“The Immaculate Conception and the Orthodox Church” (4)

By Father Lev Gillet
From Chrysostom, Vol. VI, No. 5 (Spring 1983), pp. 151-159.
(Continued from Part I, Part II & Part III)
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V. There are three principal causes which provide an explanation for the opposition with which the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has been met in the Orthodox Church.
First and foremost, there is the mistrust felt a priori by many Orthodox about any doctrine [...]

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“The Immaculate Conception and the Orthodox Church” (3)

By Father Lev Gillet
From Chrysostom, Vol. VI, No. 5 (Spring 1983), pp. 151-159.
(Continued from Part I and Part II)
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IV. Let us now consider more closely the attitude of the Russian Church towards the question of the Immaculate Conception.
Every Russian theological student knows that St Dmitri, metropolitan of Rostov (17th century), supported the Latin ”theory of the epiklesis” (10); but young Russians [...]

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“The Immaculate Conception and the Orthodox Church” (2)

By Father Lev Gillet
From Chrysostom, Vol. VI, No. 5 (Spring 1983), pp. 151-159.
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(Continued from Part 1)
III. I shall begin by quoting several phrases which cannot be said with absolute certainty to imply a belief in the Immaculate Conception but in which it is quite possible to find traces of such a belief.
First of all - the patriarch Photius. In his [...]

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“The Immaculate Conception and the Orthodox Church” (1)

By Father Lev Gillet
From Chrysostom, Vol. VI, No. 5 (Spring 1983), pp. 151-159.
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I. It is generally agreed, I think, that the dogma of the Immaculate Conception is one of the questions which make a clear and profound division between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Is this really the case? We shall try to examine quite objectively what Orthodox [...]

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More on the Immaculate Conception in Eastern Orthodoxy

A bit of historical background on the Immaculate Conception in Eastern Orthodoxy, from Casimir A. Kucharek’s The Byzantine-Slav Liturgy of St John Chrysostom (Allendale, NJ: Alleluia Press, 1971), pp. 354-7. I would love to see an Orthodox historian’s rebuttal of Kucharek (a Greek Catholic) on this topic.
The Byzantine Church calls [Mary] Panagia, “the all-holy one”, [...]

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On Original Sin and the Immaculate Conception

Not all [modern] Orthodox theologians deny [the Immaculate Conception], though some do very explicitly deny it, thereby illustrating the different development which took place in the West and left the East comparatively unaffected. The development of an explicit doctrine of the Immaculate Conception originated in the Pelagian denial of original sin, which denial forced Latin [...]

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Pistevo eis ena Theon

Listen to Pope Benedict XVI and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew recite the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed of 381 together in Greek (thanks to Fr Z).

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Filioquextravaganza

(Apologies for the cheesy title.)
Recently on some of my favorite blogs, there have been some excellent rebuttals to Orthodox contentions about the Filioque clause and the Procession of the Holy Spirit.
First, Sacramentum Vitae’s Dr Michael Liccione (a veteran of irenic, scholarly, substantive online Catholic-Orthodox debate) has added a new installment to an ever-growing series of posts [...]

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Gregorios III to Benedict XVI

The other aspect of the ad extra mission of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church is its role in the ecumenical journey towards Christian unity.
Our Church has always been conscious of this role. The history of our Melkite Greek Catholic Church of Antioch, in full communion for close on three hundred years with the Church of [...]

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More on Church Unity and Legitimate Variance

From Wei-Hsein Wan of Torn Notebook, chock full of brilliant quotes from great lights of the Church, both Eastern and Western, ancient and contemporary:
Church Unity and Legitimate Variance, Part II: Two Other Voices
For as, in the case of one and the same quantity of water, there is separated from it, not only the residue which is [...]

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