The "original" sin is not primarily that man has "disobeyed" God; the sin is that he ceased to be hungry for Him and for Him alone, ceased to see his whole life depending on the whole world as a sacrament of communion with God. The sin was not that man neglected his religious duties. The sin was that he thought of God in terms of religion, that is, opposing him to life. The only real fall of man is his non-eucharistic life in a non-eucharistic world. The fall is not that he preferred world to God, distorted the balance between the spiritual and material, but that he made the world
material whereas he was to have transformed it into "life in God", filled it with meaning and spirit.
+Fr. Alexander Schemann, from
For the Life of the World, chapter 1, #4.
