Panagia was conceived and born in a state of sin since she is a human being just like the rest of us. Only Christ was free of sin. We do venerate the Panagia highly though. She is the holiest of all the Saints and is like a member of our families. We do believe that the Panagia committed no actual personal sins. We believe that both through God’s grace and her free cooperation with God’s grace – both go together- she committed no sin. We believe she overcame every temptation to sin and thus remained ever pure, even in her mind and soul. There is a synergy, a cooperation, going on between God and the Panagia.”
The Problem In Roman Catholic Mariology
As stated, this problem is directly connected to the view of sin. The Theotokos’ mortality is evidence of her subjection to death, lest we say she accomplished the same healing of our nature as Christ did through His Incarnation and Life, therefore calling into question the need for the Incarnation in the first place.
There is a contradiction in the Mariology of the Roman Catholic Church, saying she experienced the passions (not as Christ did, who willingly chose to be afflicted by the blameless passions) and yet was without Original Sin. Ancestral/Original Sin is what causes the Blameless Passions &, ultimately, mortality. Christ assuming these in His Nature, without Original Sin, is precisely what heals our nature and enables us to be saved.
If the Theotokos is without Original Sin, she would not suffer the Blameless Passions or Mortality (hence why Rome is partial to the concept that she didn’t die). Seeing as every Church Father records her as having suffered from such, either she accomplished -what Christ became incarnate to do (assuming the Blameless Passions & Mortality in her Sinless Nature, turning them [by resisting them] into the path of salvation, thereby making her our savior, and not Christ) or she did have Original Sin.
If God preserved Mary from original sin, and purified her, this poses the next logical question, why doesn’t God simply do this for everyone? It makes God out to be an un-loving God.
We don’t glorify the Mother of God because she was preserved from ancestral sin by God, but because she chose to be free of personal sin by trusting in the power and grace of God. The former is an overriding of will, the latter is a synergistic cooperation with God. We can also see how this would influence monergism in the Protestant Reformation.
Furthermore, Roman Catholic doctrine says it is completely an optional matter of belief to believe the Theotokos died or never died. Besides this obviously being a problem of relative truth, how does she die without original sin which causes death? (Remember we are working under their conception of original sin).
And ultimately in their framework there is no way that she could have died, because again; subjection to the death is from the Fall, AKA original sin. She doesn’t have it in Roman Catholic theology, therefore she can’t die. To be consistent Catholics would at least have to say she never died in their worldview. Therefore making her death not optional; yet it is in Roman Catholicism, most emphatically with Uniates.
The Dormition
For the Orthodox, Mary died, as she was subject to ancestral sin like us. There is an entire fast and feast in the Orthodox Church called the Dormition of the Mother of God. Which commemorates her falling asleep (dying), this is also traced back to early church history in the 300’s. The first millennium Church which is consistent as the Eastern Orthodox Church today, did not think it was optional to believe in her death as the Roman church does today.
There is clear reference to the Dormition fast in 450AD by Leo the Great “The Church fasts are situated in the year in such a way that a special abstinence is prescribed for each time. Thus, for spring there is the spring fast ]—the Forty Days, Great Lent; for summer there is the summer fast… [the Apostles’ fast]; for autumn there is the autumn fast, in the seventh month [Dormition fast]; for winter there is the winter fast [Nativity fast].”
Emperor Maurice (582–602AD) issued an edict which set the date for the celebration of the Dormition on August 15. The Dormition has first millennium support, and proves that it was not an optional belief.
The early Church had a distinct conception that Mary died a natural death, as a result of ancestral/original sin. While she was sinless in her choice, she was not sinless as being exempt from the ancestral sin consequences of the Fall. This belief was lived in the life of the Church in the first millennium and still is today in the One Holy Catholic, Eastern Orthodox Church.