Death as a Post-Fall Event and Not of Nature

By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou

 

 

Prologue

We are living in the period of the feast of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ (Pascha), and we celebrate the fact that Christ by His death conquered death, sin, and the devil, according to the whole tradition of our Church. During these days we chant triumphantly: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.”

He trampled down death and gave to every person the possibility through His Grace to conquer spiritual death (his separation from God) and finally also the second death through the resurrection of the bodies. According to the Apostle Paul: “For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1 Cor. 15:25–26).

Likewise He abolished the devil in the sense that, according to the word of the Apostle Paul: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14–15).

This means that within the Church, which is the true Body of Christ, we struggle, by the power of Christ, to conquer sin and the passions, to transform the powers of soul and body so that they may proceed according to nature and toward that which is above nature, and to partake even now of the life of Christ and of His Resurrection.

Death was the result of Adam’s sin with the cooperation and contribution of the devil, and in the Church, with the help of God, we wage a struggle against all three of these: namely the devil, sin, and death.

Nevertheless, there are certain contemporary theologians who claim that death is not the result of sin, but is a natural condition, because it is connected with the created nature of human existence. Such a teaching overturns the entire theology of the Church concerning original sin and furthermore undermines the whole work of the incarnation of the Son and Word of God, and even of the Church itself.

This view in a certain way reintroduces the heresy of Pelagianism, which the Church condemned synodically. This is analyzed in the text that follows, titled: “Death as a Post-Fall Event and Not of Nature.”

Introduction

The subject of death has occupied mankind from ancient times, from the era of ancient philosophy until today. People have always asked: Why does death exist? From where did death come? What does mortality mean? And what is its relationship to createdness, along with many other questions?

Basic biblical-patristic theology teaches that man is created from the very beginning of his creation; after all, there is absolutely no similarity between the uncreated God and created man. Yet within himself man possessed the movement, the impulse toward immortality by Grace, that is, from the “according to the image” to attain to the “according to the likeness.”

However, this movement was interrupted by sin, which came from the intervention and prompting of the devil together with the free consent of man, his free choice. From sin came death, the dominion of death, from which the passions arise.

Christ, by His incarnation, conquered death, the devil, and sin upon the Cross and by His Resurrection, and He gave to man the possibility within the Church, through the Mysteries and ascetic struggle by Grace, to conquer in Christ the devil, sin, and death, and to proceed toward the original purpose of his creation.

1. Connection Between Createdness and Mortality

Despite this authentic tradition of the Prophets, Apostles, and Fathers, which is recorded in many texts of Holy Scripture, the Fathers, and the decisions of the Ecumenical Synods, in our own days a new theology is being cultivated, taught by certain theologians, which attempts to detach death (the dominion of death) from ancestral sin, identifies the pre-fallen state of creation and man in immortality by Grace with the post-fallen state of mortality, confuses createdness with the dominion of death, and generally feels a kind of aversion toward speaking of sin and death.

Specifically, it is written and said that according to the Fathers of the Church, created nature within itself mutability simply because it is created, and this leads it to corruption and death. Therefore, createdness is closely linked with corruptibility and mortality.

A consequence of this line of thought of these theologians is that death did not come from the fall, but is connected with created nature itself. Thus, according to this view, there never existed any Paradise in which Adam existed incorruptible and immortal by Grace and in which he had to be tested, since this is referred to only in the book of Genesis, which is not accepted by modern science. Therefore there is no discussion of the sin that brought death into mankind, nor is there any distinction made between pre-fallen and post-fallen man, which is the foundation of Orthodox theology. That is, there is no “before” and “after” state of Adam relative to the fall.

Thus, by connecting mortality with the nature of the created, by dogmatizing creation as naturally mortal, and by questioning the teachings concerning Paradise and Adam’s sin, all responsibility for death is ultimately cast upon God, namely that He is the cause of death, since He created the world and man as naturally mortal. This is a central idea of Western theology.

This furthermore means that the work of Christ is misinterpreted, He Who assumed human nature utterly pure, yet nevertheless mortal and passible, in order to conquer death in Himself and become for mankind the “medicine of immortality.” In order to justify themselves against the likely criticism that in this way a god is created who is the cause of evil and mortality, perfection is transferred to the last things, and consequently every reference to perfection in Paradise or elsewhere concerns the eschaton and not Paradise, which in any case is considered doubtful as to whether it ever existed.

Ultimately there is accepted the view that when creation is not in communion with God, it is inevitably led to its “annihilation.” If this expression is taken literally, it means that any being whatsoever which turns by its will against God returns to complete non-existence. This shows that God does not respect the will of the creature and permits its total disappearance.

These views of contemporary theologians, who have been characterized as post-patristic, when judged strictly theologically on the basis of the God-bearing and divinely-inspired Fathers, are either a “theological speculation” which ignores the entire patristic tradition while using Protestant ideas, or worse still, they disregard the tradition of the Church and end in heresies that have been condemned synodically by the Church.

These matters are extremely serious from a theological and ecclesiastical point of view.

I believe that whoever has not understood the state of man before the fall and his state after the fall cannot possess a true sense of Orthodox theology, of the purpose of the incarnation of the Word of God, and of ecclesiastical life. Thus, the state before the fall and the state after the fall of man are central points of the theology of the Church, which we shall examine next.

2. The Heresy of Pelagianism

In the West, during the fifth century A.D., the heresy of Pelagianism developed, which was named after its leader Pelagius. Pelagius came from Britain, or according to others from Ireland. He went to Rome around 400 A.D., where he learned the Greek language and became acquainted with the teaching of Theodore of Mopsuestia. In Rome he formulated his teaching and gained disciples, among whom was the lawyer Celestius, who was Scottish by origin.

Pelagius and Augustine, dealing with the salvation of man, arrived at two opposite extremes. Augustine supported absolute predestination, while Pelagius taught that man is saved by his own powers.

According to the dogmatics professor John Karmiris, Pelagius, following Theodore of Mopsuestia in certain points, limited original sin only to the first-created humans, saying that the sin of the first-created was not transmitted hereditarily to their descendants, and he denied the transmission of guilt, as Augustine maintained. Consequently, he held that baptism does not grant remission from ancestral sin, but only from personal sins; therefore infant baptism is not necessary.

Since, according to Pelagius, ancestral sin was not transmitted to descendants and no weakening or corrupting influence came upon mankind, therefore human beings possess all the powers necessary for their salvation and can be saved through their free will, while divine Grace acts only in an auxiliary manner, chiefly through the teaching and example of Christ. Consequently, according to Pelagius, Augustine’s doctrine of absolute predestination does not exist, and what interests us here is that he taught that death is something natural.

These views of Pelagius were emphasized even more strongly by his disciple Celestius, who taught that Adam was by nature mortal, and that infant baptism does not grant remission of sins.

As John Karmiris writes, there exists a certain relationship between Pelagianism and Nestorianism, because Pelagianism accepts that people can be saved by their own powers and above all without divine help, having Christ as an example, whereas Nestorianism accepts that Christ was merely a man, gradually perfected through His assumption by God, and thus offers Himself as an example to mankind. [1]

Fr. John Romanides, in unpublished lectures delivered to students at Holy Cross School of Theology in Boston, which will soon be published, said that Augustine taught that “God gave death to man as punishment.” “Yes, God is the cause of death, but not of guilt.” Pelagius and his followers, confronting Augustine’s theories that death is God’s punishment upon man, raised various questions: “Why should all humanity be under the dominion of death? Why should we suffer? Why should God punish us with death? Is not God unjust? Is not each person responsible for his own sins? Why should someone also be responsible for the sins of others?” Precisely for this reason “Pelagius and his followers attacked Augustine with such questions and told him that God is not arbitrary. Pelagius’ solution was that death is simply a natural phenomenon.” “Augustine, in order to justify the death of all mankind and to preserve the integrity of God’s justice, introduced the new teaching that humanity inherits the guilt of Adam.”

3. The Teaching of the Church Concerning Death

The Church has its theology, which is recorded in Holy Scripture by the God-seeing Prophets and Apostles and is formulated in the decisions of the Ecumenical and Local Synods, as well as in the interpretations of the God-seeing Fathers.

I shall cite three passages from the Apostle Paul. The first: “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy him who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Heb. 2:14–15). The second: “O wretched man that I am! Who shall deliver me from this body of death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Rom. 7:24–25). Third: “And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He made alive together with Him, forgiving us all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and He took it out of the way, nailing it to the Cross; having stripped the principalities and powers, He made a public example of them, triumphing over them in it” (Col. 2:13–15).

In the Church of the first centuries there was very extensive discussion concerning these matters. The foremost theologian of the eighth century, Saint John of Damascus, in his divinely inspired work An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, among other things, summarized in a clear manner the theology of the Church, as it had been expressed up to his time, concerning this serious subject.

First of all, he emphasizes that the rational and noetic nature possesses free will, being “changeable according to opinion, that is, voluntarily changeable,” because “everything created is also changeable, whereas only the uncreated is unchangeable, and everything rational possesses free will.” [2] Man is immortal not by nature, but by grace, for “everything that has a beginning also comes to an end by nature.” [3]

He also speaks about Paradise, in which God placed man, whom He created with “a sinless nature and a self-governing will,” therefore “sinning” exists “not in nature... but rather in free choice,” man having the authority to remain and progress in goodness, cooperating with divine Grace. At the same time, he also possessed the possibility of turning and going from good to evil, “God permitting this because of free will.” [4] Before tasting from the tree of knowledge both Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed, “for God willed us to be such passionless beings (for this is the summit of dispassion).” At the same time they were free from cares, living an angelic life, unceasingly praising the Creator and delighting “in the vision of Him.” [5]

Thus God created man innocent, upright, virtuous, free from sorrow, free from care, adorned with every virtue, embellished with all good things, as a second world, small within the great, another angel, a mixed worshipper, overseer of visible creation, initiate of the intelligible world, king over all things on earth, yet himself ruled from above... [6]

However, after being enticed by the devil, man did not keep the commandment of the Creator. He committed sin, which had definite consequences, as Saint John records them. Namely, man became “stripped of grace and deprived of boldness before God and covered with the harshness of a miserable life (for this is signified by the fig leaves), and clothed with deadness, that is mortality and the grossness of the flesh (for this is signified by the garments of skins), and according to the righteous judgment of God exiled from Paradise and condemned to death and made subject to corruption...” [7]

This teaching of Saint John of Damascus is absolutely clear: after sinning, man (Adam and Eve) was stripped of the divine Grace he had possessed, lost the boldness he had before God, was covered with the painfulness of life (the fig leaves), put on deadness, namely mortality and the grossness of the flesh (the garments of skin), was exiled from Paradise, became condemned to death, and subject to corruption.

Indeed, to make this even clearer, he writes that after sin “death entered into the world like some wild and savage beast, ravaging human life.”

But God, “the compassionate One,” Who gave man “being,” also granted him “well-being.” That is, after educating him in many ways, aiming at the abolition of sin which had enslaved man, and through which death came and devastated his life like some “wild and savage beast,” He became incarnate and assumed human nature. Therefore it was necessary that the sinless One, the Son and Word of God, “Who was not liable to death through sin,” namely He Who was not responsible for man’s death which came through sin, should redeem him, while at the same time renewing human nature and educating man through deeds and teaching him the path of virtue, which removes him “from corruption” and leads to eternal life. [8]

All these things mean that Orthodox teaching speaks most clearly about man’s life before and after the Fall, that death and corruption are the results of sin, and that Christ through His Incarnation assumed human nature that was mortal and passible, yet utterly pure and sinless, so that He Himself might conquer death and give this as a grace/gift to the one who is united with Him. Therefore we triumphantly chant: “Christ is risen from the dead, trampling down death by death, and upon those in the tombs bestowing life.”

Fr. John Romanides studied the subject of “original (ancestral) sin.” First of all, through the teaching of the Apostle Paul, he composed his first study titled "Original Sin According to the Apostle Paul."

The basic principles are that God created the world good, according to the Scriptural phrase, “and God saw that it was good.” Death entered through sin and dwelt in the world, and through Satan it reigns over the world and creation. Man was created for a life of selfless love, but through sin the power of death and corruption entered, making man unable to live the life of perfection, because of the desire for self-preservation. Sin is the center of death (1 Cor. 15:56), sin reigned through death (Rom. 5:20), and death is “the last enemy” that shall be abolished (1 Cor. 15:20). Man was not punished by God, but was taken captive by the devil. The greatest power of the devil is death, which is destroyed only within the Body of Christ, where the faithful are strengthened against Satan as they struggle for selfless love. The bodily Resurrection of Christ “is the destruction of the devil, death, and corruption.”

After many observations he concludes: “Any theology which cannot define precisely the methods and deceptions of the devil is plainly heretical, because such a theology has already been deceived by the devil. For precisely this reason the Fathers could affirm that heresy is the work of the devil.” [9]

Afterward, Fr. John Romanides composed his doctoral dissertation on the subject of “ancestral sin.”

When years ago I first began reading this dissertation, I could not understand why I had to read almost the entire book, and only in the last chapter, about fifteen pages long, finally learn what ancestral sin actually is. Later, however, I understood that Fr. John Romanides first had to present all the presuppositions necessary for understanding this subject and to refute the views of Scholastic and Protestant theology.

Thus he arranged his dissertation into six chapters. In the first chapter he analyzed the subject “Creation, Fall, and Salvation according to Greek Philosophy in General,” in order to show that many Western and westernizing theologians, when speaking about this matter, proceed from philosophical and metaphysical presuppositions. In the second chapter he developed the theme “The Relationship Between God and the World,” in order to speak about creation out of nothing, divine freedom, and the activity of God in the world. In the third chapter he discussed at length Satan and his relation to the Fall, and the warfare between God and Satan. In the fourth chapter he presented the teaching of the Fathers of the Church concerning man’s destiny, perfection, and fall. In the fifth chapter he analyzed matters concerning the spiritual man created in the image of God. And in the sixth chapter he spoke about ancestral sin itself, specifically about man’s original condition and his fall, the transmission of death, and how “the many were made sinners.”

As a conclusion he cites the passage from Saint Cyril of Alexandria stating that man was created with incorruption and life, that his life in Paradise was holy, that his nous was wholly occupied with the vision of God, and that his body knew no pleasure. However, because he fell through sin and “slipped into corruption, from that moment pleasures and impurities entered the nature of the flesh, and there sprang up the savage law within our members.” Saint Cyril concludes: “Human nature became diseased with sin through the disobedience of the one man, namely Adam.” “Human nature in Adam became sick with corruption through disobedience, and thus the passions entered into it.” He also cites the words of Saint John Chrysostom that Christ abolished the devil who held the power of death, according to the saying of the Apostle Paul (Heb. 2:14). And he says: “Why do you fear one who has been abolished? He is no longer terrible, but has ceased, has been despised, is contemptible and worth nothing...” “Let us therefore stand courageously, mocking death.” [10]

This is “the language” of the Church. Every other “language” smells of Western theology, foreign to the theology of the Fathers.

4. The Theological and Canonical Synodal Response to This Heresy

As we know, the Church addresses all matters synodically, that is, through Ecumenical and Local Synods, which, through the Holy Fathers, established the definitions concerning dogmatic-theological matters and the canons concerning the treatment of heretics, clergy, monks, and laity. We see this also in the matter that concerns us here.

Earlier reference was made to the heresy of Pelagianism, namely that, among other things, death is connected with human nature.

The six Pelagian heresies were condemned by the Fathers of the Synod of Carthage, which issued eight canons against the heresy teaching that: a) Adam was created mortal and therefore would have died whether he sinned or not; b) Adam’s sin harmed only himself and not the human race; c) infants are in the same state in which Adam existed before the Fall; d) the human race neither dies through the death or fall of Adam, nor rises through the Resurrection of Christ; e) the Law as well as the Gospel lead to the Kingdom of Heaven; and f) even before the coming of Christ there existed men without sin. [11]

From this it is perfectly clear that the view that death belongs to nature and is not the result of sin has profound theological implications, undermining not only the Church’s teaching concerning ancestral sin, but also the very redemptive work of Christ.

At this point I would like to refer to one of these canons which especially concerns us. This is Canon 109 of the Synod of Carthage. Carthage refers to Carthage in Africa. According to Zonaras and Balsamon, “the Synod in Carthage took place while Honorius was reigning in Old Rome and Theodosius the Younger in Constantinople, when two hundred and seventeen (217) divine Fathers from Africa and the regions subject to it gathered in Carthage.” This Synod was convened in May of 419 A.D. and was ratified by the Quinisext Ecumenical Synod.

Canon 109 states:

“If anyone says that Adam, the first-formed man, was made mortal in such a way that whether he sinned or did not sin he would die bodily, that is, depart from the body, not because of the penalty of sin but by necessity of nature, let him be anathema.”

The translation of the canon is as follows:

“Let him be anathema who says that Adam, the first-created man, became mortal in such a way that whether he sinned or did not sin, he would die bodily, that is, his soul would depart from the body not because of sin, but because of the necessity of nature.” [12]

I shall cite the interpretation of Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite, who not only historically interprets this canon, but also presents the whole theological tradition of the Church in the Pedalion (Rudder), which also received the approval of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite explains, in the terminology of his own era, which is here rendered into modern language:

“The present Canon overturns the heresy of Pelagius and his disciple Celestius. For they (as the divine Augustine testifies in On Ancestral Sin, chapters 5 and 6), because they believed that ancestral sin is not born together with man (that man is not born with ancestral sin), and that it is an error not of nature but of the will, concluded from this that Adam also died this natural death not because of sin, which is voluntary, but because of the necessity of nature, which had been created mortal from the beginning and was destined to die whether Adam sinned or did not sin by his own free choice.

Therefore the Synod, overturning this heretical opinion, anathematizes those who say such things. For if Adam was mortal by necessity of nature:

A) Then God, Who created that nature, would also have to be the creator and cause of death. But God did not make death, according to what is written.

B) That flesh which Adam possessed before his transgression should not have differed from ours, but should also have been like ours, gross, mortal, and resistant to suffering, since we ourselves after the transgression are mortal according to this necessity of nature and are certainly destined to die. But Gregory the Theologian (in his Oration on the Nativity of Christ) teaches that this gross, mortal, and resistant flesh which we now possess was not possessed by Adam before the transgression, but only after it.

C) If death came from nature, how does the Apostle Paul say that ‘through sin death entered the world’? (Rom. 5:12). And Solomon says, ‘Through the envy of the devil death entered into the world.’ Therefore God created man mortal, not naturally mortal by necessity, according to this canon, but naturally immortal (that is, from the human point of view).

And because it belongs to goodness not to compel anyone toward the good, therefore God made man self-governing in soul, so that by free choice he might move toward the good and remain in it, not by compulsion and force, but freely and willingly, and thus by remaining in the good through his own free choice, preserve also the natural immortality of the body. But because he of himself turned toward evil by his own free choice, he no longer possessed the power to preserve the body in the natural immortality in which it had been created, and thus death followed.

And to say it more clearly with Gregory of Thessaloniki, because the better and higher part of man, the soul, was separated through sin and transgression from the true Life, which is the grace of God, and fell into true death, which is evil, therefore the lower part, namely the body, was also separated from natural life and fell into unnatural death.

And just as the soul, which is by nature subject to God, did not submit itself to Him, so also the body, which by nature was subject to the soul, departed from obedience to it through the disorders of its senses, its passions, and finally through the dissolution of the elements from which it had been composed, which indeed is death. Therefore, according to the present canon, the following canons of this same Synod overthrow the heresy of Pelagius and Celestius, namely Canons 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, and 116." [13]

Furthermore, Saint Nikodemos in one of his footnotes cites teachings of Holy Fathers, and this footnote is presented here in modernized language:

“For this reason Gregory the Sinaite says (Philokalia, p. 880): ‘Man was created incorruptible, without flux, just as he will also rise again. Not immutable, nor again mutable. Possessing the power (see concerning this power in the footnote to Canon 112, which refers to free will) of the will, either to turn or not to turn.’

Therefore those who believe that man was created midway between mortality and immortality do not speak correctly, because whoever says this first reveals that mortality and immortality are likewise beings and good and are both among existing things, which is false. For immortality indeed is both a being and a good and exists among realities, whereas mortality is both non-being and evil and does not exist among beings.

Second, if God created man in such an intermediate state (between immortality and mortality), does it follow that He equally willed for man to move either toward immortality or toward mortality? This also is false.

And if they ask why Gregory the Theologian in his Oration on the Nativity of Christ says that man was created in the midst of greatness and lowliness, we answer that there the Theologian is not speaking only about Adam’s condition before the transgression, but also about the condition of man after the transgression, as Niketas explains.

And greatness refers to the soul, while lowliness refers to the body, as the Apostle also said: ‘the body of our humiliation’ (Phil. 3:21). Therefore God, being immortal by nature, likewise created man immortal by grace, and only for immortality, and never midway between immortality and mortality. For this reason Solomon said: ‘God created man for incorruption’ (Wisdom 2:23). And in the Kathisma of Tone Plagal Fourth in the Octoechos the Church chants: ‘Though we were incorruptible, we became corruptible by eating from the first tree.’

But Abba Makarios also says that man was created incorruptible. Nor did Adam possess by nature the power toward corruption. First, because this tendency toward corruption is not properly called a power, but rather weakness and deficiency and sickness. Second, because if this power were natural, then the consequence would be that God would be the cause of corruption and death, since He would have given such a natural power, and thus fallen man would be blameless. And third, if man had by nature the power to become corruptible, then it is clear that by natural necessity he would also have been corruptible, because every natural power necessarily comes to fulfillment whenever it is not hindered. But the present Canon opposes this, anathematizing those who say that Adam was mortal by natural necessity. Therefore all these things are absurd, and thus the conclusions drawn from them are likewise absurd and false.” [14]

The heresy of Pelagianism — namely that death is not the result of sin but belongs to nature itself — overturns the entire teaching of the Church concerning God, man, and the work of the Incarnation of the Son and Word of God. The Third Ecumenical Synod also dealt with this matter, accepting the decisions of the Synod of Carthage. The condemnation of Pelagianism was made through the six canons of the Third Ecumenical Synod:

“The Holy Synod, gathered by the grace of God in the metropolis of Ephesus, sends greeting in the Lord to Celestine the bishop.

… And after the records concerning the deposition of the impious Pelagians and Caelestians — Celestius, Pelagius, Julian, Persidius, Florus, Marcellinus, Orentius, and those who think the same things as they do — had been read in the holy Synod, we also judged that the decrees enacted against them by your piety should remain firm and certain, and we all agree together in regarding them as deposed…

Canon 1… If any metropolitan of a province, having defected from the holy and ecumenical Synod… has held or shall hold the opinions of Celestius, such a one can in no way exercise authority over the bishops of the province, being from this moment excluded by the Synod from all ecclesiastical communion and rendered inactive…

Canon 4. And if any of the clergy should defect and dare either privately or publicly to hold the opinions of Nestorius or of Celestius, these also have rightly been judged deposed by the holy Synod.” [15]

Consequently, those who maintain that death was not caused by the fall of man but was part of created nature itself, since all creation was supposedly naturally mortal; that there was no Paradise in which Adam lived by grace incorruptible and immortal; and similar teachings, stand outside the Orthodox patristic tradition. And whoever supports such views, by misinterpreting or isolating certain patristic passages, places himself under the prospect of anathema, according to the Canon of the Synod of Carthage and of the Third Ecumenical Synod cited above.

Notes:

1. John Karmiris, The Dogmatic and Symbolic Monuments of the Orthodox Catholic Church, Vol. I, Athens, 1960, pp. 151–152.

2. John of Damascus, An Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Pournaras Edition, Thessaloniki, 1976, p. 100.

3. Ibid., p. 100.

4. Ibid., p. 152.

5. Ibid., p. 144.

6. Ibid., p. 150.

7. Ibid., p. 208.

8. Ibid., pp. 208–210.

9. Protopresbyter John Romanides, Theological Studies, Holy Monastery of the Nativity of the Theotokos (Pelagia), 2024, pp. 77–114.

10. John Romanides, The Ancestral Sin, Domos Editions, Athens, 1989.

11. John Karmiris, ibid., pp. 151–152.

12. Prodromos Akanthopoulos, Code of Sacred Canons and Ecclesiastical Laws, 2nd edition, Kyriakidis Brothers Editions, Thessaloniki, 1995, pp. 380–381.

13. The Rudder (Pedalion), Papadimitriou Edition, Athens, 1970, pp. 521–522.

14. Ibid., pp. 521–522.

15. John Karmiris, ibid., p. 155.

Original Greek source:

https://parembasis.gr/index.php/el/menu-gegonota/8655-2026-05-13

English source:

https://www.mystagogyresourcecenter.com/2026/05/death-as-post-fall-event-and-not-of.html