On St. Nicodemos' Interpretation of Canon 68 of the Holy Apostles

On St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite’s Interpretation of Canon 68 of the Holy Apostles, and the Ecclesiology of Resistance

 

 

Date: Fri, 4 Apr 1997 11:25:15 -0800

To: …

From: Bishop Auxentios

Re.: "Ecclesiological Position Paper"

 

Dear Mr. …:

May God bless you.

Computer forums and amateur theology, especially with regard to such a complex issue as ecclesiology, are not things that make for serious exchange. I will therefore make only a few comments to your letter about a correspondent who commented on our Synod of Bishops’ "Position Paper." (And mind you, we call it a position paper, since it does not claim to have dogmatic force or to be a definitive document, a point lost on many.)

Since the ecclesiological speculations adopted by our Synod of Bishops are not an expression of strongly-held personal opinions, but an attempt to approach difficult matters in the contemporary Church with a spirit of reconciliation and with an eye towards unity, I can assure you that we are not unaware of St. Nicodemos' comments on the Sixty-Eighth Apostolic Canon, anymore than he was unaware of the complex issues raised by St. Basil's famous First Canon. Nor do we argue in the "black and white” manner of those who would like to find ostensible contradictions and ambiguities in our position as a pretense for condemning us and others as heretics "without Grace." The nuanced subject of ecclesiology is filled with apparent contradictions and ambiguities, and we must all try to find, within them, guidelines that help us to address the problems in our Church today. We do so, not with the goal of declaring ourselves better than others or, in distorting their views (as many do ours), setting up "straw men" that we can blow away with a puff of self-righteous pride at having exposed another "heretic," but for the purpose of understanding the very complex questions that face us Orthodox in an age unparalleled in its confusion and exceptional historical circumstances. Accusing us of an "incorrect" interpretation of an interpretation, as your correspondent does, moreover, is a bit strange. It may follow, indeed, that the historical reception of certain heretics by "economy" suggests that, by the exactitude of the canons, they should have been received by re-ordination. The fact is, however, they were not, for reasons of economy (because of the Christian motivation to save and not to condemn others, to restate this word). It may also follow from St. Nicodemos' words that these same heretics were without Grace, prior to a conciliar decision with regard to them, and it may not. These are areas, as St. Nicodemos himself states, which succumb to no definitive rule, since they are subject to economy. (And I would suggest that you read this canon in Greek and see how much more subtle it is than the presentation in the English text to which you refer, a very bad translation at that.)

It is rather curious, too, that your correspondent seems to think that the issue of the ecumenists and New Calendarists is settled. St. Nicodemos addresses issues settled by history. Your correspondent wants to apply them to issues that are still in a formative stage. This kind of thinking is dangerous and divisive. At what point do we call all New Calendarists or ecumenists heretics? Are there any who do not understand the issue? Are there those who would turn away from their error, if they were better informed? We see an answer to this in the numerous clergy and laymen who have sought refuge among us resisters. Our argument, then, is that we cannot say who does not have Grace, and that we will know that when a general synod (of Orthodox character) decides on this matter. Then we will know whether the ecumenists and New Calendarists among us were like the Novatians or the Donatists; who was a heretic and who was a schismatic (a very complex issue in and of itself, incidentally); and who acted, in charity, to save as many of those in error that he could and who, out of pride, failed by hatred and canonical exactitude to do so. In the meantime, there are those who argue that we are saying more than what we are saying and who are playing with our position paper the same game that one can always stupidly play with the canons: "...it follows that." These are spiritual matters subject to history and to the unfolding of events in God's time. In the meantime, we are not making any statements denying Grace among those in error, but have wisely walled ourselves off from them (despite the open lies that we indiscriminately commune them).

Your correspondent has also taken one part of our argument and tried to represent it, apparently, as the whole of our position. This is not unlike the extremist Old Calendarists who, despite the fact that they do not re-ordain New Calendarists coming to them, place in our mouths words that our not ours and exaggerate our positions so as to cover their own obvious recognition of the fact that we dealing with difficult and deeply spiritual problems in the Church that are not subject to personal opinion and the pettiness that it produces. In the end, if the purpose of this tactic is to try to find ways to exclude more and more people from the Church, to limit the boundaries of Grace within Orthodoxy, and to slander and to discredit those who disagree with us by misrepresenting their persons and ideas, then what you have written me and what I have written are of no avail. Where there are such motivations, Christianity has ceased. We are debating non-issues and living in spiritual fantasy.

I might also add that, despite the lies and the constant reference to the personal opinions of those who disagree with this declaration, both our Synod of Bishops and that of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, in re-establishing liturgical union in 1994, to quote the union document, "hold exactly the same ecclesiology…[:] as set forth in the ecclesiological position paper of Metropolitan Cyprian." If Church authority still means anything--and to me it does--, and if slander, nastiness, and factionalism are not the ways of the Church--and I do not believe that they are--, then we should remain silent on this matter until such a time as, history and circumstance dictating, we all come to a different agreement. In so doing, we should also quit babbling about past decisions by the Russian Synod (influenced by elements which are now separated from that Church) and move away from sectarian ideas about any single jurisdiction being the ONLY Orthodox Church left in the world. St. Nicodemos' comments on the canon in question make provisions for precisely the kinds of unusual circumstances that we face today, which your correspondent and others would like to make clear instances of overt  heresy, as though just around the corner a true Orthodox synod were waiting to issue absolute declarations on the strange things that are brewing in the Church today (among which we can include the sectarianism that leads individuals to argue constantly for the condemnation of their brother Orthodox).

A Christianity which is not subtle, which looks for contradiction as a way to champion opinion, and which uses slander and lies to argue in the name of spiritual uprightness, is not healthy. Thus, those in ecumenical circles, as well as the extremists, must be approached with great caution. The canons are not a puzzle to be worked out by those who use them for wrong purposes (whether conservative or liberal), but are, again, guidelines. They do not simply supersede theological arguments or thinking! How much more this applies to "interpretations" of the canons. Thus, my answer, once more: We have formulated our views with full knowledge of all of the ambiguities and apparent contradictions which face us, but, unlike your naive correspondent, have not dared to look at these spiritual conditions with an eye towards establishing "what follows" in circumstances that are not logical and which do not follow, again in the words of St. Nicodemos, "definitive rules." We are not quite as unintelligent as your correspondent might think. Nor are all of those who find "flaws" in our position always intelligent enough to understand it.

Incidentally, I have no desire to continue this argument. Word games and amateurish discussions of the canons are not to anyone's profit. Fast, pray, show love to those around you, and eventually God will enlighten us all about matters which are too complex, as I have said, for computer-forum gossip and would-be theologians. A "boy, I got them" mentality is unknown among sincere Christians. Thought, circumspection, and an attempt to deal with unclear matters with charity and love are true Christian virtues.

You may post what I have written, if you like, but I doubt that the ensuing filth and slander will be to anyone's edification.

Wishing you a Blessed Lent, I remain humbly yours,

Bishop Auxentios of Photiki

P.S. I might also add that Archbishop Chrysostomos of Florina, the so-called "father" of the Greek Old Calendarists, warned against the wrong use of canons and the danger present in unthinking approaches to canonical language and historical circumstances. Look what he wrote in 1937, for example, to one of the other Bishops. His words show a great deal of discretion and care:

"In the circumstances before us, the canons allow individuals only the right to renounce... [an ecclesiastical body]... that goes beyond the limits of the traditions [of the Church] and to break off all ecclesiastical communion with it, prior to a synodal decision, and leave to a pan-Orthodox synod, which is alone competent to judge and to condemn it as heretical or schismatic.

"If we call the Archbishop of Athens a schismatic and the Church of Greece schismatic, we use the term 'schism,' not in the manner that it is used by the Church to indicate rupture with the Orthodox Church and a consequent estrangement from the Grace of Christ and the Mysteries, but with the meaning that the Archbishop of Athens, on account of the calendar innovation, has cut himself off… from the other Orthodox Churches with regard to the celebration of the Feasts and the maintenance of the fasts."

Yet this same man is accused of wavering in his views, contradicting himself, and condemning the State Church as being without Grace. In fact, one of the extremist Synods (under Archbishop Chrysostomos [Kiousis] of Athens) published, last summer, an article by an Archimandrite in its Church stating that Apostolic Succession and Grace are absent in all of the New Calendarist Churches and Patriarchates, purporting that this position is consistent with that of Archbishop Chrysostomos of Florina. Indeed, then, the wisdom of my advice that amateurs and those with an "axe to grind" not babble about this complex question.