26.

 Give your understanding of the heresy of the Immaculate Conception.

            The Western extremes consider the Mother of God either born perfect (Roman Catholicism), or else never having become perfect at all (Protestantism). Concerning the former view, it is defined in the completely blasphemous teaching of the Immaculate Conception, a corruption invented by the Roman Catholic Church and subsequently proclaimed a dogma of that Church in 1854. Like all heresies, the false doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is satanic in nature.

            The new teaching of the Immaculate Conception stems from Augustine of Hippo's incorrect opinion of the ancestral sin, and it was Rome's attempt to cover up Augustine's incorrect view with yet another false teaching. Augustine taught that the guilt of Adam and Eve's sin was transmitted through the human race either through the conjugal act or through actual childbirth. This idea engendered a fear among the Latins that since Christ was born of a woman, He might be infected with the ancestral sin. Rather than backing up, rethinking the matter, and eradicating the first falsehood, Rome chose instead to cover it up and try to protect the Virgin from all traces of ancestral sin. As the Greek writer Photios Kontoglu described the matter, “The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is a poor solution to a non-existent problem.”

            St. John, Archbishop of Shanghai and San Francisco, gives a detailed history of the Immaculate Conception. He writes that after those who censured the most pure life of the Mother of God had been rebuked, as well as those who denied her ever-virginity, those who denied her dignity as the Mother of God, and those who disdained her icons, there appeared another teaching which seemed to exalt Mary, but which in fact denied all her virtues. This new teaching was raised by the devil, who could not imagine himself defeated, and who could not remain an indifferent spectator to the glory of the Mother of God. This new false teaching was that of the Immaculate Conception, and through it, the devil continued to wage war against the truth through men who do his will.

            The teaching of the Immaculate Conception is that “the All-Blessed Virgin Mary in the first instant of her conception, by the special grace of Almighty God and by a special privilege, for the sake of the future merits of Jesus Christ, Savior of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin” (from the bull of Pope Pius IX concerning the new dogma). In other words, at her conception, the Mother of God was preserved from original sin and, by God's grace, was placed in a state wherein it was impossible for her to have personal sin.

            Christians had never heard of such a teaching prior to the ninth century, when for the first time one Paschasius Radbertus, Abbot of Corvey, expressed the opinion that the Holy Virgin was conceived without original sin. Starting in the twelfth century, this idea began to spread among the clergy and laity in the Latin Church, which by then had already cut itself off from the Universal Church founded by Christ, thus losing the grace and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

            The same St. John explains that there was a tremendous difference of opinion among the most renowned theologians of the West, the pillars (so to speak) of the Latin Church. By no means did all of them agree with the new teaching. Bernard of Clairvaux and Thomas Aquinas decisively rejected it, while Duns Scotus defended it. From the teachers, this division carried over to their disciples. The Dominican monks, following Thomas Aquinas, censured the teaching of the Immaculate Conception, while the Franciscans, followers of Duns Scotus, strove to promote it. The battle between these two currents continued on for the course of several centuries, and on both sides were those who the Roman Catholics regarded as the greatest authorities.

            No help came to the resolution of the matter by the fact that several people declared they had divine revelations concerning it. The renowned fourteenth-century Swedish nun Bridget spoke in her writings about appearances to her of the Mother of God, wherein Mary told her she had been conceived immaculately, without original sin. A contemporary of Bridget's, however, the yet more renowned ascetic Catherine of Sienna, affirmed that the Mother of God did in fact participate in original sin at her conception, concerning which she had received a revelation by Christ Himself, she stated.

            Thus, neither by theological writings, nor by the various contradictory “miraculous” manifestations, could Roman Catholics distinguish where the truth was. Up until the end of the fifteenth century, popes remained apart from these disputes. Only then, in 1475, Pope Sixtus IV approved a service in which the teaching of the Immaculate Conception was clearly expressed. Several years later, he forbade condemnation of those who believed in the Immaculate Conception. The same pope, however, also declined to affirm that the Immaculate Conception was the unwavering teaching of the Latin Church, and as a result, he did not condemn those who did not accept the idea.

            Thinking that it seemed pious and pleasing to the Mother of God to give her as much glory as possible, Roman Catholics came to give the teaching of the Immaculate Conception more and more support. Their striving to glorify the Mother of God on the one hand, and on the other hand, the deviation of the Latin theologians into abstract speculations that led only to seeming truth (Scholasticism), and finally, the patronage of the popes after Sixtus IV — all of these things led to the fact that the opinion expressed by Paschasius Radbertus was already the belief of the Latin Church. It remained only to have the doctrine proclaimed as the teaching of that Church. Such was one in 1854, when Pius IX declared the Immaculate Conception to be a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church.

            In that action, Rome added still another deviation from the teaching which it itself had once proclaimed prior to 1054, when it still adhered to the ancient Apostolic faith handed down by Christ, which faith has been held up to now unaltered and unchanged by the Orthodox Church. The proclamation of the new dogma satisfied first the broad masses of Catholics who in simplicity of heart thought the teaching served for the greater glory of the Mother of God, to whom they felt they were making a gift with this teaching. The dogma again satisfied the vainglory of the Latin theologians who defended it and worked it out. Most of all, though the dogma was profitable to the papal throne itself since, having proclaimed the new dogma by his own authority, even though he did listen to the opinions of the Latin bishops, the pope by this very act openly appropriated to himself the right to change the teaching of the Roman Church. The pope thereby placed his own voice above the testimony of Sacred Scripture and Sacred Tradition. A direct deduction of this act was that the Roman popes were infallible in matters of faith — and indeed, the very same Pius IX, who called himself “the way, the truth, and the life,” proclaimed papal infallibility a dogma of the Latin Church in 1870.

            In the definition of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception, the Latin Church stated that it was not establishing a new teaching, but that it was only proclaiming something which had always existed in the Church, and which had been held by the Holy Fathers. Excerpts were then given from these Fathers, although the teachings contained in them do not show what the Latin Church states they show; they show instead only the exalted sanctity of the Mother of God. In none of the excerpts is there any word about the immaculateness of Mary's conception. Also not shown in these excerpts are the writings of those very same Fathers who in other places proclaim that only Jesus Christ is completely pure of every sin, while all men, being born of Adam, have a flesh subject to the law of sin.

            Contrary to what the Latin Church states, none of the ancient Fathers state that God miraculously purified the Virgin Mary when she was in her mother's womb. What these Fathers do indicate, however, is that the Mother of God, just as all human beings, endured a battle with sinfulness. In her own battle with temptations, these Fathers state, Mary was victorious and was saved by her divine Son.

            St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco goes on to list five major points which demonstrate the falsehood of the Immaculate Conception. These points are as follows:

(1) The teaching of the complete sinlessness of the Virgin Mary is contrary to Sacred Scriptures, which repeatedly mention the sinless-ness of the “one Mediator between God and man, Jesus Christ” (1 Tim 2:5); “and in Him is no sin” (1 Jn 3:5); “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22); “One that hath been in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin” (Heb 4:15); “He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin” (2 Cor 5:21). Concerning the rest of mankind, however, Scriptures state, “Who is pure of defilement? No one who has lived a single day of his life on earth” (Job 14:4); “God commendeth His own love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.... If, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by His life” (Rom 5:8-10).

            (2) The Immaculate Conception also contradicts Sacred Tradition, which is contained in numerous patristic writings. These speak of Mary's exalted sanctity from her very birth, and while they also speak of her cleansing by the Holy Spirit at her conception of Christ, they mention nothing of any cleansing at the time of the conception by Anna. As St. Basil the Great writes: “There is none without stain before Thee, even though his life be but a day, save Thee alone, Jesus Christ our God, Who didst appear on earth without sin, and through Whom we all trust to obtain mercy and the remission of sins” (Third Prayer of Vespers at Pentecost). Again, as St. Gregory the Theologian states: “When Christ came through a pure, virginal, unwedded, God-fearing, undefiled Mother without wedlock and without father, and inasmuch as it befitted Him to be born, He purified female nature, rejected the bitter Eve and overthrew the laws of the flesh.” (In Praise of Virginity). Even then, however, as Saints John Chrysostom and Basil the Great speak concerning this matter, Mary was not placed in a state of being unable to sin, but continued to take care of her salvation and overcame all temptations. (St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on John, Homily 85; St. Basil the Great, Epistle 160).

            (3) The teaching that the Virgin Mary was purified before her birth so that the Pure Christ might be born of her, is meaningless. If the Pure Christ could be born only if Mary were born pure, it would be necessary that her parents be pure of original sin, and they again would have to be born of purified parents, and so forth. One could only conclude that Christ's Incarnation could not have taken place unless all His ancestors in the flesh, even up to and including Adam, had been first purified of original sin. In that event, however, there would have been no need for the Incarnation of Christ, because Christ came down to earth in order to annihilate sin.

            (4) Rome's teaching that the Virgin Mary was preserved from original sin, and its teaching that she was preserved by God's grace from personal sins, makes God unmerciful and unjust. If God could preserve Mary from sin and purify her at her conception, then why does He not do the same for other individuals, but instead leaves them in sin? It would follow from Rome's teaching that God saves people apart from their will, predetermining certain ones at conception to salvation.

            (5) Rome's teaching, while seeming at first to exalt Mary, does just the exact opposite: the Immaculate Conception belittles Mary by denying all her virtues. If Mary, even in the womb of her mother, could not even desire anything good or evil, and was preserved by God's grace from every impurity, and then by the same grace was preserved from sin after she was born, then where is her merit? If she did not sin because God made it impossible for her to sin, why did God glorify her? If there were no effort on Mary's part and no impulses to sin, and she remained pure because of these reasons, then why is she regarded as the most holy of all the saints? There is no victory without an adversary.

The same St. John explains that:

The righteousness and sanctity of the Virgin Mary was manifested in the fact that she, being “human with passions like us,” so loved God and gave herself over to Him, that by her purity she was exalted high above the rest of the human race. For this, having been foreknown and forechosen, she was vouchsaved to be purified by the Holy Spirit, Who came upon her, and to conceive of Him the very Savior of the world. The teaching of the grace-given sinlessness of the Virgin Mary denies her victory over temptations; from a victor who is worthy to be crowned with crowns of glory, this makes her a blind instrument of God's providence [The Orthodox Veneration of Mary, the Birthgiver of God, pp. 59-60].

St. John quotes lengthy refutations of the ideas behind the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception from the writings of Blessed Augustine of Hippo and St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan. These two Fathers of the Western Church clearly testify that the false ideas of the Immaculate Conception which spread through the West were earlier rejected by the West when it was still fully Orthodox Christian. Moreover, even after Rome severed itself from the Apostolic Church in 1054, one of its acknowledged great authorities, Bernard, demonstrated the novelty and absurdity of Rome's false teaching. (Because of the length of these three refutations, they are not quoted here).

            The “gift” of the pope and those others who imagine they can glorify the Mother of God by seeking out new truths is no gift at all. The Immaculate Conception is instead a belittlement to the Mother of God. So exalted was Mary's life on earth and so exalted is her glory in Heaven, and so much has God Himself glorified her, that human inventions cannot add anything to her honor and glory. The false teachings that people invent about Mary only obscure her face from their eyes. As the Apostle Paul writes: “Brethren, take heed lest there shall be any one that maketh spoil of you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ” (Col 2:8).

            The heresy of the Immaculate Conception is such a vain deceit. Like every other lie, this false teaching is the seed of the father of lies, the devil (Jn 8:44). Through the Roman Catholic Church's lie of the Immaculate Conception, the devil has managed to deceive many who do not understand that they blaspheme the Mother of God. The Most Holy Mother of God rejects the lie, being the Mother of Truth (Jn 14:6).