The Root of the Division of Those in Resistance (Part 2)

Monk Damianos Agiovasileiatis

(Part 1: https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-root-of-division-of-those-in.html)

 

 

B. The communion of Orthodox with heresy

The communion of a clergyman with heretics can be understood chiefly either as joint prayer in a non-Orthodox church, or as joint prayer “in one’s home” with heretics, or as the acceptance of baptism performed by heretics (Apostolic Canon 46) or through the commemoration of the name of a heretical bishop within an Orthodox church.

Joint prayer with heretics constitutes blasphemy against the Orthodox Church of Christ. The prohibition of communion with heretical confessions in general is expressly stated through Apostolic Canons 10, 11, 45, 46, and 65, as well as through many other later synodal canons. Those who transgress these canons are liable to judgment before their superior ecclesiastical authority, and as liable to judgment, they are certainly members of the Church, since it is certain that, on the contrary, no member found outside the Church is judged by the Church through her competent body. This is useless, and also beyond the authority of her penal jurisdiction. They are judged by the Church as her members, [1] especially since, if they are clergymen, they occupy thrones or churches of the Orthodox Church, with a multitude of faithful following them.

Communion of a clergyman with a heretical bishop through commemoration is established as follows.

It has happened many times that a canonical bishop of the Orthodox Church falls into heresy and preaches it “bareheaded in the Church,” from Canon 15 of the First-Second Council, that is, publicly. Those Orthodox clergymen—bishops, priests, deacons—who commemorate the name of this bishop in the diptychs of their parishes become partakers in his heresy, even without themselves falling away in their mindset. The responsibility of these clergy who are in communion with him toward the faithful of their parish is enormous, since through them the faithful also become communicants with the heretical bishop. Precisely for this reason the holy Fathers very severely denounced the clergy who are in communion with heretics. That is to say, while the above-mentioned heretical bishop, as one responsible before the holy Tradition of the Church, is indeed under accusation before his superior ecclesiastical authority, nevertheless, for as long as he remains unjudged and undeposed from his throne, many clergymen, not understanding that “the matter of commemoration is of great importance,” [2] naively and from long-standing habit commemorate him even “when the divine Mysteries themselves are dreadfully set forth.” [2] We are again referring to those clergymen who do not agree with the heretical mindset of the bishop. Therefore, knowing that the commemoration of the name of the heretical bishop constitutes communion with the heresy, the divine Fathers call the attention of the Orthodox faithful to avoid ecclesiastical communion also with the clergy who commemorate him, so that they may not be defiled by the “soul-destroying weed” of heretical teaching. [3]

Especially concerning those who are in communion with heretics and who know the heresy, the Church and all the holy and confessor Fathers, in order that they may understand the seriousness and danger of communion with heretics, pronounce categorically: “The teaching of the Church and Her belief was and will be: ‘No communion with those of another mind and with heretics.’ Thus Saint Mark Eugenikos says: ‘All the teachers of the Church, all the Councils, all the divine Scriptures, exhort us to flee those of another mind and to separate ourselves from communion with them.’ And Saint Theodore the Studite, writing to a certain abbot Theophilos, notes: ‘For Chrysostom, with a great and mighty voice, declared enemies of God not only the heretics, but also those who are in communion with such persons.’” (My Walling Off, Archim. Chrysostomos Spyrou, p. 94.)

However, it happens that many of those who are in communion with those under accusation, both clergy and laity, do not have knowledge concerning their anti-Orthodox confession, whether they are primates or subordinate clergymen, and for various reasons regard them as Orthodox. For example, in the time of Saint Maximus the Confessor, in the 7th century, before the convocation of the Sixth Ecumenical Council, through which Monothelitism–Monoenergism, difficult for many to discern, was condemned, nearly all the Patriarchates and the local Churches at their higher levels had fallen into this heresy. The heretics Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter were patriarchs of Constantinople in succession for five decades. Honorius, Pope of Rome, Cyrus of Alexandria, Theodore of Pharan in Egypt, and Maximus of Antioch were likewise heretics. Therefore, such multitudes of faithful, clergy and laity, were in communion with them for so many decades, regarding them more or less as Orthodox primates.

Certainly, those among the Orthodox who discerned their heretical teaching and broke ecclesiastical communion with them, having in mind the practice of the earlier saints, acted excellently, and from an ecclesiological point of view were considered canonically praiseworthy. Those who broke communion were, of course, persecuted, imprisoned, exiled, and martyred, with the great champion and confessor of the Theanthropic truths, Saint Maximus, truly the boast of monks and glory of the Church, leading the way. But the discernment of such an exceedingly hard-to-perceive delusion is always the privilege of the few, of those who have acquired primarily an education in piety, and even in external philosophy. Naturally, many faithful, looking to these saints and coming through them to know the heresy and the heretical false bishops and false teachers, followed them, walling themselves off as well. Yet how many faithful, in that vast empire and beyond, had full or even partial ignorance concerning the delusion of so many patriarchs, bishops, and other clergymen, of nearly all the local Churches?

But while knowledge does make the faithful laity responsible, the councils, however, always investigated the leaders of the heresies, usually the highest-ranking clergy, and them alone. There are no testimonies of penalties being imposed on the multitude of the faithful, but only recommendations to avoid communion with heretics, both judged and unjudged. This is because the clergy, as the eyes of the Church, are obliged, even before a synodal judgment on heresies, to know precisely the faith and the dogmas of the Orthodox Church. Characteristic is the case of the repentant iconoclast bishop Gregory of Neocaesarea, who came before the Seventh Ecumenical Council, where Saint Tarasios, presiding over it, said the following to him:

“Tarasios: Has the truth escaped you until now as something unknown to you, or have you despised it as something known?

Gregory: Believe me, master, as something unknown; and I ask to learn, as the master and the Holy Council command...

Tarasios: You ought from times long past to have opened your ears, and to have heard Paul the divine Apostle saying: ‘Hold fast the traditions’...” (Acts of the Councils. S. Milias. Vol. 3, p. 242.)

As is known, Gregory was received by the Council, in the third session, as a bishop, having renounced iconoclasm by a libellus only. Neither ordination nor chrismation was performed. And, being judged by the Council, he was judged as a bishop of the Church and as Her member.

As is evident, therefore, in this category there also enters the factor of knowledge, on the part of the faithful who are in communion, of the deviation of the presiding clergymen. Those in communion, who have full knowledge of the matter, are indeed responsible and liable to the anathemas of the sacred canons; but until the heterodox teaching is adjudicated by the competent organ of the Church, and until its leaders, being unrepentant, are expelled from the Church, they naturally remain within Her. And if, after the synodal judgment and condemnation, they follow those who have by then been “torn away” from the Church, they too are expelled. That is, they “place themselves outside the Church.” But if they renounce the delusion, accepting the decision of the council, and do not follow them, they continue thereafter to remain within the Church. This, of course, also applies to those who until then were in communion in ignorance, since after the discernment and condemnation of the heretical teaching and of its bearers, even ignorance is no longer justified. The difference between those who are in communion knowingly and those who are in communion in ignorance consists in the fact that, when partaking of the divine Mysteries, the former are condemned as being responsible under the anathemas of the sacred canons, while the latter are judged at least worthy of oikonomia. Most clearly Saint John of Damascus says: “With all our strength, therefore, let us guard ourselves against receiving communion from heretics, or giving it... lest we become partakers of their evil belief and of their condemnation.” Reasonably, the phrase “let us guard ourselves with all our strength” refers to those who knowingly are in communion. Nevertheless, even those who are in communion in ignorance are not completely without responsibility; for “they are rational sheep,” and for this reason Scripture says: “He who knew and did not do shall be beaten with many stripes; but he who did not know, yet did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few.”

But why do we speak about whether the simple faithful, clergy and laity, who are in communion with their unjudged primates, are considered to be within the Church, when it often happens that the primates themselves are in communion with condemned heretics, and are even bearers of the same condemned heresy, that is, in mindset? That it is absolutely required that the deviation of these primates be adjudicated, and that in the case of impenitence they be deposed, we have already mentioned in the first part of our question. Therefore, until they are deposed, they remain, indulgently, as “active” members of the Church on their thrones. From the greater, then, the lesser is inferred, and the fact admits of no dispute that the faithful who are in communion with their accused primates are members of the Church. Here we insist on this view, speaking of the simple faithful as members of the Church, even though they are in communion with unjudged heretics, for two reasons. First, several ecclesiastical figures today hold the erroneous view that bishops of an autocephalous local Church who have fallen into heresy go out, “at the very moment of transgression,” together with those who follow them (i.e., the entire fullness of the local Church!!!), outside the Orthodox Catholic Church. This view, of course, has also led them to the corresponding practice regarding the holy Mysteries, chiefly Baptism and Chrismation, a fact in which even ordinary reason perceives the very grave responsibilities with which it burdens them, as well as the scandal it causes to well-intentioned faithful from the prevailing Church who wish to flee communion with Ecumenism. Moreover, they say that those walling themselves off not only remain within the Church while awaiting their vindication by some council, but that they alone constitute that local Church. And second, the view of these same ecclesiastical figures that the Mysteries performed by unjudged heretics are invalid sends even those faithful who are in communion with these unjudged heretics in ignorance, as it ought not, to spiritual death, although they are certainly not responsible.

Recent ecclesiastical developments [i.e., the union of 2014] have brought about the unavoidable necessity for the resisters, at least those from the historical Florinite faction, to rise to the level of these UNIQUE circumstances and to follow fully and clearly the ecclesiology [4] of the former Metropolitan of Florina, Chrysostomos, which is documented from every point of view. They rightly honored him with his recent canonization, but it would please him much more if his words were now put into practice. For those who still have objections concerning certain “ambiguities” of his, we shall return to the matter.

(To be continued.)

NOTES

1. “…the excommunicated person loses without anything further whatever status he may possess, whether as a clergyman or monk, or, as a layman, an ecclesiastical office, for example that of ecclesiastical council member, since the prerequisite not only for the acquisition but also for the preservation of these statuses is membership in the Orthodox Church, which is lost through excommunication; all the more so, since this is now imposed only against apostates and heretics.” (Greek Ecclesiastical Law. A. Christofilopoulos, p. 274.)

2. From the letter of the Athonite Fathers to Emperor Michael VIII.

3. Although Canon 15 of the First-Second Council was composed much later, in the time of Photios the Great, nevertheless the Confessor Fathers always preserved in practice precisely the same spirit of the canon, having, of course, in mind Apostolic Canon 31.

4. For the most part, our argumentation concerning the validity of the Mysteries of unjudged heretics, and by extension also of the ecumenism confessing New Calendarist Church, on account of communion and not only that, was drawn from the encyclicals and homilies of the former Metropolitan of Florina.

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2016/07/blog-post_3.html