Original Sin

The Orthodox theology of original sin (propatoric hamartia, ancestral sin) differs significantly from the Western Augustinian account. In Orthodox theology, what is inherited from Adam is not personal guilt (each person is guilty only for their own sins) but mortality and the tendency toward sin that mortality produces. Because we are mortal, we fear death, and from that fear comes the disordered self-concern that generates sin. Christ's Incarnation, death, and Resurrection heal the root cause: mortality itself is destroyed, and with it the engine of sin.