In Defense of “Cyprianism”

Nikolaos Mannis | September 12, 2026

A text by an Athonite monk recently came to my attention (he is known to me, but since he does not give his name, I will not disclose it), bearing the grandiose title “Refutation of the ‘Cyprianist’ False Teachings,” in which he attempts to refute the Orthodox ecclesiological teachings concerning “ailing members” and “potentiality and actuality,” while supporting the familiar false teaching of “automatic loss.” Although I have already addressed some of the positions advanced by the author in my text “Against Sakarellism” 

(here: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2023/03/blog-post.html) [https://orthodoxmiscellany.blogspot.com/2025/12/a-contribution-to-liberation-of.html], 

I believe that some answers must be given here as well. For when I attempted to submit my observations on the author’s Facebook profile, he almost immediately blocked me from commenting, as is customary among those who cannot hold their own in a public dialogue.

I therefore considered it necessary to publish them, all the more so when I learned of the “condemnation of Cyprianism” by the new “Holy Alliance of the G.O.C.” of Kallinikos of the Dodecanese and Athanasios of Lavreotiki. Through this condemnation, they have made themselves patricides against their own spiritual fathers of blessed memory: Cyprian of Oropos (in the case of the former—and for the second time, following his participation in the sham deposition of 1986) and Elder Chrysanthos (in the case of the latter). These Fathers of blessed memory not only shared the same ecclesiological views but also belonged to the same Synod.

First, we must say that the text in question is unfortunately a rant containing numerous insults and derogatory labels, with an evident lack of composure. It also frequently contains unsubstantiated claims and arbitrary interpretations and positions. He writes, for example (p. 6): “The ecclesiological error expressed today under the name ‘Cyprianism’ clearly has its roots in the influence of Scholasticism and Western theology, through which it entered the Orthodox world from the Middle Ages onward.” Source? Proof? Documentation? Absolutely none; this is simply how the author wants it to be...

* * *

Elsewhere (p. 11), we read: “It is impossible for a member of it [i.e., the Church] to hold a manifest and condemned false doctrine, proclaimed openly and publicly, and continue to be a member of its body.”

At this point, I asked the following question: “If a clergyman holds a condemned false doctrine but is cunning enough not to proclaim it publicly and openly, is he a member of the Church or not? Does he celebrate Mysteries or not? What do you say?”

The author, acting “cleverly,” did not dare to give a clear answer. For if he were consistent with his theory of “automatic loss” (that heresy automatically cuts a member off from the Church and a clergyman immediately forfeits his priesthood), he would have had to answer “no.” This would indeed create chaos, since no Orthodox Christian would know whether he had truly been baptized, married, absolved in confession, or ordained, because no one can know the hidden beliefs of every clergyman. If he answered “yes,” it would be as though he were proving the equally absurd position that it is not heresy that deprives a clergyman of Grace and priesthood, but his stupidity or “cleverness”: if he is foolish enough to reveal himself openly and publicly, then he is automatically stripped of … Grace. But if he is cunning enough not to reveal himself openly, keeping his heresies secret instead, then he duly possesses the priesthood and celebrates Mysteries!

* * *

Elsewhere (p. 12), he writes (again without substantiation): “Within Christ’s flock there may be sinful members, but never heretical ones, since what defines the unity of the Church is primarily the unity of faith expressed in the common Chalice, whereas what destroys that unity is heretical belief, certainly not the sinfulness of Her members. These two things cannot be compared! For this reason, a sinner can belong to the body of the Church and be saved through continual repentance; a heretic, however, never!”

What is the author telling us here?

a) First, that you can be a pedophile, murderer, rapist, someone who commits bestiality, etc., without losing your membership in the Church, but if you are misled into believing, for example, that “the Holy Spirit proceeds also from the Son” or that “Christ’s divine nature absorbed His human nature,” then you are automatically outside the Church.

b) That there can be “sinful members” (and we agree; we simply call them “ailing”) in the Church, but not “heretical” ones. In saying this, he both overlooks the fact that heresy is also a sin and contradicts himself in the interpretation he attempts to give immediately afterward, quoting Joseph Kalothetos’s statement that the Church “abstains from everything (note: that is, not only from heresy) that is base and wicked, and is free from every evil and from every stain and blemish”! And—to crown it all—the author anathematizes himself, since on the one hand he teaches that there are “sinful members” in the Church, while on the other he declares that “the Church anathematizes those who question her purity and attribute stain to her”!

c) That through repentance a sinner can be saved, but a heretic never can, thus surpassing even the Luciferians [i.e., the schismatic followers of the fourth century Bishop Lucifer of Cagliari – tr.] in error and coming close to the Donatists.

* * *

The author then quotes a passage (pp. 12–13, footnote 7, which I reproduce here: “To those who dare to say that the Church does not preserve the purity and spotlessness of her sacred worship, but has incurred some defilement through the reunion, accomplished by the grace of God, of her children, whom the preceding scandal had divided, but whom its rejection and repudiation by all together reunited: anathema”). This comes from the Tome of Union of 920 (I mention this because the author does not). The purpose of this Tome was to unite the two factions in the Church of Constantinople: the Nikolaites (followers of Patriarch Nicholas Mystikos) and the Euthymians (followers of Patriarch Euthymios Syncellus), who had become divided over the unlawful fourth marriage of Emperor Leo VI the Wise. The Tome therefore anathematizes those who opposed this union on the grounds that the Church would be defiled. Thus, the passage in question has nothing to do with the heretical theory of the Cathari that the author defends.

* * *

Further on (p. 21 ff.), the author disparages both Metropolitan Basil of Smyrna of blessed memory (about whom see here: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2016/12/1910.html) and the Teacher of the Nation, Eugenios Voulgaris, regarding them as subject to “papal theological influences” (p. 25). Yet in another text of his (“Is There Economia in Baptism by Pouring?”, p. 10), he had praised the latter as exceptionally wise! What does it reveal, then, when someone praises a person when he agrees with him, but condemns him when he disagrees? Certainly, neither wisdom nor prudence.

All the more so when this same author, who regards New Calendarists as automatically outside the Church, continually cites New Calendarists (that is, according to him, non-members of the Church) to support his views, such as Trembelas, Androutsos, Sakarellos, Christofilopoulos, Arampatzis (whom he calls Ambrazis on p. 48), and others...

* * *

Furthermore, the author attempts to refute the Orthodox teaching on the indelibility of the priesthood (which, of course, is not identical to the scholastic interpretation given to it by the Papists), but he is refuted by the Church’s own practice: when She lifts a clergyman’s deposition, She does NOT reordain him, as She would have to do if his priesthood had been effaced. However, I have already stated my position on this subject here, where the supporting patristic evidence can also be found: https://www.romfea.gr/katigories/10-apopseis/39359-to-anejaleipto-tis-ierosunis

* * *

Also noteworthy is footnote 49 (p. 36), in which the author expresses his surprise that the “Ecumenists” have supposedly understood ecclesiology better than the “Anti-Ecumenists of potentiality and actuality.” He then quotes from a text of the Church of Albania (written, I believe, by [Archbishop] Anastasios of Albania of blessed memory), which supposedly proves his position. In the table below, I reproduce an excerpt from this text of the Church of Albania alongside an excerpt from an old letter by Fr. Theodoretos Mavros of blessed memory, a defender of “potentiality and actuality.”

CHURCH OF ALBANIA

(November 15, 2022)

Even if we suppose that imprints of ordination remain, when the ordaining bishop is cut off from the Church, deposed, anathematized, and excommunicated, he becomes inactive and transmits no grace (just as an electrical device transmits no energy when disconnected from the power supply).

 

Fr. THEODORETOS

(May 6, 1979)

As for the additional grace possessed by a clergyman, we accept that only upon his condemnation by the synod that bestowed it upon him does he—not lose it (“for the gifts and calling of God are irrevocable”)—but become unable to exercise it (suspension). More simply: if we regard the priest as a lamp and grace as the electric current, all the synod does is disconnect him from the circuit so that he cannot light up. In all other respects, the lamp outwardly remains a lamp, but without light—that is, a priest unable to celebrate Mysteries.

Therefore, the only one shown here to be ignorant of ecclesiology is the author.

* * *

Next, seeking to refute the fact that those ordained by deposed bishops are judged as clergymen, the author refers to Canon 19 of the First Ecumenical Council, the relevant portion of which reads as follows: “Concerning those who were Paulianists and subsequently sought refuge in the Catholic Church, it has been decreed that they must without exception be rebaptized. If any were formerly numbered among the clergy, and are found to be blameless and irreproachable, let them, after being rebaptized, be ordained by the bishop of the Catholic Church. But if the examination finds them unfit, they ought to be deposed.”

He immediately poses the question (p. 37): since the Paulicians were considered unbaptized, “From what are they to be deposed? From the priesthood, which, as unbaptized persons, they entirely lack?” Developing his argument, and drawing support from the opinions of the canonists (p. 38) that “to be deposed” is used in an improper sense, he attempts to extend this interpretation to every case! Yet the canonists are absolutely clear and explicit:

a) Zonaras: “I believe that the term ‘deposition’ is used here in an improper sense.”

b) Balsamon: “The term ‘deposition’ is used here in an improper sense, in place of ‘expulsion.’”

c) Saint Nicodemus: “For here ‘deposition’ is used in an improper sense, in place of ‘expulsion.’”

Here, then—that is, only in this particular case! Not in every case, as the author distorts it by generalizing it to justify his position.

* * *

Continuing, the author speaks plainly and unabashedly (p. 40 ff.) in favor of the “automatic loss of Grace,” on which he even makes the cessation of communion/walling-off depend. Here lies the great difference between us: those who hold to automatic loss believe that we must wall ourselves off because “Grace has been lost automatically,” whereas we say that walling-off is undertaken to bring about a judgment by the competent synod (for the Church is not a jungle where every beast can seize the authority to judge, but has institutions and canons), and we do not wish to be included in that synod’s condemnation. These views of the proponents of automatic loss, which unfortunately continue to be repeated today, a century after they were first expressed by the well-known Athonites ([Arsenios] Kotteas, [Matthaios] Karpathakis, and others), have been answered by the Fathers, whom we too follow: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2017/03/blog-post_5.html

Furthermore, apart from the fact that the author cites no scriptural, patristic, or synodal passage in support of his position (with the sole exception of a reference to the New Calendarist Christofilopoulos—that is, someone … “automatically outside the Church”), two very important points are also worth noting:

a) If the “automatic loss” proclaimed by the author were true, then there would be no Church today. Even the G.O.C. and Zealots would be without priesthood, since their ordinations derive from the active participation of New Calendarists...

b) The position of “automatic loss” (also known as the central tenet of all extreme Zealots) is accepted not by the Orthodox Church, but by the Papal Church! This is the well-known Latin term latae sententiae (“with sentence already passed”) in the canon law of the Papal Church, introduced by the Second Lateran Council (1139). It denotes a penalty—chiefly “anathema”—incurred automatically (ipso facto) by the very commission of an offense, without requiring a decision by the competent ecclesiastical authority! What a pity for the unfortunate Ultra-Zealots, who ultimately prove to be adherents of Papism...

* * *

Continuing his attempt to support “automatic loss” and establish his ecclesiological position that those who revive condemned heresies are automatically anathematized, the author uses a passage supposedly written by Athanasius the Great, quoting only its translation while concealing the original. The madness is complete with the addition of a footnote (55), in which he provides a translation … of the translation, so that he can then more easily misinterpret it. Let us examine the text he uses, together with his misinterpretation, and then the original text, its actual author, and its true interpretation.

The author quotes the following (supposedly original) text, allegedly by Athanasius the Great (which, as we have said, is a translation): “Let all heresies be anathematized, both those condemned previously and those which, should they appear in a new guise, are contrary to this formulated statement.” Then, after translating the translation (“Let all heresies—both those condemned in the past and those which, should they appear in a new guise, are contrary to this formulated statement [the Definition of the Council]—be anathematized”), he interprets the final phrase (“Let them be anathematized”) as follows: “This is a continuous present tense. When the Church says ‘let him be anathema’ or ‘let them be anathematized,’ she is not referring merely to a moment in the past. The anathema applies now and always, as long as the particular error or situation remains unrepented of and uncorrected.” His purpose is clear: to prove that the “anathema” supposedly takes effect automatically and requires no new synodal judgment.

Let us now examine the original text: “Let all heresies already condemned in the past, or any that have recently arisen in opposition to this statement that has been set forth, be anathema” (Athanasius the Great, EPE 10, 238).

This text is indeed contained in Athanasius the Great’s work “On the Councils Held at Ariminum in Italy and Seleucia in Isauria.” However, it is not the Saint’s own text, but an excerpt from the Arian “Creed of Nike” of 359 (see also here: https://www.fourthcentury.com/the-thracian-nicaean-creed/), which Athanasius the Great quotes in this historical work.

And now the most appalling part: this heretical creed anathematizes the Orthodox, for they were the ones expressing teachings (namely, the doctrine of consubstantiality) “contrary to this formulated statement (the Definition of the Council),” as the author translates it, foolishly failing to realize that this “Council” was Arian!

We see, then, what sort of people these unfortunate critics of “Cyprianism” are: people who, although unable to understand what they are reading (even falling into blasphemies), insist on theologizing... At least they protect their honor and reputation by either publishing their texts anonymously or circulating them secretly and privately.

Nevertheless, since the disputed phrase “ἀνάθεμα ἔστωσαν” (“let them be anathema”) is also common in Orthodox texts, let us examine its correct interpretation according to Greek grammar (not Zealot grammar!). First of all, the phrase “ἀνάθεμα ἔστωσαν” is not a “continuous present” (there is no “continuous present” in Greek grammar!), but an imperative. The author himself acknowledges this elsewhere (p. 50), where, however, he continues his abuse of poor grammar... First, he confuses the verb with its tense, writing that “ἔστω” is a form “of the verb ‘εἰμί’ and not of ‘ἔσομαι’” (whereas “ἔσομαι” is not another verb, but the future tense of the very same verb, “εἰμί”!). He then speaks of the “same active conjugation,” referring to the forms ἔσται / ἔσονται. However, the future “ἔσομαι” is a middle-voice (deponent) form, and the forms “ἔσται” (third-person singular) and “ἔσονται” (third-person plural) have middle endings, not active ones, since the verb “εἰμί” has no active future. Finally, in a comparison wholly misguided from a grammatical standpoint, he compares the imperative (ἔστω) with the future indicative (ἔσται), two different moods with entirely different functions.

Let us therefore repeat once again Saint Nicodemus’s interpretation (he knew grammar well) on this subject:

“We must know that the penalties prescribed by the Canons, namely, ‘let him be deposed,’ ‘let him be excommunicated,’ and ‘let him be anathema,’ are, according to the rules of grammar, third-person imperatives referring to someone absent. For this command to be conveyed to that person, a second person must necessarily be present. Let me explain this more clearly. The Canons command the synod of living bishops to depose priests, or to excommunicate or anathematize laypeople who transgress the Canons. However, if the synod does not actually carry out the deposition of the priests, or the excommunication or anathematization of the laypeople, these priests and laypeople are neither actually deposed nor excommunicated nor anathematized. They are, however, liable here to deposition, excommunication, or anathematization, and hereafter to divine judgment. Likewise, when a king commands his servant to beat another who has wronged him, if the servant who received the command does not carry out the king’s order, the one who wronged the king remains unbeaten, though liable to a beating. Hence, those foolish people who say that at the present time all clergymen ordained contrary to the Canons are actually deposed are greatly mistaken. A tongue that foolishly babbles such things is one that slanders the priesthood, failing to understand that the command of the Canons, without its actual execution by the second person—that is, the synod—remains unfulfilled and does not take effect of itself, immediately and before judgment. The divine Apostles themselves clearly explain their meaning in their Canon 46, since they do not say that any bishop or presbyter who accepts the baptism of heretics is already, immediately, actually deposed, but ‘we command that he be deposed’; that is, that he be brought to judgment, and if it is proved that he has done this, then let him be stripped of the priesthood by your decision: this is what we command” (Footnote on Apostolic Canon 3).

(...)

Of course, because Saint Nicodemus delivers a crushing rebuttal here to the proponents of automatic loss, the author resorts to the excuse that this supposedly “concerns canonical offenses not yet adjudicated, and not cases of condemned heresies” (footnote 69). Yet this claim is arbitrary and, once again, entirely unsubstantiated.

* * *

On pp. 54–55, the author claims that if the “Cyprianists” wish to be consistent with their ecclesiology (that is, their acceptance of the Mysteries of uncondemned heretics), then “they must accept every canonical act imposed upon them by the synodal courts of the ‘uncondemned’ heretical Ecumenist church from which they separated, submitting to these acts without objection.”

This distorting argument is familiar, since the Matthewites also used it. But here is how Fr. Theodoretos of blessed memory refutes it, addressing an ideological predecessor of the author:

“Wishing next to proclaim your familiar refrain—the only weapon you have left—that the New Calendarists lost Grace in 1924, you mention Chrysostomos, the former Metropolitan of Florina, claiming that, if this were not the case, the aforementioned hierarch would have to be regarded as truly deposed, since he was deposed by a Church possessing Grace (according to my view). But who does not know that depositions take effect and are valid only when carried out in accordance with justice and the pronouncements of the sacred Canons? Here is what Saint Nicodemus, to whom you also refer me for study, says on this matter: ‘Those who are unjustly excommunicated for the name of God, that is, either for the faith or for the Traditions of the Church … ought to rejoice, since they are worthy of being called blessed.’ And the divine Maximus the Confessor says: ‘If a hierarch excommunicates contrary to God’s purpose, divine judgment does not follow him’ (note 3 on Apostolic Canon 32). Consequently, neither were the blessed Metropolitan of Florina and his fellow hierarchs of Demetrias and Zakynthos deposed in 1935, nor had the New Calendarist Church lost Grace. By introducing a grave and dangerous innovation against Orthodoxy as a whole, she gave the aforementioned hierarchs and the faithful People of God every right to repudiate her and withdraw from her midst, as had happened many times before in history” (Third Open Letter to Archpriest Eugenios Tombros, Mount Athos–Athens, 1972, p. 2).

* * *

The author also makes a point of referring (pp. 57–58 and 72–73) to Venerable Theodore the Studite and repeating the positions concerning the invalidity of heretics’ Mysteries (also familiar from their use by Fr. Efthymios Trikaminas). Venerable Theodore, however, was active AFTER the condemnation of the Iconoclasts by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, so his statements concern condemned heretics, despite the author’s desperate attempt to persuade us (again without evidence) that they supposedly concern uncondemned heretics.

Footnote 87 (pp. 64–65) provides appalling evidence of the author’s darkened understanding, so I reproduce it here verbatim, lest he remove it when he realizes the extent of its absurdity:

⁸⁷ Saint Tarasios delivers a crushing rebuttal to the “Cyprianists’” nonsense about the Orthodox and the Iconoclasts being united in one Church, since, during the discussions recorded in the Acts of the Council, he repeatedly stated that the Iconoclasts were completely cut off from the body of the Church, indeed fervently praying for their reunion with the body of Christ!

“And Christ our God, the rock upon which we are firmly established, in no way allowed the tunic woven from the top throughout—that is, His Church, built by Him and upon Him—to remain divided and torn, with its members moving now one way, now another, but together with the ancient heresies, also the error of the new wickedness of the accusers of Christians...” … “so that the divided parts might be united...” and “that He might gather us into one, unite what has been divided, and heal the longstanding wound...”

Translation: “And in no way did Christ our God—the rock upon which we are firmly established—allow His tunic woven from above, namely His Church, built by Him and upon Him, to remain torn and rent, or its members each to move in a different way; on the contrary, together with the old heresies, He also did away with the error of the new wickedness of the accusers of Christians (the Iconoclasts)... so that the divided parts might be united... and that He might gather us all into one body, unite what has been separated, and heal the longstanding wound...” Acts of the Councils, vol. 3, p. 261.

As every reader in his right mind can clearly see, Saint Tarasios is plainly shown here to be a “Cyprianist” (that is, Orthodox), since he accepts that, until the condemnation of Iconoclasm (which divided the Church of Constantinople) by the Seventh Ecumenical Council, over which he presided, the Iconoclasts were regarded as members of the Church, albeit in error and ailing. This is why he rejoices that the division has ceased, the divided members have been united in the truth, and the error of heresy has disappeared. Saint Theophanes the Branded, the Confessor, expresses the same rejoicing in a troparion of the canon he composed, which we chant on the Sunday of Orthodoxy: “Beholding this greatest blessing—the separated members of Christ gathered into unity—let us clap our hands and praise God, who hath bestowed peace.”

Saint Tarasios, then, together with the Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, believes precisely the opposite of what the author maintains, since they agree with us “Cyprianists” (that is, the Orthodox) that the Mysteries of uncondemned heretics are accepted. For when they say, “Should those ordained by heretics be received? The holy council said: Yes, Master, we have heard, and they ought to be received,” this can mean one of two things: either the Fathers are Ecumenists and, like today’s Ecumenists, recognize Mysteries among those outside the Church, or the Fathers are Orthodox (that is, “Cyprianists,” as the author calls them) and accept the Mysteries of heretics BEFORE their condemnation.

Tarasios, the most holy Patriarch, said: “We have heard the injunctions of the Fathers. What, then? Should those ordained by heretics be received?”

The holy council said: “Yes, Master, we have heard, and they ought to be received.”

Tarasios, the most holy Patriarch, said: “Indeed, most of those who sat in the Sixth Holy Council had been ordained by Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter, the leaders of the Monothelite heresy, since these men occupied the throne of Constantinople in succession. No more than fifteen years elapsed between Peter, the last of them to preside over the throne of Constantinople, and the Sixth Council. Even Thomas, John, and Constantine, who became hierarchs in the intervening period, had received their ordination from the aforementioned heretics during the period already mentioned, and they were not rejected on that account; for the heresy at that time persisted for fifty years. Yet the Fathers of the Sixth Council anathematized those four, despite having been ordained by them.”

* * *

And when the author writes (p. 68), “Every contrary view is based on misinterpretations or even deliberate distortions intended to produce predetermined conclusions that serve and further the wicked aims of the Ecumenists,” the famous Latin phrase “Clodius accusat moechos” comes to mind...

* * *

Continuing, and attempting to downplay the importance of the invocation of the Holy Trinity in baptism administered by heretics, the author states (p. 72) that Athanasius the Great considers such a baptism unprofitable. Here too I reproduce the Saint’s original text, which the author omitted (since the EPE translation he quotes is problematic—for example, it renders “sound” as … “firm”): “Indeed, many other heresies also pronounce the names alone, but neither think rightly, as has been said, nor possess sound faith. Thus, the water administered by them is also unprofitable, being deficient in piety, so that whoever is baptized by them is defiled by impiety rather than delivered from it.” We see, then, that although the Saint acknowledges that these heresies invoke the divine names (that is, those of the Holy Trinity), he indeed quite rightly considers this baptism unprofitable (“ἀλυσιτελές” in the original). Why, then, did Athanasius the Great (together with all the Fathers and Councils) receive the Arians without rebaptism (as everyone knows, except the author)? This happened, on the one hand, because “unprofitable” does not mean “nonexistent” (Saint Augustine also explains this in great detail in his work “Against the Donatists,” which I shall publish shortly), and, on the other, because the invocation of the divine names constitutes the basis upon which the Church, applying Economia, accepts this existing Baptism, which she completes with the “sound faith” and piety that are lacking.

* * *

What the author says about a “divine spark” (p. 74), as well as his personal interpretations concerning an invalid–nonexistent Mystery (pp. 77–79), is entirely unrelated to so-called “Cyprianism,” with which he misleadingly attempts to associate these ideas, time and again, without any evidence.

* * *

Concluding his rambling discourse, the author essentially teaches (pp. 80–81) that the Church has a magic wand with which she turns the nonexistent into the existent (that is, precisely what Papism does, or what Patriarch Bartholomew did with the unordained Ukrainians). Realizing, however (perhaps in a moment of heightened reason), the absurdity of such a theory, he attempts to offer the laughable explanation (again without any patristic substantiation) that an unordained man is transformed into an ordained one through concelebration! He does not tell us, however, how an unbaptized person is transformed into a baptized one...

* * *

In closing this post, I would recommend that the newly emerged “anti-Cyprianists,” especially those who wear the cassock, study these matters with humility, prayer, and care, so that they do not disgrace Orthodoxy and themselves. For in slandering our Fathers as heretics, let them not imagine that no one will come forward to defend them.

 

Greek source: https://krufo-sxoleio.blogspot.com/2026/09/blog-post_12.html