Religious Violence, or Why Hagiography is Not History

Source: There Is No Crime for Those Who Have Christ: Religious Violence in the Christian Roman Empire, Michael Gaddis, University of California Press, 2005, pp. 223-228.

 

 

We may gain additional insight into the contested nature of martyrial assertions made by violent zealots by examining another incident in which a claim of martyrdom might conceivably have been made, but was not. The series of violent upheavals connected with John Chrysostom’s expulsion from Constantinople are amply described in a variety of sources. [62] One incident, however, mysteriously absent from all Christian sources, is known to us only through the pagan historian Zosimus. [63] When John left the city for his first exile, there were great disturbances among the people. At this point a rather unusual episode of violence erupted:

While the city was in an uproar, the Christian church was taken over by the so-called monks. (These men renounce lawful marriage and fill populous colleges of bachelors in cities and villages: they are useless for war or any other service to the state. Moreover, from that time to this, they have taken over most of the land and, under the pretext of giving everything to the poor, have reduced almost everyone else to beggary.) These men, then, took over the churches and hindered the people from coming in for their customary prayers. This enraged the commoners and soldiers, who, anxious to humble the monks’ insolence, went out when the signal was given, and violently and indiscriminately killed them all, until the church was filled with bodies. Those who tried to escape were pursued and anyone who happened to be wearing dark clothes was struck down, so that many died with them who were found in this garb because of mourning or some other tragic chance. [64]

The identity and allegiance of the various warring groups mentioned in this passage has been subject to some debate. Although it is well known that the people of Constantinople were in large part enthusiastic followers of Chrysostom, while much of the lower clergy and most of the city’s monastic establishment had turned against him because of his overzealous reform efforts, the suggestion that the soldiers sided with the people against the monks might seem confusing given that the imperial government at that time was trying hard to get rid of Chrysostom and would soon turn to brutal persecution of his followers. Timothy Gregory offers a plausible reconstruction of events. Shortly after John departed for his first exile, the empress Eudoxia was alarmed by the loud demonstrations in his favor and changed her mind, sending her eunuch to bring John back. When the monks heard that John was returning, they registered their protest by seizing the Hagia Sophia and disrupting services. At that point the more zealous popular supporters of John combined with Eudoxia’s soldiers to expel the monks. Other sources, which do not mention this incident specifically, do however make general references to attacks by the people against the monks who had come with Theophilus from Alexandria. When Theophilus departed for Egypt in order to escape the hostility of Chrysostom’s supporters, the monk Isaac, a leader of Constantinopolitan monasticism, felt it necessary to flee with him. [65]

That the soldiers sided with John’s supporters in this case, while in several later incidents they would be opposed to them, should not in and of itself be surprising when we remember that the imperial government’s first concern was not taking a consistent side but rather maintaining law and order. In this case, the monks, by illegally seizing and occupying the city’s main church and disrupting services, were overthrowing both public and ecclesiastical order within sight of the imperial palace. Such a usurpation could not be tolerated, and so soldiers were sent to expel the offenders. Chrysostom’s popular supporters, meanwhile, performed a usurpation of their own: seizing the opportunity, they took the law into their own hands and turned what was supposed to be a police action against a specific group of rebel monks into a general massacre of monks, or even of anyone who happened to look like a monk. In later incidents, similar acts of lawlessness attributed to John’s supporters—most notably the burning of the same Great Church—drove the imperial government to turn against them and begin a harsh campaign of repression.

Monks, zealous men of Christ, had been slaughtered by the dozens if not more, their blood spilled within the very precincts of the Hagia Sophia, at the hands of an enraged mob and of armed soldiers. Such a lurid picture of sacrilegious violence within church walls might recall other massacres, such as the attack that fell upon John’s supporters in their church in the middle of baptismal rites a few months later, or the brutal assault made by the Homoian bishop Lucius against the Nicene congregation of Alexandria thirty years previously. [66] And yet no Christian source reports any expression of sympathy for the victims of this massacre, and there is certainly no evidence that the slain monks were venerated as martyrs or even that any such claim was ever made on their behalf.

In fact, no surviving Christian source mentions the incident at all—a surprising omission considering the great attention and detailed presentation given by all the fifth-century church historians, as well as other sources, to other events in the turbulent months surrounding Chrysostom’s deposition and exile. One possible explanation for their silence is that this incident would have pointed up an embarrassing problem in historiographical presentation. To put it simply, the fifth-century church historians, like most religious historiographers, preferred to write Christian history around clear-cut distinctions between heroes and villains—Christians versus pagans, Nicenes versus Arians. The case of Chrysostom was considerably complicated by the fact that not only John but also several of his most bitter opponents came to be venerated in later Christian tradition as saints. [67] If both sides in such a battle could claim the mantle of holiness, their disputes could not easily be presented as struggles on behalf of the faith and could at best cause confusion and embarrassment. Socrates’ report of the confrontation between John and Epiphanius, monk and bishop of Salamis, presented the curious spectacle of two holy men, equally beloved by God, hurling curses at each other. Epiphanius prophesied that John “will not die a bishop” and John countered with the prediction that Epiphanius would never again see his home country. [68] The holy man’s curse, a public prediction or invocation of divine vengeance upon an evildoer, is a common feature in hagiography. But in this case, the cursing was reciprocal. Since both men were saints, both predictions came true: John was soon deposed, and Epiphanius died on his way back to Cyprus.

Some of Chrysostom’s most implacable enemies also happened to be the stars of Constantinopolitan monasticism, such as Isaac, revered (at least in Nicene orthodox tradition) as the founding father of monasticism in the imperial capital. [69] Isaac was only the first in a series of Constantinopolitan archimandrites to seek the assistance of a patriarch of Alexandria in order to challenge the authority of a patriarch of Constantinople. [70] But in this case the hagiographical traditions of the Constantinopolitan monks did their best to downplay or ignore any conflict between bishop and monastic leaders. [71] Although Isaac was probably not among the monks who seized the Hagia Sophia, those monks would have looked to him as their spiritual leader and would have believed that they were acting in support of him or perhaps even at his direction. But Isaac’s spiritual authority could not match the veneration that the people of Constantinople felt for their bishop. Eventually this veneration forced both imperial government and church establishment to rehabilitate John’s memory and to return his relics to the city. [72] In such a climate, any significant veneration for the slain monks, outside of their own monasteries, was unlikely.

Indeed, evidence for claims of holy zeal and righteous violence survive not for the monks, but from John’s side. Chrysostom, in a sermon thought to have been given on his return from the first exile, praised his supporters for their steadfast loyalty and bravery in his absence. In a likely reference to the battle at Hagia Sophia, he remarked: “The soldiers were armed, not only did the church become a military camp, but the city a church. . . . You have secured the cooperation of the empress . . . she went about everywhere, not indeed in person, but through her own military escort.” John then made an explicit declaration as to which side had acted legitimately: “I say these things not to lead you into insurrection, for theirs is the insurrection, while yours is zeal.” [73] The violence of the monks was an act of usurpation, and John assured his supporters that they had acted rightly—with godly zeal—in punishing them. [74]

In June of 404, once John had been exiled again (this time not to return) these same zealous followers of his were accused of setting fire to the Great Church, creating a conflagration that also consumed the nearby senate house and even threatened the palace. The imperial authorities used the suspicion of arson as an excuse to begin a harsh repression of John’s supporters. The church historians were unsure as to where to assign responsibility for the fire. Socrates simply said that the “Johannites” set the fire, but Sozomen reported that the fire broke out, perhaps accidentally, in the confusion during a battle between the Johannites and their opponents in the church—an equally plausible scenario. [75] Palladius, who can reasonably be called John’s hagiographer, offered a very different explanation for the fire. When John left the church, the “angel of the church” had gone with him, leaving only a dark and deserted sanctuary:

After this unutterable and inexplicable darkness there appeared a flame in the middle of the throne where John used to sit. It was just as the heart situated in the middle of the body controls the other members and communicates the oracles of the Lord. The flame looked for the expounder of the Word, and not finding him, it consumed the church furnishings. Then it took shape like a tree and grew up through the rafters to the very roof. . . . It was as though God were paying the wages of iniquity for the penalty assigned, to chide and warn those who would not be warned except by the sight of these calamities. . . . The fire as though endowed with intelligence leaped over the people in the street like a bridge and destroyed first of all the part closest to the church, but the part on the side of the royal palace. So we cannot say that it really burned because of the proximity of the structures, but it showed that it was only too clear that it had come from heaven. . . . In that whole crowd there was no loss of life, not of man or of beast. But the dirt of those who had carried on in such foul fashion was cleansed by the fire. [76]

The fire came not from John’s supporters on earth, but from heaven, to express God’s anger at the wrong done to his holy man. To John’s followers there could be no greater witness to the right of their cause. The monks previously slaughtered in the same church received no such legitimation, and were quietly forgotten by Christian sources who held reverence for both Chrysostom and his opponents, embarrassed by the fact that these zealous men had been enemies of the great saint. Only a pagan observer, who held equal contempt for both parties, cared to report that story.

 

NOTES

62. Palladius, Dialogue on the Life of Saint John Chrysostom, passim; Socrates HE 6.9–19; Sozomen HE 8.14–24; Theodoret HE 5.34. Cf. also T. Gregory 1979, esp. chap. 2; Kelly 1995, pp. 191–253.

63. For what follows, Zosimus 5.23. T. Gregory 1973 argues convincingly that Zosimus’ report should be taken seriously. This section, like much of Zosimus, seems to have been drawn directly from Eunapius, who would have been an eyewitness to the events described.

64. Zosimus 5.23 (trans. Ridley).

65. Sozomen HE 8.19.

66. Chrysostom, Letter to Pope Innocent. Alexandrian incident described in letter of Bishop Peter, quoted in Theodoret HE 4.22; see chapter 2, pp. 81–82.

67. Even his archrival bishop, Theophilus, though not fondly regarded by Socrates or Palladius, enjoyed a considerable reputation as a champion of the Christian faith against paganism, due largely to his role in the destruction of the Serapeum in 391. Later Coptic ecclesiastical tradition, as represented by the seventh-century John of Nikiu, preserves no memory of any bad blood between the saintly bishop John and the equally saintly bishop Theophilus.

68. Socrates HE 6.14.

69. Homoiousian or “Eustathian” ascetic foundations in the capital preceded Isaac’s arrival by several decades, but their memory was conveniently forgotten in the hagiographical tradition that grew up around Isaac and his followers: see Dagron1970.

70. This pattern would be followed by Dalmatius, who sided with Cyril against Nestorius, and later by Eutyches, who sought the assistance of Dioscorus against Flavian. See chapter 8, pp. 289–297. On Alexandrian-Constantinopolitan ecclesiastical rivalry, see Baynes 1926.

71. See, e.g., Callinicus, Life of Hypatius 11, which mentions the “great love” between Chrysostom and the monks. Only Palladius, most devoted to Chrysostom, ventured to attack Isaac, “that street idler, the guide of the false monks,” by name: Dialogue 6.

72. John was officially restored to the diptychs by bishop Atticus shortly after 412, despite the strenuous objections of Theophilus’ nephew and successor Cyril, who angrily remarked that he would sooner restore Judas: Cyril, Ep. 76. Official annual commemoration at court was introduced by bishop Nestorius in 428 (Marcellinus Comes, ad annum 428) and Chrysostom’s relics were finally returned from Asia Minor and formally deposited in the Church of the Holy Apostles in 438.

73. Stasis gar ta ekeinon, ta de humetera zelos: Chrysostom, Sermo post redditu ab exsilio (PG 52, 443–448), (trans. here from T. Gregory 1973, pp. 79–80). Although the authenticity of the sermon has been questioned, T. Gregory 1973 argues that “it probably represents a valid historical tradition.” Holum 1982, p. 75 n. 107, considers the doubts unfounded; Kelly 1995, pp. 233–234 accepts the sermon as authentic.

74. See discussion in previous chapter of John’s zealous exhortations regarding imitation of the martyrs, p. 171.

75. Socrates HE 6.18; Sozomen HE 8.22. Theodoret did not mention the incident. Zosimus 5.23, like Socrates, stated that John’s followers set the fire.

76. Palladius, Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysostom 10 (trans. Meyer). The Dialogue can certainly be considered as hagiography in intention, if not in literary form. Cf. discussion in previous chapter of “fire from heaven” miracles, pp. 185–186.

The Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ – Ten Answers to Ten Questions

Protopresbyter Dr. George D. Dragas

 

 

1. Why did the Ascension take place after 40 days and not immediately after the Resurrection?

2. Why did the risen Christ eat broiled fish and honey?

3. Why did the Ascension take place on the Mount of Olives?

4. Why did the Apostles and the Theotokos have to be present?

5. How did the unprecedented and unique Ascension of Christ take place?

6. Why were the two manlike and white-robed Angels sent?

7. What was the message of the white-robed Angels?

8. What was the impact of the Ascension on the Apostles and on the little flock of the first Church?

9. What was the impact of the Ascension on the ranks of the Angels in the heavens?

10. Why were the imprints of the wounds preserved in the Risen Body of Christ?

 

1. Why did the Ascension take place after 40 days and not immediately after the Resurrection?

The Author of life, Who loosed the bonds of death by His Resurrection, associated with His disciples for forty days and confirmed His Resurrection to them with many proofs. He did not ascend into the heavens on the same day that He rose, because such a thing would have created doubts and questions. Otherwise, many of the unbelievers could have put forward the argument that the Resurrection was nothing more than yet another dream of pious wishes, which quickly come and more quickly pass away. For precisely this reason Christ remained on earth for forty full days, and appeared repeatedly to His disciples, and showed them the scars from His wounds, spoke to them about the prophecies which He fulfilled by His life and sufferings as man, and even ate together with them.

2. Why did the risen Christ eat broiled fish and honey?

In today’s Gospel of the Feast, we hear that Christ asked for and ate “ιχθύος οπτού μέρος και από μελισσίου κηρίου,” that is, a piece of broiled fish and of honeycomb with honey (Luke 24:42). Why is this detail mentioned? According to ecclesiastical tradition, this detail had very important allegorical significance. As regards the fish, we know that although it lives in the salty sea, its body is not salty, but sweet. In a similar way, Christ also, Who lived in the “salty sea of sin” of this world, “committed no sin, neither was deceit found in His mouth,” that is, He committed no sin at all, nor did He utter anything deceitful (Isa. 53:9). Also, Christ remained more silent even than a fish when He underwent His saving Passion and endured those unheard-of tortures and unspeakable insults.

As regards the honey and the wax, we know that honey is sweet and wax gives light; for this reason, they are considered symbols of the spiritual delight and illumination which Christ imparts to the faithful after His Resurrection. Also, they symbolize: the first, the healing of the great bitterness of sin, which is symbolized by the gall that was given to Him in His Passion; and the second, the dispersal of the dense darkness of sin, which is symbolized by the darkness that occurred at His Crucifixion.

3. Why did the Ascension take place on the Mount of Olives?

After Christ had confirmed His Resurrection from the dead to His disciples with honey-sweet words, and had enlightened their mind and warmed their heart by His presence, He led them, on the 40th day after His Resurrection, to the Mount of Olives, which lies to the east of Jerusalem. The Ascension had to take place on this Mount because, according to an ancient tradition, the Lord will return there bodily and with glory to judge the world on the last day. There the righteous will receive mercy with the great mercy, and there sinners will lament with eternal and inconsolable lamentation. These two opposite conditions of men are indicated by the name of this Mount, because its summits are called the Mount of Olives, while its foothills are called the Valley of Weeping. The same was also foretold by the oracle of the Prophet Zechariah, who explicitly declared: “Behold, the day of the Lord is coming, and His feet shall stand upon the Mount of Olives, opposite Jerusalem, from the east” (Zech. 14:4).

4. Why did the Apostles and the Theotokos have to be present?

To this Mount the Lord led His disciples and the Theotokos who gave birth to Him, so that they might see His glorious Ascension with their own eyes. His Mother according to the flesh had to be present at that great glory of her Son, so that, just as she, as Mother, was wounded in soul more than all by His Passion, so in a corresponding manner she might rejoice more than all, seeing her Son ascending with glory into the heavens, being worshipped as God by the Angels, and sitting upon the throne of Majesty above every principality and authority.

The divine Apostles also had to become eyewitnesses of His Ascension, so that they might be assured that their divine Teacher, Who was now ascending into the heavens, had come down from there, and there would await them as the true Son of God and Savior of the world.

5. How did the unprecedented and unique Ascension of Christ take place?

They had already reached the middle summit of the Mount. Before them stretched the city of Jerusalem. The hole in the ground in which the Cross had been set up was still open. The entrance to the Tomb of the Savior was also open, since the great stone with which it had been sealed was still fallen on the ground. Then the Savior turns His back toward the ungrateful city of Jerusalem, and His gaze looks toward the east, as David joyfully says in one of his Psalms: “Sing to God, Who has mounted upon the heaven of heaven toward the east” (Ps. 67:34). And as He bids farewell to His disciples, He raises His immaculate hands and blesses them for the last time—those hands with which He refashioned man, whom He had created in the beginning, and which He stretched out in love for mankind upon the Cross and united “the things that were divided,” that is, those things which were in separation. While the eyes of the disciples could not be satisfied with gazing upon that Godlike and sweetest countenance of their Lord, suddenly He began to ascend into heaven. Their gaze remained fixed upon that strange and incomprehensible sight of the bodily Ascension of the Lord, until the radiant cloud hid Him from them.

How unprecedented and unique was the majesty of this Ascension! Elijah too had been taken up into the heavens, as Scripture says; however, his ascension took place with a fiery chariot and fiery horses, because he was a mere man and needed help in order to be taken up above the earth. But Christ was the God-man, Who ascended by Himself, by His omnipotence alone.

As regards that cloud, it was the Holy Spirit, just as happened also at the Transfiguration of Christ. Just as His descent and His Incarnation took place “of the Holy Spirit,” according to Gabriel’s message to the Virgin: “The Spirit of the Lord shall come upon thee, and the power of the Most High shall overshadow thee” (Luke 1:35), so also now He “ascends together” — ascends together with the Holy Spirit — because He accompanies Him and coexists with Him as consubstantial with Him, worshipped and glorified together with Him.

6. Why were the two manlike and white-robed Angels sent?

While the holy Apostles were gazing in amazement into heaven, two men appeared to them clothed in white garments. These two men were Angels who had taken human form so as not to frighten the disciples. And they were white-robed in order to reveal their purity and the enlightening and joyful message which they had been sent to deliver. The ascended Christ sent them in order to console the disciples at the moment of their sorrow over His departure, but also to enlighten them that their Lord, now invisible, was seated at the right hand of God the Father, and that He would descend again to the earth to judge all men, the living and the dead.

7. What was the message of the white-robed Angels?

“Men of Galilee,” they said to them, “why do you stand with your gaze fixed upon the heavens? This Jesus, Whom you see today being taken up, will return to judge the world, and His return will be the same as His Ascension.” That is, He will come from heaven wearing the same immaculate Body which He received from the blood of the pure Virgin, and which will have upon it the wounds engraved that He received in His Passion. Now only you few see Him ascending into heaven; but when He returns, all the tribes of the earth will see Him descending from there with glory upon the clouds. This glorious descent of His will become a cause of blessedness and joy for those who lived righteously. For sinners, however, it will be a cause of grief and calamity.

8. What was the impact of the Ascension on the Apostles and on the little flock of the first Church?

The Apostles heard these things and worshipped the Savior at His Ascension, and afterward returned with joy to Jerusalem. Their joy was very great, because they learned definitively that their divine Teacher is true God, Who ascended into the heavens not in order to abandon the earth, but in order to unite it with heaven.

Their joy was also very great because they received the blessing of their Savior at His Ascension. With this blessing, the small Church of the disciples, that little flock, increased within a short time and became very great; and, receiving the grace of the Holy Spirit, it was revealed as that Church which was established in all parts of the earth.

9. What was the impact of the Ascension on the ranks of the Angels in the heavens?

While these things were taking place on earth because of the Ascension, in the heavens the Angels were holding a majestic festival. The orders of the Angels who had served the Savior on earth and were now accompanying Him in His divine Ascension called upon the upper ranks to open the heavenly gates, so that the King of Glory might enter.

“Lift up your gates, O princes,” sings David the Prophet-King, “and be lifted up, ye everlasting gates, and the King of Glory shall enter” (Ps. 23:7).

Because, through His saving Passion, Christ the Savior became more glorious and more exalted—as the Apostle Paul expresses it: “He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even the death of the Cross; therefore God also highly exalted Him and granted Him the name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9)—for this reason the gates of heaven also demand to be made higher, in order to receive Him worthily.

Also, because the glory of the Conqueror of Hades and death, which could not be contained by the small earth, filled the heavens, they too — the Angels — demand to be lifted up at His appearing.

However, the higher ranks of the Angels, seeing a human body being carried up above them, were seized with awe and amazement. For just as a man who sees an Angel on earth is seized with fearful amazement, so also the bodiless Angels, seeing then a body being raised up in a cloud, asked in astonishment to learn about this strange sight, seeking twice to be assured: Who is this King of Glory?

But when they learned that He is the Lord mighty in battles, Who wrestled with the devil and overthrew him, and Who now ascends into the heavens, they wondered how that most radiant Body was red, and they asked: “Who is this that comes from Edom?” as the first of the prophets chants, “the redness of His garments from Bozrah? This one is beautiful in His apparel” (Isaiah 63:1). That is, who is this earthly one who comes wearing flesh like a most radiant and red garment? For “earthly” is the meaning of Edom, and “flesh” is Bozrah; and the point of reference here is that glorified Body of the Master Christ, which, during His ascent into the heavens, appeared red because it bore upon it the mark of the wounds of His immaculate side, hands, and feet.

10. Why were the imprints of the wounds preserved in the Risen Body of Christ?

But how were the wounds visible in that incorrupt body? What was visible was a matter of dispensation, and its purpose was to reveal the ineffable and exceeding love of the God-man for man. That is, He condescended not only to receive wounds, but also, after His Resurrection, to preserve them in a strange manner upon that incorruptible Body, and to show them at His Ascension also to the world of the Angels, as the symbols of His Passion and as the indelible proofs of His love toward us men.

He also preserved the wounds of His immaculate Body in order to persuade us never to forget His sufferings; for when we have them before us, our heart will be flooded with gratitude toward Him and with holy feelings. Nothing else, says the sacred Chrysostom, is capable of producing these saving effects within us as much as seeing God carrying the traces of the Cross even to the throne of His majesty.

According to the sacred Augustine, the God-man preserved His wounds in the heavens in order to show us that even in the state of His glory He will not forget us, as indeed the chief of the prophets also assures us of this: “Behold, I have depicted thy walls upon My hands, and thou art continually before Me” (Isa. 49:16); that is, He will never forget us, because He will have us written with indelible letters upon His hands and will intercede for us before God the Father.

Perhaps He even preserved the wounds in order to teach us that only through sufferings and afflictions shall we be able to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. If the God-man Himself was exalted through the Passion of the Cross, and if He was glorified through a shameful death, then how shall we be able to enter that glory without walking the narrow way of virtue, and without enduring afflictions and temptations while fighting the good fight? This is completely impossible.

 

Greek source:

https://fdathanasiou-parakatathiki.blogspot.com/2026/05/blog-post_246.html

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

 

Sermon on the Ascension of our Lord (2007)

Bishop [Metropolitan] Photii of Triaditza | May 4/17, 2007

 

The God-Man Christ, beloved faithful, came from the Truth, brought to us as a gift the Truth and returned to the Truth, raising up human nature, on the fortieth day after His Resurrection, to the very Throne of the Holy Consubstantial, Life-giving and Indivisible Trinity. The Saviour came not only to show us the path toward the Truth. He came, being Himself the Truth and the Way towards Her. Christ the Lord levelled the walls between the earthly humans and the celestial Truth. Ay, if we do not rise above the dust of the earth, if we do not rally courage enough to rise above our own nonentity, above our voluptuous desires for earthly things, we will be unable to walk on the path toward the Truth, we will be unable to be children of the Truth, we will be unable to live with the Truth and in the Truth. And the path, leading towards the Truth, leads all the way upwards and never downwards, just as Christ’s path led towards Golgotha. And our very first step of rising from the earth toward heaven, our very first breaking off from the earthly bounds, is our ascending on the cross, as Christ Himself was raised from the earth on the Cross, in order that He draw every man toward Himself: toward the Truth, toward the Way and toward Life. The path from the cross to heaven, to immortal life, is indeed sometimes of extensive duration and a long distance, very long, and sometimes it may be traversed in but an instant, as happened to many of the holy New Martyrs of Batak, [1] whose memory we celebrate today, together with Christ’s glorious Ascension. Everywhere there was blood, shrieks and horror…, some of the Martyrs bravely threw themselves into the embrace of Truth, others did this timidly and with resignation, or—in a swoon of terror—let themselves fall into the same embrace, not renouncing their Faith in order to be spared from death, but in an instant, passing under the blade of the axe or the yataghan, they became participants in the fullness of Truth and Life!

However, there is hardly anything half so grievous as one who, having once torn himself away from the earth and ascended his cross, has afterwards become frightened by the way of the Cross and the Resurrection, or has been hoaxed by the earthly desire to feel again the earthy dust under his feet. And lo! Today [2] the Hierarchical Assembly of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad descends from the cross of their Orthodox witness. Today, by serving the Liturgy together, the mark is set for the Church Abroad to be grafted into the organism of the Moscow Patriarchate. Lo, today the chief priests seal their descent from their cross by exchanging the liturgical kiss with those who were calling them to descend from the cross as they themselves had done in the past. How painful is the lie, which in our days calls the descent ascent, and the fall rising! While the Hierarchs of the Church Abroad were raised from the earth on the cross of witnessing for Orthodoxy, they were called schismatics; when they descended from the cross, when they delivered to Caesar—be he even so an ecclesiastical Caesar—what belongs to God, they immediately rose in his eyes and became his brethren. Indeed, is there anything more disheartening than to see how a lie bedecks itself with the garments of Truth? Indeed, those who descended from the cross pronounce, and will continue to pronounce, many words of fidelity to the Church and Orthodoxy—words glorifying the exploit of the martyrs and confessors; but is it really not a descent to wreathe verbal praises for the spiritual heroes, having yourself fled in disgrace from the battlefield? Is it not immoral—having yourself abandoned your witnessing of the Truth for the sake of earthy benefits and gains—to glorify the persons, who held the love of Truth higher than their own lives? And yet, Caesar will not celebrate his victory for long. He shall not be jubilant for long, because what is God’s has been delivered to him by the hands of bishops, with the sole purpose of acquiring his condescension. For God is never mocked!

 And because the God-Man after His ascension abides with us—with all who, even though weak, aspire to tread along the path leading upward and only upward: to Golgotha and the Cross, and thence toward the heavenly homeland, from whence over us pour down the streams of the love of the New Martyrs of Batak, of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of Russia, of all the citizens of Heaven, who walked their earthly path in the never-setting light of the Way, the Truth and Life! Amen.

 

Footnotes:

1. The Holy Martyrs of Batak - Bulgarian Martyrs from the village of Batak who were slain by Turkish forces in 1876, in an assault on the Christians which lasted from the 1st to the 4th May (Old Calendar). Their feast day is observed on 4th / 17th May, which in 2007 was also the Great Feast of the Ascension.

2. It was on that very same feast day in 2007, - and it is for this reason that Bishop Photii contrasts the Martyrs of Batak with the betrayers of the Church Abroad, - that the “Act of Canonical Communion” between the Moscow Patriarchate and the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia was signed in Moscow, thus changing the historical course of the latter and bringing her into full communion with “World Orthodoxy,” its Sergianist heritage and its ecumenical activities. However, through God’s mercies, one hierarch, Bishop Agafangel, and numbers of the clergy and laity throughout the world did not accept this “descent from the Cross.” Some joined themselves to other Traditionalist Synods, and many formed a continuing Church Abroad under the omophorion of Bishop Agafangel. The traditionalist Synod now comprises twelve Bishops, and has monasteries and parishes throughout the world. The Synod which united with the Moscow Patriarchate also has twelve Bishops (with a thirteenth in retirement) and lives semi-autonomously as part of the Moscow Patriarchate, though its exact purpose is unclear: many decisions are purportedly referred to the Patriarch himself, the churches directly under the Patriarchal administration even abroad seem to have a stronger presence, and, even eight years after the union, duplications of dioceses and administrations are still in evidence. So, one is left wondering: To what purpose this apparent duplication of administrations?

 

Source: The Shepherd: An Orthodox Christian Pastoral Magazine, May 2015, pp. 7-9.

Bishop Chrysostomos of Etna: “Official Orthodoxy” (1991)

The move toward apostasy among many Orthodox in our day grows out of an incorrect understanding of the Church. Political ecumenism itself, the clearest expression of this misunderstanding, rests on the ignorance of our modernist theologians of the nature of the Church. This ignorance is not an academic one alone—an ignorance of the Fathers; it is also the result of a decline in spirituality. For to understand the Church, one must first understand the spiritual life which the Church serves.

Many of today's modernists have covered over their ignorance of Orthodox ecclesiology by the creation of an "official" Orthodoxy. The idea of an official Orthodoxy is especially popular in America, where Greek Catholics returning to Orthodoxy have brought with them a neo-Papal view of the Church, which they adopted from the Latins. Many of the Protestant fundamentalists who have joined the modernist Antiochian Church also seek a definition of the Church which rests on "officialdom," partly in reaction to their correct misgivings about the self-styled church organization which they created in the name of Orthodoxy, the so-called Evangelical Orthodox Church.

In reality, officialdom has no place in Christianity or Orthodoxy. The Church of Christ did not become valid because it was recognized by the Roman Empire. Nor is an Orthodox Christian authentic because he belongs to a "Patriarch." We are not a Church built on political principles or on papal assumptions. Officialdom in Orthodoxy is based on Apostolic Succession and on an adherence to Holy Tradition. It is a spiritual and charismatic thing, since Apostolic Succession and Holy Tradition describe the passing on of charismatic and spiritual power from Christ to the Apostles to the Church's Hierarchs. Officialdom is not simply a statement of an historical and legal dimension.

In America, where adherence to Holy Tradition is practically non-existent and where spiritual maturity is indeed lacking, there is a frantic attempt by modernists to be official. Thus the old Metropolia, now the Orthodox Church in America, rushed off to the communist-dominated Patriarchate of Russia several decades ago to remove from itself the accusation of being uncanonical. The Evangelical Orthodox Church, a purely bogus Protestant sect, likewise entered into the Antiochian Church several years ago, also hoping to make itself an official Orthodox Church.

In the case of the old Metropolia, it was before these moves an Orthodox Church, and its clergy were clearly in Apostolic Succession. It had a number of traditional communities, spiritual leaders with solid experience, and a tie to authentic Church tradition. When it joined Moscow, somehow thinking it was then official, the Church was besieged by modernism. The calendar was changed. Innovation became the order of the day. A Church which I can remember as having old Priests who honored their cassocks and who took seriously their roles as imitators of the Patriarchs suddenly became a Church with clergy who can hardly be distinguished in appearance, and often in belief, from Roman Catholic clergy. This Church gained so-called officialdom at the cost of much of its Orthodoxy.

The Evangelical Orthodox Church was accepted by the Antiochian Archdiocese—an excessively modernist jurisdiction—by every innovation, even reaching to the irregular ordination of the EOC clergy. Its Faithful are largely uncatechized. Many of the clergy and Faithful have had no exposure to Orthodox traditions and have been taught to revile them as "ethnic" or "foreign." In the name of officialdom, the body of Orthodoxy has absorbed a foreign element which still accepts and teaches ideas which are wholly inconsistent with the experience of the Church. Officialdom has created a kind of Protestant Orthodoxy. And the sad victims of this false creation are the sincere EOC clergy and Faithful.

The official Churches here in America use their officialdom to try to silence us traditionalists, who stand in protest to the innovation, apostasy, and political ecumenism which assault the Orthodox Church. In a country where an "official" religion is non-existent, they even use the media to attack us True Orthodox as "not part of an official Patriarchate" or "separated from the official Church."

Let us examine this phenomenon for what it is. Recently I read a publication by "Orthodox People Together," a group which promotes unity among Orthodox. This is an admirable thing. But the publication reads like a Bible tract from a fundamentalist Church. It is filled with talk about pastors, ministry, social concerns, and the like, but is rather short on references to traditional monasticism, fasting, the ascetic traditions of the Church, self-transformation, and the like. An editorial letter about the female diaconate, in fact, makes a strong and very important plea for the restoration of this vital service for women in the Church. But in so doing, it suggests that a liturgical role for the female deacon is not an important issue, as long as hospital calls and service to the Faithful are made her official duties. Can we imagine an Orthodoxy in which service to the Church relegates the liturgical life to a secondary position and social service to a primary one?

There are modernist monasteries in this country where monastic traditions are almost wholly unknown—though made-up practices are touted as "ancient" and "Athonite." Indeed, one monastery in the OCA is so marked by innovation that it even mocks many traditional Orthodox practices. While True Orthodox monastics spend their days in services, refrain from ever eating meat, have no personal money or bank accounts, practice strict obedience, and pray for the world, many of the modernists seek to create the kind of social monasticism in Orthodoxy which has destroyed this institution in the Latin Church. One wonders how official this modernist monasticism is.

As Old Calendarist resisters, we are constantly assaulted as "uncanonical" and unofficial by the errant Mother Church of Greece and the Patriarchate of Constantinople and its Exarchates in the diaspora. Shaved Bishops, dressed like Roman Catholic clerics, sitting down to meals of steak and wine on fast days, turn to us and accuse us of being uncanonical. Embracing the heterodox with ecumenical love and violating the Church's canons by praying and even communing with them, they turn to us and spit, calling us people without love.

Indeed, can these people be canonical just because the Greek State recognizes them? Or because the White House door is open to the representatives of the Greek Archdiocese in North and South America? Certainly not. Officialdom comes from a spiritual commitment to the Church. And in this sense, it is we True Orthodox who are the official believers. Were this not so, moreover, who would cover the sins of these New Calendarists and modernists? Who would provide them refuge when they come to their senses and seek Christianity, and not the world? Who would add to their rightful claims to Apostolic Succession the complement which accrues to that state: spiritual achievement?

The goal of Orthodoxy is not unity in officialdom or recognition by the power of this world. It is the union of man with God. And where this is the one goal of Christians, they are by nature united. They come together in their strict adherence to the path towards salvation which has been set before us by Holy Tradition. They need no worldly gimmicks such as tracts, organizations, and public recognition to know who they are. They are known by their deeds. And they need no redefinitions of their Faith or of spiritual life, since they maintain communion with the myriad of Saints who have walked the tried and true path of Holy Tradition to sanctity.

The official Orthodox whom we see in this country look like the heterodox and are fast coming to believe what the heterodox believe. They are becoming part of a world religion which will one day demand that they reject True Orthodoxy. We traditionalists have tasted of the first step towards that rejection in the unbelievable hatred that these preachers of ecumenical love have for us. Their own actions are a sign to us.

True Orthodoxy is official. It is official because it contains spiritual authenticity. All one need do is walk in our Churches, visit our monasteries, or live with our people to know that, despite our imperfections, the spirit of authenticity rests with us. All one need do is visit the Churches and monasteries of the modernists—the few that have any monasteries— and see the compromise, violations and ignorance of tradition, innovation, and priorities of the social Gospel to know their spiritual state. The lack of authenticity bursts forth clearly, cutting through even the sincerity that underlies some of this ignorance of and deviation from Orthodox practice.

Once one of our monks, a convert, recited from memory Small Compline in Greek. A visiting modernist monk, who had earlier expressed his admiration for us traditionalists but his misgivings about our separation from the official Church, was then asked to say the service in English. He was silent. He did not know the service. Nor could he properly bless a meal. Nor did he know the proper way to fast. Nor did he know any of the many unwritten practices of monastic tradition. I always remember this young man when I think of officialdom and wonder if he knew how loudly his silence spoke.

 

Source: Orthodox Tradition, Vol. VIII (1991), No. 2, p. 7.