Holy Mountain
May 6, 1979
My dear Mr. Alexander, Christ is
Risen!
Following the letter of Mr.
Chatzigiannakis and his telegram stating that the brothers of your parish
accept only a written examination of the well-known issue regarding the
Mysteries, in obedience to my Elder, I am sending you this present letter of
mine because I personally believe that matters of this nature can only be
properly examined verbally. My experience in this matter, after all, is
extensive, as even with the late Fr. Markos, nothing was achieved, despite my
great efforts.
Believing, therefore, the
position VI (of the New Calendarists) in Synkrimatos,
p. 90, to be correct, I proceed to refute your position as it is contained on
pages 91-92 of Synkrimatos.
First of all, I inform you that
neither the local synod of Rome nor the local synod of Alexandria condemned
Nestorius, as you write, but only his teaching. Here is the voice of History on
the matter: "On the basis of all these (i.e., the homilies of Nestorius
and his correspondence with Cyril, my own note), the Latin synod convened in
Rome in 430 under Celestine condemned the teaching of Nestorius; the same was
done by a synod of the bishops of Egypt, convened in the same year in
Alexandria under Cyril." (I. Karmiris,
DSM, A' [1960], p. 141.)
Consequently, to your anguished
question, "When, after all, was Nestorius cut off from the Church?",
history tells us that he was cut off in 431 through the Third Ecumenical
Council.
For this exact reason, the
phrases in the synodal letters of the aforementioned local synods: a) "he
has been cast out of every Catholic Church" and b) "having neither a
clerical rank among us, nor a place or word among the priests of God and
bishops," have a future meaning, that is, "you will be cast
out... you will cease to be a bishop," because this decision will
be made against you in the council that will judge you.
We find such examples also in
Scripture: Thus, in Genesis 2:17, we read: "But from the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it; for on the day that you
eat from it, you shall surely die," even though they died several
hundred years later!
"For according to the divine
Chrysostom, the condemnation of the guilty is twofold: one by the judgment of
the judge, and the other by the nature and the experience of the matter, which
is also yet to come. For Adam, as it says, on the day he ate from the tree, he
died, though he still lived. So how did he die? By the decision, it says, not
by the experience or the nature of the matter (which he also demonstrates by
continuing), for the one who makes himself guilty by an act deserving
punishment is under judgment, even if not yet in fact, but by the
decision." (Neophytos Kavsokalyvites, Compendium
of Sacred Canons, p. 535 [Unpublished].)
Regarding the position on page
92: "However, the Synod does not drive out Grace; God does not take orders
from humans. The Synod simply confirms the departure of Grace and declares the
event through its decision," I have the following observations to make:
The Synod takes back what it
gave, namely the grace of priesthood to perform the Mysteries. Since it
collaborated with God in ordination to give this grace to the individual (I do
not think this collaboration is rejected either), so also, in order to remove
this grace, it collaborates again with God, as is most excellently demonstrated
in the following words of the Third Ecumenical Council: "The Lord Jesus
Christ, whom he [Nestorius] blasphemed, has decreed through this most holy
Synod that Nestorius is alien to both the episcopal dignity and any clerical
assembly" (S., p. 90).
Do you see what it writes? "Christ has decreed THROUGH this most
holy Synod..."
What clearer evidence do you
require regarding the above collaboration in the condemnation of heretics? For
this exact reason, the Synod does not "simply ascertain the departure of
Grace," as you write (how is this possible, and by what method?), but
rather it ascertains the persistence or lack thereof of the heretic in their
doctrines. Thus, when it determines their unrepentance—that is, their
conscious, in our view, persistence in heresy—it then proceeds to depose them.
Consequently, your statement: "Therefore, the separation of the heretic
from the Church has no connection with the decisions of the Synod of the
priesthood" (S., p. 53) is
entirely foreign to the faith and practice of the Orthodox Church. I agree only
on the point that every sin, and therefore heresy, removes from the individual
their personal grace, the grace that every Orthodox baptized person possesses,
as is vividly taught in the life of Saint Paisios the Great, when it tells us
that his disciple lost the grace of God because he showed a lack of faith
before the Jew who was disputing with him. Similarly, Adam and Eve lost grace
immediately after their transgression. However, as for the additional grace
possessed by the cleric, we accept that it is not lost (for the gifts and the
calling of God are irrevocable), but they become unable to impart it as soon as
they are condemned by the Synod that bestowed it upon them. Simply put: If we
consider the priest as a lamp and grace as the current, the Synod does nothing
but disconnect him from the circuit, so that he can no longer give light. The
lamp, outwardly, remains a lamp but without light—that is, a priest unable to
perform Mysteries.
This is the teaching of the
Church and its dogmatics.
[The rest here constitutes
private reasoning and nothing more.]
And you yourselves, after all,
write for those who wish to meddle in such matters: "The Mysteries of the
Church and whatever concerns the Grace of God are beyond mind and
comprehension. Let us not insert our proud rationalistic thoughts into them with
the demand to understand the judgments of God, which are inaccessible to both
humans and angels" (S., p. 65).
Unfortunately, however, you did not adhere to this rule and proclaimed things
contrary to what we have received and been taught.
Regarding Saint Hypatius and the
term "wolf" or "pseudo-bishop" from the First-Second
Council, I tell you that these are meant simply to indicate that the bishop
referred to had deviated from the correct teaching, but not that he did not
perform Mysteries. A literal interpretation of the term always leads us to
erroneous conclusions. After all, according to your strict interpretative
approach, Hypatius himself would not even have been Orthodox—and do not be
surprised by this! Please pay attention to the conclusions drawn from his life.
The bishop of Hypatius was Eulalius. Both had as their superior Patriarch
Nestorius. However, until Nestorius was deposed by the Third Ecumenical
Council, Eulalius was in communion with him, while at the same time being in communion
with Hypatius. (See the detailed life of Hypatius and the words of Synkrimatos, p. 92.) Consequently, one
could address the following words to Hypatius, slightly altering the words of Synkrimatos (p. 13): "Why then do
you avoid Nestorius, since in any case you commemorate him?" And this
could be said because he commemorated Eulalius, who commemorated Nestorius, and
thus, "all the apparent Orthodoxy (of Hypatius) goes out the window!"
(S., p. 13).
The letter indeed kills. I
present to you another relevant example. The Apostle Paul considers the
covetous person to be an idolater (Ephesians 5:5). However, the majority of the
clergy are covetous, that is, lovers of money, lovers of gold, etc., and consequently,
they become idolaters. Who has ever heard of an idolater performing the
Mysteries of Christians? And so, every covetous cleric does not perform
Mysteries!...
The statements mentioned again in
your letter to me (1973), namely: "The Fathers never made a distinction
between heretics who, before a synodal condemnation, had Mysteries, and
heretics who, after a synodal condemnation, had Mysteries, and heretics who,
after a synodal condemnation, were deprived of Mysteries," are absolutely
similar to the argument of the anti-Kollyvades
of Mount Athos: "And where have the Fathers written that we should commune
without fasting?" Yet they have said so through their actions, and the
Church proclaims it as well through her actions, but also through other words
that carry this meaning. Thus, here too, your conclusion stands in complete
opposition to the practice of the Church.
The agreement of the 28th Canon
of the Holy Apostles, which you present as an example, ultimately does not
favor your argument. I will explain why: By accepting "economically the
ordinations of the Iconoclasts," as St. Nicodemus writes, the term economically does not mean that they had
not received the grace of priesthood. Instead, it must be interpreted here in
light of the many crimes committed by both those who were accepted and those
who ordained them, who were Iconoclasts under deposition.
This is evident from the
following: The same Seventh Ecumenical Council (Act 1) presents its president,
St. Tarasius, saying: "We have heeded the paternal instructions. What
then? Should those ordained by heretics be accepted?" The holy Synod said:
"Yes, Master, we have heeded, and they should be accepted" (Pedalion, p. 582, note 1).
If, therefore, we take these
words of the Synod in isolation, without distinguishing between heretics before
and after a synodal judgment, we would arrive at the unacceptable conclusion
that the ordinations of heretics must be accepted, and consequently, their
Mysteries as well! However, that St. Nicodemus believed and regarded the above
ordinations as having been performed within the Church is demonstrated by the
examples he provides in the same agreement on page 90 of the Pedalion, where he writes: "For even
Patriarch Anatolius was ordained by the heretic Dioscorus and his heretical
synod, and Saint Meletius of Antioch was ordained by Arians..." However,
this same Dioscorus and the Arians who ordained Meletius acted while still
within the Church, that is, before their synodal deposition. For this reason,
their actions were accepted. This is more clearly explained by the renowned
Neophytos Kavsokalyvites in his Compendium
of Sacred Canons (p. 527, note 50), where he writes the following, which I
kindly urge you to study thoroughly.
"It should be noted that the
Seventh Council, at the end of the first session, states regarding the
ordination by the teachers of the Monothelite heresy: 'The Sixth Council did
not reject it,' as most of its members had been ordained by them. Hence, it is
necessary to reconcile this with the Apostolic Canon 68, which indiscriminately
condemns ordination by heretics, and with the letter of St. Basil the Great to
the Nicopolitans, wherein those who used the profane hands of heretics to
destroy the faith are not considered part of the clerical order, even under
coercion or disputation. It must be examined whether those ordained were from
individuals who had not yet been synodically condemned and were still counted
among the Orthodox. For the presidents of the Fourth Council, Anatolius of
Constantinople and Maximus of Antioch, were ordained by Dioscorus of
Alexandria, a Monophysite, who had not yet been synodically condemned as a
heretic. Similarly, among those present at the Sixth Council, some were
ordained by the Monothelites—Sergius, Pyrrhus, Peter, and Paul—and, after their
ordination, convened, condemned, and anathematized them as heretics. Thus, the
ordination of those participating in the Sixth Council, and even in the Fourth,
was not rejected, as it had been conducted by Orthodox individuals rather than
heretics, who, as mentioned, had not yet been synodically condemned. For the
Seventh Council (at the end of the first session) decrees that those ordained
by heretics after their synodal condemnation must be deposed. It is clear that
those who were ordained by individuals suspected of heresy but not yet
synodically examined and condemned—known to be in communion according to the
holy Canons—were ordained by persons who were still in communion. Those who, after
their ordination, condemned as heretics those who ordained them, are a case in
point. Moreover, the Seventh Council accepted the ordination by those heretics
who had not yet been synodically examined…"
All of the above, my dear Mr.
Alexander, should convince you that your theory regarding the loss of Grace by
those who are knowingly heretics before synodal judgment does not stand. And
something else: Who will inform us that Cleric A today, Cleric B tomorrow, or
Cleric C the day after has consciously become a heretic? You or I? You claim
that their actions reveal it. Yes, but it is possible that such actions are not
done out of conviction, and when judged in a synod, they might be found not to
be consciously heretical. Therefore, there must be some official and definitive
body to provide us with this information, and such a body is the Church, the
Synod.
Rejection of this position leads
to dreadful confusion. Here is a simple example from the many I could present
to you. You write in your letter: "The New Calendarists did not lose the
Grace of the Mysteries in 1924 because the heresy of Ecumenism was not yet
evident..." Yes, but it was evident and consciously embraced by the
authors and implementers of the 1920 encyclical—patriarchs, bishops, etc. If,
therefore, all of these lost Grace from that time, then their ordinations and
other sacred rites "amount to nothing," resulting in the need to
doubt whether we are even properly baptized...
Your thought: "Those who are
consciously heretical lose the grace of the Mysteries before a synodal
decision. On the other hand, those who have simply violated the Canons or the
moral law are subject to judgment by a synod, which will decide whether to
depose them or not, and until then, their Mysteries are valid," is merely
your personal belief. I would be grateful if you could present even one
theologian or Father of the Church who agrees with your above conclusion.
And one addition: Do you doubt
that there are Canons which, when violated, declare the heresy of the
transgressor? I provide, as a simple example, the words of St. Nicodemus in the
well-known note on page 5 of the Pedalion
(at the end). As we see, the violation of the 46th Apostolic Canon leads the
violator into heresy, as they believe that grace exists even outside the
Church, thereby opposing the dogma of the One Church (that is, its unity). And
yet, even for such a person, according to the words of the Saint, the theory of
potentiality and actuality still applies.
These are the observations I had
to make, my dear Mr. Alexander, regarding your "comparison" and your
letter, very briefly. Certainly, all the above could be expressed more vividly
and clearly in person, and perhaps this may also happen in the future. In any
case, it would be a great joy for us to host you at our cell, along with Mr.
Chatzigiannakis or someone else, so that we may comfortably discuss not only
the above topic but also many other matters that should concern a faithful
Christian of our time.
I pray, finally, that you and
your family are in good health.
Please convey my greetings to the
dear Mr. Chatzigiannakis and to all the brethren in Christ of your parish.
With love in the Lord.
Theodoretos, monk
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