The Immaculate Conception


	Ukrainian Orthodoxy		Orthodoxie ukrainienne

Question:

Can an individual Orthodox believe in the Immaculate Conception?

Answer:

Dr. Alexander Roman alex.roman@unicorne.org

All Orthodox Christians already believe that the Most Holy Mother of God was always sinless and Most Holy from her Conception.

In the Orthodox East, there are thousands of miraculous Icons of the Most Holy Mother of God that are honoured with feast days, prayers, veneration, candles and processions. One icon, that of the Mother of God of Pochayiv that is especially popular in Ukraine has 300 other copies of it world-wide - ALL of which are miraculous. Orthodox Christians, especially monastics, pray 150 Hail Mary's daily. St Seraphim of Sarov who lived in the 18th century expected all of his spiritual children to pray this rule of prayer daily. Orthodox Christians also often make a prostration of themselves to the ground at the end of each "Hail Mary."

In addition, there is an interesting tradition among the Orthodox in Eastern Europe that does not allow any woman to be called "Mary" after the Mother of God, out of respect for Her (in the same way that it would be forbidden to call a boy by the name of "Jesus"). Instead, when using the name "Mary" it must be after a female saint! This isn't followed by other Orthodox, but the Russian Church insists on this tradition.

The Immaculate Conception was proclaimed a dogma in the Roman Catholic Church primarily to forbid any Catholic from believing that the Most Holy Virgin Mary was conceived with any "stain of Original Sin" on her soul. Prior to that proclamation, it was actually permissible in the Catholic Church for a Catholic to believe this. So the situation was that Catholics were allowed to believe "A" or "B" about the Mother of God (i.e. that she was conceived without sin and in holiness OR that she was conceived with Original Sin). After the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was proclaimed, Catholics could only believe "A."

But Orthodox have ALWAYS believed "A" and never had any tradition of believing "B."

The theology of the Immaculate Conception is based on St Augustine's view of the "stain of Original Sin." That theology was NEVER accepted by the East. For the Orthodox East, Original Sin is concupiscence and death - we do not inherit the personal, actual sin of Adam. The pains a woman suffers in giving birth, for example, is seen by the Bible as part of the effects of Original Sin in our nature (and we DO inherit a sinful nature from Adam).

But the Mother of God did NOT feel any pain in giving birth to our Lord since she was hallowed by the Holy Spirit as "Higher than the Cherubim and more glorious than the Serphim."

To believe in the Immaculate Conception, one would need to accept the view of Original Sin in terms of an inherited "stain." (The Catholic Church has never proclaimed infallibly that one MUST accept this view of Original Sin). There WERE Orthodox theologians in the 17th and 18th centuries who did accept the "stain of Original Sin" view and who did accept the Western view of the Immaculate Conception (which, as you know, was around for several centuries prior to it being proclaimed as a dogma).

These Orthodox even organized into "Brotherhoods of the Immaculate Conception," wore the medal of the Immaculate Conception and even took the "bloody vow" to defend to the death this dogma.

The veneration of the Most Holy Mother of God is very profound in the East (in fact, one of the accusations against the Western Catholic Church that some Eastern theologians made in history was that the West often left out "Most Holy" in referring to the Mother of God and referred to her only as "Holy").

And in terms of Eucharistic theology and Mariology, the Orthodox East sees the Most Holy Mother of God as our Mother (Mother of the Body of Christ) Who nourishes us with the Body and Blood of Her Divine Son in Holy Communion, as Christ took His Body and Blood from that of His Mother in the Incarnation. So just as human mothers nourish they children from the milk of their bodies, so does the Most Holy Mother of God nourish us with That which likewise came from Her Body, Her Divine Son in Holy Communion.

For more discussion, please see The Holy Mother.

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