Gleanings from the Fathers Concerning Defilement from Communion with Heresy

Adamantios Tsakiroglou, historian

 

Unfortunately, the tragic phenomenon still appears today—namely, that while so many texts of so many Saints speak of the soul-destroying defilement through heresy and of the need for the faithful to distance themselves from it as a salvific necessity, so as not to be defiled and die spiritually, many support and insist that there is no defilement from communion with heresy or that it is heretical to speak about it. And what is even more tragic: while they themselves do not accept the defilement from heresy, they speak and present themselves in a Pharisaic manner as terribly strict on the issue of “defilement” from contact of Christians with wall-offed brothers, from medicines and vaccines, and for example, call for the breaking of communion with those vaccinated against the coronavirus—yet on the issue of heresy they either remain silent or “economize” and commune with their conscience at ease with heresy.

However, they forget that the Church has always spoken to us about defilement that comes primarily from sin and the passions. Paul writes:

“Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God” (2 Corinthians 7:1).

If, then, defilement comes through sin, how is it possible that it does not come through heresy, which is both sin and blasphemy and a denial of God? Does not this teaching, concerning defilement and separation from heretics, constitute part of our holy patristic Tradition? Is not the timeless agreement of the Fathers concerning defilement and heresy clear? Did not the Church always follow the consensus of Her Fathers and not the opinion of some individual or individuals? Do we have new (post)Fathers, so that we may reject the Fathers of the Church?

When the Saints speak of defilement, they naturally mean conscious communion with those who blaspheme against God and His Church, and the alteration/falsification/perversion and ultimately the abolition of the Orthodox conscience that results from this communion. A change which—who can deny it?—is today so palpable and clearly discernible!

They clearly mean our own profane acceptance and support of every heresy and false teaching, with all that this entails.

They mean the acceptance of falsehood expressed through the commemoration of a heretical and heterodox Bishop or priest as one who rightly divides the Word of God's Truth, and our participation in the common Chalice with him, since One Chalice means One Faith. “Let us love one another, that with one mind we may confess,” we say in the Divine Liturgy, and this concerns both clergy and laity, hence the first person plural (we). Therefore, by communing with the heretic, we confess the same as he.

Thus is justified the acceptance by the flock of all the present heretical and ungodly teachings and the lack of willingness for opposition, patristic resistance, and conciliar condemnation of them.

I will present only a small gleaning of patristic texts that contain the term “defilement” or a similar one, leaving aside the many scriptural passages upon which the Holy Fathers based themselves to speak about defilement. A defilement which gradually overcomes human souls and spreads without being understood by the flock, when it—consciously or unconsciously, through the responsibility of its shepherds—communes with heresy.

Commands of the Holy Apostles through Clement:

“If it is not possible to enter a church because of the unbelievers, hold gatherings at home, O bishop, so that the pious may not enter into the church of the impious; for it is not the place that sanctifies the person, but the person that sanctifies the place. And if the impious occupy the place, it must be avoided by you, because it is profaned by them; for just as the holy priests sanctify, so also do the profane defile. And if it is not possible to gather either at home or in church, let each one chant, read, and pray alone, or even with two or three; ‘For where two or three are gathered together in My name,’ says the Lord, ‘there am I in the midst of them.’ A believer must not pray at home with a catechumen; for it is not right that the initiated be defiled with the uninitiated. Nor let the pious pray together at home with a heretic; ‘For what communion has light with darkness?’ A believing man or woman who associates with unbelievers, either let them separate or be cast out. And I, James, brother according to the flesh of Christ, but servant as of the only-begotten Son of God, and bishop of Jerusalem ordained by Christ Himself and the Apostles, say these things.”

(Constitutiones apostolorum [possibly compiled by Julian of Cilicia the Arian]: Book 8, chapter 34, line 12 – chapter 35, line 4).

St. Gregory of Nyssa:

“For if to such a degree they advance in ease and readiness toward evil, as to ascribe even the voice and concept of the basest things to one of those believed in within the Holy Trinity, it is fitting to stop one’s ears and to flee with all one’s strength from the evil hearing, so that the listener may not become in any way a sharer in the defilement, as if from a vessel full of uncleanness the word is poured into the heart of the listener.”

(Gregory of Nyssa, Against Eunomius).

St. Cyril of Jerusalem:

“Hear what they say Christ is, so that you may despise them even more greatly… [Editor’s note: Similar and even worse ecclesiological blasphemies—not one, but many—have been preached for decades now by the Ecumenists!] Is there anything more impious than these? Is there anything more wretched than these? I recount their delusion to you, so that you may despise them even more. Flee, then, from impiety, and do not even say a greeting to such a one, so that you may not partake in the unfruitful works of darkness; and do not meddle, nor desire to engage in conversation with them. Despise all heretics, but especially the one renowned for his madness... despise him because of the impious doctrines, the worker of wickedness, the vessel of all filth, who has received within himself the mire of every heresy. Seeking to become outstanding in evils, having taken all from all, he has composed a heresy full of blasphemies and all lawlessness, and ravages the Church (rather, those outside the Church), like a lion walking about and devouring. Pay no attention to their smooth speech, nor to their presumed humility; for they are serpents, offspring of vipers. Judas too said, ‘Hail, Rabbi!’ and betrayed Him. Do not pay attention to their kisses, but beware of the poison. And so that we may not seem to accuse him in vain, let us say in conclusion who this Mani [proponent of Manichaeism - tr.] is, and what he teaches in part… For he is a thief of others’ evils, appropriating those evils as his own. And it is written: ‘Whoever shall blaspheme against the Holy Spirit shall not have forgiveness.’ Therefore, he has blasphemed, calling himself the Holy Spirit. Let him who communes with such people see with whom he aligns himself.”

(Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture I to the Enlightened, prepared in Jerusalem, Introductory for those approaching Baptism, 6.12, concerning heresies).

St. John of Damascus:

“Harmful are associations with the wicked... For just as in disease-causing places, the air that is exhaled in parts deposits a hidden disease upon those dwelling there, so also does association with the base bring great evils upon the souls, even if the harmfulness escapes immediate perception... For it is the nature of this disease to infect all from one another with the sickness. Such indeed are the workers of iniquity. For one transmits the disease to another, and they fall sick together and perish together. Flee the imitations of the condemned.”

(John of Damascus, On the Holy Parallels, Title 17, P.G. 96, 353C).

St. Theodore the Studite:

“Communion from heretics is not common bread, but poison; not something that harms the body, but something that blackens and darkens the soul.”

(Epistle 308. To Ignatios, child, Fatouros p. 451, line 9, P.G. 99, 1189C) (pp. 89–90).

“For he who eats and drinks unworthily, it says, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Lord… Now if someone is barred from communion due to a fault, it is clear that he will commune when the penance has been fulfilled. But if he is separated again due to heresy, this is necessary. For to commune from a heretic or from someone clearly reproached in life alienates one from God and makes one the property of the devil. … Moreover, communion bears defilement merely from the mention [of the name], even if the one commemorated is Orthodox.”

(Epistle 553. To the spatharea, whose name is Machara, Fatouros p. 846, line 15, P.G. 99, 1668B).

The Hagiorite Fathers to Patriarch [John XI] Bekkos:

“…And our great father and confessor Theodore the Studite says these things to someone in his honorable letter: ‘You said to me that you are afraid to tell your priest not to commemorate the heresiarch, and yet I do not hesitate to tell you this now: that communion bears defilement merely from the mention of him, even if the one commemorating is Orthodox.’”

“These things the Father said; and before him, God also signified this by saying: ‘The priests have transgressed My law and have profaned My holy things.’ How? In that they did not distinguish between the profane and the holy, but to them all things were common. And this is clearer and truer than light. But let us consider this as an economy. How shall that be accepted as economy which profanes the divine things, according to the word spoken by God, and drives away the Spirit of God from the divine things, and thus deprives the faithful of the remission of sins and of adoption as sons? And what could be more damaging than such an economy, if their communion is manifest and in one point of Orthodoxy there is a fall and an overturning? For he who receives a heretic is subject to his charges; and he who communes with those who are non-communicant is himself non-communicant, as one who confounds the Canon of the Church.”

(Letter of the Hagiorites to Emperor Michael Palaiologos, Historical Essay by Monk Kallistos Vlastos, ed. 1896, pp. 97–107).

St. Nikodemos, commenting on 2 Timothy 2:17, “and their word will become like gangrene,” writes:

“The evil, he says, is uncontrollable and no longer admits of healing; because the words of heretics harm and corrupt the greater part of piety, like gangrene, and they are incorrigible. Gangrene is a disease and a wound which causes rot in the body… and devours the healthy parts of the body.” And “the heretical false teaching always proceeds toward worse and becomes a greater wound… Therefore, Christians must avoid these and all heretics as plagues and pestilences, lest they too, together with them… perish. For this reason Solomon commands: ‘Cast out the plague from the assembly’… and David, his father, blesses the man who did not sit together with the pestilent: ‘Blessed is the man who has not sat in the seat of the pestilent’ (Psalm 1:1).”

St. Nektarios of Aegina:

“Society must persecute the blasphemers [and the heterodox and heretics] for its own benefit; for they are decayed members and threaten to pollute the air that is breathed [editor’s note: and consequently the whole body of society]. Society is obligated to persecute the blasphemers so that it may not provoke God by tolerating them and thus bring upon itself divine wrath. Society must not tolerate the blasphemers at all, lest its hearing be defiled.”

(Collected Works of St. Nektarios Kephalas, Metropolitan of Pentapolis, vol. V, Know Thyself, Holy Monastery of the Holy Trinity (St. Nektarios), Aegina, Athens 2011, p. 141 ff.).

But even the Holy Monasteries of Mount Athos, which today have forgotten, wrote just a few years ago:

“However, the struggle is no longer in words, but in deeds. Nor is it a time for quotations and written proofs (what use would they be, anyway, before such corrupt judges?). On the contrary, those who love God must be prepared to fight alongside them in deeds. Likewise, they must be ready to endure every danger for the sake of piety and for the struggle not to be defiled by communion with the impious.”

(The struggles of the monks…, Holy Monastery of Saint Gregory, Mount Athos, p. 297).

The same is expressed in the concluding reference from a work by an anonymous author against the Latin-minded Patriarch John XI Bekkos (who, although at first was a confessor against the union with the Latins—even imprisoned for it—after associating with the Latin-minded and reading their positions, was defiled, that is, he changed stance and mindset), regarding the cessation of commemoration and avoidance of communion (also on account of defilement), which the Orthodox must practice not only toward all those who have been condemned as heretics, but also toward all those who support and are in communion with them:

“If then this holy and great confessor Theodore, while those emperors were indeed Orthodox and were accused of nothing concerning the Orthodox faith, but merely because they acted unlawfully in certain things and each had done something uncanonical, not only withdrew himself from communion with them, but also cut off their commemoration from the divine assemblies—what unjust or novel thing are we doing now, we who, for fear of God, disregard human glory? For if we are not following the divine Fathers, let us be reproached; but if we are following the Saints, why are we persecuted? Following these dominical and evangelical authorities, and furthermore the apostolic theologies and conciliar and patristic traditions and ordinances, we find the Latins deviating far from such divine commandments and traditions, and for this reason we utterly reject communion with them and with those who are like-minded and in communion with them, regarding every apostolic and ecclesiastical ordinance as nothing.”

(Anonymous, Against Beccus [Anonyme, contre Bekkos 1275], lines 1–16, in Archives de l’Orient Chrétien 16, Dossier Grec de l’union de Lyon (1273–1277) by V. Laurent and J. Darrouzès, Institut Français d’études Byzantines, Paris 1976, p. 333).

But not only Saints, but also contemporary, venerable, and pious fathers have spoken about the existence of defilement in communion with heretics and the necessity of ceasing it.

As Fr. Athanasios Mitilinaios said:

“When today, my beloved, we hear unheard-of things regarding defilement among our clergy—deacons, presbyters, and bishops—truly, we are overtaken by dizziness… what we hear… And yet another characterization: ‘Separated,’ it says, ‘from sinners.’ He saves sinners, but He is separated from sinners. And since Christ is always the prototype—that is, the archetype—we would say that the cleric, especially the bishop, must not be secularized. This is what ‘separated from sinners’ means: to be separated from secularization. They must not use the methods of this world, such as diplomacy, such as compromises. Today, Ecumenism, this pan-heresy—and I do not cease to remind you of its presence, which is becoming more and more intense—Ecumenism devours, with all its ease and grandeur, many of the contemporary bishops, archbishops, and patriarchs. Thus, a contemporary bishop is not ‘separated from sinners,’ because all these things are constructions of the devil, beloved. All this is said and presented so that the people may know whom they must have as shepherds and teachers in their Church. Ignorance is not permitted; for then wolves will rule and devour your soul. The Lord taught us that ‘the good shepherd—the good shepherd lays down his soul for the sheep, and the sheep follow him—they follow him, the rational sheep—because they know his voice. But a stranger they will not follow—a stranger, an outsider to the things of God, they do not follow—but will flee from him—for they do not know the voice of strangers.’”

But God also protests through the prophet Jeremiah and says: “Many shepherds have destroyed My vineyard”—Many shepherds, He says, have destroyed His vineyard; His vineyard is the people of God—“they have defiled My portion”—His portion was the chosen people, the people of God, it was Israel; “they have defiled,” they have dirtied My portion, My people—“they have given My desirable portion into a trackless wilderness, because there is no man who sets it upon his heart”—and My visitation, says God, My people, they have turned into a wilderness—as we say: “a desolate place”—they have laid it waste.

So then, were all these expressers of the Spirit of the Church wrong, and are we the ones who are right?

 

Greek source: https://eugenikos.blogspot.com/2024/10/blog-post_33.html