What is the difference between the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic understandings of "original sin?" Do we Orthodox Christians even believe in "original sin?" (Nov. '01)
In the 6th Decree of the Synod of Jerusalem (AD 1692) the Patriarchs of the Orthodox Church affirm that "We believe the first man created by God (Adam) to have fallen in Paradise, when, disregarding the Divine Commandment, he yielded to the deceitful counsel of the serpent (Satan). And hence hereditary sin flowed to his posterity; so that none is born after the flesh who beareth not this burden, and experienceth not the fruits thereof in this present world. But by these fruits and this burden we do not understand (actual) sin, such as impiety, blasphemy, murder, sodomy, adultery, fornication, enmity, and whatsoever else is by our depraved choice committed contrarily to the Divine Will, not from nature; for many both of the Forefathers and of the Prophets, and vast numbers of others, as well as those under the shadow (of the Law), as under the truth (the Gospel), such as the divine Forerunner, and especially the Mother of God the Word, the ever-virgin Mary, experienced not these, or such like faults; but only what the Divine Justice inflicted upon man as punishment for the (original) transgression, such as sweats in labor, afflictions, bodily sicknesses, pains in childbearing, and while on our (earthly) pilgrimage to live a laborious life, and lastly, bodily death." What does all of this mean? Since Adam alone committed the "original sin" (or, more properly, the "ancestral sin"), he alone bears the guilt for that sin. However, the consequences of that first sin -- e.g., sickness, pain, death -- and most especially the allpowerful propensity to sin, is inherited by all of his descendants. Roman Catholics, on the other hand, believe that we are all born sinners, guilty of Adam's sin from our very conception in the womb.