Original sin according to the orthodox tradition.

Abstract

Teaching on the subject of original sin, as it was developed mostly by the Greek Fathers in the Orthodox tradition, noticeably differs to the equivalent teaching of the Latin Fathers and especially to that of St. Augustine. This is understandable, because the principles existing in the two traditions for theological deliberation on this subject, as well as the challenges which led to the development and the formation of this teaching, were different in East and West. Apart from the fact that the Latin Fathers had judicial and not ontological principles for the development of their teaching, there was never such a challenge in the East as the one posed by the heresy of Pelagianism, which the Latin Fathers, and mainly St. Augustine, had to deal with. Although this heresy was condemned in the East, indeed ecumenically, during the council of Ephesus (431), it did not occupy on a wide scale the theological thought of the Greek Fathers, which had been mainly absorbed for many centuries by the Christological problem.