Here is an explanation of the Orthodox Christian understanding of original/ancestral sin from Fr. Michael Pomazansky’s
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology. This is the subsection titled “Original Sin” from chapter 5 “Concerning Evil and Sin”. Pomazansky was a hieromonk (monk priest) professor at Holy Trinity Seminary in Jordanville, where this book continues to be used in the seminary training there. Fr. Michael was an old school Russian priest, very connected to the authentic Russian tradition, and this book has some authority. The translation is by Fr. Seraphim Rose. There are several extensive footnotes, but I have only included a portion of one of the various footnotes that accompanied this quote, as it would have increased the already considerable length of this quote.
In brief, the Orthodox position is that, from Adam’s sin, we inherited (1) death, disease and decline and (2) a propensity to sin, but we did not inherit the guilt of Adam’s sin.
By original sin is meant the sin of Adam, which was transmitted to his descendants and weighs upon them. The doctrine of original sin has great significance in the Christian worldview, because upon it rests a whole series of other dogmas.
The word of God teaches us that through Adam “all have sinned”: By one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned (Rom. 5:12). For who will be clean of defilement? No one, if he have lived even a single day upon earth (Job 14:4-5, Septuagint). For behold, I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bear me (Ps. 50:5); “the seed of corruption is in me” (Evening Prayers).
The common faith of the ancient Christian Church in the existence of original sin may be seen in the Church’s ancient custom of baptizing infants. The Local Council of Carthage in 252, composed of 66 bishops under the presidency of St. Cyprian, decreed the following against heretics: “Not to forbid (the Baptism) of an infant who, scarcely born, has sinned in nothing apart from that which proceeds from the flesh of Adam. He has received the contagion of the ancient death through his very birth [See footnote 10], and he comes, therefore, the more easily to the reception of the remission of sins in that it is not his own but the sins of another that are remitted.”
This is the way in which the “Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs” defines the result of the fall into sin: “Fallen through the transgression, man became like the irrational creatures. That is, he became darkened and was deprived of perfection and dispassion. But he was not deprived of the nature and power which he had received from the All-Good God. For had he been so deprived, he would have become irrational, and thus not a man. But he preserved that nature with which he had been created, and the free, living and active natural power, so that, according to nature, he might choose and do the good, and flee and turn away from evil” (“Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs,” par. 14).
In the history of the ancient Christian Church, Pelagius and his followers denied the inheritance of sin (the heresy of Pelagianism). Pelagius affirmed that every man only repeats the sin of Adam, performing anew his own personal fall into sin, and following the example of Adam because of his own weak will. However, his nature remains the same as when it was created, innocent and pure, the same as that of the first-created Adam. Moreover, disease and death are characteristic of this nature from the creation, and are not the consequences of original sin.
Blessed Augustine stepped out against Pelagius with great power and proof. He cited (a) testimonies from Divine Revelation concerning original sin, (b) the teaching of the ancient shepherds of the Church, (c) the ancient custom of baptizing infants, and (d) the sufferings and misfortunes of men, including infants, which are a consequence of the universal and inherited sinfulness of men. However, Augustine did not escape the opposite extreme, setting forth the idea that in fallen man any independent freedom to do good has been completely annihilated, unless Grace comes to his aid.
Out of this dispute in the West there subsequently were formed two tendencies, one of which was followed by Roman Catholicism, and the other by Protestantism. Roman Catholic theologians consider that the consequence of the fall was the removal from men of a supernatural gift of God’s grace, after which man remained in his “natural” condition, his nature not harmed but only brought into disorder because the flesh, the bodily side, has come to dominate over the spiritual side; original sin in this view consists in the fact that the guilt before God of Adam and Eve has passed to all men.
The other tendency in the West sees in original sin the complete perversion of human nature and its corruption to its very depths, to its very foundations (the view accepted by Luther and Calvin). As for the newer sects of Protestantism, reacting in their turn against the extremes of Luther, they have gone as far as the complete denial of original, inherited sin.
Among the shepherds of the Eastern Church there have been no doubts concerning either the teaching of the inherited ancestral sin in general, or the consequences of this sin for fallen human nature in particular.
Orthodox theology does not accept the extreme points of Blessed Augustine’s teaching; but equally foreign to it is the (later) Roman Catholic point of view, which has a very legalistic, formal character. The foundation of the Roman Catholic teaching lies in (a) an understanding of the sin of Adam as an infinitely great offense against God; (b) after this offense there followed the wrath of God; (c) the wrath of God was expressed in the removal of the supernatural gifts of God’s grace; and (d) the removal of grace drew after itself the submission of the spiritual principle to the fleshly principle, and a falling deeper into sin and death. From this comes a particular view of the redemption performed by the Son of God. In order to restore the order which had been violated, it was necessary first of all to give satisfaction for the offense given to God, and by this means to remove the guilt of mankind and the punishment that weighs upon him.
The consequences of ancestral sin are accepted by Orthodox theology differently.
After his first fall, man himself departed in soul from God and became unreceptive to the Grace of God which was opened to him; he ceased to listen to the Divine voice addressed to him, and this led to the further deepening of sin in him.
However, God has never deprived mankind of His mercy, help, Grace, and especially His chosen people; and from this people there came forth great righteous men such as Moses, Elijah, Elisha, and the later prophets. The Apostle Paul, in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews, lists a whole choir of Old Testament righteous ones, saying that they are those of whom the world was not worthy (Heb. 11:38). All of them were perfected not without a gift from above, not without the Grace of God. The book of Acts cites the words of the first martyr, Stephen, where he says of David that he found favor (Grace) before God, and desired to find a tabernacle of the God of Jacob (Acts 7:46) — that is, to build a Temple for Him. The greatest of the prophets, St. John the Forerunner, was filled with the Holy Spirit even from his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15). But the Old Testament righteous ones could not escape the general lot of fallen mankind after death, remaining in the darkness of hell, until the founding of the Heavenly Church — that is, until the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ destroyed the gates of hell and opened the way into the Kingdom of Heaven.
One must not see the essence of sin — including original sin — only in the dominance of the fleshly over the spiritual, as Roman Catholic theology teaches. Many sinful inclinations, even very serious ones, have to do with qualities of a spiritual order: such, for example, is pride, which, according to the words of the Apostle, is the source, together with lust, of the general sinfulness of the world (I John 2:15-16). Sin is also present in evil spirits who have no flesh at all. In Sacred Scripture the word “flesh” signifies a condition of not being reborn, a condition opposed to being reborn in Christ: That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6). Of course, this is not to deny that a whole series of passions and sinful inclinations originate in bodily nature, which Sacred Scripture also shows (Romans, chap. 7). Thus, original sin is understood by Orthodox theology as a sinful inclination which has entered into mankind and become its spiritual disease.
[Footnote 10: The Eastern Orthodox Holy Fathers often affirm that all of Adam’s descendants inherit his sin, in accordance with the words of St. Paul: By one man’s disobedience, many were made sinners (Rom. 5:19). However, in saying this they do not mean that the guilt of Adam’s sin was imputed to his descendants; rather, it was the consequences of that sin that were transmitted. These consequences, as we have seen, include suffering, death, and physical corruption; a corruption of human nature; and a consequent loss of the indwelling Grace of God. … the corruption of human nature entails an inclination or tendency toward sin.]
I highly recommend Pomazanky’s
Orthodox Dogmatic Theology for all Christians interested in having an accurate understanding of the details of Orthodox theology. I took a quick look at
The Confession of Patriarch Dositheos (1672) and
The Longer Catechism of the Orthodox Church of St. Philaret of Moscow (19th c.), and neither was particularly helpful on this point, with no where near the level of detail or specificity and clarity that Pomazansky provides.
