Theologian Mihai-Silviu Chirilă
Separation from
the Heretic in Holy Scripture
Separation from the heretical man
is commanded by Holy Scripture, through the words of the Holy Apostle Paul and
of the Holy Apostle and Evangelist John. The Holy Apostle Paul counsels Titus:
“A man that is a heretic, after the first and second admonition, reject.
Knowing that he that is such is subverted and has fallen into sin, being
self-condemned” (Tit. 3:10–11).
In the Epistle to the Romans, the
Holy Apostle Paul warns: “And I beseech you, brethren, to mark those who cause
divisions and offenses contrary to the teaching which you have received. Depart
from them” (Rom. 16:17).
In the Epistle to the Galatians,
the Holy Apostle Paul says: “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should
preach to you another Gospel than that which we preached to you, let him be
anathema! As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone preaches to you
anything other than what you have received, let him be anathema!” (Galatians
1:8–9).
For his part, the Holy Apostle
and Evangelist John teaches: “If anyone comes to you and does not bring this
teaching, do not receive him into the house and do not say to him: Welcome! For
he who says to him: Welcome! becomes a partaker in his evil deeds” (2 John
1:10–11).
Canonical Grounds
for the Interruption of Commemoration
The commemoration of the hierarch
at services has two meanings: it shows the priest’s submission to the
respective hierarch, and the fact that the priest preaches the teachings taught
by the hierarch whom he commemorates. For this reason, the cessation of the
commemoration of the hierarch for any reason other than his heresy is
considered schism and is sanctioned by the deposition of the respective priest.
Under the conditions in which the hierarch openly preaches a heresy, the
continuation of his commemoration means that the commemorating priest is a
partaker in the heresy which the bishop publicly preaches, and at the judgment
of Christ he will have the same fate as the heretical bishop with whom he
remains in communion.
There are two holy canons which
provide that, in the case in which the local hierarch is manifestly teaching a
heresy, the priest has the right to fence himself off from this heresy through
the interruption of the commemoration of the hierarch at the holy services:
Apostolic Canon 31 and Canon 15 of the First-Second Council of Constantinople.
Apostolic Canon 31: “If any
presbyter, despising his bishop, shall make a separate assembly and establish
another altar, knowing no fault against the bishop in piety and in
righteousness, let him be deposed as a lover of rule; likewise also the other
clerics who shall join themselves to him, for they are tyrants and usurpers.
And let the laymen be excommunicated. But let this be done after the first, and
second, and third entreaty of the bishop,” [1] refers to the condemnation of
the priest who would separate from his bishop for any reason other than heresy,
as results from its interpretation in the Pedalion: “any presbyter who
would despise his bishop and, without knowing that he errs manifestly either in
piety or in righteousness, that is, without knowing him to be manifestly either
a heretic or unjust.” [2] The interpretation introduces the conjunction “or,”
showing that, in order for the commemoration of the bishop to be stopped, it is
not necessary for both conditions to be met, namely that he be both a heretic
and unjust; it is sufficient that one of the two conditions be fulfilled.
When the priest interrupts
commemoration on the grounds of the hierarch’s partaking in heresy, the
interpretation of Apostolic Canon 31 says that he cannot be subjected to any
sanction: “and as many as separate from their bishop before a synodal investigation
because he preaches in the hearing of all some evil opinion and heresy, such
persons not only are not subject to the examination mentioned above, but are
also deemed worthy of the fitting honor of the right-believing, according to
Canon 15 of the First-Second Council.” [3] The interpretation introduces the
condition mentioned by Canon 15 of the First-Second Council, of separation from
the heretical bishop before a synodal investigation, but speaks of the bishop’s
preaching of some heresy in general, without retaining the specification from
Canon 15 of the First-Second Council that the heresy be condemned by the Holy
Councils or by the Holy Fathers.
The same understanding of the
canon is also held by the professor of Canon Law Ioan N. Floca, whose manual of
Canon Law is normative for contemporary Romanian theological schools, in his
work The Canons of the Orthodox Church, Notes and Commentaries: “It is
considered that the accomplices of schismatic clerics also fall under the same
penalty, of course if these do not separate from their bishop for well-founded
reasons, such as the bishop’s deviation from the right faith and from conduct
according to justice. From the text of the canon, it results that in such cases
the clerics are free to separate from their bishop, that is, to leave his
obedience.” [4]
Canon 15 of the First-Second
Council has two parts: the first, which speaks about the obligation of
commemorating the hierarchical superior and about the relationship between the
metropolitan and the patriarch from this point of view, being a continuation of
Canons 13 and 14, in which the relationship between priest and bishop,
respectively between bishop and metropolitan, is regulated from the perspective
of their commemoration at services; the second part of the canon, formulated
thus: “for those who separate themselves from communion with their president on
account of some heresy of his condemned by the Holy Councils or by the Holy
Fathers, that is, from him who publicly preaches the heresy and teaches it with
uncovered head, such persons not only are not subject to canonical censures,
walling themselves off from communion with the named bishop before a synodal
investigation, but they shall also be deemed worthy of the honor due to the
right-believing. For they have not condemned bishops, but false bishops and
false teachers. And they have not broken the unity of the Church by schism, but
have hastened to deliver the Church from schisms and divisions,” permits the
priest to cease commemorating his hierarch in the situation in which the latter
should publicly preach a heresy.
The second part of the canon
introduces the exception of the situation of heresy to Canons 13, 14, and the
first part of Canon 15, because these canons refer to the situation in which
the priest, bishop, or metropolitan interrupts commemoration “on the pretext of
some accusation,” that is, for any other deed which the non-commemorated
hierarch may have committed (the interpretation of the canon also gives us two
examples of such deeds: fornications or sacrilege), [5] with the exception of
heresy, for which the canon permits, in the second part, that the priest,
bishop, or metropolitan separate from their president before the synodal
investigation. The fact that the priest also has the right to do this results
from the formulation “those who separate themselves from communion with their
president,” which includes priests as well, and from the connection which the
interpretation of Apostolic Canon 31 makes (which speaks strictly about the
interruption of the commemoration of the hierarch by the priest) with the
second part of Canon 15 of the First-Second Council.
Commenting on Canon 15 of the
First-Second Council, Professor Ioan Floca states that: “taking into account
the provisions of Canons 13 and 15, it is mentioned that these provide only for
the situation when those concerned cause schism against their superior by
invoking certain offenses committed by him, but unproven. In the case in which
the superior publicly preaches in church some heretical teaching, then the
respective persons [the priests – author’s note] have the right and the duty to
separate immediately from that superior. In this case, not only will they not
be sanctioned, but they will be praised, because they have lawfully condemned
the guilty one and have not rebelled against him.” [6]
Father Ioan Floca’s commentary
introduces several very important elements in the understanding of this canon:
• It does not strictly condition
the public preaching of a heresy condemned by the Holy Councils or the Holy
Fathers, it being understood that it is a matter of heresy in general, which is
condemned both by councils and by the Fathers, by the fact that it is contrary
to their teaching, not only of a certain heresy already condemned by them.
• The interruption of
commemoration is perceived as a right and as an obligation of the priest.
• The interruption of
commemoration must be done immediately once knowledge has been taken of the
existence of a heresy in the bishop’s preaching.
• The priest who interrupted
commemoration lawfully condemned the guilty one and did not rebel against him.
The duty of interrupting
commemoration by the priest derives first of all from his status as shepherd of
the flock of Christ. In this capacity, he has the obligation to obey Christ,
the word of His Gospel, the teachings of the Holy Fathers and of the Holy
Canons, as he promises in the Confession which he makes at ordination, when he
says: “Throughout my whole life I will be guided by the teachings of the Holy
Gospel, of the Holy Apostles, by the Holy Canons and the teachings of the Holy
Fathers of the Orthodox Church.” [7] Submission and fidelity toward the bishop,
as even the confession at ordination conceives them, invoked insistently in the
consistories which judge the confessing priests, are assumed for the situation
in which the bishop, for his part, fulfills the promise given at his own
ordination as hierarch, to keep all the holy dogmatic and canonical teachings
of the Church, the teachings of the Holy Fathers, and the Holy Orthodox
Tradition. At the moment when the bishop is no longer guided by these, the
priest must remain obedient to Christ and to His Church, as Father Iustin Pârvu
also remarked: “Our hierarchs, when they are invested in the episcopacy, take
an oath that they oblige themselves to preserve the right faith and the seven
Ecumenical Councils. If they violate the oath, then they are no longer bishops,
they no longer submit to their superiors, their shepherds. If they do not
submit to their superiors, that is, to the Holy Fathers, how can they demand
obedience from us? We do not listen to thieves, but to the voice of the Church,
which speaks through the Holy Fathers, not through minds intoxicated by the
gilded miters on their heads.” [8]
Remaining obedient to Christ and
to the Church, to the Holy Apostles, the Holy Fathers, and the Holy Ecumenical
Councils, the priest cannot be charged with the dogmatic offense of failing to
observe the Confession of ecclesial fidelity (art. 14 RACDIJBOR [“Regulation of
the Canonical Disciplinary Authorities and of the Courts of Judgment of the
Romanian Orthodox Church”]), or with the administrative disciplinary offenses
of disobedience toward ecclesiastical authority (art. 34 RACDIJBOR), or public
contradiction of the official position of the Church (art. 39 RACDIJBOR), on
the basis of which confessing priests have already been uncanonically deposed.
The fact that the two canons,
Apostolic Canon 31 and Canon 15 of the First-Second Council, do not have an
imperative provision by which the priest is simply compelled to interrupt
commemoration does not mean that they are optional, but that they involve the
living priestly conscience of the servant of the altar, called to take the
measure which is required and which is permitted to him by the respective
canons. The obligatory character is also given by the grave consequences
entailed by remaining in communion with heretics, emphasized by other canons of
the Holy Church.
In favor of the obligatory
character of this canon there also pleads the second thesis of Canon 3 of the
Third Ecumenical Council, which commands priests not to remain in communion and
obedience toward the heretics condemned at that council: “In general, we
command that those clerics who think alike (teach in agreement) with the
Orthodox and Ecumenical Council should in no way and by no means be subject to
the bishops who have split off or to those who separate themselves (from the
Church).” [9] The canon refers to remaining in communion with Nestorius after
his condemnation as a heretic by the Ecumenical Council, rehabilitating those
who had the courage and the Orthodox priestly conscience to confront the same
Nestorius before he was condemned. From this it results that disobedience
toward a heretical bishop not yet condemned by an Ecumenical Council is at
least a moral imperative, if not a judicial one.
The provisions of the holy canons
are obligatory for Orthodox faithful, whether laymen or clerics, even if,
taking into account different contexts and realities, their formulation is not
always imperative. Regardless of whether or not we accept the obligatory
character of Canon 15 of the First-Second Council, the important aspect in the
act of stopping commemoration is that this canon permits the priest who wishes
to separate himself from the heresy preached by his bishop to do so.
Closely connected with the moral
obligation to separate from the bishop who preaches heresies is also the
immediate character of the interruption of commemoration. The priest who
determines that his bishop is a heretic has to choose between remaining in communion
with that bishop and following the exhortation of Saint John Chrysostom, who
says: “If your bishop is a heretic, flee, flee, flee as from fire and from a
serpent,” and that of Saint Ignatius the God-bearer: “If your bishop should
teach anything outside the given order, even if he lives in purity, or performs
signs, or prophesies, let him be to you as a wolf in sheep’s clothing, for he
works the destruction of souls.” [10]
The eparchial consistories which
judge the confessing priests in our Church commit a deliberate confusion
between the lawful condemnation of the false bishop for heresy and the
introduction of a judicial action against the bishop. In order to maintain this
confusion and to try to establish the claim that the priest is not permitted to
bring an accusation against his bishop, the consistorial judges invoke the
provisions of Canon 6 of the Second Ecumenical Council, which “regulates the
manner in which an accusation or judicial action may be introduced against
bishops.” [11]
The interruption of commemoration
because of the bishop’s partaking in a heretical teaching is not a judicial
action against the bishop, nor an act of defaming him by accusing him unjustly,
but a measure of non-participation in the heresy in which he becomes a
partaker. Apostolic Canon 31 makes a distinction between defaming the bishop,
in situations in which he is accused of unproven deeds, and the interruption of
commemoration in a situation of partaking in heresy, concerning which it gives
one to understand that it does not constitute defamation of the hierarch. In
turn, Canon 6 of the Second Ecumenical Council shows us a procedure different
from that of the procedure of the interruption of commemoration, precisely
because it regulates different situations: ecclesiastical legal action against
the bishop is made through a petition in which the bishop is accused of civil
or ecclesiastical offenses, whereas the procedure of interrupting commemoration
condemns the one who preaches the heresy by the simple disclosure of this
heresy and by the positioning of the priest on the side of Orthodoxy, without
asking an ecclesiastical tribunal for any kind of reparation for the priest who
interrupts commemoration or for any condemnation of the bishop for this,
leaving to the local or Ecumenical Council the judgment of the bishop for the
respective heresy. For this reason, the accusation brought against the priests
that they have substituted themselves for the council in judging the bishop is
without substance.
The Interruption
of Commemoration for the Bishop’s Heresy Is Not Schism
Through the cessation of
commemoration of the heretical bishop or of one who is a partaker in heresy, no
schism is produced, nor does there occur the priest’s fall from the state of
grace or the invalidity of the Holy Liturgy and of the mysteries performed by
him. If this were so, then the Holy Fathers would not have permitted, through
the two canons, the practice of ceasing the commemoration of the hierarch by
the priest who wishes to fence himself off from the heresy preached by him.
The grace of the priesthood is
given by Christ through the performance of the Holy Mystery of Ordination by
the bishop, who is the performer of the mystery, and not the source of grace.
In the case in which the priest interrupts the commemoration of the hierarch
for any reason other than heresy, then he makes himself guilty of schism,
according to Apostolic Canon 31 and Canon 13 of the First-Second Council of
Constantinople, and for this reason he may bear the penalty of deposition, by
which the right to serve the things of the Priesthood is taken away from him.
Since the commemoration of the hierarch’s name being stopped for the reason of
heresy is not schism, as Canon 15 of the First-Second Council of Constantinople
clearly shows, but a defense of the Church from heresy and schism, the work of
the grace of the Priesthood cannot be lost by the one who has walled himself
off from the heresy preached by the hierarch, and the Mysteries performed by
this priest are entirely valid, as Canon 3 of the Third Ecumenical Council also
shows, even under the conditions in which a deposition has officially been
pronounced against the priest. Moreover, those who stop commemorating a
heretical bishop “are not subject to the censure of those above, but are also
deemed worthy of the fitting honor of the right-believing, according to Canon
15 of the First-Second Council.” [12]
The central place of the bishop
in the Church is recorded both by Orthodox doctrine and by the practice of the
holy canons. There is, however, a condition of this important role of the
hierarch: the preaching of the truth of the faith and the preservation of the
right faith. The operation of the Holy Mysteries in the Church is carried out
in full communion with the confession of the true faith, the Mysteries in
themselves not being salvific without the right faith. At the moment when the
bishop no longer preaches the truth of the faith, he becomes, as Canon 15 of
the First-Second Council says, a “false bishop and false teacher,” and no
obedience is owed to him anymore as long as he persists in heresy.
The Conditions of
the Interruption of Commemoration
The argument is erroneous that if
the heretical bishop, not yet judged by a council and not condemned, performs a
deposition of an Orthodox priest who has stopped commemorating him because of
the heresy which the bishop preaches, the deposition could be valid, because
the bishop still has grace, by virtue of the fact that he has not yet been
subjected to judgment and condemnation. Even if, until his deposition from rank
by a council, the heretical bishop still has sanctifying grace, deposition is
not a Holy Mystery, so as to have a connection with the grace of the performer,
but a disciplinary measure, which has to do exclusively with the guilt of the
one against whom the measure is taken. In the case of deposition for stopping
the commemoration of a heretical bishop, the guilt of the priest cannot be
invoked, because his gesture is covered by the provisions of Apostolic Canon 31
and Canon 15 of the First-Second Council. What must be established is whether
the conditions were respected of the bishop’s preaching the heresy publicly and
in church with uncovered head. For this reason, the Third Ecumenical Council
recognized the priesthoods performed by Nestorius, in which sanctifying grace
was working, although he was a heretic, because he had not yet been deposed
from rank by a council, but it annulled all the depositions performed by him,
because those deposed were innocent and, instead of being deposed, should have
been honored as defenders of the Church.
The first condition which must be
fulfilled is that the bishop preach a heresy. The textbook dogmatic definition
of heresy is that it represents an opinion or a doctrine contrary to divine
Revelation. Therefore, the stopping of commemoration can be done from the
moment when the bishop preaches a doctrine contrary to the teaching of the
Church, which She has held always, by all, and everywhere. This interpretation
excludes the idea that commemoration can be interrupted only when one reaches
the “common chalice,” because intercommunion is the final stage of the fall
into heresy, the moment at which the interruption of commemoration would
already be late. The “common chalice” is nothing but an effect of heresy,
whereas the cause is the wrong doctrine accepted by the heretical bishop, who
must be a watchman of the Orthodoxy of thought and of the preaching of the Word
of God.
Canon 15 of the First-Second
Council imposes, as a condition of the canonicity of the cessation of
commemoration, that the bishop preach “some heresy condemned by the Holy
Councils or by the Holy Fathers.” [13] There is the restrictive interpretation,
which some priests schooled in theological argumentation use as an excuse for
not interrupting commemoration, and which the decision of the Holy Synod of
December 16, 2016, also tried to establish, in which much was made of the fact
that Ecumenism has not yet been condemned by a canonical Orthodox council or by
canons issued by a Holy Father: namely, that the stopping of commemoration can
be done only if the bishop preaches a heresy which has already been condemned
by the Holy Councils of the Church or by the Holy Fathers. This interpretation
is contradicted, however, by the provision of Canon 3 of the Third Ecumenical
Council, which invalidated all the depositions performed by Nestorius against
some priests who refused to follow him in his heresy while he was patriarch. At
the moment when he performed the respective depositions, Nestorius and his
heresy had not yet been condemned by an Ecumenical Council, the condemnation
taking place at the Third Council, which also annulled the respective
depositions.
The correct understanding of the
relationship between the heresy preached by the bishop and its condemnation by
canonical legislation and patristic thought was also held by saints such as
Saint Maximus the Confessor, whose struggle against Monothelitism took place
before the official condemnation of this heresy; Saint Gregory Palamas, who
interrupted the commemoration of the hierarch John Kalekas because of his
Latin-mindedness, before the latter’s condemnation; or, closer to our own days,
Saint Paisios the Athonite, who interrupted commemoration because of the
heretical statements and deeds of the Ecumenical Patriarch of his epoch.
Therefore, in order for the
priest to stop commemoration, it is sufficient that the heresy which the bishop
preaches be condemned by the Holy Canons or the Holy Fathers in the sense that
it is contrary to all that these and the mind of the Church in general have
established up to now. The use of the conjunction “or” in the expression “the
Holy Councils or the Holy Fathers” also leads us to this conclusion, showing
that it is not necessary for there to be a definitive synodal decision
condemning the heresy which a bishop preaches, in order for his priests to
interrupt commemoration, but it is sufficient that this heresy be condemned by
the thought of the Holy Fathers, and not necessarily by the canons of the Holy
Fathers. If the stopping of commemoration operated only for heresies of the
past, it could no longer be a method of defending the Church against the
heresies of the present.
Another condition for the
interruption of commemoration is the preaching of the heresy with uncovered
head, that is, publicly and without any kind of restriction. Participation in a
council with a purportedly pan-Orthodox character and the signing of the
heretical documents issued by it, or their tacit acceptance, fulfill the
condition of preaching the heresy publicly. The transmission of messages of
peace and calm in church, by which the hierarchs assure the faithful that the
officialization of Ecumenism at the pan-Orthodox level has produced no change
at the level of Orthodox ecclesiology and that Orthodoxy is safe, or the
condemnation of those who fight against the Council of Crete as schismatics,
who, as the Paschal Pastoral Letter sent to all the churches in the Archdiocese
of Iași expressed it, “on unfounded grounds accuse the Council of Crete of
doctrinal errors,” [14] fully satisfies the condition of preaching the heresy
with uncovered head in church.
Relating ourselves to the
situation created by the pseudo-synod of Crete, it can be said that both
conditions required by Canon 15 of the First-Second Council are met, since the
bishops who participated in this council signed documents of a heretical character,
which they presented to the whole world as being Orthodox, and these documents
contain heretical ideas condemned both by the Ecumenical Councils of old (the
idea that heresies are “churches,” that the unity of the Church has been lost,
that there exist full Churches and incomplete churches, the idea of religious
cooperation between Orthodox and heretics, etc.), and by some local councils of
our epoch (the ROCOR Council, the Council of the Georgian Church), or by the
thought of the Holy Fathers of the twentieth century (Saint Justin Popović,
Saint Nikolai Velimirović, Saint John Maximovitch, Saint Paisios the Athonite,
Saint John Jacob of Neamț, Saint Seraphim Sobolev).
The Interruption
of Commemoration by the Holy Fathers
There are Holy Fathers who
interrupted the commemoration of heretical hierarchs or participation in the
services where heretical bishops were commemorated. Among these, the best-known
examples are those of Saint John Damascene, Saint Maximus the Confessor, Saint
Theodore the Studite, the Athonite Fathers from the time of John Vekkos, the
Latin-minded patriarch, Saint Gregory Palamas, Venerable Joseph Bryennios, and
Saint Mark Eugenikos. [15]
When he was imprisoned for his
opposition to Monothelitism and to the hierarchs who shared the Monothelite
heresy, Saint Maximus the Confessor said: “Even if the whole Universe should be
in communion with the Patriarch, I will not be in communion with him. As I know
that the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Paul, says that the angels themselves
will be anathema if they should preach otherwise, bringing something new into
the faith (Galatians 1:8).” [16]
The Holy Mountain of Athos has a
tradition of the practice of interrupting the commemoration of the heretical
hierarch. In the thirteenth century, the Athonite monasteries interrupted the
commemoration of the heretical bishop John Vekkos and endured his armed
persecution, giving a number of martyrs on that occasion.
Saint Gregory Palamas interrupted
the commemoration of the hierarch John Kalekas while he was a hieromonk on the
Holy Mountain, and Kalekas had not been condemned by a Council. The patriarch
issued an anathema against the saint, but the saint continued to serve, not
taking into account the anathema of the heretical patriarch.
Likewise, the Holy Mountain of
Athos practiced the interruption of commemoration at the moment when Ecumenical
Patriarch Athenagoras lifted, by his own authority, the anathemas against the
papists in 1965. In 1971, Venerable Paisios the Athonite sent a letter by which
he announced the cessation of the commemoration of the Ecumenical Patriarch by
Stavronikita Monastery: “In particular, in our monastery, not looking to the
reaction of all the monasteries on Athos, the name of the Patriarch was
commemorated for the sake of ecclesiastical unity. However, after the
Patriarch’s declaration that the Filioque and the primacy of the pope of
Rome are only simple traditions, we interrupted his commemoration, feeling that
the cup of our patience had been filled and that it was no longer possible to
wait. Such declarations represent not only the overthrow of the God-given and
life-giving tradition of our Holy Church — but also a mockery of the
much-suffering world of the West… In this way, following the Patriarch in his
ecumenist acrobatics not only comes into contradiction with Orthodox piety, but
in general is also unserious.” [17]
Ecclesiastical
Communion
The interruption of the
commemoration of the hierarch by the priest has a correspondence among the
faithful through the interruption of ecclesiastical communion with the priests
who commemorate at the services the hierarchs who are partakers in heresy. The
purpose of interrupting the commemoration of the hierarch is to sound an alarm
that a heresy is being preached in the Church, and this can only happen at the
moment when the faithful people join the priests who interrupt commemoration
and no longer frequent the churches where the hierarch is commemorated.
The interruption of commemoration
before the synodal investigation of the bishop who is a partaker in heresy is
done because in the churches where his name is commemorated there exists
heresy, not because grace would no longer exist. The people who separate from
the priest commemorating the hierarch who is a partaker in heresy do not do so
because valid Holy Mysteries would no longer be performed in that one’s church,
but because their partaking of those Holy Mysteries would be unto condemnation,
since they know that they receive them from the hand of a priest who is a
partaker in heresy.
The patristic argumentation for
following the non-commemorating priests and for the interruption of
ecclesiastical communion with those who commemorate hierarchs who are partakers
in heresy is based on the exhortations of the Holy Fathers, addressed to the
faithful, not to be in communion with them. The clearest of these is that of
Saint Germanos II, Patriarch of Constantinople (1222–1240): “I adjure all
laymen, all of you who are true sons of the Orthodox Catholic Church, to depart
as quickly as possible from the priests who have submitted to the Latins, and
neither gather with them in church, nor receive any blessing from their hands.
It is better for you to pray to God in your houses alone than to gather in
church together with those who have a Latin mind. Otherwise, you will suffer
the same condemnation as they.” [18] The same counsel is also given by Saint
Theodore the Studite to Naukratios, as we shall see in what follows.
The Limits of
Economy
Speaking about the application of
economy, Saint Theodore the Studite explains that there is “permanent economy,”
and gives the example of Saint Athanasios, who used for the faithful in Italy
the term “person” instead of “hypostasis,” and “economy for a time,” which he
defines thus: “these things are done for a time, having nothing worthy of
blame, nor are they in any way outside the law, but they lower the bar and do
not belong to excessive exactness. This is economy ‘for a time.’” [19] This
definition of Saint Theodore is an answer to Naukratios’s question “why the
divine Cyril used economy so as not to separate from those in the East, who
commemorated Theodore of Mopsuestia in the diptychs, he being a heretic, if
these held the most right and most important dogmas of the right faith?” [20]
Saint Theodore’s answer was: “therefore, he endured the slowness of the
Easterners, rather than, by their not accepting the one who was truly a
heretic, that they accept an inclination toward what is heretical.” [21] And
the argumentation of this temporary economy is based on the fact that “once the
faith is preached in an Orthodox manner, by this they anathematized even the
one commemorated by them. For everyone who is Orthodox in all things
potentially [en dunamei] anathematizes every heretic, even if not also
by word.” [22]
The application of this temporary
economy at the level of relations between bishoprics, metropolitanates, and
patriarchates is completed by the answer to another question of Naukratios: “If
the bishop was not present at the adulterous council and calls it a false
assembly, but commemorates his metropolitan who was present at that council,
should we receive communion from a priest of that Orthodox bishop?” The answer
is: “For economy, we should [receive communion], provided only that he [the
priest] does not liturgize together with the heretics. For there is nothing
wrong, since he commemorates the Orthodox bishop, even if that one, out of
fear, commemorates his heretical metropolitan.” [23] The answer continues: “If
the priest of such a bishop is called to a vigil, we should go, and the church
given to him should be accepted, and it should be permitted for him [the
priest] to come to liturgize in it or to commemorate some dead person, Orthodox
of course, and he is forgiven, and nothing prevents the [priest] who received
[the church from that bishop] from liturgizing in it.” [24]
The temporary economy which is
applied to the bishop with Orthodox faith is not also applied to the priest
with Orthodox faith who commemorates the heretical bishop, because this one,
through commemoration, confesses the faith of his bishop: “But if the priest
commemorates some heretical bishop, even if the priest has a blessed way of
life, even if he is Orthodox, we must depart from divine communion; but when it
is a matter of the common table—since only there [at the liturgy] does he
commemorate [the heretical bishop] out of fear—he [that priest] could be
accepted to bless and to chant with us, but only if he has not served, nor has
knowingly had partaking either with a heretic, or with his bishop, or with any
other such person.” [25]
This limit of economy is imposed
in the relationship between priests and between priests and the faithful in an
answer to another question addressed by Naukratios. The question was connected
with the Orthodox priest who commemorates the heretical bishop out of fear of
persecution, and the answer was: “If he does not liturgize together with a
heretic and does not commune with such persons, such a one must be received
when it is a matter of eating together and psalmody and the blessing of food,
and this by economy, but not for divine communion. And, as long as the heresy
lasts, investigation is absolutely necessary; and as for the claim that the
confession would suffice for those received, I know only that this is clearly a
great deceit… Only in the time when heresy is not unleashed, and only in
connection with those who are not clearly condemned, are we taught by the
Fathers not to investigate. But such a priest, who is not mixed up with and
does not have partaking with heretics, is rarely found now.” [26]
The Bishop Is Not
Permitted to Judge His Own Cause
The last aspect which we analyze
in this report concerns the grave canonical contradictions which appear at the
moment when the ruling hierarchs who are partakers in heresy ignore Apostolic
Canon 31, Canon 15 of the First-Second Council, and Canon 3 of the Third
Council, and decide to send the confessing priests to trial. Because in the
Regulation of the Canonical Disciplinary Authorities and of the Courts of
Judgment of the Romanian Orthodox Church (RACDIJBOR) there is no procedure for
judging the priest who interrupts the commemoration of his bishop because of
the latter’s participation in heresy, since for this interruption of
commemoration there should be no procedure, as it is not a disciplinary offense
of any kind, the consistories send the priests to trial according to the
procedures provided for ordinary offenses.
The first incompatibility which
arises in this situation is the violation by the bishops who send the
confessing priests to trial of Canon 118, 112 in the Pedalion: “It has
pleased that a bishop should not judge his own judgment,” whose interpretation
is: “This canon ordains that a bishop may not judge either another bishop who
would have some case with him, nor the presbyter who would have some case with
him. Nor any other cleric, according to Canon 9 of the Fourth Council. Nor can
a single bishop depose either a presbyter accused by another, or a deacon,
according to Canon 12 of this Council. See also Apostolic Canon 74.” This canon
is a transposition into ecclesiastical life of the principle of Roman law nemo
in rem suam auctor esse potest, “no one can judge his own cause.” [27]
From this incompatibility others
derive: the consistories are incompatible, because they are appointed by the
hierarch and judge in his name; the priests cannot benefit from ecclesiastical
lawyers, because these too are employees of the same bishop; the appeal cannot
be made to six bishops, plus the suffragan, as Canon 12 of Carthage requires,
because the metropolitan consistories and the national ecclesiastical
consistory are not composed of bishops; and the bishops who give synodal
approvals for appeals are in the same state of incompatibility, being partakers
in the same heresy, in some cases themselves pronouncing such uncanonical
depositions, and in some situations the hierarchs who approve the appeal are
the same ones who pronounced the deposition in the lower court.
All these grave
incompatibilities, which, on the one hand, violate the fundamental canonical
principle of respecting the canonical provisions of the Orthodox Church,
recorded in art. 3, letter g), and, on the other hand, the principle of
discovering the truth and guaranteeing the right to defense, provided by art.
3, letter i) RACDIJBOR, make these depositions uncanonical and invalid also
from the point of view of the judicial regulations.
They were brought to the
knowledge of the Holy Synod in the lawsuits initiated against Fathers Pamvo
Jugănaru and Ioan Ungureanu, it being expected that the highest ecclesiastical
authority of the Romanian Orthodox Church would give the correct solution for
emerging from this grave canonical-juridical impasse.
NOTES
1. Pedalion,
The Rudder of the Orthodox Church, “Credinţa Strămoşească” Publishing
House, 2007, p. 68.
2. Ibid.
3. Ibid., p.
70.
4 Ioan N.
Floca, The Canons of the Orthodox Church. Notes and Commentaries, third
improved edition, edition edited by Dr. Sorin Joantă, no publisher, Sibiu,
2005, p. 26.
5. Pedalion,
cited ed., p. 362.
6. Ioan
Floca, op. cit., p. 347.
7. http://patriarhia.ro/images/pdf/HotarariSinodale/2010/Anexa_1.pdf.
8. Father
Iustin Pârvu, The Church and the New Heresies, no publisher, no place,
no year, p. 27.
9. Ioan
Floca, p. 79.
11. Ibid.,
p. 75.
12. Pedalion,
p. 70.
13. Pedalion,
cited ed., p. 363.
17. http://lumea-ortodoxa.ro/ati-stiut-ca-sf-paisie-aghioritul-nu-pomenit-patriarhul-decursul-cativa-ani/.
18. Joseph Bryennios, The Works Found, vol. II Ρ-Θ. 140, 620A,
Thessaloniki, 1990.
19. Saint
Theodore the Studite, Letter 40, To His Son Naukratios, in the volume The
Right Faith in the Writings of the Holy Fathers, vol. 1, Sofia Publishing
House, Bucharest, 2016, p. 28.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid.,
p. 30.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.,
pp. 30–31.
26. Idem,
Letter 40, To His Son Naukratios, p. 44.
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