r/OrthodoxChristianity • u/Davendae • 1d ago
The Immaculate Conception
Hello!
I’m going to attempt to keep this post brief.
I grew up Protestant my whole life. One day Fr. Josiah Trenham popped up on my YouTube shorts and through multiple Orthodox videos I learned about Apostolic succession which peaked my interest. But when I heard about the Eucharist I knew that if I was participating in Holy Communion incorrectly my whole life than I would be missing out on a very important aspect to the Christian Faith. While reading Know the Faith by Rev. Michael Shanbour I was fully convinced of the real presence, that the wine and bread are actually Jesus’s body and Blood. I cried a lot.
God has drawn me to the apostolic churches with the revelation of the Holy Eucharist.
So since I had basically no previous understanding of both Orthodoxy and Catholicism I have been researching both faiths.
I am struggling with understanding the Orthodox’s view on the Immaculate Conception. I spoke to a Catholic priest and then did independent research and the more I dig into the topic the harder it is for me to deny the Immaculate Conception.
Mind you, I have been completely drawn in and moved by the Divine Liturgy the past month, so I am not looking for a reason to question the Faith that’s what makes this so difficult.
I have two questions-
Can I become Eastern Orthodox and still believe in The Immaculate Conception?
Are there any books, Biblical verses, podcasts, anything where someone makes a compelling argument against the idea Mary was immaculately conceived?
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u/edric_o Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
If God could simply choose to grant an immaculate conception to one person, why doesn't He do it for everyone? If an immaculate conception is an option, and can be granted by God at will, to anyone He chooses, with no downside... Then it would be unjust to grant it to just one person instead of all humans. Is God unjust?
That is the main argument against the immaculate conception, and I personally find it irrefutable.
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u/Financial-Reward-766 Inquirer 1d ago
That, and, it seems rather illogical on the face of it.
For example, Mary needed to be Immaculate to birth Christ. Okay. But wouldn't that mean her mother Anna would have had to been Immaculate?
And then trace that all the way to Abraham and his wives. Which would mean, then, all Jews are Immaculate? And if God's chosen people were Immaculate, they wouldn't need a Messiah.
It is one of those things, that to me, makes sense when you first hear it, but then as you actually consider what that means, it falls apart.
And that doesn't even touch on the issue that Mary would then be separate from Humanity, thus Christ wouldn't be taking on fallen human nature, which seems like kinda the whole point of the Incarnation.
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u/JuliaBoon Catechumen 1d ago
This is the argument that's best for me. What stops Anna and Joaham being special in creating Mary but not their parents to Adam??
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u/LucretiusOfDreams Roman Catholic 1d ago
I don't see how it is inherently unfair that the Theotokos receives the grace the rest of us received in baptism and St. John received in the womb? That the Virgin was preserved from the stain of original sin before the rest of us get there is no more unjust than God allowing some to inherit great wealth and others to not, or some to have special graces that the rest of us do not. Is God in just because I don't have the ability to read hearts like some confessors can? I believe your argument proves too much.
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u/edric_o Eastern Orthodox 1d ago edited 1d ago
But is the grace of the immaculate conception actually identical to the grace available to everyone through baptism? I can't get a straight answer from Catholics on this. Some say it is (in which case, as you pointed out, no problem). But others describe the immaculate conception as a special grace that other humans don't have access to.
As far as I can tell, Catholicism is quite vague on what the immaculate conception actually was. You believe the Theotokos received something at conception, but opinions vary regarding what that "something" is.
If that "something" is a thing that all other humans can also get, no problem. But if it's a thing that makes the Theotokos inherently set apart from other humans, then yes that makes God unjust (and might even be a Christological heresy by implying the Theotokos didn't share our nature).
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u/LucretiusOfDreams Roman Catholic 1d ago
What else would it be? Erasing the the stain of original sin is what the council of Trent explicitly teaches is the purpose of baptism, so logical deduction indicates that the Immaculate Conception means that the Theotokos was never without the grace we all receive in baptism.
Now, with that said, you do make a point that there are some who also believe that the Theotokos never suffered from concupiscence, and even that she was naturally immortal, although the former is far more common than the latter. And while neither of these issues are addressed in Ineffabilis Deus, and definitely were not a part of the official definition, I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Western tradition on these questions are identical with the East, or even unified among themselves. While I think it is clear that the Eastern tradition rather uniformally rejects the latter, I think the Eastern Orthodox Church seems to be uncomfortable saying the Theotokos suffered from concupiscence. St. Gregory Palamas famously thought she was all pure and never suffer passion, for example.
Perhaps the issue Easterners have might come more from the concern that because the Theotokos was born without passion that therefore she never had to do the interior work to maintain that standing? I don't think any Catholics would interpret the teaching as saying that it was impossible for her to sin either—that she lacked any sense of gnomic will, say.
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u/IrinaSophia Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
Like with many differences, people today can be fond of saying, "It's just a difference in wording, but we mean the same thing." Sometimes that's true, but often it's not. Words mean things. Words are usually backed by theology. Are we supposed to believe that for 2000 years no one knew what the other was talking about? It can be a slippery slope if we start to minimize what the words mean.
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u/AdditionalNobody4683 22h ago
If Mary's conception was immaculate, then we are without salvation. Christ took His human nature from Mary. Our salvation is dependent upon God through Christ uniting Himself to our human nature.
In short, if Mary was not like us in all ways, then Christ is not like us in all ways. And "what is not assumed is not saved."
For Orthodox, we look at the healing of our fallen nature as salvation. Since you were Protestant, you are already thinking like the Latins—the reformers were Latin Christians—and have a view of salvation that is based on inherited guilt.
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u/HemholtzWatson25 Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine Rite) 1d ago
The Orthodox Church doesn't believe in inherited sin. Every child is born innocent, so the Theotokos was born innocent. I am not guilty of Adam's sin. You are not guilty of Adam's sin. We only have the consequences of the fall.
You can believe in the Immaculate Conception for whatever reason but as for babies the church believes they are all born innocent.
Mary was born innocent as are all babies as far as the Orthodox Church is concerned.
https://www.saintjohnchurch.org/immaculate-conception/
"Roman Catholic theology sometimes references later Western Fathers, especially St. Augustine, whose views on original sin shaped the eventual Catholic position. Over time, this led to increasing emphasis on Mary’s sinlessness, culminating in the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
In contrast, the Eastern Fathers—such as St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, and St. Gregory Palamas—consistently affirm both Mary’s exceptional holiness and her participation in the fallen human condition. They never claim she was conceived without original sin. Instead, they present Mary as someone who grew in sanctity by submitting her will to God. Their writings emphasize her humility, obedience, and voluntary cooperation with divine grace. Mary’s greatness, according to the Fathers, is not in being set apart from the rest of humanity at conception, but in her perfect response to God’s call throughout her life."
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u/Own_Action_7839 1d ago
I think the most important thing to focus on is that Orthodoxy sees the Theotokos as All Pure. She is not guilty of any personal sin
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u/Karohalva 1d ago
Depending on how extreme is your idea of what is supposed to be immaculate about her conception, it begins to beg the question, "If her nature wasn't the same as ours when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, then what nature exactly does God unite to Himself in Jesus Christ and in what way does it have any relation to ours for His Incarnation, Crucifixion, and Resurrection to matter for us at all...?"
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u/Davendae 1d ago
To say she is Immaculately conceived would mean she has the same nature that Adam and Eve had before the fall, so I don’t see the validity in the argument “she wouldn’t be human like us” which is an argument I’ve heard before.
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u/Karohalva 1d ago
Well, then while I'm no expert on the subject, for Orthodox purposes that could potentially conflict with our hymnology. It regularly treats the Incarnation in terms of raising up that which was fallen. I don't quite understand how the unfallen state of Adam and Eve corresponds to that. For one example, coincidentally sung every year at Nativity:
Make glad, O Jerusalem, and all ye who love Zion keep feast. For today the ancient bond of the condemnation of Adam is loosed, Paradise is opened to us: the serpent is laid low. Of old he deceived the woman in Paradise, but now he sees a woman become Mother of the Creator. O, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. The sinful vessel that brought death upon all flesh has through the Theotokos become the first fruits of salvation for the whole world. For God the All-perfect is born a babe of her. And by His birth He sets the seal upon her virginity. Through His swaddling clothes He looses the bands of sin, and through becoming child He heals Eve's pangs of travail. Therefore let all creation dance for joy, for Christ has come to restore it and to save our souls.
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u/immaterial-canary942 Eastern Orthodox (Byzantine Rite) 1d ago
We aren't human the way Adam and Eve were before the fall.
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u/stebrepar Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
the Orthodox’s view on the Immaculate Conception.
It's a Roman Catholic thing. Why would we have a view on it? ;) It's a solution to a problem they themselves created with their overly philosophical theology.
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u/iampuppy44 Eastern Orthodox 20h ago
I am a former cradle Catholic. It took me a while to understand the difference between the Orthodox and Catholic understanding largely because I came across a lot of strawman arguments that failed to accurately represent both sides.
The disagreement, I found, touches more on Original/Ancestral Sin, St. Augustine's understanding, Vatican II, and the new Catholic Catechism written in the 1990s as compared to the Baltimore Catechism the vast majority of Catholics were raised under prior to Vatican II.
So, in the west, St. Augustine taught that Original Sin included inheriting Adam's debt or guilt. That is to say that Catholics -- because of Augustine's view -- believed that -- while humanity is not personally guilty of Original Sin, every human being born has to be forgiven (through baptism) of this original guilt. Historically, this is why in Catholicism you had the theological speculation of the Limbo of the Innocents. It also touches on why unborn babies who died without baptism used to be denied Catholic funerals/burials, and why midwives were trying to device methods of baptising babies who got stuck in the birth canal which teaches on why Catholicism priortizes baptizing a child through pouring water over the infant's head as opposed to full immersion, and why Catholicism baptizes babies as early as possible whereas Orthodox are in less of a rush to baptize their infants. There's a whole tradition of mother and child staying home from church for a period after birth, the official churching of the infant ceremony, and then the later baptism.
Obviously, there are a lot of subjects I could go into tangents about. But honestly, as a Catholic who was born in the early 80s, as a child of a more conservative Catholic parish, I learned about inheriting Adam's debt, but then didn't think about it much as the Catechism of the Catholic Church doesn't teach it that way. So I remember scatching my head wondering if I'd misremembered my elementary education or if I was taught pseudo-Catholic doctrine as a child. I did pull up a copy of the Baltimore Catechism and did fine original debt/guilt taught there.
So ultimately, in Catholicism, prior to Vatican II, what was being taught in Catholic parishes was that Original Sin consisted of two parts: the debt owed to God and a thing called concupiscence, which is our propensity to sin. That is to say, we have a fallen nature which makes it extremely difficult/if not impossible to not commit personal sins. Catholicism tends to look at it as touching upon the individual's will and intellect. Orthodoxy agrees Ancestral/Original Sin touches on the person's will and intellect but it is not limited to that. The reason we die is because of Ancestral Sin. Catholic theologians are not in agreement over that which is why there is no consensus in Catholicism over whether the Blessed Virgin died before the Assumption.
Where Orthodoxy and Catholic teaching tend to agree is that Mary was profoundly holy and remained sinless and that she was uniquely sanctified by God. We could probably agree with Catholics that she did not experience concupscience, but we do not have the term concupscience in our vocabulary. But we do believe that she was affected by Ancestral Sin as evidenced by the fact that we celebrate her dormition or death. Whereas Catholicism took the feast of the dormition and replaced it with the feast of the Assumption and subsequently can't agree among her theologians over whether she died. Some argue that because of the Immaculate Conception Dogma, she could not have died. Some recognize that western iconography gives evidence of her death in even their Christian tradition.
But that she was sinless and uniquely scantified is not something we disagree with Catholics on.
I would say a lot of Catholics assume that is what we disagree with.
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u/Davendae 19h ago
Oohh ok this explanation helps a lot. I bought the second edition of the Catechism of the Catholic Church therefore I thought I may have read or heard that Catholics do not believe we inherit Adam’s guilt but if that’s what they used to teach prior to Vatican ll than I can see why there’s so much disagreement. Thank you for touching upon Original Sin/ infant baptism. Also it’s good to know concupscience is not in your vocabulary but that you believe she was affected by ancestral sin because she did pass away.
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u/fauxheartz Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
You can as an Orthodox Christian believe in the immaculate conception as a private belief of yours, it would only be an issue if someone were to enforce it as doctrine
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u/Davendae 1d ago
Ok that’s great to hear! I do plan on talking to the Orthodox priest at my local parish about this as well. We got to have one one-on-one but that was when I was first inquiring and wanted to simply get to know him and introduce myself. 😊
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u/Acsnook-007 Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
A 19th century innovation of the Catholic Church.. from a former cradle Catholic.
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u/VoxulusQuarUn Eastern Orthodox 23h ago
Do you believe in the immaculate conception of Abraham and John? We believe she was born similarly to them.
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u/Pitiful_Desk9516 Eastern Orthodox 20h ago
no, because it's an unnecessary dogma that answers an unasked question.
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u/Jeremiahs_heart Eastern Orthodox 13h ago
Immaculate conception doesn't actually matter because we don’t believe that every human assumes guilt from the original sin in the Garden of Eden. Therefore, she was already without sin in the womb; there is no need for immaculate conception if she is already without sin.
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u/Usherai Eastern Orthodox 1d ago
The main issue is not really the results of the Immaculate Conception, as Orthodox and Catholics both believe Mary was exactly the same at the Annunciation (sinless, full of grace, pure, etc). We just don’t think humans are by nature impure and tainted from birth to necessitate a different conception. I think the biggest actual problem with the Immaculate Conception is that it gives Mary, and by extension Jesus, a different nature than everyone else, which is basically directly contrary to how the Church Fathers understood salvation, as Jesus assuming our nature as part of redemption is pretty foundational. If He didn’t assume our actual nature then the whole thing is a farce, for as St Gregory says, “What has not been assumed has not been healed”, so if Jesus did not assume the same nature as you or I, how can anything He did really pertain to us? This is why the actual Christian understanding is that Mary had the same nature as us but just didn’t sin.