Patristic Interpretation and Substantiation of “Potentially” and “Actually”

By Dimitris Hatzinikolaou,

(Former) Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Ioannina

 

 

Regarding “potentially” and “actually,” see the footnotes in the sacred Rudder, pp. 5 and 696, as well as the book Epitome of the Sacred Canons by the Kollyvades monk Neophytos of Kavsokalyvia (18th century), edited by Hieromonk Theodoretos, Astir Publications, 1999. In the passages below, “the first party” means the Synod that has already condemned a particular innovation. For example, in the case of the New Calendar, “the first party” is the sixteenth-century Synods that condemned the “new calendar.” By “the second party” is meant the Synod that must be convened to vindicate the sacred Canons—that is, to condemn “the third party,” namely, the innovators. Let us see precisely what the passages in question say.

1. In footnote 2 to the Third Apostolic Canon, St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite writes: “We must know that the penalties prescribed by the Canons—that is, ‘let him be deposed,’ ‘let him be excommunicated,’ and ‘let him be anathema’—are, grammatically speaking, third-person imperatives referring to someone who is not present. For this command to be conveyed to him, a second person must necessarily be present. I shall explain this more clearly. The Canons command the synod of living bishops to depose priests, or to excommunicate or anathematize laymen, who transgress the Canons. If, however, the synod does not actually carry out the deposition of the priests or the excommunication or anathematization of the laymen, these priests and laymen are neither actually deposed nor excommunicated or anathematized. They are, however, liable here to deposition, excommunication, or anathematization, and there to divine judgment” (emphasis added).

2. On page 696, St. Nikodemos, interpreting St. Gennadios’s words against simoniacs, writes:

“Certain detractors of the Priesthood, who say that there is no Priesthood today because most are ordained in exchange for money, base their argument on these words of the Saint and say that the Saint and the Synod with him not only say, ‘Let such a person be cast out’—by the Synod, that is, speaking by means of an imperative verb, which, according to grammarians, is inoperative without the intervention of a second person—but also add that he is ‘cast out even without being deposed,’ that is, by others. But let them hear that ‘let him be’ (i.e., ἔστω) means that such a person is to be made actually, and with respect to the penalty, cast out by the Synod that vindicates the divine Canons; whereas ‘he is’ (i.e., ἔστιν) means that he is potentially cast out and with respect to his guilt. For if the two expressions had the same meaning, what need would there be for ‘let him be’ in addition to ‘he is’? Or what need would there be for ‘he is’ in addition to ‘let him be’—the former referring to the future and the latter to the present, and thus being opposed to one another? Nevertheless, while saying these things, we do not pass over in silence the fact that what the Saint says here categorically and in the indicative mood—that such persons are immediately cast out of the Priesthood—is truly fearful for those who ordain and are ordained in exchange for money” (emphasis added).

3. In the book Epitome of the Sacred Canons, we read the following:

“It should be known that, toward the end of its First Session, the Seventh Ecumenical Council states that the Sixth Ecumenical Council did not reject ordination performed by the leaders of the Monothelite heresy, since most of those who sat in that Council had been ordained by them. It must therefore be considered how these facts may be reconciled both with Apostolic Canon 68, which rejects without qualification ordination performed by heretics, and with the letter of St. Basil the Great to the Nicopolitans.... For Dioscoros, the Monophysite of Alexandria, had ordained the presidents of the Fourth Ecumenical Council—I mean Anatolios of Constantinople and Maximos of Antioch—before he had been synodically condemned as a heretic by these very men. Likewise, those who sat in the Sixth Ecumenical Council and had been ordained by the Monothelites Sergios, Pyrrhos, Peter, and Paul subsequently assembled and condemned and anathematized them as heretics.... Moreover, the Seventh Ecumenical Council accepted ordination performed by heretics who had not been synodically condemned.... Indeed, the Arians ordained the illustrious Meletios of Antioch, who presided over the Second Ecumenical Council. For Meletios was not reordained” (pp. 63–64; emphasis added).

And further: “None of those accused is to be deposed before trial, or in his absence without three summonses; rather, upon being accused, he is to be summoned before a tribunal, by letters or by two persons of equal rank, to make his defense concerning the charges brought against him.... For since third-person imperatives express a command concerning an absent person, a second person must necessarily be introduced in order to convey the command. If no second person is introduced, the third-person command would be inoperative.... The sacred ordinances, therefore, possess inviolable authority, yet they do not take effect of themselves and immediately; rather, because they are commands concerning third persons, the intervention of a second person is necessary, so that he may convey—that is, put into effect upon the third persons—the command proceeding from the first. Until the second person puts into effect upon the third the command issued by the first, the third does not actually become subject to the injunction—that is, the penalty—imposed by the first.... Imperatives signify the future, not the present.... Thus, among priests liable to penalty, those who have not been canonically deposed—that is, who were deposed before trial—remain, by the very nature of the matter, undeposed for the time being.... How, then, did the Quinisext Council, in its Third Canon, decree that those who had been ‘immediately deposed’ by Apostolic Canons 17 and 18—as the foolish claim of the detractors of the Priesthood would have it—were to remain in active ministry no less than before? ... That laws remain inoperative when they are not vindicated is also shown by the divine Chrysostomos...” (Chapter XII: Concerning the Sacred Canons Potentially and Actually, pp. 167–170; emphasis added).

Greek source:

https://orthodox-voice.blogspot.com/2021/08/blog-post_55.html