St Theodore the Studite on ordinations performed during heresy

An AI textual examination of Letters 40 and 53

 

 

The Greek text of St. Theodore the Studite's Letter 40 to [St.] Naucratius yields a significant finding: Theodore does not use the language of an absolutely invalid ordination. He speaks instead of ordinations becoming immediately acceptable and of the ordinands being able to exercise their priesthood when the ordaining bishop corrects his ecclesiastical position.

This does not mean that Theodore considered their ministry legitimate while the bishop remained in heretical communion. He expressly denies that.

The central question is whether the ordinations are being recognized as already possessing sacramental reality or whether their recognition constitutes a new ecclesiastical act. The Greek strongly favors distinguishing recognition and permission to minister from the original act of ordination, but does not explicitly define the precise sacramental mechanism.

1. The primary text and bibliographical reference

St. Theodore the Studite, Letter 40, To His Son Naucratius (Πρὸς Ναυκράτιον τέκνον).

• Patrologia Graeca 99, cols. 1056D–1057A.
• Georgios Fatouros, ed., Theodori Studitae Epistulae, vol. I, p. 119.

·       Complete Greek text and English translation online: https://romanletters.org/letters/theodore_studite/40/

The Fatouros and PG references are independently confirmed by a Greek study quoting the passage.

The immediate context

Naucratius had asked Theodore about monks recently ordained by a bishop who continued to commemorate an iconoclast hierarch. The ordaining bishop himself apparently acknowledged that the heretical synod had acted wrongly but had not broken ecclesiastical communion with its supporters.

Theodore approves Naucratius's decision to exclude these newly ordained men from performing the Divine Liturgy. He then explains why their ordinations could become acceptable.

2. The decisive Greek expressions

A. Continuing to be a bishop before God

ἵνα μένῃ παρὰ Θεῷ ἐπίσκοπος

“So that he may remain a bishop before God.”

The verb μένῃ means “may remain” or “may continue to be.” Theodore does not say that the bishop must receive a new episcopal consecration. Rather, the bishop must separate himself from heresy so that he may remain a bishop before God.

B. The ordinations become immediately acceptable

καὶ εἰσὶν αὐτοῦ δεκταὶ αἱ χειροτονίαι αὐτίκα

“And his ordinations are immediately acceptable.”

The key word is δεκταί, from δεκτός, meaning “acceptable,” “admissible,” or “capable of being received.”

Theodore does not use ἔγκυροι (“valid”) or ἄκυροι (“invalid”). The wording is concerned with acceptability, although this may also have sacramental implications.

C. Immediate exercise of the priesthood

ἦν αὐτοῖς εὐθὺς ἱερουργεῖν

“They would have been able to perform the sacred rites immediately.”

Ἱερουργεῖν means to perform sacred or priestly functions. Theodore speaks of the ordinands' ability to exercise their ministry, not of their undergoing another ordination.

D. Their present ministry is unacceptable

οὐχ οἷόν τε ... τῇ ἀληθείᾳ εἶναι λειτουργοὺς Θεοῦ

“It is not possible for them truly to be ministers of God.”

This is Theodore's strongest negative statement. While their ordaining bishop remains in heretical communion, the men he ordained cannot be recognized as true ministers of God.

All four expressions occur in the same continuous passage.

The distinction between the second and fourth statements is crucial. Theodore is neither recognizing their current ministry nor expressly declaring that the rite of ordination was an ontological nullity.

3. Does Letter 40 imply recognition of an existing ordination?

The most important grammatical construction is the condition introduced by ἂν ... ὤρθωσεν, followed by the consequence expressed through ἦν ... ἱερουργεῖν.

The sense is:

“If the one who ordained them had corrected his position, they would have been able to perform the sacred rites immediately.”

The verb ὤρθωσεν is derived from ὀρθόω, meaning to set right, correct, or restore to a proper condition.

In context, correction means that the bishop must cease commemorating the heretic with whom he is in communion. Theodore expressly rejects the sufficiency of claiming personally to hold an Orthodox confession while continuing that commemoration.

There are two possible interpretations.

Interpretation A: Recognition of an existing ordination

Under this reading, Theodore considers the ordinands to have received an ecclesiastical ordination whose exercise is currently unacceptable because of the ordaining bishop's continued participation in heresy.

When the bishop corrects his position, the impediment is removed. Those already ordained can immediately exercise their priesthood.

This interpretation has considerable force because Theodore does not mention a second ordination. He refers to the ordinations already performed and their subsequent acceptability.

Interpretation B: A conditional statement about an ordination that should have been Orthodox from the beginning

It is also grammatically possible that Theodore is saying that, had the bishop separated from heresy before ordaining the monks, they would have been able to minister immediately.

On that reading, the hypothetical describes how the situation should have developed rather than establishing that an ordination performed during heresy is later rendered acceptable.

This interpretation cannot simply be excluded, because Theodore does not explicitly specify the timing of the correction relative to the original ordinations.

Which interpretation is stronger?

I favor the first as the more natural contextual reading, but with an important qualification.

Theodore is responding to a concrete question concerning men who have already been ordained. His concern is whether they can exercise their ministry. The immediate acceptability of the bishop's ordinations after correction appears to address their existing situation rather than an entirely hypothetical future ordination.

Nevertheless, Letter 40 alone does not conclusively establish whether Theodore understood the ordinations as already possessing sacramental reality.

His emphatic denial that the ordinands can truly be ministers of God while their ordainer persists in heretical communion also prevents reducing the problem to a merely administrative prohibition.

The letter establishes the conditional acceptability of the ordinations, not a fully articulated distinction between sacramental validity and canonical legitimacy.

4. Letter 53 provides the stronger evidence for continuity of priesthood

St. Theodore the Studite, Letter 53, To Stephen the Reader and Those with Him.

This letter appears to have been written around 810–811, according to the dating of Georgios Fatouros. The relevant edition is Theodori Studitae Epistulae, vol. I, with the discussion of the Moichian controversy reaching p. 159; see also PG 99, col. 1108A.

Read the complete Greek text [and English translation] of Letter 53:

https://romanletters.org/letters/theodore_studite/53/

Theodore here addresses a different but closely related problem: whether the faithful should refuse communion with Orthodox clergy whose ordinations can be traced through iconoclast hierarchs.

His argument concerning the three iconoclast patriarchs

Theodore observes that between St. Germanus and St. Tarasius there were three heretical patriarchs through whom episcopal ordinations had passed.

He questions the insistence on tracing every valid ordination directly back to Germanus, without passing through those patriarchs.

He then refers to clergy who had ordained others κἂν ᾑρέτιζον—“even though they held heretical views.”

Theodore explicitly rejects the inference that all persons within those lines of succession must therefore be regarded as deposed.

This is a much stronger statement than the one in Letter 40.

It means that, for Theodore, the presence of heretical bishops within an episcopal succession does not necessarily destroy the succession itself.

His specific conditions for recognizing a priest

Theodore then identifies the circumstances under which a priest may be admitted to communion.

A priest may have received ordination through a heretical bishop, or through someone ordained by a simoniac. Nevertheless, provided that the priest himself professes the Orthodox Faith, upholds the canons, repudiates the relevant errors, and has not knowingly participated in simony, Theodore finds no justification for refusing communion with him solely on account of his succession.

His term for such a priest is ἀκατάγνωστος—“not subject to condemnation,” or “uncondemned.”

This passage is exceptionally important because Theodore expressly makes the present Orthodox confession and conduct of the priest, rather than the complete freedom of his ordaining succession from heresy, the determining consideration.

His rejection of retrospective invalidation

Theodore goes further.

He argues that excessive retrospective scrutiny would ultimately threaten the very continuity of the priesthood.

If every succession involving a heretical bishop, or every historical communion with such bishops, could retroactively destroy priesthood, then the Church would be unable to establish a continuing Orthodox priesthood.

He considers this conclusion absurd and rejects it.

This argument is not merely about treating someone kindly through oikonomia. It concerns the ecclesiastical recognition of a priestly succession that has passed through periods of heresy.

There is no suggestion that the whole succession must be recreated through new ordinations.

5. Comparison with the Seventh Ecumenical Council

Theodore's reasoning is consistent with an important aspect of the Seventh Ecumenical Council's treatment of former iconoclast bishops.

Richard Price's modern edition of The Acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) confirms that three formerly iconoclast bishops were reinstated in the first session after professions of faith. The remaining seven, along with Gregory of Neocaesarea, were reinstated in the third session following further examination.

The Council therefore did not treat every episcopal consecration associated with Iconoclasm as requiring repetition.

However, a distinction remains between what this conciliar action establishes and what it does not.

It establishes that the Church could recognize a repentant bishop in his existing episcopal rank, notwithstanding his previous involvement in heresy.

It does not expressly pronounce that all his sacramental acts while he remained in heresy were grace-bearing and spiritually beneficial.

Nor does it establish that the faithful were free to remain in communion with him during that period.

The Council's treatment of these bishops is thus compelling evidence against unconditional invalidation of episcopal orders, but not a general permission for communion with heretical hierarchs.

6. How these letters bear upon Metropolitan Cyprian's ecclesiology

The two letters should be read together.

Letter 40 demonstrates Theodore's insistence upon avoiding communion with heresy. The fact that an individual bishop has not received a personal sentence of deposition does not make communion with him or his ordinands automatically acceptable.

Letter 53 demonstrates that Theodore rejects the retrospective destruction of ordinations merely because heretical hierarchs occur within their succession.

The resulting distinction is highly relevant to Metropolitan Cyprian's account of uncondemned heretics.

Cyprian's argument is that a bishop may have become spiritually diseased through heresy without necessarily having undergone definitive ecclesiastical exclusion and loss of his episcopal status.

Theodore supplies substantial support for the distinction between a bishop's canonical status and the acceptability of ecclesiastical communion with him.

But there is still a difference between Theodore's propositions and Cyprian's more developed ecclesiological terminology.

Theodore does not explicitly classify publicly heretical bishops as ailing members of the Church in the technical sense subsequently employed by Cyprian.

Nor does Theodore establish that every uncondemned heretical bishop continues to administer valid Mysteries regardless of the character of his heresy and his ecclesiastical position.

What he does establish is that the problem cannot be reduced to an automatic equation between doctrinal deviation and the irreversible annihilation of priesthood.

7. Final assessment

I would draw the following conclusion from the Greek texts:

St. Theodore the Studite distinguishes the unacceptable exercise of priesthood during participation in heresy from the possible recognition of an ordination associated with that participation.

Letter 40 permits the interpretation that such an ordination may become acceptable when the ordaining bishop returns to an Orthodox ecclesiastical position, without the ordination being repeated.

Letter 53 establishes more clearly that the presence of heretical bishops within a succession does not necessarily nullify the priesthood of subsequent Orthodox clergy.

Theodore's position therefore excludes two overly broad conclusions: that sacramental communion with an uncondemned heretical bishop must be considered permissible, and that the mere appearance of heresy in an ordaining succession necessarily renders all subsequent ordinations void.

For the historical question of whether an uncondemned heretic retains priesthood in actuality until synodal deposition, the evidence is supportive but not conclusive. Theodore recognizes the continuity of ordination while refusing to recognize the legitimate exercise of ministry under heretical communion. He does not systematically explain whether sacramental capacity remains intact but impeded, or whether its recognition after repentance is an act of ecclesiastical oikonomia.

Of the two letters, Letter 53 is the stronger authority against automatic loss of priesthood, while Letter 40 is the stronger authority for the prohibition of communion with those participating in heresy.

Taken together, they provide a substantial patristic foundation for distinguishing doctrinal deviation, loss of ecclesiastical communion, canonical deposition, and the continuity of Holy Orders—without collapsing these separate questions into one.

 

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