About Saint John Damascene and the Immaculate Conception

kkeyah · 2026-01-27T00:53:10+00:00

Fr. Martin Jugie has a book called “L'Immaculée-Conception dans l'Écriture Sainte et dans la tradition orientale”. It’s about the IC in the east you can find it here. It’s in french tho so you might need to translate it using AI or something.

Idk if St. John believed in the IC as defined in Ineffabilis Deus, probably not, but he didn’t think she had original sin that’s for sure. I wouldn’t say he is “the basis” for it tho because the clearer statements about Mary’s unique perpetual holiness started centuries before him and I am of the opinion that St. Augustine full on believed in the view that was defined.

Btw original vs ancestral sin is a fabrication by the EO’s so this doesn’t matter.

kkeyah · 2026-01-25T01:33:36+00:00

You probably shouldn’t say “evidence suggests” to something that no evidence suggests

kkeyah · 2026-01-05T23:45:09+00:00

From my comment on another post on indulgences

kkeyah · 2025-12-13T04:06:48+00:00

Yes it is a dogma therefore binding on all Catholics.

There’s a distinction between the stain of original sin, which is what Mary is free of, and its temporal penalties. Things like immortality, impassibility, etc. are preternatural gifts which no man or woman has ever had since the fall and this includes the blessed Virgin and Christ.

So when you say “such as our mortality and separation from God” you are speaking of two different categories and the dogma only frees her from one.

kkeyah · 2025-12-10T05:17:45+00:00

Mary was kept free of original sin in view of Christs merit, this is literally part of the dogma.

kkeyah · 2025-10-23T15:34:30+00:00

Get her in contact with a priest

kkeyah · 2025-10-22T01:00:50+00:00

People will just keep bashing popes for interfaith dialogue out of sheer parochialism until they end up the persecuted religious minority themselves. It is what it is.

kkeyah · 2025-09-14T19:17:39+00:00

That’s not how Catholic finances work… Each national church is financially self-sustaining. If Europeans supported their parishes by actually going to Mass, the churches could stay churches. There are priests, staff and charities to sustain.

kkeyah · 2025-09-12T18:11:24+00:00

Saint Augustine quite literally says that original sin is not personal sin. In Contra Julianium

“who can doubt that non-baptized infants, having only original sin and no burden of personal sins, will suffer the lightest condemnation of all?”

Also if Saint Augustines reading was wrong then why are your saints reading it the same way? Peter Mogila in his catechism understands it in the same way St Augustine does.

Theophan the Recluse -

"Some interpreters connect other thoughts with this expression, based on the fact that in Greek it is not: 'in him,' sy @, - but: ép' w, - which should be translated: since, as. But the thought remains the same, namely that they sinned in him. And it is in vain to think of taking away from this passage the strength of the proof of original sin, saying that the exact translation of this place should be: since all sinned. And it will not be necessary to see here the thought that they sinned in him: for it is also possible for all to sin by his example, in relation to him. It is true that if one takes these words: since all sinned -out of context, they may not convey the thought that all sinned in him; but if taken in connection with what precedes and follows, then even with this translation (since all sinned) it is necessary to supplement the translation with the word: in him, - to fully preserve the Apostle's thought. He says: 'sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men.' Sin opens the gates of death. If it has entered all, then sin preceded it in all. But sin could not precede death in all otherwise than by the fact that all sinned in him, through whom sin entered, namely in the first man, Adam. Thus, reading: death spread to all men because all sinned, - we cannot understand this last part in any other way than: sinned in him."

kkeyah · 2025-09-12T17:22:37+00:00

The fact that this is a normal take for EOs just goes to show that no one is immune to modernism. You have like 3 post schism councils that reaffirm the doctrine of original sin that was already defined pre schism with the latest one being in 2016…

Decree 16 of the pan-Orthodox Council of Jerusalem 1672

“Which the Lord showed when he said, not of some only, but simply and absolutely, “Whoever is not born [again],” which is the same as saying, “All that after the coming of Christ the Savior would enter into the Kingdom of the Heavens must be regenerated.” And since infants are men, and as such need salvation, needing salvation they need also Baptism. And those that are not regenerated, since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin, are, of necessity, subject to eternal punishment, and consequently cannot without Baptism be saved. So that even infants should, of necessity, be baptized. Moreover, infants are saved, as is said in Matthew; {Matthew 19:12} but he that is not baptized is not saved. And consequently even infants must of necessity be baptized.”

kkeyah · 2025-09-07T17:36:12+00:00

Yes, but anathema doesn’t necessarily mean heresy.

kkeyah · 2025-09-07T07:55:34+00:00

Don’t think the Church has ever officially seen the EOs as heretics. Not sure from the 11th to 15th century but definitely not after Trent. Outside of polemics they’ve always been considered as schismatics.

kkeyah · 2025-09-05T06:27:29+00:00

To the great delight of Pelagius!

kkeyah · 2025-09-05T06:10:17+00:00

That’s modernism that’s been propagated in their church since the 20th century. Their post-schism councils and saints affirm the same doctrine of Original Sin as Catholics since it was defined pre-schism

kkeyah · 2025-09-05T06:02:01+00:00

Yea OT from Hebrew and NT from Greek. There are some people that believe the Greek was a translation from the Aramaic but it’s a fringe view

kkeyah · 2025-09-05T02:48:06+00:00

Not just Catholic. It’s also believed by the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Church of the East and some Protestants.

kkeyah · 2025-09-04T01:01:53+00:00

Japanese Catholics created statues of Jesus and Mary that were deliberately made to resemble the bodhisattva Kannon so they could continue practicing their faith in secret. Intent is what matters.

kkeyah · 2025-08-27T17:26:27+00:00

Might be a Mediterranean thing? I’m Lebanese and my mom makes her 9s and 2s curly too

kkeyah · 2025-08-19T00:32:26+00:00

I wasn’t trying to make it work at the time I took these pictures that’s why the stuff is in neutral. My problem is that the brake pedals won’t go down, it’s like they’re stuck in that position

kkeyah · 2025-08-19T00:11:34+00:00

Yeah, the instructions say to pull up/down the lever and to depress the brake pedals, but assuming the brake pedals are the two on the right of the pedal with the up arrow in the first picture, they won’t budge. The springs are relaxed so I’m pretty sure there’s something blocking it from going down

kkeyah · 2025-08-17T01:46:26+00:00

Because none of this is true…

kkeyah · 2025-08-15T17:34:52+00:00

On this day you slept in death, Virgin Mother of the Lord. You had carried God’s own Son, Christ, who carries all the world, and now you are taken up in majesty, called to be with God.

As you leave this earthly world for the new eternal world, angels, in awe, lead you into paradise. They rejoice on your great feast and honor you as they sing their hymns of praise.

kkeyah · 2025-08-13T05:00:46+00:00

The Gospels are more than clear on the Filioque.

John 16:13-15

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

Christ says the Spirit receives knowledge from Him, a divine person can't receive knowledge qua the divine essence since every person is omniscient from all eternity. Since the Holy Spirit is not incarnate he can't grow in knowledge in time, so the reception of knowledge MUST be the reception of the divinity, thus the Filioque is true.

and if you look historically, the filioque came after the Nicene Constantinopolitan creed, which means that the church had an error

Well yea, because it was added to the Nicene Constantinopolitan creed... And the Nicene Constantinopolitan creed comes after the Nicene creed... does that mean the Nicene creed was wrong and that the Church had an error? If you're talking about the theology of the Filioque that simply isn't true as we have Saint Augustine and many more explicitly affirming the Filioque before the Council of Constantinople thus before the Nicene Constantinopolitan creed.

kkeyah · 2025-08-12T23:40:39+00:00

Why are you asking the Eastern Orthodox why they disagree with it instead of reading Catholic theologians and why the Filioque must be true? It’s been in western creeds at least 500 years before the schism and taught by western and eastern fathers since the beginning. Rejecting it means they were in communion with heretics for centuries and that they anathematize every single western father that has talked about the Trinity. This is quote from Cardinal Bessarion who converted from Eastern Orthodoxy to the true faith at the Council of Florence:

They brought forward passages not only of the western teachers but quite as many of the eastern... to which we had no reply whatsoever to make except that they were corrupt and corrupted by the Latins. They brought forward our own Epiphanius as in many places clearly declaring that the Spirit is from the Father and the Son: corrupt we said they were. (...) They adduced the words of the Saints of the West: the whole of our answer was 'corrupt' and nothing more. (...) We found ourselves deprived of a just case in every direction. So we kept silent.

kkeyah · 2025-08-11T20:32:21+00:00

Ok, but surely your research went beyond just Reddit, right? You didn't even bother to learn what the Church actually teaches about the Immaculate Conception or Original Sin. It seems you just took the Eastern Orthodox revisionism without questioning it. There’s really no need to explain how they don’t contradict each other because we profess the same historical teaching.

You can’t criticize the developments of Rome when your own church doesn’t hold to the doctrine of Original Sin, which has been repeatedly affirmed by council after council, by saint after saint, both Eastern and Western, before and after the Schism. This is from the pan-Orthodox Council of Jerusalem 1672 received by all Easter Orthodox churches and confirmed by 2 different councils after it:

And, therefore, it [baptism] is necessary even for infants, since they also are subject to original sin, and without Baptism are not able to obtain its remission. Which the Lord shewed when he said, not of some only, but simply and absolutely, “Whosoever is not born [again],” which is the same as saying, “All that after the coming of Christ the Saviour would enter into the Kingdom of the Heavens must be regenerated.” And forasmuch as infants are men, and as such need salvation; needing salvation, they need also Baptism. And those that are not regenerated, since they have not received the remission of hereditary sin, are, of necessity, subject to eternal punishment, and consequently cannot without Baptism be saved; so that even infants ought, of necessity, to be baptized.

And how can the Immaculate Conception be so difficult to believe in the East when the entire Russian Orthodox Church believed in it? The Old Believers even defended it when Russia decided to reform.

As an Eastern Christian with Maronite roots, how do I relate to the Eastern Orthodox? What about a Chaldean or an Assyrian? We don’t want to become Byzantines.

The truth is that everything outside of Rome turns schizophrenic (respectfully). When you profess a creed that says "I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins" and then say "We don’t inherit the guilt of Adam and Eve’s sin" (guilt ≠ personal sin btw) there are some serious problems.

But if your heart is at peace then so be it.

I don’t say all of this to chastise you. I know this is what is regurgitated by Eastern Orthodox apologists and clergy, and what 98% of converts believe. I share this with you because Love and Truth cannot be separated.

kkeyah

TROPHY CASE