“They needed to mature, to grow to awareness by willing detachment and faith, a loving trust in a personal God” (Clement, 1993, p. In Orthodox thought Adam and Eve were created with a vocation: to become one with God gradually increasing in their capacity to share in His divine life - deification (Romanides, 2002, p. It is not guilt that is passed on, for the Orthodox fathers it is a condition, a disease.
Our nature, teaches Cyril of Alexandria, became “diseased… through the sin of one” (Migne, 1857-1866a). (I Corinthians 15:21) “Man is born with the parasitic power of death within him,” writes Fr. The question becomes, “What then is the inheritance of humanity from Adam and Eve if it is not guilt?” The Orthodox Fathers answer as one: death. Instead, it is posited that each person bears the guilt of his or her own sin. The Eastern Church, unlike its Western counterpart, never speaks of guilt being passed from Adam and Eve to their progeny, as did Augustine. The word amartia, the more familiar term for sin which literally means “missing the mark”, is used to refer to the condition common to all humanity (Romanides, 2002).
#Ancestral sin romanides full
The Greek word for sin in this case, amartema, refers to an individual act indicating that the Eastern Fathers assigned full responsibility for the sin in the Garden to Adam and Eve alone. The phrase the Greek Fathers used to describe the tragedy in the Garden was ancestral sin.Īncestral sin has a specific meaning. Prior to this the theologians of the early church used different terminology indicating a contrasting way of thinking about the fall, its effects and God’s response to it. The concept may have arisen in the writings of Tertullian, but the expression seems to have appeared first in Augustine’s works. "As pervasive as the term original sin has become, it may come as a surprise to some that it was unknown in both the Eastern and Western Church until Augustine (c. Father Hughes has written an excellent explanation of the difference between original sin and ancestral sin. He has served as the Orthodox Chaplain at Harvard University. Mary’s Orthodox Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Very Reverend Antony Hughes, M.Div., is the rector of St. In response, I defer to one who is better qualified to answer the first part of this question. Question number 8 of the most commonly asked Questions about Genesis is: "Did I understand you to say the Orthodox don't believe in inherited (original) sin? If so, how you they explain David saying he was conceived in sin, and sinful from birth?"
0 kommentar(er)
