On the Mysteries of Uncondemned Heretics

The Testimony of Archimandrite Pavel Lednev (+1895) of the St. Nicholas Edinoverie Monastery, Moscow, in an exchange with a Popovtsy (Priested) Old Believer.

 

 

An excerpt from: “Conversation Eleven: On Those Ordained by Heretics and Received into Orthodoxy Without Any Rite of Reception”

 

It is true that there have been many instances in which those ordained by heretics subsequently served as pastors in the Church without undergoing any rite of correction whatsoever, and no one reproached them for it. Such was the case with St. Proterius, Patriarch of Alexandria: he too was elevated to the rank of archpriest by the heretic Dioscorus, although he opposed the heresy preached by Dioscorus (see his Life).

But ordinations performed by heretics were accepted only when those heretics had not yet been excluded from ecclesiastical communion by the whole Church or, to speak more plainly, had not yet been condemned by an Ecumenical Council, had not yet been deposed from their ecclesiastical ranks, and consequently had not yet been deprived of the authority to confer the gifts of the Holy Spirit through ordination. For a time, the Church awaited their correction, showing them forbearance.

Therefore, those ordained by them needed only to renounce heresy and embrace the Orthodox Confession of Faith. Nor did they seize sheep that had not been entrusted to their care; rather, they returned to the Holy Church together with their own flocks.

And that the Most Holy Patriarch Tarasius, when speaking of those ordained by heretics, was referring, as I have said, to those ordained before their consecrators had been synodally condemned, and not to those ordained by heretics after their condemnation, is evident from the judgment of that same Holy Patriarch Tarasius, whom you have cited in support of your argument, as recorded in the First Session of the Seventh Ecumenical Council to which you yourself have referred: “The Most Holy Patriarch Tarasius said: ‘If anyone should dare to receive ordination from excommunicated heretics following the proclamation of a synodal decree and the unanimous judgment of the Churches concerning the Orthodox Faith, he shall be subject to deposition.”

The Holy Council said: “This judgment is just.”

(…)

Ordinations performed by heretics who had not been condemned by a council were accepted precisely because, before their synodal condemnation, they were not regarded as having been deprived of the gifts of the grace of the Holy Spirit. Consequently, all that was required of them was the correction of their confession of faith.

But you [that is, an Old Believer, chrismating Orthodox converts], having arrogated to yourselves an authority and a right of judgment that have not been granted to you, but belong to an Ecumenical Council alone, have condemned the Universal Orthodox Church, which has not erred in the least concerning the dogmas of the Faith.

(…)

Moreover, the persons of whom St. Tarasius speaks, who had been ordained by uncondemned heretics, were received by an Ecumenical Council or by the common consent of the pastors of the Church. They did not arbitrarily appropriate to themselves flocks that did not belong to them, as your priests have done.

 

Russian source: Archimandrite Pavel of the St. Nicholas Edinoverie Monastery. Conversations Concerning the Testimonies and Historical Precedents Cited by the Priestist Old Believers in Defense of Their So-Called Priesthood. Brotherhood of St. Peter the Metropolitan. 2nd ed. Moscow: Printing House of E. Lissner and Yu. Roman, 1896.

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