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I think the article should be re-written, but here are my observations. (1) While Fr John Romanides work early work, Ancestral Sin, is clearly relevant to the article, his later work and Vladimir Moss’s attack on him is not particularly relevant. (2) Fr John’s view on ancestral vs. original sin is hardly unique. One finds the same position expressed by Orthodox theologians across the board – Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev. Fr John McGuckin, Fr Andrew Louth, etc. (3) The article should be titled “Ancestral Sin” and any distinctions drawn between the traditional Orthodox viewpoint and those of Roman Catholicism and Protestantism should be secondary. (4) It is simply a fact that the Roman Catholic Church, from shortly after the time of St Augustine through the late 20th century did teach a doctrine of original guilt, i.e., a view of original sin where all humans are born guilty with the guilt of original sin, and that such guilt is sufficient to warrant eternal damnation. In the case of babies who die unbaptized, there was a mitigating doctrine of limbo that was not proclaimed as a dogma of the Roman Church but was nonetheless understood to be official teaching. (5) It is also true that this played a role in the proclamation of the Roman dogma of the Immaculate Conception in 1950 – a feast which began in the Orthodox East but which did not include any notion that the Theotokos was conceived without original sin. (6) While one may certainly rejoice that official Roman teaching on original sin has been moderated in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, it is anachronistic to read that teaching back into the last two millennia and to impute error to Orthodox theologians and saints such as St John of Shanghai because their teaching reflected the Roman teaching of their day. St John reposed in 1966, and the Catechism was not promulgated by Pope John Paul II until 1992. Having said all this, I do not want to re-write the article. --[[User:Fr Lev|Fr Lev]] ([[User talk:Fr Lev|talk]]) 21:26, April 9, 2018 (UTC)
:Father Vel, thank you. "Let us call brothers even those who hate all by the Resurrection."
:Concerning the history of the doctrine in the Western tradition: I will agree to concede to most of what you say for now. I have been told by Roman Catholics and Anglicans that while Saint Augustine believed this, it was never dogmatized by the Extraordinary Magisterium. As such, even if it was taught by individuals it was never accepted by the entire Church as an irreformable part of the Regula Fidei. The Baltimore Catechism, being a tool of the local hierarchy in the exercise of their teaching office, is not an expression of an infallible dogma, but rather a potentially fallible exercise of the ordinary magisterium and therefore reformable. The examples that you give provide reason enough to doubt the certainty of my previous hypothesis. I will make a serious inquiry into the references you provided.
:Concerning the terminological discussion: Provisionally granting that the "caricature" of Original Sin was widely believed and taught as part of the Western tradition, wouldn't this constitute an aberrant view of or an erroneous teaching of the actually doctrine? Not a different doctrine all together? To my mind there are not two doctrines, an incorrect one called "Original Sin" and a correct one called "Ancestral Sin." Rather there is one doctrine, understood in a variety of ways, some of which are highly problematic or flat out wrong. Again, whatever you choose to call it, "Original Sin" or "Ancestral Sin", I don't care. As far as I can tell they are two names for the same thing. I acknowledge, as you have pointed out, that the term "Ancestral Sin" is not new or unique to Fr Romanides, but is there any actual grammatical or etymological justification for distinguishing the two terms so concretely?
:Concerning Fr Romanides: If Fr Vladimir Moss is correct, then Fr Romanides' version of "Original / Ancestral Sin" is itself a significant departure from the traditional doctrine. That means we are potentially dealing with three views, not just two: (1) the Orthodox Doctrine of Original / Ancestral Sin, (2) the incorrect western version of the same, and (3) the incorrect Romanides version of the same. And since Fr Romanides called his version "Ancestral Sin" most people may have become confused, assuming that (1) is accurately described by (3). Obviously (3) can be compared with (2), but (1) can be compared with both (2) and (3), and is most correct.
:Lastly, concerning Re-writing: I believe that the focus of the article should be primarily to accurately describe the Orthodox Doctrine of Original / Ancestral Sin. Secondarily, it should make necessary comparisons and describe relevant historical disputes and controversies in subsequent sub-sections. As such, the first section need not be polemical at all, but rather a straightforward description of the doctrine in positive terms, the way you would describe it to my children or to the average lay person.
:--[[User:Ryan Close|Ryan Close]] ([[User talk:Ryan Close|talk]]) 20:43, April 18, 2018 (UTC)
