Changes

The term '''Original Sin''' (or ''first sin'') is used among all Christian churches to define the doctrine surrounding Romans 5:12-21 and 1 Corinthians 15:22, in which Adam is identified as the man through whom through death came into the world. How this is interpreted is believed by many Orthodox to be a fundamental difference between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Western Churches. In contrast, modern Roman Catholic theologians would claim that the basic anthropology is actually almost identical, and that the difference is only in the explanation of what happened in the Fall. In the [[Orthodoxy|Orthodox Church]] the term '''[[ancestral sin]]''' (Gr. προπατορικό αμάρτημα) is preferred and is used to define the doctrine of man's "inclination towards sin, a heritage from the sin of our progenitors" and that this is removed through [[baptism]]. St. [[Gregory Palamas]] taught that man's image was tarnished, disfigured, as a consequence of Adam's disobedience.

In the [[Book of Genesis]], Chapter 3, [[Adam]] and [[Eve]] committed a sin, the ''original sin''. The [[Orthodoxy|Eastern Orthodox]] Church teaches that no one is guilty for the actual sin they committed but rather everyone inherits the consequences of this act; the foremost of this is physical death in this world. This is the reason why the original fathers of the Church over the centuries have preferred the term '''ancestral sin'''. The consequences and penalties of this ancestral act are transferred by means of natural heredity to the entire human race. Since every human is a descendant of Adam then 'no one is free from the implications of this sin' (which is human death) and that the only way to be freed from this is through baptism. While mortality is certainly a result of the Fall, along with this also what is termed "concupiscence" in the writings of St [[Augustine of Hippo]] -- this is the "evil impulse" of Judaism, and in Orthodoxy, we might say this is our "disordered passion." It isn't only that we are born in death, or in a state of distance from God, but also that we are born with disordered passion within us. Orthodoxy would not describe the human state as one of "total depravity." (see [[Cyril Lucaris]] however).

The Roman Catholic doctrine of Ancestral or Original Sin is harder to pin down because of the development and pendulum swings of its development. It is clear from the Vatican's own documents that Ancestral or Original Sin did include both the imputation of the guilt of Adam and Eve's sin and a widespread and deep-seated damage to the imagio dei, at least during a good part of its history. Thus the infant is worthy of punishment in hell according to both Saint Augustine and St. Gregory the DialoguistDialogist. In the medievalists, this is ameliorated to a deprivation of the beatific vision, which is still considered a punishment, though the infant will only experience happiness. At the time of the Enlightenment, there is a return to a more Augustinian and Gregorian definition of Ancestral or Original Sin. But, by the time of Vatican Council I, the change is in full swing, and Ancestral or Original Sin begins to be seen as the deprivation of original holiness. This change in the definition of Ancestral or Original Sin is found in documents such as the aforecited Catechism of the Catholic Church and in the Hope of Salvation document.