On the Reception of Iconoclast clergy at the Seventh Ecumenical Council

Professor Anton Vladimirovich Kartashev (+1960),

Last Chief Procurator of the Most Holy Governing Synod of the Church of Russia and Associate Professor of the St. Petersburg Theological Academy

Source: Вселенские соборы [Ecumenical Councils], Minsk: Belarusian Exarchate, Harvest, 2008.

They began with the question of receiving into communion bishops who had become entangled in iconoclasm. The question is of interest in the sense that for the first time we see a formally canonical investigation of it according to ancient models, within the setting of an ecumenical council. Antiquity resolved such questions more simply, in the spirit of ecclesiastical teaching. Here, however, history and archaeology enter the stage. Moreover, the decision was complicated by the fact that two clearly defined currents revealed themselves within the council. One was embodied by [St.] Tarasios: a moderate, conciliatory current, seeking civil and ecclesiastical peace. These men, with a sense of state interest and experience in governance, understood the historical and psychological nature of iconoclasm as a contagious social experience and enthusiasm. They understood that it needed to be overcome gradually, and not without compromise concerning certain individuals. This current was guided by the Byzantine principle of "economy"—more bluntly, by politics.

The other was embodied in the monks [largely the Studites – trans. note]. They were concerned solely with the ecclesiastical aspect and with zeal for the purity of the canons. The cutting off of diseased members seemed to them absolutely necessary. They had no inclination to heal the sick with the strength of the healthy. With the agreement of these diverse tendencies, the question itself was examined with meticulous severity.

The bishops under examination were divided into three categories. The first included those individuals who were the “least difficult” to resolve. The second included more difficult cases, and the third—yet more difficult ones. Evidently, the examinees did not appear here voluntarily, for the technical term used indicates that they were “brought forth – προσηχθησαν, παρηχθησαν” by judicial procedure. The sanction was imperial authority. However, they were not under arrest and entered the council upon summons without judicial escorts—except for the bishop from the final category.

At the very first session, three bishops of the first category were brought in: Basil, Metropolitan of Ancyra; Theodore, Metropolitan of Marcianopolis; and Theodosius, Bishop of Amorium (Phrygia). The judgment regarding them had apparently been so favorably prepared that they were merely heard reading aloud their libelli, that is, their statements of repentance, and they were immediately received in their existing rank and seated in their places at the council. The repentant declarations of these bishops consisted in the confession of their errors. Theodosius of Amorium, for example, acknowledged that, in his delusion, he had spoken many evil things against the venerated icons. But now he spoke positively and more clearly: “As for the depiction in churches, I believe that first and foremost one ought to depict the icon of the Savior and of the Mother of God from any material—gold, silver, or with various paints—so that the dispensation of salvation may be made accessible to all. I also consider it beneficial to depict the lives of the saints, so that their labors and struggles may be made known to the people—especially to the simple folk—so that these may be briefly impressed upon their minds and instruct them. If for imperial portraits and figures, when they are sent to towns and villages, people come out to meet them with candles and censers, showing respect not to the image on the wax-coated board, but to the emperor himself, then how much more ought one to depict the icon of the Savior, His Mother, and the saints!” One of the bishops, upon hearing such a speech, even exclaimed: “The speech of the venerable Bishop of Amorium moved us even to tears.”

The moderates, through the mouth of Tarasios, merely stated that “those who were once accusers (κατήγοροι) of Orthodoxy have now become its confessors (συνήγοροι). Great was the contrition of heart shown by Theodosius!” The monks agreed with this, but requested that it be noted in the official record that in this case they were receiving the repentant as “those returning from heresy (τοὺς ἐξ αἱρέσεως ἐπιστρέφοντας).”

Following this, at that same first session, seven bishops of the second category were brought in: Hypatios, Metropolitan of Nicaea; Leo, Metropolitan of Rhodes; Gregory, Metropolitan of Pessinus (Galatia); Leo, Metropolitan of Iconium; George, Metropolitan of Antioch in Pisidia; Nicholas, Bishop of Hierapolis; and Leo, Bishop of the island of Karpathos. The deliberations concerning them were prolonged and were postponed to the next session.

These particular bishops were accused of having conducted, in the previous year, special agitational parasynagogues in Constantinople, and of having disrupted the council. Now they declare that through the reading of the Holy Fathers they have come to be convinced of the truth of icon veneration, and that in the previous year they acted “in ignorance and foolishness (κατὰ ἀγνωσίαν καὶ ἀφροσύνην).”

This admission of ignorance on the part of bishops—especially those who had been active rebels—was rather strange. Was their conversion sincere? Even Tarasios himself posed rather skeptical questions to them. To Leo of Rhodes, for instance: “Well then, my dear father, how is it that you have served as bishop these eight or ten years, and only now have become convinced?” Those being questioned explained the matter by habit and the formation they had received: the new teaching had already become deeply rooted, and they had absorbed it from their schooling. Tarasios, not without sarcasm, remarked: “Old diseases are all the harder to cure.” And “It does the Church no good to receive clergymen from bad teachers.” To this, Hypatios of Nicaea replied: “And yet, conscience prevailed!”

To Tarasios, it seemed that repentance was sufficient. And Sabbas the Studite believed that God had led these bishops to the path of truth. But the representative of the “Easterners,” John, stated that it was still difficult for them, the monks, to resolve the matter, since it was unclear: according to what norm should these individuals be received? With the right of priesthood, and in their existing rank?

The reading of the canons began:

The Apostolic Canon – 51; the Canon of Nicaea – 9; the Canon of Ephesus – 3 (2, 4); Basil the Great’s letter to Amphilochius – 188; Basil’s other letters – 251, 263, 99, 240; the Council of Ephesus on the Messalians; the letters of Cyril of Alexandria – 57, 56; St. Athanasius to Rufinianus; examples from the History of Socrates, from Theodore the Reader, from the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, from the Life of St. Sabbas — all concerning the reception of those ordained into the priesthood by heretics.

All the available sources spoke in favor of reception. But the question of restoring episcopal rights could be disputed depending on the degree of participation in iconoclasm—that is, the degree of heretical involvement. The bishops from Sicily (of whom there were many at the council, being part of the Greek monastic emigration) through the mouth of their learned deacon, Epiphanius of Catania, proposed identifying the new heretics with some earlier heresy, and then drawing conclusions accordingly. Epiphanius asked: “Is the newly-invented heresy lesser or greater than the previous ones?” Tarasios said: “Evil is evil,” that is, he was inclined to equate the heresies. The monk John, the representative of the Patriarch of Antioch, intensified the qualification: “This heresy is the worst of all heresies, as it overthrows the dispensation of the Savior.” A number of patristic opinions and historical analogies supported the moderate position. Thus, Basil the Great considered it just to re-baptize the Encratites, but did not wish thereby to drive them away from the Church, and did not object to cases where some Encratites had already been received in their existing episcopal rank. The Third Ecumenical Council decreed that the Messalians be received in their existing rank. Cyril of Alexandria advised the zealots not to be too exacting with the repentant Nestorians, “for the matter requires great economy.”

But the monks were more impressed by the letter of St. Athanasius to Rufinianus. In it, he sets forth his practice, established by the Alexandrian Council of 362, regarding Arian clergy: the “leaders of impiety” are to be forgiven, but not given a place in the clergy, while those “drawn in by necessity and coercion” are to be forgiven and admitted to the clergy. The monks posed this question to the examinees: could it be said of them as well that they had been drawn into iconoclasm by coercion? Hypatios of Nicaea outright rejected this. He said: “Why, we were born, raised, and lived all the while within this heresy.”

It was later acknowledged that these bishops could not be regarded as teachers of heresy (they were heretics, so to speak, by inertia), and therefore they could be received in their rank. But if they were insincere, then God would be their judge.

The monks still had to be persuaded by a series of examples of heretics being received in their existing rank: Marcellus of Ancyra, and at the Fourth Ecumenical Council—Juvenal of Jerusalem, Thalassius of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Eusebius of Ancyra, Eustathius of Berytus. The ordination of heretics was also acknowledged: Meletius of Antioch had been ordained by Arians; Cyril of Jerusalem likewise, by Akakios of Caesarea and Patrophilus of Scythopolis—fierce Arians; Anatolius of Constantinople by Dioscorus; John of Jerusalem by the Severians; and the majority of the Fathers of the Sixth Ecumenical Council had been ordained by Monothelites.

The monks referred to the 240th letter of Basil the Great, where he writes: “I do not recognize as a bishop, nor would I count among the priests of Christ, one who was raised to leadership by unclean hands for the subversion of the faith.” Therefore, those ordained by him should not “dare to include themselves among the priestly pleroma.” “Here,” said the monks, “the holy Father rejects the ordination of heretics.” Patriarch Tarasios explained that Basil the Great is not saying that such persons are altogether inadmissible, but only that they should not claim admission into the Orthodox clergy as if by right. The practice during Basil’s time was determined by the circumstances of that period. “And the successors of Basil in the Church of the following times, surely knowing the opinion of the holy Father, nonetheless received those who had repented, along with their ordination from heretics.”

Finally, all acknowledged that the question had been properly clarified (ἀκριβῶς ἐξετασθέν), the repentant statements of the examinees were read aloud, and they were received in their existing rank and restored to their sees.

The third category of the accused was represented by only one—Gregory, Metropolitan of Neocaesarea. He had quite literally been “brought in” under escort by a “man of the emperor” (μανδάτωρ), who, while leading Gregory into the council, declared: “I am sent by the Gracious Sovereigns to bring the most honorable Bishop of Neocaesarea to your God-loving and holy council, before which I now stand.” Gregory was not accused of participation in last year’s rebellion, but he was an old iconoclast, a participant of the council of 754, and apparently one of the stubborn ones. Nevertheless, he appeared before the council with a readiness to be persuaded and to comprehend a viewpoint on icons unfamiliar to him until now—θέλω μετὰ πάντων καὶ φωτισθῆναι καὶ διδαχθῆναι (“I desire, together with all, to be enlightened and instructed”).

The unanimity of the council made a strong impression on him, and he asked for forgiveness.

Two doubts regarding the possibility of receiving Gregory in his rank were clarified. Tarasios reminded them that Gregory had been a bishop under Constantine Copronymus during the time of persecution. In those days, bishops could have taken part in the beating of pious icon-venerators, and for assaults, according to the 26th and 28th Apostolic Canons, clergy are to be deposed. But Tarasios added a qualification: no one should be accused without concrete evidence. Gregory himself firmly declared: “Not a single person will dare to accuse me of having struck or beaten anyone. No one suffered such an offense from me.” Sabbas the Studite asked: “Was Gregory considered an exarch of the heresy (ἐξαρχον τῆς αἱρέσεως)? Should he not be judged according to the rule of St. Athanasius in his letter to Rufinianus, as a leader of heresy?” Tarasios objected again with historical precedents: Juvenal of Jerusalem and Eustathius of Sebaste were also leaders of heresy (ἐξαρχον αἱρέσεως), and yet they were received. Finally, Gregory too was restored to his see.

Russian online source: https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Anton_Kartashev/vselenskie-sobory/7_13