Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Abusing the Fathers
Prydain ^ | 3/26/2005 | Will

Posted on 03/26/2005 8:51:52 AM PST by sionnsar

Dr. William Tighe, who I regard highly as one of the best church historians of our day, has written an important article, Abusing the Fathers, in Touchstone. He addresses the claim of the Windsor Report that the Canons of the Council of Nicea forbid the crossing of diocesan boundaries--even those of heterodox bishops--by other bishops. I think Dr. Tighe rebuts this soundly in his article, and I think we owe him a debt of gratitude--because if we accepted this particular claim of the Windsor Report, we would in essence be forbidding a modern-day Athanasius from taking action against heretical bishops. As Dr. Tighe writes,

...the clearest and most instructive (as well as the saddest) lesson of this episode is how sincere and pious Christians, like Bishop Wright, deprive themselves of any compellingly persuasive basis for rallying a forceful “Athanasian” movement to retake their churches from the heterodox innovators who dominate them—and not least because of their own inability, as the bishop’s statements show, to make clear judgments about false teaching and false teachers and to take firm and decisive measures in response.
This article should be read by orthodox bishops everywhere in Anglicanism.


TOPICS: Mainline Protestant
KEYWORDS: anglican; angpost1; ecusa

Abusing the Fathers

The Windsor Report’s Misleading Appeal to Nicea

by William J. Tighe

A year ago, after the uproar over the consecration as bishop of New Hampshire of the notorious Vicki Gene Robinson—the Episcopal priest who divorced his wife and subsequently openly entered a homosexual relationship that continues to this day—the Archbishop of Canterbury appointed a committee to look into the matter. The consecration clearly contradicted the 1998 Lambeth Conference’s resolution declaring such relationships to be incompatible with the Christian faith, and the “Lambeth Commission” was to recommend ways in which the Anglican Communion could maintain the highest possible degree of communion.

The ensuing “Windsor Report,” released on October 18, 2004, called for moratoria on the ordination of all non-celibate homosexuals and on the approval of rites for blessing same-sex “partnerships,” as well as for an end to the intervention of traditionalist bishops (usually from Africa or Asia) in the dioceses of “revisionist” bishops. It called both traditionalist and revisionist groups to express regret for their actions, which were deemed to be incompatible with the tangible and intangible bonds that held the Anglican Communion together.

Wright’s Defense

N. T. (“Tom”) Wright, the bishop of Durham in the Church of England, was a member of the commission, and in various places since the issuance of the report has defended it. He has for some years deservedly enjoyed the reputation of a first-rate Scripture scholar who has been able to counteract and debunk revisionist—read, if you will, heretical or anti-Christian—views of the life, death, and resurrection of the Lord and of the authority of the Bible.

He appeals particularly to those “conservative evangelical” Christians who wish to uphold a generally high view of the authority of Scripture in doctrine and morals, but wish to leave room for some “developments,” such as the ordination of women, which Wright supports.

Wright has, in particular, defended the report’s implicit censure of the intervention of orthodox Anglican bishops in the dioceses of revisionist ones in the United States and Canada. In a report published in the liberal-leaning English Roman Catholic weekly The Tablet, he justified this censure on the basis that such interventions were “in contravention not only of Anglican custom but of the Nicene decrees on the subject.”

The theory of the inviolable integrity of diocesan boundaries has underpinned the statements of more than one or two Episcopal bishops in recent years, such as Peter Lee of Virginia and Neil Alexander of Atlanta. The result of the theory that “heresy is preferable to schism” and “schism is worse than heresy” has been the belief among influential conservative Anglicans that the faithful must put up with an unending stream of doctrinal absurdities and moral enormities.

In an interview with Christianity Today, Wright insisted that “border crossings” are not only “disruptive” but prohibited by the Council of Nicea. “And I think not a lot of people know this, but it’s important to say this was a question that the early fathers faced at the same time as they were hammering out the doctrine of the person of Jesus Christ, and that they gave it their time to say people should not do this because that’s not how episcopacy works.” He insisted that “the real charge” against the offending dioceses

is that they were going ahead with innovations without giving the proper theological rationale, without paying attention to the rest of the communion, without doing all the things which as Anglicans we all thought we were signed up to doing before people make innovations. The bishops and archbishops who have intervened in other people’s provinces and dioceses are, in effect, at that level making the same error.

The interviewer then noted that one theologian believed that, in the early Church, orthodox bishops considered a heretical bishop’s see vacant and would go into his diocese. “It’s not simply as easy as that, because who says that so-and-so is a false teacher?” Wright responded. Bishop John Spong would describe the Evangelical former Archbishop of Canterbury, George Carey, as “a false teacher. . . . So you have to have some way of getting a handle on this and not simply one bishop saying that his next-door neighbor is out of line and therefore he’s going to invade. That has never been the Anglican way.”

As Bishop Wright’s grasp of the church fathers’ theory and practice seems a bit weak in these areas—and as he was clearly the most scholarly member of the commission—it may be useful to pursue the subject a bit further. Less can be said for the church fathers’ support for the commission’s claims than Wright asserts.

A regrettable feature of the Windsor Report is its lack of documented notes and references to back up its claims and assertions. For example, it simply cites “the ancient norm of the Church” for its claims about the unity of all Christians in one place and for its rationale against the intervention of outside bishops, without offering any evidence at all. It never quotes any “Nicene decrees on the subject,” to use Bishop Wright’s phrase, though an allusion to one of Nicea’s canons, of doubtful relevance, is tucked away in the report.

Inapplicable Canons

The Council of Nicea, which met from May to August of a.d. 325 and is most famous for its formulation of the original version of the Nicene Creed, also produced twenty canons, or rules, to settle problems or fix abuses in the Church. Several of the canons concern the relations of bishops with one another and of clergy with their bishops. Significantly for the present case, none have any legal force in any contemporary Anglican church.

But more importantly, none of them seem to have any real applicability to the situation of the Anglican Communion, or the Episcopal Church, today. If any one of them underlies Bishop Wright’s oblique reference, it must be Canon 16. Members of the clergy, it declares,

who have the audacity, not considering the fear of God and not knowing the Church’s rule, to abandon their churches, must not under any circumstances be received in another church but by all means must be forced to return to their proper communities, and if they refuse, they are to be properly excommunicated. In addition, if anyone dares to take someone who is under the authority of another bishop and to ordain him in his own church without the consent of the bishop in whose clergy he was enrolled, let the ordination be regarded as null.

This canon obviously deals with “clergy flight” and “clergy poaching”: It assumes a community of orthodox belief between the churches and bishops concerned, and says nothing at all about interventions in churches whose bishops have abandoned orthodoxy of belief and practice and have begun to oppress those of their flock who continue to uphold it, even if that “oppression” consists only in contradicting that orthodoxy and furthering those who teach and act against it.

But while I was puzzling over Wright’s invocation of this inapplicable canon, I found an allusion to the eighth canon early in the report. In this passage, the report deplores “ as now part of the problem we face” the breaking of communion with the Episcopal Church by other Anglican churches, attempts by dissenters in America to “distance themselves” from the Episcopal Church, and the interventions of archbishops from other Anglican churches.

Then it comments: “This goes not only against traditional and oft-repeated Anglican practice [alluding to the 1988 and 1998 Lambeth Conferences] but also against some of the longest-standing regulations of the early undivided church (Canon 8 of Nicea).”

The Pure Ones

So what does the canon say? It is one of the longer ones, and it concerns the re-entry into the Church of “the so-called ‘pure ones’.” It required them to “promise in writing to accept and to follow the rulings of the Catholic Church,” primarily to have communion with those who renounced the faith during persecutions but had since been given a period of penance and a date for their reconciliation with the Church.

In places that had only “pure ones” as clergy, they should keep their status, but if a “pure one” wanted to be admitted to the clergy in a place that had “a bishop or a priest of the Catholic Church . . . it is evident that the bishop of the Church should keep the dignity of bishop.” A bishop of the “pure ones”

is to have the rank of priest unless the bishop consents to let him have the honor of his title. But if he is not so disposed, let the bishop give him a place as a chorepiscopus [i.e., a bishop who exercised some supervision over Christian communities in the rural areas, while being himself subordinate to the bishop of a nearby city] or as a priest so that he can appear as being integrated into the clergy. Without this provision, there would be two bishops in the city.

“The pure ones” was the name given, perhaps self-given, to a schismatic group known as the Novatianists. They originated in the aftermath of the great persecution—the first empire-wide persecution—launched against the Church by the Roman Emperor Decius in 249–251. Before that persecution, a Christian who renounced Christianity under pressure and then wished to return to the Church could only be readmitted to the Eucharist when on his deathbed.

In the aftermath of the persecution, which saw apostasies on a large scale, the bishop of Rome, Cornelius, allowed the “lapsed” to be readmitted after some years of public penitence, which involved, among other things, standing in a particular place during the Church’s Liturgy and leaving before Communion. Most bishops elsewhere adopted this practice as well, but in Rome, Pope Cornelius was opposed by the priest Novatian, whose followers elected him bishop in opposition to Cornelius, and in the ensuing years the schism spread throughout the Roman Empire.

The Novatianists were moral rigorists, best known for their absolute prohibition of second marriages under any circumstances (including after the death of a spouse) and their refusal to readmit the lapsed to Communion. In every other respect, though, their beliefs were thoroughly orthodox. A Novatianist bishop turned up at the Council of Nicea, where he was as vehement in his opposition to the views of the heretic Arius as any of the other bishops there. It was only when he went on to insist on the exclusion of the lapsed from Communion that his Novatianist allegiance came to light, and he was ejected from the council.

Of all the various heretical or schismatic Christian sects, the Novatianists were viewed with the most indulgence, as this canon indicates. Although it was common at the time to regard as “heretical” all Christian sects that pertinaciously and as a matter of principle separated themselves from the “Catholic and Apostolic Church,” in practice the council treated groups of them who wished to rejoin the Church as though they were simply schismatics.

In fact, few Novatianists took advantage of this offer. Their church, or “denomination,” continued to exist as a rigorous and “pure” alternative to the established Church in parts of the Eastern Roman Empire for some three or four centuries afterwards.

Dealing with Defectors

It is hard to see how this canon has anything to do with the troubles of contemporary Anglicanism that evoked the Windsor Report. The canon does uphold the unity of the local church, but the situation it addresses is the reunion of a schismatic group with the Church, not the appropriate response of bishops to the defection of one of their brethren from their common orthodoxy. However, the latter type of situation did arise in the fourth century, in the long aftermath of the Council of Nicea, and later still.

The main purpose of the Council of Nicea was to judge the views of the Alexandrian priest and theologian Arius, who held that Jesus was a creature—a divine being created by God before the angels, the cosmos, and mankind, but a creature nevertheless. Nicea condemned Arius’s views, and its creed confessed the full co-divinity and co-eternity of “the everlasting Son of the Father.”

However, since the controversy continued unabated after Nicea, and since Emperor Constantine had wanted the council to promote ecclesiastical harmony, the fact that it signally failed to produce such harmony induced him, within a few short years, to attempt to promote various theological compromises that would reconcile the Arians and the Niceans. (Many of the most influential bishops around the emperor were sympathetic to some degree with Arius.)

Among the most vigorous and uncompromising upholders of Nicea and its creed was the young archbishop of Alexandria, Athanasius (c. 296–373), who as a priest had accompanied his predecessor to Nicea. His vigorous opposition to any compromise earned him the hostility of the bishops who had most influence with the emperor, who himself in the last decade of his life (he died in 337) increasingly regarded Athanasius as a disturber of the peace, and finally exiled him to what is today the German Rhineland.

After Constantine’s death, as his Arianizing son Constantius became master, first of the East and then (in 350) of the whole Roman Empire, imperial policy shifted from conciliation to coercion of the adherents of Nicea, and these shifts continued down to the final defeat of Arianism in 381.

As time went on, the whole Church became divided over the question, with bishop opposing bishop. Athanasius was willing, as the conflict intensified—in his case, as early as the mid-340s—to intervene unilaterally in dioceses whose bishops were Arians or compromisers. The historians Socrates and Sozomen, writing in the middle of the next century, record that he ordained men in dioceses whose bishops were tainted with Arianism to serve the orthodox upholders of Nicea, and that he did so without seeking or obtaining the permission of those bishops.

We do not know for sure whether Athanasius ordained bishops for these orthodox communities faced with hostile heterodox bishops, or only priests and deacons. Socrates’s account in his Ecclesiastical History is obscure, stating only that “in some of the churches also he performed ordination, which afforded another ground of accusation against him, because of his undertaking to ordain in the dioceses of others.”

In his Ecclesiastical History, Sozomen wrote of Athanasius’s ejection of Arianizing clergy when he returned to Egypt from his second exile around 346, and added, “It was said at that time that, when he was traveling through other countries, he effected the same change if he happened to visit churches which were under the Arians. He was certainly accused of having dared to perform the ceremony of ordination in cities where he had no right to do so.”

Violable Boundaries

And he was not alone. Other orthodox bishops acted similarly.

Theodoret of Cyrrhus, yet another historian (and bishop), tells us in his Ecclesiastical History that a contemporary and collaborator of Athanasius, Eusebius of Samosata, traveled around many of the eastern portions of the Roman Empire disguised as a soldier, and where he found Arian or Arianizing bishops, he ordained deacons, priests, and even bishops to care for the orthodox and oppose the official bishops and their supporters. He names five bishops Eusebius consecrated.

Another bishop, Lucifer of Cagliari, wandered throughout the Mediterranean world in support of those who upheld Nicea. Both Socrates and Theodoret record his intervention in the divided church of Antioch. In 362 he consecrated the leader of one of the orthodox groups, the leader of the other, larger group having early on in his career appeared to compromise with moderate Arians. The uncompromising orthodox group had never been willing to accept him as their bishop, and the consecration embittered the break between the two and led to a schism that was not to be healed for over fifty years.

Epiphanius, bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, conducted ordinations in his native Palestine in defiance of compromising bishops during the Arian crisis. As Socrates relates, he did the same thing many years later in Constantinople, when he was led to believe that John Chrysostom, the patriarch there, supported the errors of Origen.

Details of the activities of such bishops are few, but in the next century, for 85 years after the Council of Chalcedon in 451, both proponents and opponents of that council among the bishops in the eastern parts of the empire were willing to intervene, or intrude, regularly in dioceses whose bishops were on the “ other side.”

All of this allows us to say that any attempt to construct a theory of the inviolability of diocesan boundaries cannot find any support in the theory and practice of the early Church. In the light of this history, Bishop Wright’s invocation of “Nicene decrees” and the Windsor Report’s allusion to “the ancient norm” and “some of the longest-standing regulations” vanishes altogether, and all that is left is “Anglican custom” (Wright) or “traditional and oft-repeated Anglican practice” (Windsor).

Deprived Christians

Those who have followed the actual practices of Anglican churches over the past three decades, in the United States, Canada, and Australia especially, will see how readily proponents of one innovation after another have been willing to abandon norms, decrees, regulations, canons, customs—you name it—to gain their ends.

In the Christianity Today interview, Wright remarked that “the real question at the heart of much of this is, which [are] the things we can agree to differ about and which [are] the things we can’t agree to differ about.” He continued, speaking of modern questions the Nicene fathers he invoked would have thought settled matters of their common faith,

Again and again I hear people on both sides of the argument simply begging that question and assuming that they know without argument that this is something that we can agree to differ about, or assuming that they know without argument this is one of the things we can’t agree to differ about. What we all have to do is to say about any issue—whether it’s lay celebration [of Communion], whether it’s episcopal intervention, whether it’s homosexual practice—

How do we know, and who says which differences make a difference and which differences don’t make a difference?

Speaking for myself as a Catholic with many Anglican friends, the clearest and most instructive (as well as the saddest) lesson of this episode is how sincere and pious Christians, like Bishop Wright, deprive themselves of any compellingly persuasive basis for rallying a forceful “Athanasian” movement to retake their churches from the heterodox innovators who dominate them—and not least because of their own inability, as the bishop’s statements show, to make clear judgments about false teaching and false teachers and to take firm and decisive measures in response. In consequence, they render their own situations hopeless, being able neither to fight nor to flee.

N. T. Wright’s article appeared in the 23 October 2004 issue of The Tablet and may be found at www.thetablet.co.uk/cgi-bin/register.cgi/tablet-00945. The Christianity Today interview can be found at www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/142/42.0.html. The sources of the quotations from Socrates are (in order): Book II, chapter 24; III.6 and 9; VI.12; those from Sozomen are III.21; and from Theodoret IV.13 and V.4; III.2.

William J. Tighe is a contributing editor of Touchstone.

“Abusing the Fathers” first appeared in the April, 2005 issue of Touchstone. Click here for a printer-friendly version.


1 posted on 03/26/2005 8:51:54 AM PST by sionnsar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: ahadams2; Saint Reagan; Marauder; stan_sipple; SuzyQue; LifeofRiley; TheDean; pharmamom; ...
Traditional Anglican ping, continued in memory of its founder Arlin Adams.

FReepmail sionnsar if you want on or off this moderately high-volume ping list (typically 3-7 pings/day).
This list is pinged by sionnsar and newheart.

Resource for Traditional Anglicans: http://trad-anglican.faithweb.com

Speak the truth in love. Eph 4:15

2 posted on 03/26/2005 8:52:28 AM PST by sionnsar (†trad-anglican.faithweb.com† || Iran Azadi || Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: sionnsar

This was excellent, sionnsar. It sounds as though Bishop Wright is falling prey to the multi-cultural PC movement. "We can't judge right and wrong..." Isn't that what Scripture and Tradition are there fore?


3 posted on 03/26/2005 11:00:15 AM PST by pharmamom (Let's err on the side of Life, OK?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: pharmamom; sionnsar
"This was excellent, sionnsar. It sounds as though Bishop Wright is falling prey to the multi-cultural PC movement. "We can't judge right and wrong..." Isn't that what Scripture and Tradition are there fore?"

I remember when Bishop Wright first made his comments I thought to myself that the Council of Nicea never held anything like what he was saying. But I looked it up anyway and then re read some history. And sure enough, the Nicene situation wasn't anything like what the AC is facing today and simply can't be compared to it. Bishop Wright's refusal to uphold the 2100 year old teaching of the Church that it is the role and function of a bishop to make precisely the distinctions which he refuses to make, namely to proclaim that which is what the Church always and everywhere has believed and that which is not, speaks volumes about the collapse of "orthodox" Christianity among the hierarchs of the Anglican Communion, even, apparently, the "conservative" ones.

Sionnsar, where does this idea that schism is worse than heresy come from? Is this an ancient idea? Is it uniquely Anglican? I do know that after 1453, The Church in the East proclaimed "Better the Sultan's turban than the Pope's mitre", or words to that effect, so it doesn't sound Orthodox to me, but as always I am ready to be corrected! :)
4 posted on 03/26/2005 11:29:32 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Nuke the Cube!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: Kolokotronis
Kolokotronis, I don't know. I've heard it from the Anglican Left only recently, but a quick Googling of the phrase muddies the water. I found it in:

In Communion web site, which appears Orthodox (can you enlighten me?)

There there is this from Pontifications: "The argument boils down to this: Schism is worse than heresy. This view does have a long history in the Latin Church; but it presupposes the conviction that the Bishop of Rome is the divinely ordained office of ecclesial unity and that we can trust God to correct theological error in the churches that remain in communion with Peter. But if one does not believe that the bishop of Rome is the divinely ordained office of unity–as most Anglicans do not and as I’m sure the revisionists do not–then the “schism is worse than heresy” argument doesn’t work. Outside of its indigenous Roman context, the argument is simply a political ploy to maintain institutional unity at all costs, without regard for orthodox doctrine and practice, without regard for the integrity of the Church’s message and mission, and without regard for how the formal adoption of heresy violates the consciences of traditionalists. It’s equivalent to telling a woman that she must remain with her abusive husband because God hates divorce."

And on " phorum", I read: "WRONG! There is NO justifiable excuse for schism. St John Chrysostom says that schism is worse than heresy. The ROCOR is a scandal to the Orthodox world and as such we need to pray for our bretheren in the ROCOR who are no doubt faithful but pawns in the hands of their own hierarchs who have vested interests in keeping them separated. The ROCOR has recently undergone yet another sorry splintering... a sure sign that it is under the judgment of the Lord.."

5 posted on 03/26/2005 1:47:05 PM PST by sionnsar (†trad-anglican.faithweb.com† || Iran Azadi || Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: sionnsar
Ah, there you made me go read again! I think what these Anglican bishops are doing is misinterpreting remarks of the Fathers in the nature of "Schism is worse than heresy". What the Fathers are talking about is the condemnation of those who cause a schism by means of a heretical teaching or even more likely and perhaps more seriously, because of a "lust for power". Thus, St. John Chrysostomos writes in his Homily XI on Ephesians 4:4-7,

"Moral. If therefore we desire to have the benefit of that Spirit which is from the Head, let us cleave one to another. For there are two kinds of separation from the body of the Church; the one, when we wax cold in love, the other, when we dare commit things unworthy of our belonging to that body; for in either way we cut ourselves off from the "fullness of Christ." But if we are appointed to build up others also, what shall not be done to them who are first to make division? Nothing will so avail to divide the Church as love of power. Nothing so provokes God's anger as the division of the Church. Yea, though we have achieved ten thousand glorious acts, yet shall we, if we cut to pieces the fullness of the Church, suffer punishment no less sore than they who mangled His body. For that indeed was brought to pass for the benefit of the world, even though it was done with no such intention; whereas this produces no advantage in any case, but the injury is excessive. These remarks I am addressing not to the governors only, but also to the governed. Now a certain holy man said what might seem to be a bold thing; yet, nevertheless, he spoke it out. What then is this? He said, that not even the blood of martyrdom can wash out this sin? For tell me for what dost thou suffer as a martyr? Is it not for the glory of Christ? Thou then that yieldest up thy life for Christ's sake, how dost thou lay waste the Church, for whose sake Christ yielded up His life? Hear what Paul saith, "I am not meet to be called an Apostle (1 Cor. 15:9), because I persecuted the Church of God and made havoc of it." (Gal. 1:13) This injury is not less than that received at the hands of enemies, nay, it is far greater. For that indeed renders her even more glorious, whereas this, when she is warred upon by her own children, disgraces her even before her enemies. Because it seems to them a great mark of hypocrisy, that those who have been born in her, and nurtured in her bosom, and have learned perfectly her secrets, that these should of a sudden change, and do her enemies' work.

I mean these remarks for those who give themselves up indiscriminately to the men who are dividing the Church. For if on the one hand those men have doctrines also contrary to ours, then on that account further it is not right to mix with them: if, on the other hand, they hold the same opinions, the reason for not mixing with them is greater still. And why so? Because then the disease is from lust of authority. Know ye not what was the fate of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram? (Num. 16:1-35) Of them only did I say? Was it not also of them that were with them? What wilt thou say? Shall it be said, "Their faith is the same, they are orthodox as well as we"? If so, why then are they not with us? There is "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." If their cause is right, then is ours wrong; if ours is right, then is theirs wrong. "Children," saith he, "tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind." Tell me, dost thou think this is enough, to say that they are orthodox? Is then the ordination of clergy past and done away? And what is the advantage of other things, if this be not strictly observed? For as we must needs contend for the faith; so must we for this also. For if it is lawful for any one, according to the phrase of them of old, "to fill his hands," and to become a priest, let all approach to minister. In vain has this altar been raised, in vain the fullness of the Church, in vain the number of the priests. Let us take them away and destroy them. "God forbid!" ye will say. You are doing these things, and do ye say, "God forbid"? How say ye, "God forbid," when the very things are taking place? I speak and testify, not looking to my own interest, but to your salvation. But if any one be indifferent, he must see to it himself; if these things are a care to no one else, yet are they a care to me. "I planted," saith he, "Apollos watered, but God gave the increase." (1 Cor. 3:6) How shall we bear the ridicule of the Greeks? For if they reproach us on account of our heresies, what will they not say of these things? "If they have the same doctrines, if the same mysteries, wherefore does a ruler in one Church invade another? See ye," say they, "how all things amongst the Christians are full of vainglory? And there is an ambition among them, and hypocrisy. Strip them," say they, "of their numbers, and they are nothing. Cut out the disease, the corrupt multi-rode." Would ye have me tell what they say of our city, how they accuse us on the score of our easy compliances? Any one, say they, that chooses may find followers, and would never be at a loss for them. Oh, what a sneer is that, what a disgrace are these things! And yet the sneer is one thing, the disgrace is another. If any amongst us are convicted of deeds the most disgraceful, and are about to meet with some penalty, great is the alarm, great is the fear on all sides, lest he should start away, people say, and join the other side. Yea, let such an one start away ten thousand times, and let him join them. And I speak not only of those who have sinned, but if there be any one free from offense, and he has a mind to depart, let him depart. I am grieved indeed at it, and bewail and lament it, and am cut to the very heart, as though I were being deprived of one of my own limbs; and yet I am not so grieved, as to be compelled to do anything wrong through such fear as this. We have "not lordship over your faith" (2 Cor. 1:24), beloved, nor command we these things as your lords and masters. We are appointed for the teaching of the word, not for power, nor for absolute authority. We hold the place of counselors to advise you. The counselor speaks his own sentiments, not forcing the hearer, but leaving him full master of his choice upon what is said; in this case alone is he blamable, if he fail to utter the things which present themselves. For this cause do we also say these things, these things do we assert, that it may not be in your power in that day to say, "No one told us, no one gave us commandment, we were ignorant, we thought it was no sin at all." Therefore I assert and protest, that to make a schism in the Church is no less an evil than to fall into heresy. Tell me, suppose a subject of some king, though he did not join himself to another king, nor give himself to any other, yet should take and keep hold of his king's royal purple, and should tear it all from its clasp, and rend it into many shreds; would he suffer less punishment than those who join. themselves to the service of another? And what, if withal he were to seize the king himself by the throat and slay him, and tear his body limb from limb, what punishment could he undergo, that should be equal to his deserts? Now if in doing this toward a king, his fellow-servant, he would be committing an act too great for any punishment to reach; of what hell shall not he be worthy who slays Christ, and plucks Him limb from limb? of that one which is threatened? No, I think not, but of another far more dreadful."

It seems to me that the words of the Fathers, many of whom both condemned schism, for the above reasons, yet also demanded separation from heretics (St. Gregory the Theologian, St. Basil the Great, St. Ignatius, etc.)have been high jacked by those very ones today who both preach heresy and lust after power. Their purpose, of course, is to hamstring the orthodox in their attempt to deal with the heresy. This isn't the first time this has happened in the modern era by the way. These types of charges were hurled back and forth in the Church of Russia/ROCOR battles since the Russian Revolution. This sermon of +John Chrysostomos really is quite remarkable in that it deals with so many of the issues which the AC right now is facing, right down to the nature of communion and "crossing diocesan boundaries".
6 posted on 03/26/2005 2:47:45 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Nuke the Cube!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Kolokotronis

Amazing. You are correct.


7 posted on 03/26/2005 3:07:27 PM PST by sionnsar (†trad-anglican.faithweb.com† || Iran Azadi || Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: sionnsar

"Amazing. You are correct"

There's very little new under the sun in most things, The Church included, I'm afraid. But here's the answer to the revisionists and heretics in the AC, from "The Golden Mouthed" 1700 years ago.


8 posted on 03/26/2005 3:58:59 PM PST by Kolokotronis (Nuke the Cube!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: Kolokotronis
I'd just like to note for those who might not have read that entire, typically brillians +Chrystostom passage, the he says

"to make a schism in the Church is no less an evil than to fall into heresy." [my emphasis added]

So, even the appeal being made is falsely put, and by people supposedly educated in the faith.

I was just in a Catholic store, buying clerical gear, in Raleigh. Very nice people running it. One lady, who I learned was a nun (though, as now always, in ordinary attire, lest anyone think she might actually be a Bride of Christ, I fear), learned that I am Anglican and as I commented that, while once Roman and pre-Vatican II, I have become Anglican and pre-Tridentine. 'Ahh, the Dark Ages', she muttered. I muttered back, "The Light Ages to me, ma'am.".

It is the continuing wrangle and the strange immobility in the orthodox clergy that is making this another Dark Age and I agree with you both that this is a strangely Athanasian situation. My thanks to you both for this very informative and edifying exchange.

Well done, brothers.

In Christ,

Deacon Paul+

9 posted on 03/27/2005 3:10:39 AM PST by BelegStrongbow (Having a human friend is no bed of roses-but hobbits? That's very different. :))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 6 | View Replies]

To: BelegStrongbow; sionnsar

Thank-you for the kind words, Deacon. The evil of the revisionists and the credulity of the orthodox Anglicans who remain in communion with heretics is quite astonishing to me but as sionnsar and I have discussed before, the Orthodox concept of communion seems quite different from that of many Anglicans. The whole concept of "open communion" speaks volumes about this difference. Indeed, it is either the root of the problem in the AC or the prime "theological" justification for themanifold heresies which have been tolerated in the AC. For example, doesn't open communion excuse a failure to believe in the Incarnation, the Perpetual Virginity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Trininty and the Resurrection? Conversely, perhaps open communion is the result of these heresies or the reductio ad absurdam of the original compromises made in Anglicanism. I don't know the answer to this, but it is apparent that heresy is a malignancy which has been allowed to grow and spread in the Anglican Church for a very long time. As unpopular as it may be in the West, rigid orthodoxy in both praxis and belief in the Faith is absolutely necessary for the preservation of that Faith and the theosis of the People of God. Without it, everything just falls apart, the people stumble into sin, the Evil One rejoices and all creation groans.

On a happier note, a blessed and holy Feast of the Resurrection to you both. Xristos Anesti ek nekron, Thanato Thanaton patisas, kai tois en tois mnimasi, Zoin xapisamenos (Christ is risen from the dead, trampling Death by death, and bestowing life to those in the tombs!) my brothers!

http://goarch.org/en/multimedia/quicktime/Christ_is_risen.asp


10 posted on 03/27/2005 5:50:20 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Nuke the Cube!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 9 | View Replies]

To: sionnsar; Kolokotronis
"Schism is worse than heresy"

I have heard the same reason given in regards to the Roman Catholic Church and the pope's dealing(or not dealing) with renegade, heretical bishops. I have heard in particular that JPII was worried about an American Catholic schism. One can't help but wonder if this tactic will be beneficial in the long run.
11 posted on 03/27/2005 6:29:39 AM PST by k omalley (Caro Enim Mea, Vere est Cibus, et Sanguis Meus, Vere est Potus)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: Kolokotronis; BelegStrongbow
For example, doesn't open communion excuse a failure to believe in the Incarnation, the Perpetual Virginity of the Most Holy Theotokos, the Trininty and the Resurrection? Conversely, perhaps open communion is the result of these heresies or the reductio ad absurdam of the original compromises made in Anglicanism.

Kolokotronis, I suspect the answer is the former, though one could make the argument that the "original compromises" (hmmm... maybe I should capitalize that: Original Compromises) were the means by which the heresy was able to creep in, unchecked.

I don't know the answer to this, but it is apparent that heresy is a malignancy which has been allowed to grow and spread in the Anglican Church for a very long time. As unpopular as it may be in the West, rigid orthodoxy in both praxis and belief in the Faith is absolutely necessary for the preservation of that Faith and the theosis of the People of God. Without it, everything just falls apart, the people stumble into sin, the Evil One rejoices and all creation groans.

I see the problem within Anglicanism as two-fold:

1) an unreadiness to say "thus far and no further." This is probably born of the Original Compromises, due to the temptation to say "you're already over the line." Although there has been a fair amount of back & forth over the centuries that has even led to divisions (interesting, though, that the REC is preparing a return -- and there are indeed reunifications occurring).

One solution would seem to be a statement of where the lines lie -- a rigid orthodoxy of praxis & belief, but drawn with a wider circle than the Orthodox. On the other hand, with a stronger corrective mechanism operating, perhaps "thus far and no further" could be made to work.

2) the lack of a strong corrective mechanism. I'm repeating myself for the n-teenth time here, but Anglicanism lacks the strong mechanisms for self-correction within the body that the Orthodox have. And while the Anglican mechanisms will never be as strong, they are not acting as strongly as they could -- or should. In part I blame this upon their never having been used before, thus there was a reluctance to use them when they should have first been brought to bear, and there is a continuing reluctance to use them now when they ought to be applied forcefully.

It's this reluctance that has led into what are, in my forming opinion, travesties such as "continuing impaired communion" -- "impaired communion" ought to be a temporary condition that ends within a certain time either in restored communion or no communion; it's not a measure of 15% communion, or 55% communion, or whatever. As with the condition of being pregnant, such a thing cannot be.

The hope I have, though it's not a big one at this time, is that the Global South will ultimately be successful in eliminating the big heresy and then turn to the lessers. The weapon they wield, membership in the wordwide Anglican Communion, may not seem powerful to others, but to us Anglicans who've grown up steeped in that tradition, it is significant indeed. Being outside the wwAC (as I have been for 22 years) is a little like having lost a limb.

Only time will tell.

OTOH, I've written ++Akinola before to complain. Maybe I need to make more noise.

12 posted on 03/27/2005 8:09:42 AM PST by sionnsar (†trad-anglican.faithweb.com† || Iran Azadi || Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: sionnsar; MarMema
"I'm repeating myself for the n-teenth time here, but Anglicanism lacks the strong mechanisms for self-correction within the body that the Orthodox have."

They are not really "mechanisms" as such. What keeps us on the straight and narrow, so to speak, is the mindset, sionnsar. Its all about how we view and live the Faith. We all have a place within the Church. Each of us, hierarchs, clergy and laity have a role to play. None can exist and be Orthodox without the others. Excesses are avoided and heresies recognized and dealt with because all three parts of the Church act in a sort of partnership, in a "syndeesmos". But it also presupposes a total commitment to the Faith and the Church by all, a true commitment to live in the world but not be of the world. As I said before, it is rather the ultimate counter cultural way to live, at least here in the West.

It may be that when viewed from the outside, our hierarchs and their synods and our lower clergy appear very powerful. And within their roles in the Church they are, probably more so than the same Anglican orders, but that said the commitment of those men and of all the laity to preserve inviolate the Truths once revealed and the liturgical practices, monasticism and prayer life which both protect and inculcate those Truths is really the key. That means living life and viewing the world in a way which the West hasn't seen, at least not in any great way, for 1000 years.

Your idea of writing again to ++Akinola is a good one. As I have commented before, Africans seem to have an incredible innate Orthodoxy about them, which leads me to believe that the problems of the AC lie squarely in the Western mindset of some of the Churches in the AC. ++Akinola has more than once impressed me with his likeness to +Athanasius. Do write to him. Tell him the Orthodox think its time for an Anglican Athanasius. It is highly appropriate that that Athanasius be an African like the original.
13 posted on 03/27/2005 10:20:01 AM PST by Kolokotronis (Nuke the Cube!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 12 | View Replies]

To: Kolokotronis; sionnsar

What keeps us on the straight and narrow, so to speak, is the mindset, sionnsar. Its all about how we view and live the Faith.

IMHO, that viewpoint is humility and love. If we assume that we bring something personally new to the world, then we are in St. John's aim: the truth is not in us.

I'm not sure that I think that the actual Orthodox revival is going to come via Africa. I know that there is a strong charismatic element to African worship, stemming from their Animist past, and that this will hardly be intuitive or generate respect when prosletizing those of European or Asian descent. But then the issue might well be that it won't be just one Athanasius. We need to pray that prophets arise in all lands and that the Holy Spirit calls men to His work. The issue seems to require that men stand wherever they are and declaim God's Word loudly and unambiguously. I know that most ears will be deaf to the message, but those who would seek the Light of Christ cannot know where it is kindled unless someone stands up and holds it aloft.


In Christ,
Deacon Paul+


14 posted on 03/28/2005 9:45:23 AM PST by BelegStrongbow (Having a human friend is no bed of roses-but hobbits? That's very different. :))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson