In the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen!
Beloved faithful, today we are
living together a particular ecclesiastical feast, bathed in a heavenly light
and enveloped in a spiritual joy which can be fully and truly known only by
those Christians who have shown themselves victorious over the passions and
sins, who have crucified their body together with its passions and desires.
As we know, today is the Sunday
of Orthodoxy, on which we join the Saints in order to rejoice together with
them in the victory of the right faith of the Church over all the heresies and
heretics who have plotted against her throughout history up to the present
time.
In order to be able to partake of
the joy of this feast, we too have traversed a more difficult path,
characterized by fasting, self-restraint, prayers, prostrations, vigil,
spiritual readings, the setting aside of worldly cares, confessions, and other
ascetical struggles.
The Holy Fathers have called this
journey of the Holy Fast “most honorable days,” that is, they may be likened to
steps which, at the end of their labors, should bring us—cleansed of the
passions—to the honorable day of the Resurrection.
Taking constant heed of the
church prayers specific to the period of Great Lent, we discover that each of
us must wage at all times an unseen warfare against the evil spirits.
From Saint Ephraim the Syrian we
have learned that we must ceaselessly struggle against the evil spirits that
tempt us to slip into: sloth, excessive care for many things, love of dominion,
idle speech, and the judging of our brethren for their sins. These evil spirits
are present everywhere and act very subtly by suggesting evil thoughts.
If a man is not attentive, if he
does not watch over himself, if he does not keep his mind on God and on the
works of salvation, then the evil thoughts are received by the mind, accepted,
consented to, and then put into evil deeds or into evil reflections which are
often kept hidden. When these are repeated, or if they are not confessed, or if
they are confessed superficially—without repentance, without commitment to the
practice of good works opposed to them—then the sins become passions or evil
habits which torment and weaken a man for a long time.
But we must take heed that we do
not struggle only against these evil spirits, but against all the other evil
spirits that seek to turn us aside from the narrow and toilsome Way that leads
to holiness and to salvation.
In a prayer from the Liturgy of
the Presanctified Gifts, we ask God: “Grant also unto us, O Good One, that we
may fight the good fight, complete the course of the Fast, preserve the
faith undivided, crush the heads of the unseen dragons, and show ourselves
to be victors over sin.”
From these words we are taught
that every Christian is bound to keep whole and unchanged the right faith of
the Church. Saint Vincent of Lérins defined the right faith as: “That which has
been believed always, by all Christians, in all places.”
The Holy Apostle Jude confirms
the same truth, saying: “Contend for the faith which was once for all delivered
to the Saints!”
Saint Hierarch Ignatius
(Brianchaninov) characterizes the teaching of our Church thus: “Orthodoxy is
the teaching of the Holy Spirit given by God to men for salvation. Orthodoxy is
the true knowledge of God, and its honoring is the worship of man toward God in
spirit and in truth. Orthodoxy is glorified by God through the bestowal of the
grace of the Holy Spirit upon the man who truly serves Him. Where there is no
Orthodoxy, there is no salvation.”
In a symbol of faith of Saint
Hierarch Athanasius, Patriarch of Alexandria, it is shown: “Whoever desires to
be saved must, first of all, keep the catholic Apostolic faith; which unless
someone shall have kept whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall be
condemned to hell.”
The Sunday of Orthodoxy has its
origin in an event that took place in Constantinople in the year 843, when,
after a long period of persecution of Christians by heretics, the veneration of
the Holy Icons was solemnly and definitively restored. This occurred in the
time of Saint Methodius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and of Saint Theodora the
Empress, of the Eastern Roman Empire.
Before entering into the content
of today’s feast, we shall point out a few things related to the Gospel that
was read at the Divine Liturgy. This Gospel pericope was appointed by the Holy
Fathers for this Sunday because it is connected with the confession of
Orthodoxy and with the veneration of the Holy Icons.
The Gospel account begins with
the calling of Philip to the apostleship. Hearing the Lord’s call, Philip left
everything and followed Him with faith, full of zeal and enthusiasm. Desiring
to share his joy with a friend, he went and sought out Nathanael, and having
found him, said: “We have found the Messiah who was promised, Him of whom Moses
in the Law and the prophets wrote—Jesus, the son of Joseph, from Nazareth.” The
two disciples were simple men, yet through their faith and purity they
possessed the sensitivity necessary to draw near sincerely to Christ, the true
Messiah. But Nathanael knew the writings of the prophets; therefore, knowing
that the Messiah would come from Bethlehem, as a descendant of King David, he
hesitated upon hearing Philip’s words. Thus he asked with a certain doubt: “Can
anything good come out of Nazareth?” To this question, Philip did not seek to
persuade him with human arguments, but addressed to him a brief and striking
invitation: “Come and see! When you see Him, you will be convinced yourself
that He is the Messiah, the Son of God proclaimed by the prophets, the One long
awaited by all the faithful Jews.”
Nathanael agreed to come and see
Jesus because he was a lover of toil and thirsty for knowledge—so says Saint
Cyril, Archbishop of Alexandria.
Let us take heed that in the
words of the Apostle Philip a great mystery is revealed: here we have, for the
first time, the proof that God can be known by the believer not only through
the word—as He was known by all the prophets and righteous ones of the Old
Testament. Rather, from this moment there appears the extraordinary novelty
that, through His Incarnation, the faithful can know God also through His
image, as a real Person, having united in Himself two natures: divine and
human. In other words, when you encounter Jesus Christ, you can see with human
eyes the countenance of the incarnate Son of God. Thus, from now on, you can
see God with your own eyes.
This truth—that God can be known
and seen with human eyes—is emphasized by the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John:
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we have looked upon and our hands have handled, concerning
the Word of Life—and the Life was manifested, and we have seen it and bear
witness and proclaim to you the eternal Life which was with the Father and was
manifested to us” (First Catholic Epistle of the Holy Evangelist John).
The commandment of the Old
Testament not to make an image of God was valid as long as God was only Spirit.
At that time, an icon of God was forbidden, because God did not have a material
body.
Moses had been commanded not to
make a likeness of anything that exists in heaven, on earth, in the waters, or
under the earth. This was a commandment valid as long as the Messiah had not
come to earth and could not be seen with the eyes, because He was immaterial
and indescribable. It was set aside together with the other prescriptions of
the Old Law, which had the role of guiding toward Christ.
But in the Law of Grace, the Law
of the New Testament, the old commandment is set aside, because now the Son of
God becomes incarnate and His Person has a human countenance. The Invisible
becomes visible; therefore, He can be represented in an icon. This human
representation of the Savior through the icon is important because it reveals
to those who behold it a direct connection with the holy person depicted upon
it. Thus, the honor given to the icon is transmitted to the person portrayed on
it—as Saint Basil the Great teaches.
There is a great difference
between the relationship that the prophets of the Old Testament had with the
Logos (the second Person of the Holy Trinity) before the Incarnation, and the
relationship that the apostles had with the same Person of the Son of God after
the Incarnation. The prophets knew Him only through the word and to a lesser
degree, whereas the apostles knew the incarnate Son of God both through the
word and through the sight of His countenance and through all His wondrous
works. This truth is revealed by the Savior Himself when He says: “Blessed are
your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. For truly I say to you,
many prophets and righteous men desired to see what you see and did not see it,
and to hear what you hear and did not hear it” (Gospel according to Matthew,
chapter 13).
Whom did the apostles see, that
they should be more blessed than the prophets? They saw the incarnate Son of
God. The same truth is shown by the Holy Evangelist John at the beginning of
his Gospel, where he says: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and
we beheld His glory, glory as of the Only-Begotten from the Father, full of
grace and truth.” That is, He became man, while preserving what belonged to the
divine nature and His eternal glory. From all this it can be understood that
the theological foundation for painting the icons of the Savior is the
Incarnation of the Son of God for us and for our salvation.
The man who rejects the
possibility of representing in an icon the incarnate Son of God thereby falls
into the error that Jesus was not born on earth or was merely an apparition,
and thus salvation becomes impossible.
Let us now return to the text of
the Sunday Gospel—and we learn that while Nathanael was coming toward Jesus to
see Him, the Lord met him with the words: “Behold, indeed an Israelite in whom
there is no deceit.” By these words, the Lord Christ sought to draw Nathanael
to faith, showing that, being God—even though He had taken on human nature—He
knew the deep secrets of men.
Nathanael was not at all
preoccupied with these words of praise, showing that he was without guile and
not accustomed to receiving the praise of others. He wished to know how Jesus
had knowledge concerning him. Perhaps the Apostle Philip had previously told
the Lord about his person? Therefore, Nathanael asked Him: “From where do You
know me?” The answer that Jesus gave was like a heavenly light and wholly
unexpected: “Before Philip called you, I saw you when you were under the fig
tree.” This time the Savior reveals a secret known only to Nathanael. To what
event was the Lord referring when He spoke these words?
Many years earlier, when he was a
small child, Nathanael was with his parents in Bethlehem on the very day when
the soldiers sent by Herod the Great had come to kill the innocent infants,
among whom the tyrant supposed was also the future King of the Jews announced
by the Magi from the East. The providence of God made it possible for the
infant Nathanael to be quickly hidden by his parents under a fig tree, and thus
he escaped with his life. He was not martyred like the other infants slain by
Herod, because God had ordained for him another mission—to be prepared and
later chosen as one of the twelve Holy Apostles, pillars of the Church. The
manner in which he was hidden under the fig tree, and especially the way in
which God saved him in those dreadful events, marked him profoundly, helping
him to become a true believer, full of gratitude toward God.
Now we understand why Christ’s
words concerning the mystery of his salvation from beneath the fig tree struck
him like lightning. And the grace he received helped him to perceive and to
believe without doubt that the One whom he saw and with whom he spoke was the
incarnate Son of God Himself. Therefore, he exclaimed in amazement: “Rabbi, You
are the Son of God; You are the King of Israel.” Now Nathanael was absolutely
convinced that Jesus is true God, as the Psalmist writes: “You who test the
hearts and the reins”—that is, only He who is God by nature can know beforehand
the deepest secrets of man.
Nathanael said that Jesus is the
“King of Israel,” of the Jewish people. When he says that Jesus is the King of
Israel, he understands that He is the Messiah proclaimed by all the prophets.
Yet he shows that he has surpassed the mistaken conception of the Jews of that
time—namely, that the Messiah would be merely an earthly king—and he recognizes
in the person of Jesus of Nazareth the incarnate Son of God.
This confession of faith by the
disciple Nathanael is very important and is comparable to the confession made
by the Apostle Peter, when he said: “You are the Christ, the Son of the living
God,” as we read in the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 16. But if we read
carefully, we observe that Saint Peter confessed the faith only after he had
heard the Savior’s teachings and seen His miracles. The Apostle Nathanael, even
before knowing His teachings and miracles, confessed Jesus as the Son of God
and true man, as the King of Israel.
Hierarch Ilias Miniatis, Bishop
of the Kefalonians, shows that this affirmation of faith uttered by the Apostle
Nathanael—“Rabbi, You are the King of Israel”—is the first clear confession of
Orthodoxy. Certainly, the Apostle Nathanael was inspired by the Holy Spirit
when he made this confession, for no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by
the Holy Spirit (as we read in the First Epistle to the Corinthians).
The Holy Apostle John states
explicitly that the very purpose of his Gospel is to lead readers to this faith
and Orthodox confession, saying: “But these are written that you may believe
that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life
in His name” (Gospel according to John, chapter 20). Here we must also note one
more thing: many of the witnesses of the deeds and words of Jesus were regarded
by the people as very religious, that is, great fulfillers of the Law of
Moses—these were the Pharisees; and others were considered great specialists in
the Holy Scriptures—these were the scribes. Yet none of them were able to
recognize the true identity of Jesus of Nazareth. For what reason? Because they
did not possess the purity of Nathanael. Through their hypocrisy and pride,
they were exactly the opposite of Nathanael—the Israelite without guile. For
this reason, the spiritual leaders of the Jews remained outside the truth and
were not saved.
Beloved faithful, now, after this
brief exegetical portion of the Gospel of this Sunday, let us attempt to say a
few words about the theme of today’s feast, namely, the Sunday of Orthodoxy.
The most important characteristic
of human society in our time is apostasy from Christianity. This somber truth
was revealed already in the mid-nineteenth century by Saint Hierarch Ignatius
(Brianchaninov), Bishop of Stavropol. He wrote as follows: “The prophecies of
Scripture concerning the apostasy from Christianity of the peoples converted
from paganism are being fulfilled.” Apostasy was foretold by the Holy
Scriptures with complete clarity, and it is a testimony to how true is
everything that has been said in Scripture.
Saint Ignatius identified the
sign by which apostasy can be understood and observed, as it advances rapidly
in our times. He says that the sign of apostasy is life according to God (that
is, to lead a life in strict conformity with the commandments of the Gospel
will become very difficult because of the general apostasy).
The multitude of apostates,
calling and presenting themselves outwardly as Christians—that is, that broad
category of believers who think that for salvation it is sufficient to
participate in the services of the Church, to fast, to pray, to confess, and to
render total and unconditional obedience to the shepherds—these apostates will
all the more easily persecute the true Christians. As the apostates multiply,
they will surround the true Christians with countless intrigues, will place
innumerable obstacles in the way of their good intentions for salvation and
service to the Lord. They will fight against the servants of God by resorting
to the power of the state authorities through reprisals and denunciations,
through various schemes, deceptions, and fierce persecution.
In the last times—says the Holy
Hierarch—the true Christian will scarcely find some distant and hidden refuge,
in order to serve God there with a certain freedom and not allow himself to be
drawn by apostasy and the apostates into the service of Satan.
In our days, the phenomenon of
apostasy, understood as a falling away from Orthodoxy, manifests itself in
veiled and cunning forms, so that many of the faithful who fall victim to these
deceptions believe, in their ignorance, that they are Orthodox and that they
are walking on the path of salvation.
These false Christians encourage
one another and justify their progress along the broad way that leads to
perdition by the fact that almost all the hierarchs and shepherds walk on the
path required by worldly leaders. Therefore, they seek to excuse their sins and
injustices through a so-called necessity of adapting the Church to a hostile,
dechristianized world.
I will offer you a few concrete
examples in order to understand what I have asserted. Those who today are
Orthodox only in name hear and read about the struggle of the holy confessors
who suffered even unto blood so that we might have a true teaching and an
Orthodox worship of the Holy Icons. But let us attempt to make a comparison
between the way the Saints behaved during the iconoclastic persecution and the
way false Christians behave today in the face of persecution by ecumenist
heretics. When the first iconoclast heretical patriarch, Anastasius, occupied
the throne of Constantinople, the Christians of that time not only broke off
all communion with him and refused to pray together with him in the church, but
they did something far more daring. Let us take note that this false patriarch
was the bearer of a newly emerged heresy, therefore not yet condemned by a
synod, and he was confronted and sternly rebuked—even beaten and driven out of
the church—by Orthodox, holy women, who were later tortured and martyred.
We naturally ask ourselves: which
of the so-called Christians today shows such zeal when the Church is attacked
from within by heretics not yet condemned by a synod? And which of the
hierarchs and priest-professors who frequently meet with heretics dare to
rebuke them with such firmness and steadfastness in the Truth? No one fights
today as the Saints of old did, because all have been deceived by the ideology
of religious tolerance—which has no foundation either in Holy Scripture or in
the writings of the Holy Fathers.
The false Christians who are
Orthodox only in name today walk on a path opposite to the narrow way of the
Saints. What do they do today? Although they observe that hierarchs impose,
through synodal decisions, the heresies of ecumenism, yet because it has not
yet been condemned by an Orthodox synod, they remain in obedience to these
hierarchs until they are judged. In this way they boast that they are walking
on a rational, balanced path. But this is a great deception! For that priest,
even if in his heart—or even publicly—he rejects ecumenism, gains no benefit
from this; and he will go to judgment not according to his individual faith,
but will be judged according to the heretical faith of the bishop with whom he
was in communion.
The Christians deceived today
repeat the same mistake that the Christians made during the iconoclastic
period, before the Seventh Ecumenical Council. One thousand two hundred and
fifty years ago, the deceived Christians who were afraid to break communion
with heretical bishops out of fear of schism waited in vain for a synodal
resolution of the church problem. For the heretical Synod of Hieria followed,
and it was approved by 348 bishops; and the deceived priests and a multitude of
people continued in obedience to the heretics, with the desire not to depart
from the Church. And all those who died in that state and did not repent were
regarded at the Judgment of God as enemies of God.
But how many of those who today
boast that they honor the victory of Orthodoxy are conscious of this truth?
We see how today many boast
loudly that they are participating in the victory of Orthodoxy, yet they are
too spiritually blind to recognize that through what they do they become
accomplices and guilty of the betrayal of the Orthodox faith committed by the
ecumenist hierarchs. How do they disregard the fearful warning uttered by the
Holy Fathers—that “the enemy of God is not only the heretic, but also the one
who remains in communion with him,” as Saint John Chrysostom says?
Let us offer another example to
show that the conduct of Christians today either reveals that they do not
understand, or that they do not care about, the persecution unleashed by
ecumenist heretics against the true Orthodox:
Before the iconoclast heresy was
condemned by a synod—that is, in the period between the years 730 and 787—the
Christians who rose up to struggle against the heretics were very few; and
among the lay faithful of those times, only a small number understood their
struggle and joined them.
Let us briefly set forth what the
Holy Confessors suffered at the hands of the heretics:
Saint John of Damascus was
falsely accused of having supported the enemies of the heretical emperor; for
this reason, he was punished and his right hand was cut off. Then, at the
heretical synod, he was anathematized and mockingly called “Mansur,” which
means “dog.” Saint Hierarch Germanus, Patriarch of Constantinople, was driven
from his throne, judged and anathematized at the heretical synod, and mockingly
called a worshiper of wood. Saint Venerable Martyr Stephen the New was
arrested, beaten, exiled, and finally killed with brutality.
Other holy monks, defenders of
the Holy Icons, were punished with the gouging out of their eyes, the cutting
off of their hands, the crushing of their heads, burning in fire, and they
endured other punishments because they refused to renounce the Orthodox dogmas.
But let us take heed of what the
other priests and many of the uninstructed faithful did in that dreadful
time—they kept silent and joined the traitors because they did not know the
right faith and wished to escape suffering. Thus was fulfilled what Saint
Gregory the Theologian wrote: “In time of persecution, by silence we betray
God.” That situation which occurred then is, in a certain way, repeated today,
with the difference that today’s heretics do not resort to the violent methods
employed by the heretics of the past.
The majority of priests today who
do not acknowledge that the Synod of Crete was heretical ask us: “How are we to
believe you, priests who have broken communion with the ecumenist hierarchs?
Are you, who are so few, wiser than the thousands of priests who remain in
obedience to the ecumenists of the Synod?” This is a worldly and mistaken
judgment. For none of the Holy Martyrs and Confessors during the times of
heretical persecutions had such a mindset. Rather, they showed that in time of
persecution, the rebuking of heretics and the cessation of commemorating a
heretical hierarch is obligatory for the one who desires salvation.
Saint Venerable Martyr Stephen
the New did not take into account the opinion of the thousands of deceived
priests of his time, but rose up and rejected—even alone—the decision of the
348 heretical bishops gathered at Hieria. He preferred to sacrifice his life
rather than accept the iconoclast heresy imposed by that accursed and robber
synod.
This right—to rise up, to
confess, and to defend the truth of the faith in times of persecution—the
ecumenist heretics seek to annul in the documents of the Synod of Crete, where
it is written: “The Orthodox Church condemns any attempt to undermine the unity
of the Church by individuals or groups under the pretext of preserving or of a
supposed defense of authentic Orthodoxy—for, as the entire life of the Orthodox
Church bears witness, the safeguarding of the authentic Orthodox faith is
ensured only by the synodal system, which has always constituted within the
Church the highest authority in matters of faith and canonical regulations.” In
this text two false and unacceptable teachings are imposed:
– The first is that the highest
criterion in matters of right faith is not the hierarchical-synodal system, but
the vigilant dogmatic conscience of the pleroma of the Church. This
vigilant dogmatic conscience is guided by the Saints, enlightened by God. It is
this dogmatic conscience—of priests, monks, and laity—that has validated the
decisions of certain councils which were later accepted as ecumenical, while in
other situations it has rejected the decisions of other councils that in their
time were considered ecumenical, but were afterward classified as heretical
councils.
– The second erroneous teaching
is the assertion that the bishops gathered in synod—more precisely only the
patriarchs (for only they have the right to vote)—are automatically infallible,
infallible by virtue of their governing office, and that no one has the right
to contest or reject their decisions. This episcopocentric theory of a papist
type has been contradicted many times throughout history by the Holy Martyrs
and Confessors who, through their teaching and action, overturned the
anti-Orthodox decisions of many heresiarchs and heretical bishops who were in
communion with them.
With regard to the dogmatic
teaching concerning the veneration of the icons, we note that it was set forth
clearly and precisely in the decisions of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, and
later through the writings of Saint Theodore the Studite. Unfortunately, for
the Christians of the West, the explanations of the Eastern Holy Fathers were
not understood. The cause of this failure was the intervention of the Frankish
pseudo-theologians. In order to understand who these Franks were and what role
they played in the evolution toward apostasy of Western Christianity, we
reproduce a fragment from a letter that Saint Boniface sent to Pope Zachary: “The
Franks removed from the Church of Gaul all the Roman bishops until the year
661. And they made themselves bishops and clerical administrators. These
barbarians are greedy laymen, adulterous and drunken clerics who fight in a
fully armed host and who with their own hands kill both Christians and pagans.”
The chronicles say that many of these Frankish warriors who became priests were
illiterate, so that we may realize how much theology they could have known.
In all the countries of the West,
this Germanic people of the Franks persecuted and usurped for 300 years all the
ecclesiastical leadership positions that were originally held by Christian
bishops who shared the same faith as those in the East. The consequence was
that the Romans of the West, who initially preserved the right faith, became
serfs and servants on the feudal estates held by these Franco-Latins. Thus,
among the ancient Romans of the Western Roman Empire, none of them were any
longer able to rise to the ranks of hierarchs or church fathers; only in
certain isolated cases did some attain holiness among the laity.
In the year 794, the Franco-Latin
pseudo-theologians composed the Libri Carolini—filled with confusions
and errors regarding the role of the sacred image in the Church. In those
writings one can see the moderately iconoclast conception of King Charlemagne.
This emperor convened a Council at Frankfurt in the year 794, where the bishops
rejected both the heretical iconoclast Synod of Hieria and the Orthodox Seventh
Ecumenical Council of Nicaea. The Franco-Latin bishops said: “Icons must
neither be destroyed—as the iconoclast heretics did—nor venerated with
reverence—as the Orthodox Greeks did. They have a purely decorative role.”
Their mistaken reasoning was that they did not perceive the connection between
the sacred image and the person represented in the icon. In their conception,
the religious painting is the product of the artists’ imagination, where each
artist paints as he wishes, without submitting to traditional rules. In
contrast, the Orthodox icon is theology in image, because everything that Holy
Scripture and Holy Tradition confess through the word, the icon expresses the
same truth through forms and colors. The Catholic painting, on the other hand,
is a creation of human imagination; it is an idol, and therefore, being a
deception, it has no connection either with grace or with truth.
The heretical Council of
Frankfurt and the Libri Carolini played a decisive role in the
disappearance of sacred ecclesiastical art in the West and in the replacement
of Orthodox liturgical images with profane and desacralized religious
paintings. Thus it is explained why, in the famous Gothic churches of the countries
of Western Europe, the walls remained bare, unadorned with icons, thereby
revealing the mysterious absence of the Savior, of the Mother of God, and of
the Saints. Everything there is dominated by coldness and by an external order
that betrays the rationalist and regal spirit of papism.
Professor Ioannis Romanides
demonstrates a truth unknown to the majority of Christians among us: namely,
that through the two heretical councils—the iconoclast one at Frankfurt in 794
and the one at Aachen (in 809), which supported the heresy of the Filioque—through
these two heretical councils, the Franks unjustly condemned the Roman
Christians of the East as Hellenes and heretics. By this they initiated the
beginning of the process of schism—not between the two parts of the Empire, as
we have known until now, but between themselves as usurpers and the Roman
Christians both in the West and in the East. This Germanic people of the
Franco-Latins, uncultured and aggressive, created the institution of the papacy
as we know it today, so that, in the last millennium, upon the ancient
patriarchal throne of Rome, there have been only heresiarchs.
Beloved faithful, the world in
which we live today is characterized by a tendency to minimize the importance
of dogmatic teachings. We see clearly that the world around us is continually
changing and evolving. Changes occur especially in the technical and scientific
sphere, and not only there, and they are so rapid and radical that at times it
is difficult or even impossible for us to adapt to them. But while the
surrounding world changes—because it is transient and deceptive—our Orthodox
Church, which according to the testimony of the Holy Apostles is the pillar and
ground of the truth, never changes, no matter how much pressure may be exerted
upon her. Even if some of her shepherds should yield and betray the faith, and
many among the people, the faithful, should follow them in their error, she
does not change.
The Orthodox Church always
remains the same in her teaching and in her work. The Savior in the Gospel has
assured us of this truth, saying: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but My
words will not pass away” (Luke 21). What does this mean? It means that all the
commandments of the Holy Gospel, all the Holy Mysteries, all the dogmas, all
the Holy Canons and Holy Services founded upon the teaching of the Church, do
not change but remain steadfast and unshaken until the end of the ages. For the
very grace of the Holy Spirit works through them, leading the believer to
salvation. Everything that was considered sin two thousand years ago is
regarded as sin today as well, even if many are displeased by this reality and
would wish to change it. Everything that was virtue two millennia ago is
considered virtue today, even if many people today are indifferent or even mock
the Christians who strive to acquire the virtues. They say of us that we are
anachronistic, that we are fundamentalists, or that we oppose progress. But we,
knowing that we live in times of apostasy, must rejoice that we suffer
reproaches and mockery for our effort not to depart from the narrow Way of
Orthodoxy.
The Holy Orthodox Dogmas are all
the foundational teachings of the Christian Church which contain truths
revealed by God. Even though they are expressed in human words, the dogmas are
not human creations, but are revealed and handed down to us by God Himself;
therefore, they always remain unchanged and possess the same absolute
authority.
The holy dogmas are the visible
and unchangeable boundaries of the Orthodox Church. Whoever among those
baptized violates the Christian dogmas—whether by attempting to eliminate one
of them, or to add another false dogma, or even by distorting one of the
Orthodox dogmas in a heretical and anti-patristic sense—abandons the Truth and
becomes a heretic, that is, a member diseased with a mortal illness. However,
we must be attentive. For some of the faithful, having zeal for God but not
according to knowledge, have wrongly asserted that a bishop or priest who
publicly confesses a heresy automatically loses the grace of ordination before
a synodal judgment.
I shall attempt to offer an
example from the history of the Church in order to demonstrate the falsity of
the theory of automatic loss of grace:
In the seventh century, all five
patriarchates were affected by the newly arisen heresy of Monothelitism. In the
interval of more than fifty years from its appearance until its condemnation at
the Sixth Ecumenical Council, the heretical bishops ordained many other
bishops.
In the year 649, the First
Lateran Council took place in Rome, where the Monothelite heresy was condemned
and all the heretical patriarchs were anathematized; however, since this was a
local synod, it could make decisions that had effect only within its own
church.
The effect of the Lateran Council
was the deliverance of the Church of Rome at that time from the Monothelite
heresy and the exposure of the heretics in other local churches so that they
might be judged by an Ecumenical Council. Macarius (Patriarch of Antioch) had
been ordained by the last Monothelite heretical patriarch of Constantinople,
whose name was Peter. Although he had been ordained by a heretical patriarch,
his ordination was considered valid, and he was summoned to trial at the Sixth
Ecumenical Council in the year 680. But unfortunately, because he refused to
renounce the Monothelite heresy, he was deposed and punished with anathema. This
proves that the Holy Fathers never regarded ordinations performed by heretics
as invalid. These facts are recorded in the Acts of the Sixth Ecumenical
Council and reflect the thinking and practice of the Holy Fathers. By this I
wished to draw attention to how wrongly those Orthodox priests who have
separated themselves because of the ecumenist heresy proceed, when they place
themselves in the position of a synod of bishops and depose, without any
foundation, hierarchs and priests guilty of heresy. Only the bishops gathered
in an Orthodox Synod have the canonical authority to judge and to attempt to
bring back to Orthodoxy those bishops who have deviated from the right faith. Therefore,
we must beware of priests with an extremist mentality who make judgments and
pass sentences on the basis of misinterpretations of fragments of patristic
writings, without taking into account the context in which they were written.
Certainly, the most serious and
most widespread heresy of our time is the ecclesiological heresy of ecumenism.
This heresy seeks to replace the Orthodox dogma concerning the One, Holy,
Catholic, and Apostolic Church with a foreign teaching that stands in
contradiction to the doctrine of the Holy Fathers of the Church. This heresy is
all the more dangerous because it is formulated in a cunning manner, through an
impermissible association of certain correct Orthodox dogmatic affirmations
with a heretical statement that nullifies the former. I will offer only one
example, among many of this kind that can be found in the sixth document of the
Synod of Crete. There we read: “The Orthodox Church, being One, Holy, Catholic,
and Apostolic, firmly believes in her deep ecclesial consciousness.” Up to this
point, the content is correctly Orthodox. But from here the heresy follows. It
says that she “occupies a central place in promoting Christian unity in the
contemporary world.” If the authors of the text had wished to provide something
understandable for priests and faithful, they should have explained what the
four attributes of the Orthodox Church mean and what dogmatic consequences flow
from them.
Thus, from the fact that the
Orthodox Church is One, there results her strictly exclusive character—namely,
that outside of her there cannot exist other churches, but only religious
organizations or confessions. Here is what Saint Photius the Great (820–†891)
teaches in the epistle he sent to Pope Nicholas I (820–†867): “There is one
Church of Christ, Apostolic and Catholic. Not many, not even two. The others
are synagogues of those who act deceitfully and an assembly of those led
astray.” Here I end the citation from Saint Photius the Great. The lack of
repentance of the heretics and their punishment with anathema did not cause any
loss of the unity of the Church, because the mystical Body of the Church cannot
endure any division or loss. Just as the branches of the vine that are cut off
from the trunk wither and die and therefore cannot give rise to a fruitful
vine, so also heretics who have been judged and condemned by councils cannot
regroup and constitute parallel churches, but only heretical organizations that
call themselves churches, yet are not.
Returning to the second part of
the statement concerning the promotion of Christian unity, we note that it has
an ambiguous character. Why was it formulated in this way?—In order to please
people holding different conceptions of faith. But here the evangelical command
spoken by the Savior is violated: “Let your word be ‘Yes, yes’ and ‘No, no’;
for whatever is more than these is from the evil one” (Matthew 5:37).
The so-called Christians of whom
the ecumenists speak here are the heretics. Yet we must know that heretics are
not Christians, because they have no real connection with the true Christ.
Heretics worship a god who does not exist.
From where does this confused and
unacceptable approach arise, according to which the Orthodox Christian is
regarded as equal to any heretic?—From the imposition in modern society of the
morality of human rights. The leaders of state institutions impose the
mentality according to which Orthodox citizens are considered equal to citizens
of other confessions and religions and even to atheists; consequently, the
Church is hindered from protecting her own children and from combating
spiritually the evildoers who fight against her. Thus, in order not to be
sanctioned as intolerant, some Orthodox either fear to confess the truth or
even renounce it. Against the background of this spiritual crisis, the
heresiarchs of ecumenism act with force, attacking the Orthodox dogma
concerning the Church.
Here is a proof: In the year
2014, the heretical Patriarch Bartholomew met with the heresiarch Pope Francis
in Jerusalem, and they made a joint declaration in which they said: “The One,
Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, because of predominant human weakness and
the changeable will of the human mind, has become divided over time. Thus
various situations and groupings have appeared. The local Churches have arrived
at a rupture of unity in faith and at isolation. We—the Pope and I—have come to
smooth the way in order to continue the journey toward the fulfillment of the
will of God, namely, that the unity of the Church may be attained.” This text
contains the heretical teaching according to which heretics who were punished
with anathema at the Ecumenical Councils can constitute valid churches in
parallel, and that the Church, in the ecumenist vision, is a syncretistic
synthesis formed from all heretical groupings, into which the Orthodox Church
must necessarily be incorporated.
As I have shown earlier, the
phenomenon of apostasy in our days unfolds in many forms. In order to
understand this, we must know thoroughly the teaching of the Church. In this
regard, the Holy Apostle Paul commands us: “Put on the whole armor of God, that
you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil” (Ephesians 6:11). By
this, the wise Paul did not say “battles and wars of the devil,” but
“wiles”—that is, hidden methods of warfare. The devil does not act by
displaying evil and harm openly, so that anyone might easily detect his
movement; rather, he presents his temptations covered with masks which
outwardly appear good or harmless. One of the devil’s masks is the hypocritical
love with which he clothes heretics in general and ecumenists in particular.
The ecumenist heretics who
declare themselves Orthodox form friendships and maintain relations of
collaboration, common prayers, and other activities with heretics already
condemned by synods: with the Papists, the Monophysites, the Protestants, with
all sorts. Instead of rebuking them according to the command of the Holy
Apostles in order to attempt to awaken them to repentance, they cultivate this
hypocritical love toward heretics who are enemies of God. What are the fruits
of this hypocritical love?—It encourages their error; it then abandons
spiritual vigilance and allows demonic spirits, called archons, to act upon
their minds.
What happens next? The deceitful
lovers of heretics bring forth all kinds of heretical teachings, as proof that
their mind has been harmed and that they have deviated from the Orthodox faith.
I will briefly set forth some of these poisonous fruits of the hypocritical
love of the ecumenists:
– 1) The theory of the lost unity
of the Church;
– 2) The branch theory—which says
that all the so-called churches, though different in doctrine and tradition,
are united like the branches of a tree that together form the true Church;
– 3) The baptismal theory—which
says that the Church includes all Christians, regardless of confession, from
the moment they have received baptism;
– 4) The theory of the two sister
or complementary churches—in which baptism is accepted as conferring valid
sacraments and apostolic succession;
– 5) The episcopocentric
theory—according to which no one is permitted to separate from his bishop, even
if he is a heretic, before he is condemned by a synod;
– 6) The theory of the
infallibility of the synodal system—in which only the patriarchs have the right
to vote and which functions autonomously from the pleroma of the Church;
– 7) The theory of religious
tolerance—by which any action of public rebuke and exposure of the harmful
activities of heretics is forbidden;
– 8) The post-patristic theory—by
which the doctrinal differences and dogmatic formulations between Orthodox and
heretics are understood as mere linguistic or cultural differences, without any
consequence for salvation;
– 9) The theory of reconciliation
without repentance—such as the lifting of the anathema pronounced in 1054 by
the Patriarchal Synod of Constantinople against papism, without the latter
renouncing any of their heresies; and another example is the annulment of the
condemnatory decisions against the Monophysite heretics at the Fourth Council
of Chalcedon—on the grounds that today’s Monophysites are “Oriental Orthodox”;
– 10) The theory of the
superiority of ecumenist love—according to which the Holy Hierarchs who
anathematized unrepentant heretics are slandered as having lacked love toward
those of different beliefs;
– 11) The theory of purging
Orthodox ecclesiastical books that contain clear, dogmatically polemical
teachings against heresies;
– 12) The theory of
rehabilitating certain heretics who had been condemned at the Ecumenical and
local councils, and the blasphemous audacity of adding them to the ranks of the
Orthodox Saints (for example: Jacob the Armenian—a Monophysite;
Dioscorus—Patriarch of Alexandria; and Severus of Antioch—Monophysites);
– 13) The theory of annulling the
Holy Canons under the guise of applying so-called economy—such as all the
canons that forbid common prayers, as well as the annulment of canons
concerning unlawful marriages;
– 14) The erroneous theory of
receiving heretics into the body of the Orthodox Church without public
renunciation of heresy and without Orthodox baptism by triple immersion; and
finally,
– 15) The theory that we must
repent for nonexistent sins, for which our Holy Fathers are accused, and that
we should do so in order to please the deceitful heretics.
These are the harmful results of
the activities of ecumenism, which acts like an acquired autoimmune infectious
syndrome upon the members of the Church. The faithful who do not treat
themselves with the only effective therapeutic method against the ecumenist
disease—cessation of communion with all heretics—become so gravely ill that,
because of their extreme weakening, they are no longer able to distinguish
between Orthodoxy and heresy, and in the end they die by accepting union in
apostasy with the enemies from whom they should have kept away.
Brethren, as you know, on this
Sunday the Holy Fathers have appointed the service of the Synodikon of
Orthodoxy to be celebrated, in which the bishop—and in our case the
priest—solemnly and by name reads the list of all the saints and defenders of
Orthodoxy. The people honor those who have departed this life with “eternal
memory,” and those who are living with “many years,” and then the nominal list
of the heresiarchs and of those in communion with them who have remained
enemies of the right faith is proclaimed. The bishop then pronounces the
sentence of anathema, and the people confirm it by repeating three times the
formula: “Anathema!”
I would like to show what this
solemn commitment means—both of the clergy and of the faithful—to honor the
Saints on the one hand, and on the other hand to renounce and keep ourselves
from all heretics.
To honor the Saints means to
strive that your entire life may follow, as faithfully as possible, the virtues
and the manner of life of each Saint. To pronounce anathema upon the initiators
of heresies and to condemn their teachings means to renew the spiritual
struggle which you, as a Christian, vowed and began at baptism, when you
confessed: “I renounce Satan, and all his works, and all his servants, and all
his service, and all his pride.” But this struggle must be continued throughout
one’s entire life. Certainly, the pronouncing of the anathemas has, in the
moment, an exorcising effect from sins and from thoughts or influences once
suffered and forgotten, which affect the rational part of our souls. But we
must not think that the celebration of the Service of the Synodikon
would have a saving and long-lasting effect, after which we could return to a
life of indifference and sloth. He who believes this is deceived; he slips into
a state of self-satisfaction and even into a kind of Orthodox triumphalism.
In conclusion, I would like to
draw attention to an important matter: the reading by a hierarch—and even by
certain priests not separated from heresy—of the anathemas against the
pan-heresy of ecumenism, but without being followed by the necessary ecclesiastical
measures, namely: the prompt cessation of ecclesiastical communion with all the
other patriarchs, metropolitans, bishops, and those in communion with them, and
without undertaking all the steps required for the swift convocation of a
pan-Orthodox Synod to judge and condemn all the heresiarchs of ecumenism—means
to wage a false struggle that has no effectiveness whatsoever. I regret it, but
it must be said: this is as if someone were to display his bravery not through
a real battle with the enemies of the Church, but merely by firing a few blank
cartridges and a few signal flares. But once the smoke disperses and the noise ceases,
the shepherds and the people return to their homes, convinced that by this they
have done everything that needed to be done. Yet what follows after this?—The
destructive activity of the ecumenist heretics continues freely and unhindered,
for it has the ability to incorporate even those Christians who hold a faith
opposed to ecumenism, but who do not take the step of separating themselves
from heresy.
Hierarchs who defend Orthodoxy
only through beautiful and enthusiastic discussions, but without proving it
through deeds of sacrifice according to the example of the Holy Confessors,
neither save themselves nor help us who have separated from heresy. Therefore,
these hierarchs—praised for their Orthodox mindset for the time being—cannot be
models for us. Rather, we pray for them to enter upon the painful path of
separation from heresy, and then we shall be able to celebrate with great joy
the victory of this Sunday of Orthodoxy. Until then, we few who have remained
in our small ecclesial communities separated from heresy have nothing left but
to deepen our spiritual life, to put on the whole armor of God, always having
in our hearts the conviction that we live under the Holy Protection of the
Church, which though struck, betrayed, humiliated, and driven out, is today and
ever remains victorious through Jesus Christ, her Head, to whom is due all
glory, honor, and worship, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now
and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen!
Through the prayers of our Holy
Fathers, Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us! Amen!
Romanian source:
https://romanortodox.info/predica-parintelui-spiridon-rosu-din-duminica-ortodoxiei-17-martie-2019/
