Ancestral Sin

Articles on this topic

• From the Hymns of the Church on Ancestral Sin

  From the second piece of the Theotokia of Thursday: the pride of all virgins is Mary the Theotokos, through whom the first curse was annulled.

• The Meaning of the Term “Original Sin”

  The term “original sin” is a Latin term that was born in the West. It is the prevailing term in Blessed Augustine, and it means that we all participated in Adam’s guilt. This term is unknown among the Fathers who wrote in Greek…

• From the Sayings of Contemporary Writers on Ancestral Sin

  The purpose of Christ’s Incarnation was to destroy death and sin, and to defeat the devil. In truth, Christ took a mortal and weak body in order to defeat death. He overcame death through His crucifixion and resurrection…

• From Church History on Ancestral Sin

  The heresy of Pelagius, who was born in Britain around 354 AD, and traveled back and forth between Rome and Palestine for a time, then was ordained a monk and attained the rank of priesthood. He fell into a heresy whose content is: that Adam’s sin was limited to him…

• From the Church’s Liturgy on Ancestral Sin

  O great and eternal God, who fashioned man for incorruption. And the death that entered into the world through the envy of the devil, You have destroyed, by the life-giving manifestation of Your Only-Begotten Son…

• From the Comments of St. Severus of Antioch on Ancestral Sin

  All this shows clearly that it is the life that a person lives (in truth) that comes to judgment, and this is what he means by the saying: “No one is clean from his defilement, even if he lived only one day…”

• Sayings of St. John Chrysostom on Ancestral Sin

  By one man’s disobedience many were made (sinners).” There is nothing unreasonable in the fact that one person committed sin and became mortal, and that those descended from him became mortal in the same condition…

• From the Holy Bible on Ancestral Sin

  “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Romans 5:12)