This is an important+lengthy thread on original sin in the Church Fathers. It has become clear to me that in the last century some Orthodox theologians began teaching ideas that amount to, at best, a sub par understanding of the doctrine, and at worst an outright denial of it.

It has now become standard to say that what we inherit from Adam is merely death and corruption, and perhaps the inclination to sin, but not “sin” itself or a sinful nature in a robust sense, and certainly not guilt. This is often used as a polemic against the Catholic Church.

It has filtered down to the parish level. Among those who popularised such notions was Fr John Romanides. Romanides claimed that Saint Augustine is the man who came up with the “Latin” doctrine, and that he’s basically responsible for all the theological problems in the west.

Ignoring for the moment the wider silliness of such a claim, I’m going to present what the Church fathers taught about original sin preceding and contemporaneous with Saint Augustine.

To begin, let’s have a look at Saint Irenaeus, who labours at length in his “Against Heresies” to combat the various sects in the second century who taught erroneous things. Towards the end, in his fifth and final book, he concludes a section dealing with Adam and our salvation.

Tertullian, in his work “The Soul’s Testimony”, says the entire human race is tainted from our descent from Adam, transmitting his condemnation. Not just death and corruption, condemnation, which is a moral thing.

Here are the words of Saint Cyprian dealing with infant baptism. It is said by some Orthodox Christians that the link between original sin and baptism was made by Saint Augustine to justify his thinking.
Not so.

Saint Athanasius in his discourses against the Arians, and Saint Ambrose in “On the Death of his Brother Satyrus”. Also of note is Ambrose’ mention of the commemoration of the dead, but that’s unrelated to the subject at hand.

Saint John Chrysostom in a homily on Romans 5.

Saint Gregory of Nyssa in his sixth homily on the Beatitudes:
“Our very birth is the fruit of passion, growth takes place by its means, our life terminated in it. Evil has been intermingled with our nature from the outset, because of those who received passion into themselves...

...at the beginning by disobeying and so giving the disease a home in themselves. And, as in every species of living being, the same nature persists as one follows the other, so that as far as nature is concerned, what comes into existence is identical with that whence it came...

...so it is that man comes from man, the passionate from the passionate, the sinner from the sinner. In some sense, therefore, sin comes to exist along with things that come to be. It is born with it (our nature), grows alongside it, and ceases only when life is ended.”

Saint Vincent of Lerins in his exposition of 1 Timothy 4:20. Saint Vincent is sometimes accused of being a Semi-Pelagian, but his teaching here is not only thoroughly Orthodox in a general sense, but he also confounds those who today deny the Orthodoxy of original sin.

Finally, the Council of Carthage 418/19, which was received at and ratified by the Councils of Chalcedon and Trullo, thus giving it ecumenical authority.

I could provide more, but I think I’ve made my point. This is a thread I’ve been wanting to make for a while. It’s clear Saint Augustine didn’t make up original sin. Because of his fight against Pelagianism he was amongst the first to dedicate a lot of writing to the subject...

...and he went a bit far in some places, but overall he was Orthodox, and even people like Saint Vincent of Lerins who disputed with Augustine over his more extreme teachings and who has been accused by some of being semi-Pelagian, clearly upholds a strong view of original sin.

Simply put if you don’t believe in original sin, you’re not in continuity with the Fathers. Romanides and those of like-mind are in error, and it’s time to stop pretending that Augustine is some sort of fount of western problems. I’m unafraid of saying that I affirm original sin.