The Teaching of the Church on the Mysteries of Heretics, by Metropolitan Meletios (Kalamaras) of Nikopolis (+2012)

Protopresbyter Dimitrios Athanasiou | April 23, 2026

 

 

We present below an excerpt from a theological study by the blessed Metropolitan Meletios of Nikopolis and Preveza on the mysteries performed by heretical priests, from his book The Fifth Ecumenical Council.

The main points of the text are:

A. The Church is not an administrative association, but a unity of Faith and of the Holy Spirit. Only heresy ruptures it.

B. A priest remains a “father” and a “shepherd” only so long as he rightly teaches the truth. If he deviates, he is considered a “wolf” and loses his spiritual status.

C. The heterodoxy of the priest “defiles” (pollutes) the mysteries. Participation in them does not sanctify the believer, but makes him complicit in the delusion.

D. The faithful are obliged to break communion even with those suspected of heresy (for example, the 35-year abstention of the Orthodox during the Acacian schism).

E. Commemoration is the seal of identity in the faith. Erasure from commemoration (e.g. Pope Vigilius) is necessary in order for the Church to remain pure from “impiety.”

In conclusion, what makes a priest Orthodox, and the mysteries he performs valid, is that he possesses APOSTOLIC SUCCESSION and APOSTOLIC FAITH.

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According to an indisputable ecclesiastical principle, the unity of the Church is not of an administrative-institutional form. The Church is one in the Spirit; it is united in the name of Christ. “One Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of all, Who is over all and through all and in us all.”

This unity is disturbed only by heresies. He who thinks differently, contrary to what he has received, ceases to have the unity of the faith and the communion of the Holy Spirit. For this reason, according to the Fifth [Ecumenical] Council (Act I, §3, 17), the supreme duty of priests, as guardians of the Church, is the safeguarding of the faith. The falling away of priests from the unity of the faith defiles the mysteries performed by them and removes from them the gift of spiritual fatherhood. Instead of shepherds they become wolves, devouring their flock (see Act VI, §15, 10 and Act I, 3, 14).

For this reason, Justinian declares (and the Council confirms this ‘position’ in Act VII, §16, 1–2) that he would never tolerate receiving Holy Communion from priests suspected of heresy. And the Orthodox, throughout the whole period of the Acacian schism, refused to receive the immaculate Mysteries from the hands of those merely suspected. “Why do we remain out of communion for so many (35) years? Why do we not commune?” (A.C.O. 3, p. 72). Priests and fathers are only those who preserve the faith unadulterated (Act I, §3, 14).

[,,,]

Every priest performs the immaculate Mysteries worthily and for sanctification only insofar as he is united with the faith of the Church. As a declaration and safeguard of this unity, the commemoration of the sacred diptychs is made. In the diptychs of the living are inscribed and proclaimed the names of the “in-communion” Orthodox hierarchs and patriarchs. For this reason, our Council also, in order to safeguard the purity of the holy Mysteries, removes from the sacred diptychs the name of the then-reigning Pope Vigilius (see Act VII, §§16–17). In the diptychs of the departed, only the Orthodox fathers and teachers are commemorated. For this reason also, when it was established that Theodore was preaching heterodox teachings, his name was deleted from the diptychs of the Church of Mopsuestia. It is “foreign to Christians to accept impiety (= heresy) on an equal footing with the Orthodox faith” (Act I, §3, 13). All priests must hold one and the same opinion only (Act II, §5, 7).

(The Fifth Ecumenical Council by Meletios (Kalamaras), Metropolitan of Nikopolis, Athens, 1985, pp. 104, 117.)

 

Greek source: https://apotixisi.blogspot.com/2026/04/2012.html