Ancestral Sin Archives - Saint Sophia

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part IV)

09/25/2026

By V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div., St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts The juridical approach that has predominated in the West can make pastoral practice seem cold and automatic. Neither a focus on good works nor faith alone are sufficient to transform the human heart. Do positive, external criteria signify inner transformation in all cases? Some branches of Christian counseling too often rely on the application of seemingly relevant verses of Scripture to effect changes in behavior

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part III)

09/24/2026

By V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div., St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts The image of an angry, vengeful God haunts the West where a basic insecurity and guilt seem to exist. Many appear to hold that sickness, suffering and death are God’s will. Why? I suspect one reason is that down deep the belief persists that God is still angry and must be appeased. Yes, sickness, suffering and death come and when they do

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part II)

09/23/2026

By V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div., St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts It is important to note that salvation as deification is not pantheism because the Orthodox Fathers insist on the doctrine of creation ex nihilo (Athanasius, 1981). Human beings, along with all created things, have come into being from nothing. Created beings will always remain created and God will always remain Uncreated. The Son of God in the Incarnation crossed the unbridgeable chasm between them. Orthodox

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part I)

09/22/2026

By V. Rev. Antony Hughes, M.Div., St. Mary Antiochian Orthodox Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts A young man called me recently to discuss his family’s movement toward the Orthodox Church. He told me a priceless story about how his seven-year old daughter helped him and his wife understand an Orthodox practice that is often a hindrance to inquirers. Although the family had icons in their home they could not grasp the reason for the practice of venerating

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: Forgiveness and the Whole Adam

03/01/2023

I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. For Silouan and Sophrony, this was something known in the present tense, a “hypostatic” knowledge of the fundamental unity of the human race. Sophrony described it as

Forgiveness for All the Sundays to Come

10/01/2021

By Fr. Stephen Freeman, March 10, 2016 I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word; (John17:20-21) The Elder Sophrony, together with St. Silouan, wrote about the “whole Adam.” By this, they meant all the human beings who have ever existed and those yet to come. They were, for them, something known in the present tense, a “hypostatic” (the term Sophrony preferred) knowledge of the fundamental

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Bright Thursday. The Power of the Resurrection.

05/06/2021

The Power of the Resurrection Christ’s resurrection becomes our resurrection By Abbot Tryphon, April 11, 2018 Orthodox do not accept the Doctrine of Original Sin as espoused in the West, but teach, as did the Early Church Fathers, that we inherit only the results of Adams sin, not his guilt. This is known as Ancestral Sin because the sin of our first parents, Adam and Eve, resulted in our having inherited death, sickness and an

Archive

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part IV)

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part III)

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part II)

Ancestral Versus Original Sin: An Overview with Implications for Psychotherapy (Part I)

The First Wednesday of Great Lent: Forgiveness and the Whole Adam

Forgiveness for All the Sundays to Come

ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ ΑΝΕΣΤΗ! CHRIST IS RISEN! Bright Thursday. The Power of the Resurrection.

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