REV. DANIEL ROHAN Theologians differ in their interpretation

The doctrine of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God was first promulgated as a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church in 1854 by Pope Pius IX.
The official statement of it is as follows:
"The doctrine which declares that the most Blessed Virgin Mary, from the first instant of her conception, by a singular grace and privilege of Almighty God, in view of the merits of Jesus Christ, was the Saviour of the human race, was preserved exempt from all stain of original sin, is a doctrine revealed by God and therefore must be believed firmly and constantly by all the faithful of the Roman Catholic Church."
The declaration marked the end of a period of often-bitter controversy between its adherents and those who denied it, a controversy that involved some of the most well-known Roman theologians.
Throughout the eastern Roman Empire as far back as the fifth century, a feast day was observed on Dec. 9 titled, "The Conception of St. Ann." This feast day celebrated the events surrounding the conception of the Mother of God by St. Ann in her and her husband Joachim's old age as set forth in the apocryphal Protevangelium of James.
There was no attempt on the part of hymn writers to suggest that there was any miracle other than conception in the face of prolonged sterility.
This feast day soon became popular with Western Christians by the eighth century and was celebrated Dec. 8. Soon, some Western churchmen began teaching that Mary from the moment of her conception was "miraculously innocent" of the guilt of original sin.
This teaching was bitterly opposed by other churchmen such as Bernard of Clairvaux and even the great Thomas Aquinas and the Dominican order. Eventually, in 1854, those who accepted it gained the attention of the pope who effectively ended the controversy.
Orthodox vs. Catholic
To understand the position of the Orthodox church on Immaculate Conception, we must understand the Orthodox concept of original sin as opposed to that prevalent in the Catholic church.
The Catholic church's teaching of original sin, based in part on the writings of St. Augustine, states that each human being at the moment of conception is guilty of Adam's disobedience.
This was based on St. Augustine's slightly flawed Latin translation of Romans 5:12, "so death spread to all men in whom [Adam] all men sinned," rather than "because all men sinned."
It is this teaching that caused the Catholic church to create a place called "limbo" (from the Latin word limbus meaning "border" or "hem") on the edge of heaven where the souls of unbaptized infants could find refuge. Though not guilty of any personal sin, they still had the guilt of original sin on their souls and could not enter heaven.
In the medieval Catholic church, original sin was believed to be transmitted in a physical sense through conception; it thus became important to many that Mary be preserved from this "taint." Hence the creation in the ninth century of the doctrine of the immaculate conception.
The Orthodox church has kept the original understanding of the early church of original sin. The early church did not understand original sin as having anything to do with transmitted guilt but with transmitted morality.
Because Adam sinned, all humanity shares not in his guilt but his punishment. We are tempted by sin and we become guilty of it through our own sins and therefore we suffer and we die. This is the Orthodox understanding of original sin.
It is not something that we are guilty of personally but an action whose consequences have affected our lives by leading us to sin and our own guilt by way of our own sin.
In the light of this, the Catholic doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is unnecessary. In the Orthodox eyes there is simply no original guilt for which Mary had to be made innocent. This is also why we have no limbo for unbaptized infants who die.
Separation
Advocates of the doctrine of Immaculate Conception have sought to discover it in Orthodox writings of the Middle Ages or in Orthodox hymns.
But those who refer to Mary as having been prepared, or sanctified, and who hail her as the "immaculate one" are thinking in the context of the Orthodox view of original sin.
Many of these theologians believed that by special grace the Mother of God did not commit any personal sins; others asserted that Mary was sanctified through her response to Archangel Gabriel at the Annunciation, "Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word." (Luke 1:38)
Taken at face value, the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception is seen by Orthodox as separating the Mother of God from the rest of the human race.
This would have made it impossible for Christ to become "truly man" if Mary were not subject to the same conditions of humanity as those Christ has become incarnate to save. Mary is human, and through her, God became fully human as well.
During this Advent season, the Orthodox church frequently remembers the Virgin Mary as a gift of humanity to God, through whom God gave himself back to humanity.
"What shall we offer You, O Christ," says one of our Christmas hymns, "who for our sake has appeared on the earth as a man? Every creature which You have made offers You thanks ... we offer You a Virgin Mother. O pre-eternal God, have mercy on us."
XThe Rev. Daniel Rohan is pastor of St. Mark Orthodox Church in Liberty.