Metropolitan Antony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev
Source: Vladika: The Life of Blessed Antony Khrapovitsky,
Metropolitan of Kiev, Synaxis Press, Dewdney, British Columbia, 2009, pp.
200-220.
Hieroschemamonk Antony Bulatovich's booklet differs
significantly from Schemamonk Ilarion's book, Na Gorakh Kavkaza, in the defence of which it is written.
Schemamonk Ilarion had as his primary intention to praise the "Jesus
Prayer" and to convince his contemporary ascetics to practise this
monastic activity, which is so often neglected today. This intention is
altogether praiseworthy. Everything that has been written by the fathers on the
Jesus Prayer is beneficial, as Christians should be reminded. Those monks who
would want to lessen the significance of the Jesus Prayer and all other
spiritual activities passed down by the fathers are worthy of reproach.
Nonetheless, a correct undertaking does not stand in need of incorrect means,
and the patristic tradition of the Jesus Prayer has sufficient sound reasons in
its favour so that one need not resort to superstitious arguments.
Unfortunately the Elder Ilarion did not avoid this and he added his own
sophistries to the many patristic and salvific reflections on the benefit and
meaning of the Jesus Prayer. He took it into his mind to argue that the name of
Jesus is God Himself.
As evidence for such a notion he cites the words of Father
[St.] John of Kronstadt on the close connection between the name and the person
to which it refers, be this the name of God, angels, holy saints, or even
simply any person. From these words [of Fr. John], however, only one conclusion
can follow: that the name of Jesus is as close to the person of the Lord Jesus
Christ as is every other of His names, and as the name of each person is to
that person. No one would assert that, if I were to call upon the name of my
absent friend, that my friend himself will be here with me [because his name is
present]. If, however, he hears my summons, then he will either come or not
come to me, but both he and I will understand that he himself is other, that
his pronounced name is other. However in Schemamonk Ilarion's book, contrary to
Father John of Kronstadt — which both he and Antony Bulatovich cite erroneously
— Divine dignity is attributed, of all the Lord's names, only to the name
Jesus. In Bulatovich's book, however, it is attributed to the names of God in
general, and not only to specific names of God. In his desire to defend
Ilarion's superstitious teaching, Bulatovich went so far as to completely
change it, because in all the excerpts from Father Ilarion one cannot find a
single one which would indicate the primacy of the name of Jesus over the other
appellations of our Lord.
One asks why it was necessary for Schemamonk Ilarion to
spread his superstition. The answer to this is discomforting. His teaching is
connected with a profound disparagement of all rules of prayer apart from the
Jesus Prayer. He asserts that those perfected in it do not stand in need of the
reading of the Psalter, Matins, Vespers, and other books of prayer, and cites
as evidence this saying of Saints Kallistos and Ignatios. [Their words]
however, have precisely the opposite meaning. Here one needs to add the caveat
that in Ilarion's book, and even more-so in Bulatovich's book, nearly all the
Biblical and patristic sayings are cited with misconstrued interpretations and
frequently even misconstrued expositions. Thus, the saying of Ignatios and
Kallistos reads: "while practicing the Jesus Prayer, never neglect your
rule." The author of the book thinks that in Slavonic, as in Russian, a
double negative strengthens the negation and understand this saying like this:
"those who practice the Jesus Prayer may neglect their rule." Let him
open the Okhtoecos and read the third resurrectional exapostilarion: "for Christ is risen, may no one not
believe." If these words were thus construed in a Russian phrase, then
they would read as: "may no one believe in the resurrection of
Christ," but in Slavonic, as in Greek, a double negation is an
affirmation, and the words of the Okhtoecos
preclude disbelief in Christ's resurrection, and call all to believe in it. In
the same way the words of Ignatios and Kallistos forbid one to replace or
abbreviate the normal monastic rule for the sake of the Jesus Prayer, and these
words must be translated into Russian as follows: "those practicing the
Jesus Prayer should not neglect the monastic rule."
God forbid that they neglect it, we would add, because such
a monk would inevitably fall into spiritual deception (plani; prelest). The
latter is a particular danger for Ilarion's followers, inasmuch as this Elder
explains that only in the first steps of this prayerful activity does the
ascetic repeat the Jesus Prayer orally and fully. Later, having become
perfected in it, he himself becomes greater than all petition and only
glorifies Jesus by pronouncing His name: "Jesus Christ," or even
simply "Jesus." Ascending even higher in the spiritual life, he does
not even have need to pronounce this word, but guards it in his heart, as a
constant property of the heart.
In such a case, what does a contemporary monk practice? He
does not go to church, he does not read the church services, psalms, and
prayers. He simply bears in his heart the name of Jesus. Does he not risk
simply forgetting all his monasticism and, remaining in idleness and
negligence, justifying his worldliness in that he bears in his heart the name
of Jesus? Or that he reached such a level that a fall is impossible? It is
wrong to think this way! Saint Macarius the Great witnesses "that some
fathers reached such a level of perfection that they performed miracles, but
later, having become negligent, fell." A fall is also possible for great
pillars of asceticism. If, however, they are in obedience to the monastic rule,
then the cause of the fall is easily revealed as negligence or weariness in
prayer, or in irritation at accepting holy obediences. But if the ascetic
already considers prayer and obedience not to be necessary for him, then he is
a law unto himself and every temptation that seems good to him he considers to
be divinely-inspired. Following Schemamonk Ilarion, he is convinced that along
with the name of Jesus, the Hypostatic God is present. Could God mistakenly
tolerate something negative in His chosen vessel? Of course not, and therefore
everything that seems lawful to him becomes lawful for him. This is also the
conclusion of the doctrine of the Khlysts. "Trust the spirit," they
say, and the spirit abides in the hearts of these spiritual Christians, as they
consider themselves to be because of the life of fasting and chastity which
characterizes them at the beginning of their enthusiasm. Later, they are
seduced by the thought that everything that comes from their heart comes from
the Holy Spirit. They then begin, during their rites, to pay attention to that
which their soul desires to "illuminate" them. If their soul is
filled with the desire for fornication, then they must believe that it is the
Holy Spirit that has inspired this unclean desire. Then, abhorring the
undefiled marital bed, during their rituals they first give themselves up to
frenzied [sexual] mingling, and later do the same thing without ritual.
Therefore, it was not without reason that we at Russki Inok cautioned the readers of Ilarion's book that it,
laboring under the delusion of the ascetic's superstitious fabrications, leads
one to the precipice of Khylstism. We know from Elders of elevated spiritual
life that Ilarion himself, against the prohibition of the superior of Novo-Afonsky [New Athos Monastery],
abandoned the holy monastery and obedience and made himself a desert-dweller on
his own.
Unfortunately our time is a time of marked strengthening of
Khylstism in both the Russian people and Russian society. Complete
faithlessness has come full cycle. It has become terrifying for people to live
outside of communion with heaven, but to come close to it by the narrow path,
through the path of Christ seems, to the corrupt and the sinful, to be beyond
their strength. Therefore they fabricate for themselves other paths for growing
near to the divinity: sectarianism, magnetism, neo-Buddhism, but particularly
khlystism, which is, unfortunately, a Russian phenomenon that is not new.
Khylsts, under the name of Johnites, chrikovites, koloskovism, stefanism,
innokentyites, have filled both capitals and Ukraine, east and west, both the
trans-Volga and Siberia. They have penetrated many monasteries: the Nikov
Hermitage, the Pskov, Suzdal, Poldolsk and Olonets monasteries, and others.
Not long ago many people of little faith in society at least
respected the moral teachings of Christianity, but were dubious of the teaching
about miracles. Today, however, the opposite is the case. Those same people who
have little faith in the reality of miracles are ready to accept every
fabricated miracle of swindlers and tricksters, provided that it weakens the
significance of the commandments of God about prayer, obedience, and
self-restraint. They greedily fall upon everything that departs from the strict
teaching of the Church, accepting all that promises growing close to the
divinity without Orthodox Christian piety and without being adorned with
morality. This is why so many have seized upon Ilarion's teaching: one from
blind zeal and stubbornness, another from laziness, delighted by the idea they
will soon reach such a level of perfection that they will not have to stand
through church services or read any prayers or the Holy Scripture, but will
only "bear in their heart the name of Jesus."
The dishonesty of Ilarion and his followers, and especially
that of Antony Bulatovich, is exposed by the fact that, not being satisfied
with establishing their own doctrine, they attack those who disagree with them,
intimidating them and their audience and readers with their proclamations,
accusing them of denying the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, of refuting the
Jesus Prayer and all spiritual activity, of extolling their scholarly
learnedness in place of spiritual experience, and so forth.
To this we answer that we recognize the Divinity of Jesus
Christ, highly esteem the Jesus Prayer, and do not pride ourselves in our
learnedness, but place it lower than spiritual experience. We do not, however,
see spiritual experience in Schemamonk Ilarion's book, rather we see
self-deceiving dreams, and we find spiritual experience even less in
Bulatovich's book, but find their only logomachy and scholasticism, but without
hard logic, without knowledge of the Holy Scripture and without an understanding
of the Greek language that he cites.
Ilarion's book, which we read in October 1912, has the
advantage over Bulatovich's book and his printed proclamations in that it
contains fewer conscious lies and conscious distortions of texts of Holy
Scripture and the holy fathers, and less intimidation of all those who disagree
with the author by accusing them of godlessness and heresy. Not long before the
publication of his book Ilarion himself doubted the correctness of his thoughts
that the name of Jesus is God Himself. He wrote to an Athonite spiritual father
about this in a letter in which he recognized that he had not found this
teaching either in Holy Scripture or in the fathers. He asked the spiritual
father for his critique of this new teaching (cf., Russki Inok 1912,
no. 15, pp. 62-63). The Elder answered him disapprovingly. But alas, the very
thought that he had created a new dogma enticed the deluded schemamonk: he fell
into what is often called the "Elders' deception." We have great
respect for monastic elders and experienced desert hesychasts and have always
striven to put monk-students under their guidance. Having at various times
served in three academies, we brought monks who were studying together with
elders of the monasteries of Valaam, Optina, Sedmiozersky, and this bringing
together of the academy with elders has become firmly established, glory to
God, to this day. Nevertheless, it is impossible to remain silent about that
deliberate temptation or deception which Elders undergo who are negligent about
perfection. Everyone has particular temptations: young people are tempted by
fornication, old people by profit-seeking, bishops by pride and vainglory, and
Elders are tempted to invent their own rules [ustavy] to immortalize their memory in a monastery. Therefore, in
one monastery a certain prayer will be added to the rule in memory of an elder,
and in another they will take off their klobuks at the priest's first
exclamation at the Liturgy, and in a third they will make a full prostration at
the exclamation "holy things are for the holy," and so on. In so
doing they were concerned about their own glory, about their memory, and
thought themselves similar to the ancient Liturgists who established the order
of Divine Services. In this they are already in complete deception.
However, like Macedonius, Eutychius, and Nestorius, those
who, like the Elder Ilarion, strive to immortalize their memory by thinking up
new dogmas, will create a memory for themselves that will not be effaced until
the Lord's second coming, but this memory will be joined not with blessings,
but with perdition.
And behold the bitter fruits of such fame. The best Athonite
monasteries have become places of fights, maiming, rebellion against the abbot,
and uprisings against the Church. The name "Russian" has become
synonymous with heresy on Mount Athos, and now a complete expulsion of our
compatriots is possible. Everyone that was unruly, obstinate, ambitious, and
mercenary has jumped at this new thoughtless dogma and without even much
thought about it, they have been glad for the opportunity to "reject
authority, and revile the glorious ones" (Jude 1:8), seizing for
themselves the position of superior and pilfering the monastery treasury. All
of this took place at St. Andrew's Skete and to some degree in the Monastery of
St. Panteleimon on Athos. If Schemamonk Ilarion had not thought up new dogmas
but had only collected patristic thoughts about the Jesus Prayer and admonished
readers to save themselves under the direction of the holy fathers, then his
book would not have been circulated so widely and his name would not have been
repeated by so many mouths. In fact, he is far behind the notable heretics of
old, for although their dogmas were false they were at least comprehensible.
Ilarion and Bulatovich have put forward notions that resemble the ravings of
mad men, as the Ecumenical Patriarch and the patriarchal synod rightly
declared.
Indeed, can one, without renouncing Christianity or reason,
repeat their absurd affirmation that, as it were, the name of Jesus is God? We
recognize that the name of Jesus is holy, bestowed by God and proclaimed by an
Angel, a name given to the God-Man at His incarnation, but to confuse the name
with God Himself – is this not the height of madness? What is God? God is
Spirit, eternal, all-good, omniscient, omnipresent, and so forth, one in
essence, but three in Hypostases. Does this mean that the name of Jesus is
neither a word, nor a name, but a spirit omnipresent, good, and three in
hypostases? Who, apart from one deprived of reason, would repeat such an
absurdity? Or do they say that this name is the Second Person of the Holy
Trinity and the God-Man Himself? In that case let them recognize another
absurdity, that this name is co-eternal with the Father, born of Him before the
ages, incarnate, crucified, and resurrected. Has there ever been a heresy that
has led to such insane conclusions?
Meanwhile Father Antony Bulatovich boldly announces that
this teaching is contained in both the New and the Old Testaments, that it is
in our divine services, and in the writings of the fathers. He does not himself
believe what he writes, but only desires to have the means for rebellion in the
Athonite monasteries. This writer forgot that Ilarion himself recognizes the
novelty of this teaching, and has entered the furthest labyrinth of
superstition, judging his teacher to be incorrect in that he [Bulatovich]
recognizes the name Jesus as equal in honor with all the other names of the
Lord, whereas Ilarion ascribes supernatural power only to the name
"Jesus."
But for all that, this imitator of the new false teaching
has spread it much more skillfully than had the originator, for many have
surpassed him in cunning and insolence and ability to attract and intimidate
simpleminded Russian monks. Therefore he, above all else, invented a name for
his accusers [imiabortsem —
"name opposers”]. [He] made noise everywhere in newspapers and in his
proclamations, which were sent to all the monasteries, that the only people not
in agreement with him are heretics, whom he gave the illiterate nickname "imebortsem." [He did] not even know
that the name expressed in this word should be taken from the genitive case, as
for instance "imenoslovnoe"
and not "imeslovnoe."
Bulatovich's extreme ignorance is demonstrated on every page of his book,
whenever he is forced to have dealings with grammar, philosophy, or theology.
However, Antony Bulatovich, knows that Russian monks are little accustomed to
investigate teachings of faith and will consider as heretics those to whom that
name has been attached, especially if this is done boldly and under the
appearance of zeal for the faith. [For this reason,] before undertaking to give
an account of his thought he first dedicates many pages to reviling those who
will not agree with him and accuses the opponents of his new heresy of
teachings that are entirely foreign to them. He asserts that, for example, that
Archbishop Antony and the monk Khrisanthos spoke against mental prayer (p. 3).
[He asserts] that they "deny as essential in the prayer of the
mind-in-the-heart, the confining of the mind in the word calling upon the name
of the Lord" (p. 9, does this mean that they recognize the prayer
itself?). He applies [to them] the prophecy of Malachi: "may your
blessings be cursed" (p. 20), and the retribution, that befell the Jews
that blasphemed the name of the Lord (p. 146) and so forth. The credulous
reader, the unlettered monk, is already prepared to believe that the writer (i.e., Bulatovich) is indeed a defender
of the holy faith from godless blasphemers who deny the Divinity of Jesus
Christ.
However, no matter how absurd any
sort of heresy might be, if it has the appearance of increasing the greatness
of God, many people will be ready to accept it. That is why the country which
more than any other had zeal for piety and asceticism, Egypt, was completely
attracted to the heresy of Eutychius and to this day remains in the knots of
his false doctrine, in the knots of Monophysitism. Every Christian values faith
in Jesus Christ as God equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Eutychius
himself desiring, as it were, to honor Christ even more, began to teach that
His Divine essence swallowed up in Him his human essence and that He is now
only God, and those who denied this he called Nestorians, Arians, godless, and
other names. It is no wonder that this heresy drew in the anchorites and people
of Egypt and Ethiopia and that to this day they despise the Orthodox as having
diminished the honor of the Son of God. The Latins have managed to seduce the
westerns nations with a similar imaginary piety, having fabricated in recent
times a false doctrine about the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy
Theotokos from Joachim and Anna, and they castigate those who do not agree with
this impiety, i.e., the Orthodox, as
"enemies of the Theotokos." It is no surprise that many former
Ukrainian theologians, accustomed to reading Latin books, accepted this
teaching as if it was a glorification of the Most Holy Virgin. Even some of the
Russian Old Believers living in Austria introduced this false doctrine into
their books, and now Muscovite schismatics defend it in missionary
conversations. All heresy spreads with the same success when it appears to
elevate our various points of faith more than is indicated in church doctrine,
while at the same time practicing an impudent battle against the defenders of
the latter, applying to them names of former heretics and ascribing to them
various godless opinions which they never shared. However, the dishonest
devices of the writings of Antony Bulatovich are not limited to this: they distinguish
themselves in the way that, citing on every page of his book words of Holy
Scripture or the holy fathers and, being unable to produce a single citation
that actually supports his absurd heresy, he cites the fathers only partially,
omitting what does not please him, and after every text he writes in
parentheses "listen to this, this is what is being said here" and
then offers a fraudulent interpretation that is entirely foreign to the thought
of the sacred words. The ill-informed reader is prepared to think that the
author is continuing to cite the Patristic or Biblical words. Sometimes he
prints Patristic citations in such a way that they are confused with his own
commentary, and it is impossible to distinguish, for instance, where the words
of St. Athanasius the Great end (p. 107) and where the words of Antony
Bulatovich begin. For instance, St Athanasius writes that several people,
chosen by God, were called "christ" that is, "anointed,"
apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, but that they were not The Christ but were
only prefigurations of Him. Fr. Bulatovich adds from his own part that there
are people named Jesus who were not "true Jesuses," but adds this in
such a way that the reader thinks that they are the words of St. Athanasius,
inasmuch as he does not include ending quotation marks in his commentary, but
simply writes "p. 374" (in the alleged works of St. Athanasius).
If it were clear to the reader that these words are not
those of St. Athanasius, but of Antony Bulatovich, then he would understand the
falsity of this interpretation. The word "anointed" (christ),
attributed to David and other chosen ones is not a proper name but rather an
indication of a calling (a rank, as it were), which God gave to kings and
prophets. The name of Jesus, however, is a proper name, and no other name or
title indicated Jesus the Son of Sirach, Jesus the Son of Jozadek, or Jesus in
the New Testament, and there are several named Jesus (Joshua) on Athos.
Truth does not stand in need of such impermissible devices
or forgeries of the words of the holy fathers, but Antony Bulatovich needed
such falsification in order that, by such a deception, he could escape the
vexing demonstration of his denouncers.
If we desired to put forward every example of the author's
entirely arbitrary interpretations that contradict the sense of Revelation,
then one would need to rewrite his entire book, for there are several on every
page. Pick up this book and look over the more characteristic forgeries of the
thought of sacred words: they are on pages 7, 9, 10, 20, 23, 29, 31, 38, 53,
85, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 101, 109, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 136, 139, 141,
149, 150, 154, 155, 156, 159, 166, 169, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 180, 181, and
183. Many of the indicated pages have two or three false interpretations, and
this book has only 189 pages. Sometimes our author finds his thoughts about the
names of God in citations from Holy Scripture, where this word is not at all
present. See pages 6 and 7, 11, 20, 27, 33, 143.
The author does, however, at one point admit that this
doctrine is entirely foreign to Divine Revelation. Filling the pages of his
book with borrowed interpretations of the Old Testament and sensing the
complete lack of correspondence of this with the word of God, he makes a
proviso: "but perhaps someone will object to us: you are creating a
doctrines (and this objection would be entirely justified!), for where in the
holy fathers is it said that the Son of God is the Name of God? It has already
been said, we have already cited above the words of the Prophet Isaiah, who
called the Son of God by the name of God (Is 30:27). Let us seek [says
Bulatovich] to demonstrate even more clearly that under the name ‘Word of God'
is assumed the Name of God." The author further cites several passages
from the fathers in which the Son of God, as in the beginning of the first
Gospel reading, is named the Word, but nowhere and never is He called the
"name of God." The words of the Prophet Isaiah, entirely misrepresented
here by Bulatovich, read as follows: "Behold the name of the Lord comes
from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; His lips are full
of indignation, and His tongue is like a devouring fire," and further.
Here the wrath of God against the enemies of Israel is being spoken of, and the
name of God is used in the same sense as the "glory of God," that is,
simply in place of the word "God." The Old Testament prophets rarely
dared to speak directly about revelations of God, and instead of this dreadful
word employed descriptive expressions like "the name of God, the glory of
God, the Lamb of God"; this is known to everyone, even to the youngest
seminarian, but Bulatovich, having filled his book with all such expressions,
which one can very easily pick out from the alphabetical Biblical dictionary
(published by "Stranik"),
acts with them in the same way that the ancient half-pagan Gnostics acted with
the words of the Bible "ages, ages of ages, in all ages." The word
has no special significance whatsoever apart from an indication of the eternity
of God's being and Christ's kingdom; however, the Gnostics attributed to the
word "age" – in Greek, aeon
– a certain divine significance. These compiled an entire history and hierarchy
of these aeons, dividing them into
evil and good, and recognizing the Son of God as the main aeon. They created whole fables about these, in which consisted
their absurd faith in place of the faith defined in our Symbol. And what of it?
They based each of their fabrications on words of the prophets or Apostles in
which they used the word "age," in Greek aeon, so that to argue with these vain men was not very easy.
Antony Bulatovich employs a similar
approach in order to turn an entirely applied meaning of "name" into
God. His subterfuges are so far-fetched and artificial that it is impossible to
trust their honesty. He himself, it goes without saying, does not believe his
own verbal tricks and he even contradicts himself, as we have seen, recognizing
that the reader might reproach him for fabricating new dogmas foreign to the
Bible and the fathers.
Just how far from the truth his references to St. Gregory
[Palamas] of Thessaloniki are can be seen from the explanation of another
respondent, who demonstrates that Bulatovich distorted the Orthodox doctrine of
Palamas, inasmuch as his first anathema is directed against those who recognize
the energy of God not as divine but as God Himself, that is, who identify it
[the energy] with the essence of God. Why has Fr. Bulatovich done all this? Why
has he brought so many sins and divisions into the Athonite brotherhood? Why
did he dishonor and expel the Abbot of the St. Andrew Skete, Fr. Ieronim? Or
did he not know the 121st rule of the Nomocanon, which says of a monk who
dishonors the Abbot, even justifiably: "may he be cursed, for he is
separated from the Holy Trinity and has gone to the place of Judas"? Alas,
one is forced to accept the thought that Fr. Bulatovich's intended purpose was
precisely dissension and expulsion while compiling his erroneous books, full of
clear distortions of sacred words and known to be full of false interpretations
of them.
However, in order to verify his possibly more honest
conviction, let us pose the question as follows: perhaps Bulatovich has been so
carried away by that which he has received from Schema-monk Ilarion and by his
own reworked idea that for its sake he decided to garble passages from the
Bible and fathers.
His doctrine consists of the following positions. In God not
only His Essence is divine, but His energy as well; the energy is every word of
God and every action; the name of God is also His energy (energy means will or
power); it follows, according to Bulatovich's words, that the name of God and
every word of God is not only divine, but is God Himself. This is allegedly the
teaching of St. Gregory of Thessaloniki. In actual fact the teaching of Saint
Gregory condemns those who speak in this manner, as did the Barlaamites,
opponents of St. Gregory, who requires that one call the energy of God not God,
but rather divine and to refer to it, not as God but as "divine" or
"Divineness" (theotis, and
not thos. This excerpt is distorted
by Fr. Bultatovich on p. 106).
Let us return now to Bulatovich's very doctrine: to what is
he leading his blind followers? He says on page 5 that the word of God on Mt
Tabor, that is, calling Jesus the "Beloved Son," and the rest, is
also God Himself, as a verbal action of God; in like manner every God-revealed
truth, addressed to people by the Holy Spirit is God, for they are the verbal
action of the Divinity. Our author repeats this absurdity more than once: see
pages 22, 23, 26, 101, and 106, where it is openly said that every word of God
"is God immutable, existing and living," and even cites St. Symeon
the New Theologian on p. 107, where nothing of the sort is said. Fr. Bulatovich
even more frequently repeats a passage from St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, as usual
completely distorting its thought. Here are the words of St. Tikhon: "the
great name of God includes within itself His Divine attributes, incommunicable
to any creature, but to Himself alone, such as: consubstantiality, eternity,
omnipotence, goodness, wisdom, omnipresence, omniscience, righteousness,
holiness, truth, spiritual essence, etc."
Then our author, in his dishonest habit, cries out: "listen to what the
holy God-pleaser says, that the Name of God is spiritual essence, and not an
abstract idea." The God-pleaser says nothing of the sort, just as he does
not say that the name of God is allegedly itself omnipresent, omniscient, etc.: he says that the word
"God" includes in itself the thought of all the attributes of God, of
His righteousness, His spirituality, etc.,
but is not at all righteousness itself, or spirituality itself. Our author
simply distorted the thought of the patristic sayings, changing the accusative
case of the word: spiritual essence to the nominative. St. Tikhon here
enumerates all the attributes of God taken from the Catechism (Spirit, eternal,
all-righteous, omniscient, omnipresent, etc.)
And he affirms that when we mention the name of God, we should express a pious
faith in the Divine attributes, which are revealed in the holy Gospel and other
books of revelation. Therefore, Fr. Bulatovich several times falsely accuses
St. Tikhon entirely erroneously, as if he considered the name of God to be a
spiritual essence.
Let us return, however, to the question of what is the
fundamental thoughtlessness or the fundamental falsity of Fr. Bulatovich? In
that the energy of the Divinity or the will of the Divinity is not that which
the Lord did or the words that He pronounced. The energy and will of the
Divinity have divineness (although without being God), but the works of the
Divine energy and of the Divine will are not the same as the energy of God:
Divine activity may be called God's energy, but God's words and God's creation
– these are works of Divine activity, of Divine energy, and not energy itself.
It is this that Fr. Bulatovich, overlooked in his ignorance, or which he, in
his cunning, desired to overlook. If every word spoken by God and every one of
His actions is God Himself, then it follows that everything seen by and
tangible to us is God, and that is, pagan pantheism (and not
"panteistism," as Fr Bulatovich expresses it in his ignorance,
repeating the misprint in Russki Inok).
Fr. Bulatovich affirms this absurdity without any shame; he says that every
word spoken on Mt Tabor is God. It follows that the word "hear" is
God and the word "whom" is God. The Saviour denounced contemporary
moralistic Jews, saying to them "serpents, generation of vipers."
Does it follow that serpents and vipers are God? According to Bulatovich, this
is certainly the case, doubly so, inasmuch as the serpent, and the hedgehog,
and the rabbit are created by God, and are the activity of the Divinity and
does it not follow that these animals are also God? Hindu pantheists,
incidentally, teach this, and worship as gods crocodiles and apes and cats.
Could it be that Fr. Bulatovich desires to draw Athonite monks to such
insanity? What led him to this point: ignorance or cunning? He has no small
share of ignorance. What sort of thoughtlessness does he commit, for instance,
in stating "The Lord revealed Himself with the namesake of His name on the
cross"? Who is not the namesake of his own name? This is like saying
"wooden wood" or "oily oil." One could say that the Lord
revealed Himself as identical with the content of His name, as
"Saviour" (although this occurred not only in the hour of
crucifixion, but in all the days of His earthly life. But to say "the
namesake of the name" is to speak without any sense. Further, on p. 10,
the author applies the Trisagion to the Person of Jesus Christ; but the
Armenians were expelled for this, and the holy Church teaches us to apply this
hymn to the Most-Holy Trinity. Simply put, Fr. Bulatovich is very poorly versed
in both theology and grammar. Even if he was totally illiterate however it
would seem impossible for him to affirm and thrust upon the fathers such
absurdity, as he has, asserting that every word and action of God is God
Himself.
Sometimes Fr. Bulatovich himself looks on his absurd
invention and tries to correct it, but he is unable to accomplish this. On p.
41 he says "However, these divine attributes – consubstantiality,
eternity, spiritual essence, etc. –
we do not ascribe to the letter, with which we express Divine truth, but only
to the very word of truth." What then? For a word itself consists of
letters and sounds. "Therefore," Fr. Bulatovich continues, "when
we speak about the name of God, having in mind the essence of the Name itself,
by which we name God, then we say that the Name of God is God Himself; but when
we have in mind the letters and sounds by which we orally express the truth
about God and the Name of God, then we say that God participates in His
Name" (cf., pp. 78, 79, 88, and
also p. 101). What does the author wish to express in this incomprehensible
phrase? Does he wish to say something or simply to confuse, to obscure the
thought of his credulous teacher, so that he, reading these lines, would say: "Well,
glory to God, here we are deifying neither sounds nor letters, but something
else that I cannot understand." Indeed no one can understand, we would
add, because it is impossible to understand such nonsense. Logic distinguishes
the essence of a thing from its phenomenon (although this, too, is rather
vague), and a natural scientist would tell you that sounds are something
audible, but that their essence is a vibration of the air and its impact on our
eardrums; lightening is a visible phenomenon, but its essence is the release of
electrical energy or power.
But what is the difference between a name and the idea or
essence of a name? Any educated person would offer the response that the idea
of a name is its thought (for instance, the name "Andrew" contains
within itself the idea of manliness, and the name "Agapia," the idea of love), and the essence of the name is
understood to be that person to whom it is assigned. But Fr. Bulatovich does
not wish even to hear such answers. He is indignant with those who "dare
to equate the divinity of the name of God with the simple idea of God and who
see in the name of God nothing but sounds" (p. 152).
Perhaps, in the end, Fr. Bulatovich equates the
wonder-working power of the name of God with the devout feeling of the person
at prayer, for whom the Lord who is invoked, settles in his heart? No, he
alleges that the name of God maintains its wonder-working power even when
pronounced unconsciously. See, for instance, p. 89 of his book: "Even if
you call upon the name of the Lord Jesus unconsciously, you will nonetheless
have Him [present] in His name with all His divine attributes." What does it
mean to say that one will have Him? We try to understand our new philosopher,
but he again repeats: "although you call upon Him as a man, nonetheless
you will have in the name of Jesus all of God." [Or the whole fullness of
God]
In other passages, equal to this in
their absurdity, Fr. Bulatovich ascribes wonder-working power to the name of
Jesus alone, as a sound, even without the prayerful entreaty of the one
pronouncing it; distorting, as is his custom, the words of Christ. Fr.
Bulatovich puts the following promise in Christ's mouth: "When, after the
resurrection from the dead, I send to you the Comforter, then you will no
longer call upon Me, that is, you will not be in need of My intercession, but
it will be enough for you to ask in My Name, in order to receive that which you
desire from the Father. As such, He here demonstrates the power of His Name,
inasmuch as one will neither see nor ask of Him Himself, but will only name His
name. It will do such deeds" (p. 44.). The Lord did not teach the Apostles
and never spoke such things. He said: "I will see you again" and
"In that day you will ask nothing of me" [Jn 16: 22-23]. Fr.
Bulatovich boldly asserts "to question" [voprosite] (in Slavonic) is here in place of "to ask" [poprosite], but in so doing he tricks
the simpleminded reader, for the Lord continued the discourse with the
following words: "Truly, truly I say to you, if any one ask anything of
the Father, He will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing
in My name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full" (Jn 16:
23-24).
May one think that Fr. Bulatovich is mistaken through
ignorance, or is one forced to the conclusion that he is an ignorant deceiver?
For the moment, it is left to the reader to decide. Bulatovich simply mocks the
reader: announcing that it is not the sounds and words themselves that have
divine power, but only its idea. It follows from Bulatovich's falsified saying
of the Lord (cf., p. 46) that even an
unconscious and prayer-less pronunciation of His name is wonder-working. But
our author, in other places in his book, either forgets about his fabrication
of a magical significance of the name of God, or thinks that the reader has forgotten
about it. After the introduction of some patristic sayings, it is clear that we
must call upon the name of God with a prayer united in faith and zeal.
He cites the words of Chrysostom as follows: "We have a
spiritual exorcism: the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the
cross… If many have pronounced this exorcism without however receiving healing,
then this was because of their lack of faith, and not from the powerlessness of
the pronounced name." This thought is continued in the author's exposition
of the further words of St. John Chrysostom on the remainder of p. 60 of his
book; the same thoughts are found on pp. 64 and 66 in excerpts from Sts.
Diadokhos, John of the Ladder and Gregory of Sinai, the Elder Paisy
Velichkovsky (p. 77), and Fr. John of Kronstadt (p. 81). All these excerpts
witness that the Jesus Prayer and every calling upon His name is salvific only
under the condition of devout faith, unceasing prayer, humble-mindedness, and
fasting. Under the influence of these correct thoughts, Fr. Bulatovich himself
utters the following on p. 69: "without heartfelt feeling the practice of
the Jesus Prayer and of lifeless prayer may be called sinful."
This correct wisdom, however, is not
long remembered by the author in the continuation of his book. In any case, it
does not seem to occur to him, for as we have already seen, in the same place,
(on pp. 14 and 15,) he attempts to demonstrate that the name of God pronounced
without faith shows wonder-working power. On p. 19, after some cited words of
Kallistos, he quotes the words of Scripture: "If you confess with your
lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the
dead, you will be saved. For man believes with his heart and so is justified,
and he confesses with his lips and so is saved" (Rom 10: 9-10); here again
we see the necessity of heartfelt faith when calling upon the name of the Lord.
However, in the third chapter the author forgets all this and indignantly says
that "the imebortsy [name
deniers] deny the evident truth in the Holy Scripture that miracles were
performed by the divine power of the name of God and dare to assert that it was
not by the power of the divine name [alone] that these miracle were performed,
but by God Himself, and that the name of the Lord served only to call upon God
as an intermediary power" (42). He especially likes to cite the healing of
the lame man in the third chapter of Acts and, in particular, the words of the
Apostle: "His name has made this man strong whom you see and know" (cf., esp. p. 7); but, in continuing his
false and heretical method, does not complete the passage, which reads further,
"and the faith which is through Him has given the man this perfect health
and in the presence of you all" (verse 16).
One sees how hard it is for Fr. Bulatovich to part from the
world-view of the Khylsts, according to whom words, acting magically in
distinction from faith and virtue, lead us to the Divinity. In actual fact, if
the name of Christ, called upon independently of faith and piety, could work
miracles, then that about which we read in Acts would never have occurred:
"And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that cloths
or belts were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them
and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish
exorcists undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had
evil spirits, saying, ‘I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.' Seven
sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit
answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?' And the man in
whom the evil spirit was, leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered
them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded" (19: 11-16).
You see, the Apostles' items, touched with faith, although
without calling upon the name of God, served for healing, but the unworthy
calling upon the name of the Lord did not achieve any benefit. Our author
asserts, entirely wrongly, that the Lord and the Apostles performed miracles
only by the name of God. It is true that frequently both the Lord said only:
"I command you, I tell you", (without any name), and the Apostles
said: in the name "of the Lord Jesus Christ I say to you," etc. But the Lord also frequently
performed miracles in silence (walking on the water, the healing of the woman
with an issue of blood, the healing of Malchus' ear, the miraculous catch of
the fish, and many others), so too did the holy Apostles perform healings and
miracles without always pronouncing the Lord's name. Sometimes they did so in
silence or pronouncing other words. Such were the exposing of Ananias and
Sapphira, the healing of Saul, where the name of Jesus Christ was not used by
Ananias (9:17), and similarly, the healing of Aneas by Peter. This contradicts
the absurd affirmation of Fr. Bulatovich on p. 42, which we have cited above.
Similarly the resurrection of Tabitha, the healing of Elymas' blindness by Paul
(13:11), and the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of
hands upon the newly-baptized Ephesians (19:6). Paul's immunity to the viper is
another example. None of these events are compatible with Fr. Bulatovich's
superstitious doctrine about the magical significance of the name of God and
that all words and acts of God are God. This last false teaching relates him
with the Buddhists, and Hindus and the previous ones with Kabbalists, While
contradicting the words of Divine Scripture with every step, he strengthens his
superstition with the teaching of Kabbalism which, not being able to deny the
miracles of Christ and not wishing to accept faith in Him as God, ascribe His
miraculous power to the magical action of the name of God, claiming that He
stole it from somewhere. Our author dedicates pages 99 and 100 of his book to a
description of such Kabbalistic superstitions.
We will not specifically examine the most absurd of all the
absurd chapters of Fr. Bulatovich's book, the one in which he attempts to
interpret all our divine services and the entire Psalter as expressions of
faith that the name of God is God. There is not one single such saying in our
services, or in the Psalter, or in St. Athanasius' commentary on it. Of course
our divine services, as with all words of prayer, are a constant calling upon
God, and this naturally makes frequent use of His name. However it should be
noted that in the Lord's Prayer as it was given to us by the Lord, unmasks
Bulatovich for there is no naming of God as "God", or
"Lord", or any of the other Hebrew names of God, so beloved by our
new philosopher. Suffice it to say that the majority of our hymns, prayers, and
exclamations are formed from passages from the Psalms and prophetic hymns, and
therefore one can sometimes find in them expressions specifically expressions
from the Hebrew scripture: "the name of God" and "the name of
the Lord" in place simply of "God" or "Lord." The
reader versed in the Psalter who looks through the excerpts from the divine
services in Bulatovich's book will be assured that nearly all, or even all, the
cited excerpts from our divine services are borrowed from the sacred books of
the Hebrew Scripture or Old Testament.
Let us ask, in the conclusion of our analysis of
Bulatovich's book: Is there in the fathers even a single expression that
supports this book's teaching that the name of God is allegedly God Himself?
Not a single one. In order to render its author silent, let us examine those
few passages that might appear to be such to the unwary reader.
On p. 35 the words of the Blessed Theophylact are cited, in
which he explains the equality of the apostolic expression "to baptize in
the name of Jesus Christ" with Christ's commandment to "baptize them
in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit." The
Blessed Theophylact writes: "The Holy Church conceives of the indivisible
Holy Trinity; thus following the unity of the three Persons in essence, those
baptized in the name of Christ are baptized in the Trinity, inasmuch as the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are indivisible in essence. If the name Father (in
St. Theophylact, "of the Father") were not God, and the name of the
Son were not God, and if the name of the Holy Spirit were not God, then it
would follow to baptize in the name of the God Jesus Christ, or only in the
Son. But he, Peter, says: in the name of Jesus Christ, knowing that the name
Jesus (not "Jesus," but "of Jesus") is God, equal to the
Name of the Father and the Name of the Holy Spirit." This passage from St.
Theophylact is meant as an explanation: the name of Jesus Christ signifies the
Son of God, consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit, and therefore it
would be equivalent to baptize in the name of either the Holy Trinity or in the
name of Jesus Christ. This is not at all what Fr. Bulatovich is doing in
reworking the words of this holy Father.
I would add from myself that, the Apostle Peter baptized
these people, as well as all the others, in accord with Christ's commandment
expressed in these words: "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit," but in this discourse he did not explain these words
to them, which they would have been able to understand, in the fullness of it.
The second passage upon which Antony Bulatovich so falsely
puts hope belongs to St. Gregory the Sinaite: "Prayer is the preaching of
the Apostles, immediate faith, active love, knowledge of God, the joy of Jesus,
and what more may one say? Prayer is God, acting all in all, for which Father
and Son and Holy Spirit are one activity, all acting in Christ Jesus."
This is a poetic expression in which the word "is"
takes the place of saying "is ranked," "is nourished,"
"attains," etc. A similar
turn is found throughout ecclesiastical poetry: "Jesus, all-miraculous,
amazement of angels; Jesus, all-glorified, strength of kings; Jesus, all-pure,
chastity of virgins." Does it follow that one can say that the chastity of
the righteous is not a condition of the soul, strengthened by grace, but is
itself God – Jesus? In like manner one would not say that the strength of pious
kings is given by Christ and not mock one who said that the battle power of the
king is not a condition of his reign, strengthened by Christ's power, but
rather Jesus Christ Himself? Is not this passage on prayer exactly the same?
Prayer is one of the subjects of apostolic teaching and the fruit of the
sincere adoption by the believing heart of a Christian, By prayer one attains
immediate, that is, living, faith and active love and the knowledge of God,
This is both the fruit of the source of knowledge for those being perfected;
our prayer is the joy of Jesus Christ, and our joy for Jesus Christ. Warm,
grace-filled prayer gives us God, acting in us, not only in the Holy Spirit,
who, according to the Apostle, teaches what one should pray for (Rom 8:26), not
of the Holy Spirit alone, but the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in full, for
the actions of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are one action.
There is no deification of prayer here and no support for the newly-minted
superstition, for here it is not said that prayer is God, but neither that God
acting in us, "giving prayer to the one who is praying," as it is
said in the scriptural song of St. Hannah, which is sung in our canons (I Kings
2:9).
The lies that Bulatovich has contrived are those swept away
like cobwebs. He has served the glorious name of Jesus in his evil-pursuit as
corruptly as have the Jesuits who have given His name in the wickedness of
their extraneous earthly ends.
If we were to attempt to expose every one of Bulatovich's
absurd thoughts which contradict the teachings of faith and healthy thought,
there would be no end to this examination. One question remains: what led him
to such a mental quagmire: a passion for false thought combined with obstinacy,
or extraneous vainglorious ends? As much as one would like to give an
affirmative response [i.e., to find
some excuse for] the first part of the question and a negative one to the
second, it is very difficult to do so. His judgments are too absurd and
uneducated to believe in the sincerity of his errors. If we add to this his
furious agitation, his incitement of the brothers of several monasteries, his
crude disobedience to the great authority of that holy and spiritual man, the
late Ecumenical Patriarch, Joachim III, then an even more sorrowful answer
suggests itself. For he spread the rumor among the simple and childishly
credulous Athonites that the Great Patriarch was allegedly bribed, that his
letter was spurious, not signed by him.
In the present time the newly-elected Patriarch Germanos and
the entire Holy Synod of the Great Church have unanimously affirmed the
condemnation of Bulatovich's book with its new teaching as well as Schema-monk
Ilarion, and excommunicated all those who hold this teaching. They have
pointedly agreed with that which the late Patriarch Joachim III of blessed
memory had already done. May God grant that reason and conscience awake in the
founders and followers of this new superstition and that they will show repentance
for their errors and for causing stormy scandals and monastic rebellion in the
monasteries of Holy Athos. They could [through repentance] demonstrate that
they were not evil deceivers who "walk in the way of Cain, and abandon
themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam's error, and perish in Korah's
rebellion" (Jude 1:11), but rather repentant sons of the Heavenly Father,
Who is ready to say of them: "this my son was dead, and is alive again; he
was lost, and is found" (Lk 15:24).
