Not in Communion with Constantinople?

 Not in Communion with Constantinople?

~ The Case of Saint Gregory the Theologian ~

by Bishop Sergios of Portland and the West

During the troubled 4th century, when Orthodox Catholics battled Arians of several varieties, the key city of Antioch was divided between adherents of St. Meletios, an Orthodox Nicene hierarch, and his Arian opponent. St. Meletios summoned a Council of Bishops to meet in Antioch to deal with the divisions among the Orthodox. This Council met in 381, two years after St. Basil the Great’s repose in Caesarea in Cappadocia. [1]

But then disaster struck: St. Meletios himself died in the middle of negotiations to restore the Church’s unity in Antioch. The Emperor, Theodosios, had decided to improve the chances of a unified outcome by inviting Bishops from Egypt and Illyricum to participate. With St. Meletios’ death, Pope [St.] Damasus of Rome entered the fray, unfortunately with the goal of “dismantling” [2] St. Meletios’s plans for reunification – plans which had included the appointment of St. Gregory the Theologian as Archbishop of Constantinople. [3] The Antiochian Council asked St. Gregory to go to Constantinople and organize a serious theological witness to win over the capital’s population from Arianism to the faith of the Church. [4] Constantinople was aswirl with rifts among both the Orthodox and the heretical hierarchies. The division among Orthodox Catholics was based on those who supported Meletios and those who supported his rival, Paulinos, at Antioch. [5]

Since the official Church in Constantinople was Arian, because its Archbishop (Demophilos) was an Arian, the major churches in the city were closed to St. Gregory, who therefore served the Liturgy in a private home with the clergy and laity who remained Orthodox – and who therefore formally severed communion with the Archbishop of Constantinople. [6] In his Oration 33, he wrote (concerning the heretical Archbishop and his Clergy and followers) “They have the houses of God, we have Him Who dwells therein; they have the altars, we have God… They have the people, we have the angels.” [7]

St. Gregory “works hard to lobby further for peace among Trinitarian groups in the capital. The Oration [Oration 24] indicates the fragility of the pro-Nicene alliances at this point in Constantinople…” [8]

With the return of the Emperor Theodosios to Constantinople, the anti-Nicene Bishop, Demophilos, chose exile over confessing the Nicene faith of the Church, and the following day St. Gregory was formally installed as the Archbishop of Constantinople in the Church of the Holy Apostles. [9]

St. Gregory, then, coming to Constantinople, had not entered into communion with that city’s existing Hierarch (Demophilos), but instead set up his own altar, and there served his own Liturgy separate from, and not in communion with, the existing Archbishop of Constantinople. This pattern should be fairly obvious, given its clear documentation throughout the history of the Church!

By the standards applied today by the ecumenist jurisdictions to non-ecumenist Hierarchs, of course, for which ecumenists the question of communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople defines the matter as to whether one is a schismatic or not, St. Gregory the Theologian was definitely a schismatic! He did not enter into communion with the heretical Archbishop of Constantinople, he did not commemorate him, he did not concelebrate with him, and in fact, he raised up his own altar and his own community of true Orthodox Christians in opposition to the heretical Archbishop, and to those clergy and laity in communion with him. St. Gregory the Theologian maintained the purity of the Church’s communion on the basis of the maintenance of sound doctrine, of Orthodox faith.

Transpose the situation in which St. Gregory found himself in the 380’s A.D., and the situation the Church finds herself in today with regard to the syncretist-ecumenist Patriarchate of Constantinople – and with all the historic Patriarchates that today are bonded members of syncretist ecumenism’s chief institutional expression, the World Council of Churches – and you see why we are no more impressed with our critics today than was St. Gregory the Theologian impressed with his critics in 4th century Constantinople. His point of view – given in Oration 33, cited above – is exactly that of the true Church today.

We need to be clear that the Church today is behaving in a manner consistent with the Church of the Cappadocian Fathers, when St. Basil the Great likened Church life to a naval battle at night, when it was never easy to distinguish friend from foe, so dark was that night! [10]

We note that the Church has passed through similar times before. Preceding that 4th century crisis of faith was the crisis coming from Gnosticism in the period of the Apostolic Fathers. And there followed the eras of the great heretical pandemics of Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, Iconoclasm, the clash with the West in the age of St. Gregory Palamas and the hesychast Fathers of the 14th century [11] – all eras when it did seem, from time to time, that pandemic heresy would engulf and destroy the faith of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church [12] – the faith once delivered to the saints. [13] 

So, when was St. Gregory the Theologian not in communion with Constantinople? When the Archbishop of Constantinople professed heresy. Which Hierarch was actually the schismatic and which was the true Hierarch – the Arian Archbishop Demophilos or the Orthodox Archbishop Gregory the Theologian? I think we all know the answer!

And if what was true in the 4th century is still true in the 21st century (it is) – where does that leave those of us who will not enter into communion with any Hierarch who professes the pan-heresy of ecumenism with a bared head in the churches? [14] Again, we know the answer.

No matter how dark the night during pandemic heresies, no matter how confused and discouraging our own night battles [15] may be, we know that the gates of hell will not prevail against [the Church]. [16]

Nothing encourages our faithfulness to the Church more than this word from our Saviour to the Church, about the Church. And to that, we say Amen!

To summarize: St. Gregory the Theologian said it best when he wrote, They have the churches; we have Him Who dwells therein. [17] This neatly states the only real point made by the term “schism”: What is to be avoided is to be in schism from God, and clearly, there are times when one has to be in “schism” from a given Bishop in order to preserve union with Christ – for example, whenever that given Bishop is in heresy!

Because the Archbishop of Constantinople was a heretic (of the Arian variety) St. Gregory served his own liturgies outside of the structure of the See of Constantinople in order to avoid liturgical contact with a heretical Hierarch.

St. Gregory did not serve in one of the existing churches in the Imperial Capital since all of them were in the hands of heretics – that is, in all of them one would have heard the [heretical] Archbishop of Constantinople being commemorated by the clergy. He set up an altar and served the liturgy and the Mysteries of the Church in a private home, apart from the group of Hierarchs and clergy in communion with the [heretical] Archbishop Demophilos. Is this an exemplary model to be followed in similar circumstances by faithful Hierarchs? It is: how could it not be?

The question thus becomes not whether one is or isn’t in communion with a given Archbishop or Patriarch, but whether that Archbishop or Patriarch is himself in communion with the Church’s faith to begin with.

It was taken for granted in the 4th century that a faithful Orthodox Hierarch cannot be in communion with a Hierarch who is in communion with heresy. This is an axiom of the Patristic Consensus, and that Consensus remains normative in the Church today.

Those members of ecumenist jurisdictions in North America and Europe who point fingers at the non-ecumenists (among them, the GOC – ourselves) (a) on the grounds that we are not in communion with Constantinople, are missing the point, and their charge that we are therefore schismatic, is false as such; their charge that (b) we prove we are not the Church because there are divisions among us is equally false, because it ignores the fact that in times of pandemic heresy (like the 4th century) very frequently, authentically Orthodox Hierarchs, Clergy, and faithful can suffer similar divisions.

In the troubled waters of the 4th century, Church life was described as a naval battle at night. And so, it was. But we need to remember that we also call that era the Golden Age of the Church! The basis for both descriptions should be fairly clear today.

We do not defend divisions: they are always to be regretted. But the facts of history establish that in times of pandemic heresy, they occur. [18]

This is the second time that we have turned to St. Gregory the Theologian for help in understanding the circumstances in which we find ourselves today. [19] This remembering of the history of the Church’s past reminds us forcefully of the perennial value of the Patristic Consensus in the mind of the Church. After all, is not the Church’s Holy Tradition best understood as the continuing life of the Holy Spirit in her midst?

ENDNOTES

1. Fr. James Thornton covers the background in The Oecumenical Synods of the Church, pp. 39-48, Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 2007, Etna, California.

2. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, by Fr. John McGuckin, p 236.

3. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, by Fr. John McGuckin, pp. 236-237.

4. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, by Fr. John McGuckin, pp. 236-237. St. Gregory refers to this assignment in his famous autobiographical poem, Concerning His Own Life – Περὶ τὸν Ἑαυτοῡ Βίον – line 595 - 600: “at the invitation of many shepherds and their flocks, to assist the congregation [that is, the Church in Constantinople] and help defend the Word. They hoped that with a stream of correct doctrines I might revive souls parched but still producing green growth…” πολλῶν καλούντων ποιμένων καὶ θρεμμάτων λαοῦ βοηθοὺς καὶ λόγου συλλήπτορας ὡς ἂν καταψύξαιμεν εὐσεβεῖ ῥοῇ ψυχὰς ἀνύδρους καὶ χλοαζούσας ἔτι – quoted in Gregory of Nazianzus, Autobiographical Poems, Cambridge University Press, 1996, pp. 54-55. In his Oration 43.2, St. Gregory notes that St. Basil “approved” of his appointment to Constantinople (see Gregory of Nazianzus by Fr. J. McGuckin, p. 236, note 26, with reference).

5. B.J. Kidd, A History of the Church to A.D. 461, Vol. 2, A.D. 313-408, Oxford, 1922, pp. 273-280. This older history of the Church remains one of the better resources in Church history, although unfortunately it is out-of-print. Dr Kidd’s discussion of St. Gregory the Theologian’s life and work as Archbishop of Constantinople is lively, clearly written (no easy task given the ecclesiastical complexity of the times) and accurate despite the passage of almost a century since it was published.

6. The townhouse of a wealthy cousin named Theodosia. St. Gregory dedicated therein a house-chapel as The Church of the Resurrection. See Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity & the Knowledge of God by C.A. Beeley, Oxford University Press, 2008, p. 34.

7. Oration 33, ¶ 15. The Oration begins, “Where are they who reproach us with our poverty and boast themselves of their own riches; who define the Church by numbers, and scorn the little flock”. See A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Father of the Christian Church, 2nd series, Volume 7, pp. 328 for the entire Speech. Serious and discerning readers will perhaps find more than a few parallels between the struggle of the Cappadocian Fathers in the 4th century against Arianism (in several forms) and the Church’s struggle today with the pandemic heresy of syncretist ecumenism!

8. Gregory of Nazianzus on the Trinity and the Knowledge of God, Christopher A. Beeley, p. 36.

9. On all this, and the amazingly complex interactions between political interests as well as among competing theological points of view, see J. McGuckin’s St. Gregory of Nazianzus, pp. 320-332.

10. St. Basil the Great, On the Holy Spirit, St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1980, chapter 30, ¶76.

11. See Fr. James Thornton’s The Oecumenical Synods of the Orthodox Church for details concerning this long history of pandemic heresy down the centuries.

12. The defining description of the Church in the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.

13. Epistle of St. Jude 1:3.

14. Canon 15 of the 1st-2nd Council. See http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/ecum_canons.aspx for the full text and commentary.

15. St. Basil’s remark, in On the Holy Spirit, chapter 30, ¶76. See footnote 8, above.

16. St. Matthew 16:18.

17. Oration 33; see endnote 6 above.

18. Remember the “fragility” of the Orthodox “alliances” in Constantinople, which St. Gregory the Theologian worked so hard to overcome, cited in footnote 7.

19. We looked in on the incident in which, after St. Gregory the Theologian’s father, Gregory of Nazianzus “the Elder” had (“unwittingly”) signed an Arian confession of faith, the monastics throughout the Diocese of Nazianzus reacted by immediately severing communion with their Bishop: see The Good Word, Vol. 1, No. 6, May-June 2014, “Adventures in Labeling.”

Source: The Good Word, Vol. 1, Issue 6, May-June 2014.