Is the "Immaculate Conception" Entirely Orthodox?
Provocative title, isn't it? Yes, it's my intention to argue here that there is at least one conception whereby the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is entirely Orthodox, and furthermore that this conception is entirely compatible with the papal declaration of the Roman Catholic dogma.
The typical Orthodox objection to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is that it is entirely superfluous (see Bishop Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Way, for example, or John Meyendorff's Byzantine Theology) or even wrong-headed, because it presupposes a notion of original sin that the Orthodox simply do not hold. As Meyendorff puts it, many Orthodox probably would have accepted the doctrine, "if only they had shared the Western doctrine of original sin" (BT, p. 148, emphasis his) -- the point being, of course that they do not share the latter, and therefore do not accept the former. I want to suggest, however, that the Orthodox focus on the "Western doctrine" of original sin as the only backdrop for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has been misplaced; in fact, oddly enough, a brief examination of the Orthodox doctrine of original sin, together with a look toward Orthodox thinking regarding the Incarnation of Christ, will make clear that the Orthodox understanding may even be more compatible (at least in some sense) with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception than the Western position.
To understand why, we need to briefly (and I emphasize briefly) outline some elements of the Orthodox views of original sin and of the Incarnation. Taking sin first, the Orthodox belief is generally as follows: (1) first, the Orthodox make a clear distinction between persons and natures, making clear that only persons can sin, not natures; (2) as a consequence of this, they affirm that Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, for which they were guilty, which unleashed death and corruption (and other fallen consequences) into the world, and which made human nature subject to this death and corruption, but which did not make human nature guilty (since, again, only persons commit sins and, by extension, can be guilty for sin); (3) therefore, the Orthodox do not hold to a position of "original guilt;" (4) the overall view, then, is that the personal sin of Adam and Eve damaged human nature, and we, as human beings sharing in human nature, inherit this damage but do not inherit the guilt of Adam and Eve's sin; we may be guilty for personal sins, but we are not born with natural guilt. Before moving to the Incarnation, then, it should be noted that the general problem expressed here by most Orthodox thinkers regarding the Immaculate Conception is that it seems: (1) that there is no reason to posit that the Virgin was free from the "stain" of original sin, because she possessed no stain of moral guilt, and (2) that it is clear that the Virgin inherited original sin just like the rest of us, because she inherited a mortal human nature affected by death -- the Feast of the Falling Asleep (Dormition) of the Mother of God is a part of Orthodox Tradition that serves as evidence of this. Meyendorff expresses this point clearly when he says, "Never does one read, in Byzantine authors, any statement which would imply that she [Mary] had received a special grace of immortality. Only such a statement would clearly imply that her humanity did not share the common lot [i.e., the damaged nature] of the descendants of Adam" (BT, p. 148, emphasis his). Thus, the Orthodox can only make sense of the doctrine that Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin by viewing it from the perspective of "original guilt," which is of course a perspective that they do not hold. On these grounds, then, they are wary of affirming (and tend to completely reject) the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
An examination of the Orthodox theology of the Incarnation, however, suggests that one aspect of the Orthodox view of "original sin" has been overlooked by these authors. For there are at least three elements to the Fall, on the Orthodox view, which are remedied by Christ's work: by His Incarnation, Christ restores the communion between human nature and divine nature; by His Crucifixion, Christ frees us from sin; by His Resurrection, Christ destroys death's hold over mankind. As Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky puts it, "In order to reach that union with God, to which the creature is called, it was . . . necessary to break through a triple barrier of sin, death, and nature" (Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 135). In critiquing the Immaculate Conception, however, the Orthodox have, in my opinion, focused rather unwarrantedly on only the second element (sin), whereas I believe that a focus on the first element (i.e., that of the severing of communion between the divine and human natures) is the one that is truly crucial to understanding the Immaculate Conception from an Orthodox perspective. To see why, one need only consider what has happened as a result of the Fall, on the Orthodox view, in this regard. Here are the words, again, of Vladimir Lossky (with emphasis added): "The decadence of human nature is the direct consequence of the free decision of man . . . A condition against nature must lead to the disintegration of the being of man, which dissolves finally in death, the last separation of nature, become unnatural and separate from God. There is no longer a place for uncreated grace in the perverted nature . . . where the passions overthrow the original hierarchy of human being. The deprivation of grace is not the cause, but rather the consequence of the decadence of our nature. Man has obstructed the faculty in himself for communion with God" (Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 132). It is precisely this element of the Fall which, in my opinion, is essential for understanding the Roman dogma of the Immaculate Conception from an Eastern viewpoint. It is this element that Christ repaired in His Incarnation, re-uniting human nature with divine nature in His hypostasis (person), "entirely permeating" it (according to the words of St. Maximos the Confessor in his Fourth Opuscule) with His divine energies and restoring communion between man and God. The human nature which, according to Lossky, no longer had a place for uncreated grace, is now allowed that possibility again.
To see where I'm going with this, though (and for polemical effect), let me juxtapose to the above words the words of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary at the time of the Annunciation, before the Incarnation: "Hail, full of the grace, the Lord is with thee!" (Luke 1:28). What could possibly be going on here? Lossky has just said that we are separated from God, with no place in us for uncreated grace, with no means of communion with God, and so on; and yet here is Mary being told that she is "full of grace" and that the Lord is with her, prior to the Incarnation, prior to the time when Christ irrevocably reunited divine and human nature and restored this communion for all of us -- or, to get to the point, for the rest of us, anyway. For clearly one possible (I say possible, but perhaps not necessary) implication of this is that Mary had been filled with divine grace already, that the Lord was already with her. It seems that the very idea of the Incarnation only makes this that much more clear: the Virgin was so in communion with God that she was mysteriously able to bear God in her womb, to give her very humanity to the Incarnate Logos. It seems, in fact, that the theology of the Incarnation here almost requires that Mary was graced in a special way, perhaps to the point that the consequence of sin that has separated our natures from uncreated grace and the divine has no hold in her, for she is already full of grace and already has the Lord with her when the Incarnation is announced.
Rather than express the Immaculate Conception in terms of a removal of a stain of "guilt," then (something which is nowhere said in the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception, by the way), it may therefore be best, at least from the Eastern perspective, to express it as a positive filling with grace. The result may be that there is more compatibility here than Orthodox realize. Besides, this is in fact the approach to the Immaculate Conception that Pope John Paul II encouraged in his consideration of the Eastern churches, and it is also quite consistent with the wording of Luke 1:28 ("full of grace"). Since we have already seen the words of the latter, here are the words of the former (John Paul II):
"In fact, the negative formulation of the Marian privilege, which resulted from the earlier controversies about original sin that arose in the West, must always be complemented by the positive expression of Mary's holiness more explicitly stressed in the Eastern tradition" (Pope John Paul II, General Audience, June 12, 1996).
Taking that advice, we see exactly how the Eastern churches might be able to embrace this doctrine without needing to adhere to a doctrine of "original guilt" or to hold that Mary would have been immortal if the stain of original sin were removed.¹
At this point, a hypothetical Orthodox believer might object, along similar lines to Meyendorff, that even if this approach works, one still doesn't see it being affirmed by Byzantine authors. However, this is not necessarily the case. Observe the following quotations regarding Mary, all from Eastern theologians:
"Many saints appeared before thee, but none was as filled with grace as thou . . . No one has been purified in advance as thou hast been" (St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, Oration II, A.D. 638).
"When the Mother of Him who is beauty itself is born, [human] nature recovers in her person its ancient privileges, and is fashioned according to a perfect model, truly worthy of God . . . In a word, the transfiguration of our nature begins today" (St. Andrew of Crete, First Homily on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, A.D. 740).
I must stop here and note just how crucial these words of St. Andrew of Crete will be for the Orthodox. The fact that he refers to Mary's nativity as a transfiguration of our nature is absolutely crucial, for it draws an immediate parallel to Christ's Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor. According to the Orthodox understanding, that Transfiguration was an instance where Christ manifested forth the fullness of the divine and uncreated energies (grace) which permeated His humanity. Saying that the "transfiguration" of our nature began with Mary, then, is like explicitly saying exactly what I have suggested: that Mary's humanity was already specially in contact with deifying grace.
Of course, before getting carried away, a keen observer might object here that St. Andrew says that this transfiguration began at Mary's birth, while the dogma of the Roman Church says that it began at her conception. However, the most plausible reason for this is that no consensus had yet been established by the time of St. Andrew; in fact, this is borne out by a glance at the history of the matter. The Feast of St. Mary's Conception (known traditionally as the Feast of the Conception of St. Anne, even though it is a celebration of Mary's conception) did not even begin to be celebrated until around the 8th century, so at Andrew's time such things likely had not yet been "solidified" in the Tradition of the Church. To assuage readers' worries, in fact, here are just a few brief words from the services of the Feast of the Conception of St. Anne as it is now celebrated:
"Today the great mystery of all eternity, whose depths angels and men cannot perceive, appears in the barren womb of Anna. Mary, the Maiden of God, is prepared to be the dwelling place of the eternal King Who will renew human nature."
"O choir of prophets, rejoice exceedingly! For behold, today Anna bears the holy fruit You foretold to us."
"She is conceived . . . the only immaculate one."
Finally, I will close with the words of a key saint for the Eastern Orthodox, St. John of Damascus (who is known for writing something like the equivalent of an Orthodox Summa Theologica), from his Homily on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin:
"O blessed loins of Joachim, whence the all-pure seed was poured out! O glorious womb of Anna, in which the most holy offspring grew and was formed, silently increasing! O womb in which was conceived the living heaven, wider than the wideness of the heavens . . . This Heaven is clearly much more Divine and awesome than the first. Indeed He Who created the sun in the first heaven would Himself be born of this second heaven, as the Sun of Justice . . . She is all beautiful, all near to God. For she, surpassing the cherubim, exalted beyond the seraphim, is placed near to God."
----------------------------------------------
¹ I have placed a footnote here because apparently at least St. John of Damascus possibly believed that the Virgin was freed from mortality as well but submitted to death just as her Son did: "For how could she who brought life to all be under the dominion of death? But she obeys the law of her own Son and inherits this chastisement as a daughter of the first Adam, since her Son, Who is the Life, did not refuse it. As the Mother of the Living God, she goes through death to Him" (Sermon II on the Assumption).
The typical Orthodox objection to the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is that it is entirely superfluous (see Bishop Kallistos Ware's The Orthodox Way, for example, or John Meyendorff's Byzantine Theology) or even wrong-headed, because it presupposes a notion of original sin that the Orthodox simply do not hold. As Meyendorff puts it, many Orthodox probably would have accepted the doctrine, "if only they had shared the Western doctrine of original sin" (BT, p. 148, emphasis his) -- the point being, of course that they do not share the latter, and therefore do not accept the former. I want to suggest, however, that the Orthodox focus on the "Western doctrine" of original sin as the only backdrop for the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has been misplaced; in fact, oddly enough, a brief examination of the Orthodox doctrine of original sin, together with a look toward Orthodox thinking regarding the Incarnation of Christ, will make clear that the Orthodox understanding may even be more compatible (at least in some sense) with the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception than the Western position.
To understand why, we need to briefly (and I emphasize briefly) outline some elements of the Orthodox views of original sin and of the Incarnation. Taking sin first, the Orthodox belief is generally as follows: (1) first, the Orthodox make a clear distinction between persons and natures, making clear that only persons can sin, not natures; (2) as a consequence of this, they affirm that Adam and Eve committed a personal sin, for which they were guilty, which unleashed death and corruption (and other fallen consequences) into the world, and which made human nature subject to this death and corruption, but which did not make human nature guilty (since, again, only persons commit sins and, by extension, can be guilty for sin); (3) therefore, the Orthodox do not hold to a position of "original guilt;" (4) the overall view, then, is that the personal sin of Adam and Eve damaged human nature, and we, as human beings sharing in human nature, inherit this damage but do not inherit the guilt of Adam and Eve's sin; we may be guilty for personal sins, but we are not born with natural guilt. Before moving to the Incarnation, then, it should be noted that the general problem expressed here by most Orthodox thinkers regarding the Immaculate Conception is that it seems: (1) that there is no reason to posit that the Virgin was free from the "stain" of original sin, because she possessed no stain of moral guilt, and (2) that it is clear that the Virgin inherited original sin just like the rest of us, because she inherited a mortal human nature affected by death -- the Feast of the Falling Asleep (Dormition) of the Mother of God is a part of Orthodox Tradition that serves as evidence of this. Meyendorff expresses this point clearly when he says, "Never does one read, in Byzantine authors, any statement which would imply that she [Mary] had received a special grace of immortality. Only such a statement would clearly imply that her humanity did not share the common lot [i.e., the damaged nature] of the descendants of Adam" (BT, p. 148, emphasis his). Thus, the Orthodox can only make sense of the doctrine that Mary was preserved from the stain of original sin by viewing it from the perspective of "original guilt," which is of course a perspective that they do not hold. On these grounds, then, they are wary of affirming (and tend to completely reject) the Roman Catholic dogma of the Immaculate Conception.
An examination of the Orthodox theology of the Incarnation, however, suggests that one aspect of the Orthodox view of "original sin" has been overlooked by these authors. For there are at least three elements to the Fall, on the Orthodox view, which are remedied by Christ's work: by His Incarnation, Christ restores the communion between human nature and divine nature; by His Crucifixion, Christ frees us from sin; by His Resurrection, Christ destroys death's hold over mankind. As Orthodox theologian Vladimir Lossky puts it, "In order to reach that union with God, to which the creature is called, it was . . . necessary to break through a triple barrier of sin, death, and nature" (Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 135). In critiquing the Immaculate Conception, however, the Orthodox have, in my opinion, focused rather unwarrantedly on only the second element (sin), whereas I believe that a focus on the first element (i.e., that of the severing of communion between the divine and human natures) is the one that is truly crucial to understanding the Immaculate Conception from an Orthodox perspective. To see why, one need only consider what has happened as a result of the Fall, on the Orthodox view, in this regard. Here are the words, again, of Vladimir Lossky (with emphasis added): "The decadence of human nature is the direct consequence of the free decision of man . . . A condition against nature must lead to the disintegration of the being of man, which dissolves finally in death, the last separation of nature, become unnatural and separate from God. There is no longer a place for uncreated grace in the perverted nature . . . where the passions overthrow the original hierarchy of human being. The deprivation of grace is not the cause, but rather the consequence of the decadence of our nature. Man has obstructed the faculty in himself for communion with God" (Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 132). It is precisely this element of the Fall which, in my opinion, is essential for understanding the Roman dogma of the Immaculate Conception from an Eastern viewpoint. It is this element that Christ repaired in His Incarnation, re-uniting human nature with divine nature in His hypostasis (person), "entirely permeating" it (according to the words of St. Maximos the Confessor in his Fourth Opuscule) with His divine energies and restoring communion between man and God. The human nature which, according to Lossky, no longer had a place for uncreated grace, is now allowed that possibility again.
To see where I'm going with this, though (and for polemical effect), let me juxtapose to the above words the words of the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary at the time of the Annunciation, before the Incarnation: "Hail, full of the grace, the Lord is with thee!" (Luke 1:28). What could possibly be going on here? Lossky has just said that we are separated from God, with no place in us for uncreated grace, with no means of communion with God, and so on; and yet here is Mary being told that she is "full of grace" and that the Lord is with her, prior to the Incarnation, prior to the time when Christ irrevocably reunited divine and human nature and restored this communion for all of us -- or, to get to the point, for the rest of us, anyway. For clearly one possible (I say possible, but perhaps not necessary) implication of this is that Mary had been filled with divine grace already, that the Lord was already with her. It seems that the very idea of the Incarnation only makes this that much more clear: the Virgin was so in communion with God that she was mysteriously able to bear God in her womb, to give her very humanity to the Incarnate Logos. It seems, in fact, that the theology of the Incarnation here almost requires that Mary was graced in a special way, perhaps to the point that the consequence of sin that has separated our natures from uncreated grace and the divine has no hold in her, for she is already full of grace and already has the Lord with her when the Incarnation is announced.
Rather than express the Immaculate Conception in terms of a removal of a stain of "guilt," then (something which is nowhere said in the dogmatic definition of the Immaculate Conception, by the way), it may therefore be best, at least from the Eastern perspective, to express it as a positive filling with grace. The result may be that there is more compatibility here than Orthodox realize. Besides, this is in fact the approach to the Immaculate Conception that Pope John Paul II encouraged in his consideration of the Eastern churches, and it is also quite consistent with the wording of Luke 1:28 ("full of grace"). Since we have already seen the words of the latter, here are the words of the former (John Paul II):
"In fact, the negative formulation of the Marian privilege, which resulted from the earlier controversies about original sin that arose in the West, must always be complemented by the positive expression of Mary's holiness more explicitly stressed in the Eastern tradition" (Pope John Paul II, General Audience, June 12, 1996).
Taking that advice, we see exactly how the Eastern churches might be able to embrace this doctrine without needing to adhere to a doctrine of "original guilt" or to hold that Mary would have been immortal if the stain of original sin were removed.¹
At this point, a hypothetical Orthodox believer might object, along similar lines to Meyendorff, that even if this approach works, one still doesn't see it being affirmed by Byzantine authors. However, this is not necessarily the case. Observe the following quotations regarding Mary, all from Eastern theologians:
"Many saints appeared before thee, but none was as filled with grace as thou . . . No one has been purified in advance as thou hast been" (St. Sophronius of Jerusalem, Oration II, A.D. 638).
"When the Mother of Him who is beauty itself is born, [human] nature recovers in her person its ancient privileges, and is fashioned according to a perfect model, truly worthy of God . . . In a word, the transfiguration of our nature begins today" (St. Andrew of Crete, First Homily on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin, A.D. 740).
I must stop here and note just how crucial these words of St. Andrew of Crete will be for the Orthodox. The fact that he refers to Mary's nativity as a transfiguration of our nature is absolutely crucial, for it draws an immediate parallel to Christ's Transfiguration on Mt. Tabor. According to the Orthodox understanding, that Transfiguration was an instance where Christ manifested forth the fullness of the divine and uncreated energies (grace) which permeated His humanity. Saying that the "transfiguration" of our nature began with Mary, then, is like explicitly saying exactly what I have suggested: that Mary's humanity was already specially in contact with deifying grace.
Of course, before getting carried away, a keen observer might object here that St. Andrew says that this transfiguration began at Mary's birth, while the dogma of the Roman Church says that it began at her conception. However, the most plausible reason for this is that no consensus had yet been established by the time of St. Andrew; in fact, this is borne out by a glance at the history of the matter. The Feast of St. Mary's Conception (known traditionally as the Feast of the Conception of St. Anne, even though it is a celebration of Mary's conception) did not even begin to be celebrated until around the 8th century, so at Andrew's time such things likely had not yet been "solidified" in the Tradition of the Church. To assuage readers' worries, in fact, here are just a few brief words from the services of the Feast of the Conception of St. Anne as it is now celebrated:
"Today the great mystery of all eternity, whose depths angels and men cannot perceive, appears in the barren womb of Anna. Mary, the Maiden of God, is prepared to be the dwelling place of the eternal King Who will renew human nature."
"O choir of prophets, rejoice exceedingly! For behold, today Anna bears the holy fruit You foretold to us."
"She is conceived . . . the only immaculate one."
Finally, I will close with the words of a key saint for the Eastern Orthodox, St. John of Damascus (who is known for writing something like the equivalent of an Orthodox Summa Theologica), from his Homily on the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin:
"O blessed loins of Joachim, whence the all-pure seed was poured out! O glorious womb of Anna, in which the most holy offspring grew and was formed, silently increasing! O womb in which was conceived the living heaven, wider than the wideness of the heavens . . . This Heaven is clearly much more Divine and awesome than the first. Indeed He Who created the sun in the first heaven would Himself be born of this second heaven, as the Sun of Justice . . . She is all beautiful, all near to God. For she, surpassing the cherubim, exalted beyond the seraphim, is placed near to God."
----------------------------------------------
¹ I have placed a footnote here because apparently at least St. John of Damascus possibly believed that the Virgin was freed from mortality as well but submitted to death just as her Son did: "For how could she who brought life to all be under the dominion of death? But she obeys the law of her own Son and inherits this chastisement as a daughter of the first Adam, since her Son, Who is the Life, did not refuse it. As the Mother of the Living God, she goes through death to Him" (Sermon II on the Assumption).
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