www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Immaculate Conception Revisited

Dear Teen Logo,

To quote from scripture, "You have spoken wisely."

When the heck are you going to get off the fence and become a Catholic?

We'd love to have you in the Byzantine Church, you know!

Alex

Dear Alex,

An interesting and relevant point has been raised by your response that supports my earlier tirades in other subforums regarding the mistake of using "existential" termionology in reference to us mere mortals. [You may remember the "I Am/The One Who Is" and why we shouldn't say "I Am a Plumber" or "I am a Reader," but rather, "I fix sinks" or "I read"].

The point is really regarding language/linguistics.

The Matins Evlogitaria really says in Greek (someone correct me if I am wrong) "The only one who is sinless." Common dumb dumb English often renders it as "the only sinless one," which almost means the same thing but changes "sinless" to an adjectival/attributive form, whereas "the only one who is sinless" is still in nominative form, a predicate nominative, to be precise.

And the nominative implies permanency: "I am a Reader" is wrong since my bishop could "de-readify" me at any time (because of my erroneous teachings, perhaps?).

The same is exactly true for the "One is holy, One is Lord, Jesus Christ to the glory of God the Father, Amen." I sing it frequently in Greek: "Eis agios, Eis kirios, Iisus Xristos....." This is a nominative form once again.

But when we call someone "Saint Theresa" in English, we lose the fact that this word "saint" is adjectival in the original languages. "Santa Theresa" is an adjectival/attributive usage.

So, Alex is right in the sense that our holiness or sinlessness would be in relation to a permanent holiness or sinlessness of God AND only an adjectival or attributive holiness or sinlessness.

The main problem remains. We make attributions of holiness to our myriad saints, but we make attributions of sinlessness in the East to no one. And when we call God holy or sinless it is not attributive but nominative. He Is the only one who Is sinless.

My guess is that the use of the word "sinless" for the Theotokos or John the Forerunner are tranlations into Slavonic or English that in the original Greek are "all pure" or some other word, but not "anamartitos." I asked my dogmatics professor who assured me that nowhere, liturgically, do we use "anamartitos" for anyone but Christ.

With love in Christ,
Andrew

Dear Alex,

And I use "sin" in the broadest Eastern usage of "voluntary or involuntary, word or in deed, manifest or unseen, knowingly or unknowingly." This basically means "no mistakes."

To say that someone is "sinless" means that they have made no mistakes. They haven't even unconsciously stepped upon and crushed an ant, if the unknown will of God was that the ant should not be crushed. This fits Christ only and can be understood in the expression "He fulfilled the Law." Every thing that he did, knowingly or unknowingly, was according to God's will.

And you know that I'm not silly.

In Christ,
Andrew

Dear Andrew,

You most certainly are not silly - I apologise for that.

As I"ve said before, when it comes to choosing either the Theotokos or yourself, as much as I esteem and like you, and cherish you . . .

Speaking on a related topic, is there an on-line listing of Albanian Saints?

Alex

Hi,

And that is OK. We do have Common Christological statements with at least two of these Churches. The Catholic policy in this regard is to focus on content, even if we allow for some diversity in form.

That should also apply to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.

Exactly! That is my point. I don't see why the fuzz over something we actually agree on.

I think it is a little more than that. It is the official proclamation that a belief always cherished dearly in the East, is a divinely revealed truth and that all Catholics, East and West must hold as such.

Does this affect the East? Not much, just like the Nicene Creed did not affect much those who already held the Athanasian theology as the right doctrine.

Not unnecessary, but rather in need of restatement in Eastern terms, which perhaps is already out there in the Liturgical/Spiritual tradition of the East.

Again, Form is not that big of a problem.

Right, that's our job. Just because the foot cannot see, it doesn't mean that the eye is not part of the body, or that the foot doesn't need the eye to see.

For the body to work correctly, and for the well being of all its members, the eye has to see and the foot has to stand and walk.

Yes, that is what you have for sharing with the Ecumene, and we all appreciate that.

We'd like you to appreciate what we have to offer as well.

We're good at making Canon Law and Dogmatic Definitions.

Just because these are not things you do as a matter of course, it doesn't follow that they are not needed, or not for the good of all.

Maybe, maybe we still have more to say. Why does the East want to shut the Church's mouth closed? What are you afraid of?

I find this uncharitable. This was not our reply when the East got into Arianism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, etc. We were there to help!

And that is good enough. Again, that is my point.

This might also have happened the other way around with the doctrines of the first few Ecumenical Councils.

Perhaps all those new or redefine terms of Person, Hypostasis, Substance, Essence, Nature, Subsistance, etc. Had significantly different meanings from place to place.

That didn't stop the Fathers.

TOTALLY agree. As you say, it's the other way arount, if anything.


They are not mutually exclusive.

Then we agree on this one. Why are people who insist we don't? Do they have a hidden agenda? Are they positively interested in keeping most of the East separated from the West?

Shalom,
Memo.

Much Ado About Nothing

Dear Memo,

Yes, as Timothy Ware showed, when the RC doctrine of the Assumption was proclaimed, some Orthodox came out and said that that was never part of Orthodox tradition etc.

And I don't mean to suggest that dogmatization isn't part of the heritage of the East.

It is just that the East has a more collegial approach to it and sees the Ecumenical Council as the ultimate pronouncing voice in the Church that applies universally to everyone.

Even though we are Eastern Catholics, that doesn't mean that we are not sensitive too, nor see as irrelevant the spirituality and concerns of our Orthodox brothers and sisters in this respect.

Ultimately, doctrine should be ratified for the universal Church via an Ecumenical Council.

The fact that an Ecumenical Council hasn't been held is due primarily to the state of schism that exists between East and West.

But even then, unless it can be shown that there was a pressing need to proclaim the IC and Assumption doctrines, that someone had denied them or else wanted to make their denial an issue that affected the hierarchy of main Christian truths - those doctrines are repeating what the East has always believed, in pith and substance, about the Mother of God.

What the East rejects in them is what is specifically "Latin" or reflects the Mariology of the Particular Latin Church.

Sorry for being uncharitable, but we do reject Augustinianism and so the IC doctrine as expounded by the Latin Church is something whose relevance we just don't see.

The Ecumenical Councils are in quite a different position - they involved the entire Church, including the Pope of Rome, and addressed crucial matters of faith that were being attacked with respect to the Trinity and the Incarnation.

We are free to ponder and meditate on the truths of the faith and we are free to hold theological opinions.

But in matters not central, that the Church has never doubted and against which there has been no attack etc., there is just no justification for dogmatization.

For us, dogmatization is purely a Latin thing, related to your penchant, quite legitimate, for rationalizing and applying mental powers etc.

For us, this does not contribute to the sense of mystery, especially with respect to the Mother of God Who is a most mysterious Being.

Even what was said at the Councils was only what was needed to assert the faith of the Church and defend it.

The Papal doctrines,including those of jurisdiction and infallibility, while perfectly valid, are, in some sense, "incomplete" because they were coined outside an Ecumenical Council and in the current state of schism between East and West.

It is not a question of "We're the truth faith or they're the true faith." We have all been diminished by the schism - we are all "in schism."

When I say this, I am trying to include our Orthodox brothers in this equation.

And I think I'm justified in doing that.

I think what our Orthodox brothers react to in the papal doctrines is to the anomalous situation of the Pope defining doctrine outside an Ecumenical Council.

The Popes have exercised important roles of balance and protection in the past, to be sure.

And the Pope is there to defend Tradition.

But ultimately the standard for any papal pronouncement is also that applied to Ecumenical Councils as mentioned above.

And the development of doctrine principle will allow future popes to reconsider things that they are empowered to reconsider, such as the Augustinian framework that gave shape to the IC doctrine.

One RC priest translated the reference to the IC in the Litany of Loreto as "Conceived in Holiness."

And this is entirely acceptable to the East.

Just some reflections, there is much more that can be discussed and I appreciate your candor and Catholic vision.

Alex

I know; I need to cement what my heart and mind tell me about the Catholic Faith! The invitation to the Byzantine Church is much appreciated, but I feel a strong attraction to the Tridentine rite of the Latin Church, as well as the Latin Church in general. I LOVE the Eastern rites, but if I went Eastern then you'd just have another subject of latinization with y'all, and that's the last thing I want! Pure Eastern theology and practice is riveting, and I don't want to disturb that with my Romanist outlooks!

Logos Teen

Some are still making as if the whole East has always been in agreement on the IC (defined in an Eastern way) and the Assumption (that would include a reasonable moment of Dormition).

This is certainly not the case. Just remember the summary of 500 years of patristic documents that I quoted from Daley's "On the Dormition of Mary" where none of this was expostulated. I'm not saying that one may not expostulate on an Eastern IC (this conception is on our calendar for veneration) or on an Assumption, but that equally opposite opinions are likely to follow.

My point has been that the great body of Eastern Patristic writings fall more closely with what I have proposed that with those who speak of a "sinless" (defined the eastern way) Theotokos or a bodily Assumption.

Shouldn't we be consulting our fathers in Christ who paid in blood for the faith prior to consulting Bp. Kallistos/Timothy Ware?

The East has certainly not found the need to dogmatize these issues precisely because:

(A) They are not important enough or critical to our faith. And

(B) They know that it would cause further schism within the Orthodox Church.

Accepting such dogmata could not be a conciliar decision since the mind of the Orthodox east is so divided, previously less so, but more so now.

And conciliar is still our name.

In Christ,
Andrew

[/QUOTE]I know; I need to cement what my heart and mind tell me about the Catholic Faith! The invitation to the Byzantine Church is much appreciated, but I feel a strong attraction to the Tridentine rite of the Latin Church, as well as the Latin Church in general. I LOVE the Eastern rites, but if I went Eastern then you'd just have another subject of latinization with y'all, and that's the last thing I want! Pure Eastern theology and practice is riveting, and I don't want to disturb that with my Romanist outlooks!

Logos Teen [/QB][/QUOTE]

Introibo ad altare Dei--get in there !

What is the difference between Mary's sinlessness and Jesus' sinlessness?

Joe

Dear TOTIL,

First, do a trick for me. Bring the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John into accordance with one another and then explain why the Church refused to accept only one and not all four (like Marcion did) and also refused to fuse all four into one mega-Gospel (like Tatian did).

Then I will revisit the IC dogma with you.

God bless!
Cantor Joe Thur

Dear Andrew,
God bless you.

I understand what you are saying, even if no one else does. You made it clear for me with the explanation of the linguistics (adjective vs normative form) and with the "I am a plumber" vs the "I fix plumbing". Must be all those years of learning English grammar with the Nuns.
denise

Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam!

I'm not a canine.

Sorry, I'm missing the relevance here.

Quid pro quo; I think not.

Logos Teen

If we take Cantor Joe's reference to the Gospels one step further, we see that the Lord's incarnate ministry on earth is one year in the Synoptic Gospels and two and a half years in the Gospel of John!

Oh, my!

But remember, scripture is a lesson book, not a day planner for Jesus Christ's ministry of geology book for the age of the earth, or a cookbook to tell us which spices were used on fish that Jesus multiplied. Does anyone remember any fashion details of the Lord or his disciples? No, well that's because it's not a fashion book either.

Scripture is there for us to learn God's message to us.

Theology and Theotokology (blame Alex for that word ) are man's explanations of God's vital message to us.

So when we attempt to dogmatize something that is not critical to our faith, we are attempting to do something that really can't properly be done.

Could we properly pass a dogma related to the appropriate Christian treatment of garden insects? No, because it's not critical to our faith. God didn't descend to earth to save the garden insects.

For me, this (see above) is the root of the errors in some of the later Latin dogmata: an attempt to do what cannot properly be done. I give them an A+ for effort, but a D- for result.

With Love in Christ,
Andrew