The sin of origins in Orthodoxy and at Port-Royal

This article by Michel Stavrou examines the doctrine of original sin at Port-Royal in the light of the Eastern patristic tradition. Taking the form of a comparative historical and dogmatic study, it analyzes the extent to which the Jansenist authors — Jansenius, Saint-Cyran, Arnauld, Pascal, Quesnel — may have been influenced by the Greek Fathers in their approach to the Adamic fault. The central idea is that, despite genuine engagement with Greek patristic sources, Port-Royal remained indebted to a radical Augustinianism, ignoring the fundamental distinction between the inheritance of mortality and the transmission of guilt, a distinction that is nonetheless central to the Eastern Fathers. The article makes a twofold contribution: it highlights the structural gap between Eastern and Western anthropologies on this point, and shows that this dogmatic discernment was only achieved in the Catholic Church in the twentieth century, thanks to the patristic renewal.