Frequently-asked questions
1 What does "Silouan" mean?
2 What is the Orthodox Church?
3 Why haven't I heard of the Orthodox Church before?
4 Is the Orthodox Church like the Catholics or the Protestants?
5 Do you believe in the Bible?
6 Are you Charismatic?
7 Isn't Orthodoxy only an Eastern European thing? Doesn't the Orthodox Church believe in missions?
8 Isn't Orthodoxy influenced by Neo-Platonism and other pagan, gnostic philosophy?
9 Why do Orthodox Churches use liturgy? 
10 How can you pray the same prayers all the time? Isn't it limiting and monotonous?
11 Why don't the Orthodox do more evangelism?
12
What do the Orthodox believe about the "Immaculate Conception"?
Probably the best Orthodox answer to that question, ironically, is the argument of Leo the Great, who was Pope long before immaculate conception (or papal infallibility!) was announced as Roman Catholic dogma.

"One of the main arguments of Eutyches was that, if Christ had a real human nature, He would also have inherited the stain of sin. Since at that date Mary's immaculate conception was unknown, Pope Leo could not argue from it, but had to make a distinction between the nature, which Christ did indeed assume from Mary, and the guilt which He did not assume, 'because His nativity is a miracle'... Any idea of Mary's own preservation from original sin, however, is ruled out not only in the Tome but also in Leo's sermons, for example: In 62,2 we read "Only the Son of the blessed Virgin is born without transgression; not indeed outside the human race, but a stranger to sin... so that of Adam's offspring, one might exist in whom the devil had no share."  -- Hilda Graef, Mary, A History of Doctrine and Devotion

In other words, in the fifth century the idea was unheard-of. It's an innovation. But it's not only wrong because it's new; it's a symptom of a shift in Western Christians' beliefs about sin, Christ, and humanity.

The immaculate conception dogma is a response to a situation created by the Roman Catholic dogma of original sin. Following Augustine, Rome teaches that man inherits from Adam a "stain" of original sin - primarily manifested in concupiscence , the tendency to sin. So Rome is left with a need to explain how Christ could be born of a human parent yet without sin. The immaculate conception dogma tries to break this chain by making Mary the exception, not Christ.

By contrast, the Orthodox understanding is conveyed concisely in St Athanasius' treatise On the Incarnation (318 AD). When man (in the persons of Adam and Eve from whom we all derive our human nature) first sinned, he became separated from God. This separation from God is what Orthodox understand to be original sin and it has two consequences: First, separated from the source of all good, man becomes morally corrupt, with an innate tendency to sin; secondly, separated from the source of all Being, man begins to return to his original state, the nothing from which God created him. Corruption and death come into the world.

In other words, original sin in the Orthodox understanding is not a "stain" but an absence. And there is no need to figure out how Christ failed to inherit it along with His human nature from His mother, because the Incarnation itself is the end of the separation. In Himself, from the moment of Incarnation, Christ was both God and Man and therefore His Human Nature never experienced the separation from God which all other humans suffer since the sin in the Garden and which is original sin. Christ does not give us life and righteousness as things apart from Himself; Christ Himself is our life and righteousness.

It's not that the Imaculate Conception doctrine per se is wrong - it's just that it makes no sense in a theology which takes its understanding of original sin more from Athanasius than from Augustine.
In other words, from an Orthodox perspective, the Roman Catholic dogmatizing of the issue is something like their dogmatizing that "if 2+2=5 then 5+2=8". As a logical proposition, it may be correct - but its correctness is irrelevant as the original proposition is irrelevant.

The ancestry of Christ shows that the lineage of Christ was not exceptional for holiness. Quite the opposite; the lineage is not through the favored son Joseph but through Judah, whose character is clear in his casual sin with his daughter-in-law. Four women are mentioned in Christ's legal genealogy in Matthew's Gospel. All the four women are of questionable reputation. First is Tamar, who enticed her father-in-law into sleeping with her. The second is Rahab, the prostitute. The third is the former pagan Ruth. The fourth is Bathsheba the adulteress. Why were these mentioned specifically? They teach us that it is not Christ's ancestry that makes Him the Savior.

 
13 Why do you show Jesus still on the cross? Don't you believe He died once and rose?
14 I've heard that the Orthodox worship pictures. Isn't that against the Commandments?
15 If Mary is still a virgin, who are the "Brothers of the Lord"?
16 Do you have to confess your sins to a priest?
17 People talk about converting to Orthodoxy; is that word really appropriate if you were already a Christian?
18 Didn't Jesus say the Church was anywhere two or three gather in His name?
19 Why do you talk about the Church so much?

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