Posted on 07/01/2005 2:22:18 AM PDT by kosta50
XXVIII. ECCLESIOLOGY
The commotion about union of the churches makes evident the ignorance existing as much among the circles of the simple faithful as among the theologians as to what the Church is.
They understand the catholicity of the Church as a legal cohesion, as an interdependence regulated by some code. For them the Church is an organization with laws and regulations like the organizations of nations. Bishops, like civil servants, are distinguished as superiors and subordinates: patriarchs, archbishops, metropolitans, bishops. For them, one diocese is not something complete, but a piece of a larger whole: the autocephalous church or the patriarchate. But the autocephalous church, also, feels the need to belong to a higher head. When external factors of politics, history, or geography prevent this, a vague feeling of weak unity and even separation circulates through the autocephalous churches.
Such a concept of the Church leads directly to the Papacy. If the catholicity of the Church has this kind of meaning, then Orthodoxy is worthy of tears, because up to now she has not been able to discipline herself under a Pope.
But this is not the truth of the matter. The catholic Church which we confess in the Symbol (Creed) of our Faith is not called catholic because it includes all the Christians of the earth, but because within her everyone of the faithful finds all the grace and gift of God. The meaning of catholicity has nothing to do with a universal organization the way the Papists and those who are influenced by the Papist mentality understand it.
Of course, the Church is intended for and extended to the whole world independent of lands, nations, races, and tongues; and it is not an error for one to name her catholic because of this also. But just as humanity becomes an abstract idea, there is a danger of the same thing happening to the Church when we see her as an abstract, universal idea. In order for one to understand humanity well, it is enough for him to know only one man, since the nature of that man is common to all men of the world.
Similarly, in order to understand what the catholic Church of Christ is, it suffices to know well only one local church. And as among men, it is not submission to a hierarchy which unites them but their common nature, so the local churches are not united by the Pope and the Papal hierarchy but by their common nature.
A local Orthodox church regardless of her size or the number of the faithful is by herself alone, independently of all the others, catholic. And this is so because she lacks nothing of the grace and gift of God. All the local churches of the whole world together do not contain anything more in divine grace than that small church with few members.
She has her presbyters and bishop; she has the Holy Mysteries; she has the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist. Within her any worthy soul can taste of the Holy Spirit's presence. She has all the grace and truth. What is she lacking therefore in order to be catholic? She is the one flock, and the bishop is her shepherd, the image of Christ, the one Shepherd. She is the prefiguring on earth of the one flock with the one Shepherd, of the new Jerusalem. Within her, even in this life, pure hearts taste of the Kingdom of God, the betrothal of the Holy Spirit. Within her they find peace which "passeth all understanding," the peace which has no relation with the peace of men: "My peace I give unto you."
"Paul, called to be an Apostle of Jesus Christ ... to the Church of God which is at Corinth ...." Yes, it really was the Church of God, even if it was at Corinth, at one concrete and limited place.
This is the catholic Church, something concrete in space, time, and persons. This concrete entity can occur repeatedly in space and in time without ceasing to remain essentially the same.
Her relations with the other local churches are not relations of legal and jurisdictional interdependence, but relations of love and grace. One local church is united with all the other local Orthodox churches of the world by the bond of identity. Just as one is the Church of God, the other is the Church of God also, as well as all the others. They are not divided by boundaries of nations nor the political goals of the countries in which they live. They are not even divided by the fact that one might be ignorant of the other's existence. It is the same Body of Christ which is partaken of by the Greeks, the Negroes of Uganda, the Eskimos of Alaska, and the Russians of Siberia. The same Blood of Christ circulates in their veins. The Holy Spirit enlightens their minds and leads them to the knowledge of the same truth.
There exist, of course, relations of interdependence between the local churches, and there are canons which govern them. This interdependence, though, is not a relation of legal necessity, but a bond of respect and love in complete freedom, the freedom of grace. And the canons are not laws of a code, but wise guides of centuries of experience.
The Church has no need of external bonds in order to be one. It is not a pope, or a patriarch, or an archbishop which unites the Church. The local church is something complete; it is not a piece of a larger whole.
Besides, the relations of the churches are relations of churches, and not relations which belong exclusively to their bishops. A bishop cannot be conceived of without a flock or independent of his flock. The Church is the bride of Christ. The Church is the body of Christ, not the bishop alone.
A bishop is called a patriarch when the church of which he is the shepherd is a patriarchate, and an archbishop when the church is an archdiocese. In other words, the respect and honor belongs to the local church, and by extension it is rendered to its bishop. The Church of Athens is the largest and, today, most important local church of Greece. For this reason the greatest respect belongs to her, and she deserves more honor than any other church of Greece. Her opinion has a great bearing, and her role in the solution of common problems is the most significant. That is why she is justly called an archdiocese. Consequently, the bishop of that church, because he represents such an important church is a person equally important and justly called an archbishop. He himself is nothing more than an ordinary bishop. In the orders of priesthood—the deacon, the presbyter, and the bishop—there is no degree higher than the office of the bishop. The titles metropolitan, archbishop, patriarch, or pope do not indicate a greater degree of ecclesiastical charism, because there is no greater sacramental grace than that which is given to the bishop. They only indicate a difference in prominence of the churches of which they are shepherds.
This prominence of one church in relation to the others is not something permanent. It depends upon internal and external circumstances. In studying the history of the Church, we see the primacy of prominence and respect passing from church to church in a natural succession. In Apostolic times, the Church of Jerusalem, without any dispute, had the primacy of authority and importance. She had known Christ; she had heard His words; she saw Him being crucified and arising; and upon her did the Holy Spirit first descend. All who were in a communion of faith and life with her were certain that they walked the road of Christ. This is why Paul, when charged that the Gospel which he taught was not the Gospel of Christ, hastened to explain it before the Church of Jerusalem, so that the agreement of that church might silence his enemies (Gal. 2:1-2).
Later, that primacy was taken by Rome, little by little. It was the capital of the Roman Empire. A multitude of tried Christians comprised that church. Two leading Apostles had lived and preached within its bounds. A multitude of Martyrs had dyed its soil with their blood. That is why her word was venerable, and her authority in the solution of common problems was prodigious. But it was the authority of the church and not of her bishop. When she was asked for her view in the solution of common problems, the bishop replied not in his own name as a Pope of today would do, but in the name of his church. In his epistle to the Corinthians, St. Clement of Rome begins this way: "The Church of God which is in Rome, to the Church of God which is in Corinth." He writes in an amicable and supplicatory manner in order to convey the witness and opinion of his church concerning whatever happened in the Church of Corinth. In his letter to the Church of Rome, St. Ignatius the God-bearer does not mention her bishop anywhere, although he writes as though he were addressing himself to the church which truly has primacy in the hierarchy of the churches of his time.
When St. Constantine transferred the capital of the Roman state to Byzantium, Rome began gradually to lose her old splendor. It became a provincial city. A new local church began to impose itself upon the consciousness of the Christian world: the Church of Constantinople. Rome tried jealously to preserve the splendor of the past, but because things were not conducive to it, it developed little by little its well-known Papal ecclesiology in order to secure theoretically that which circumstances would not offer. Thus it advanced from madness to madness, to the point where it declared that the Pope is infallible whenever he speaks on doctrine, even if because of sinfulness he does not have the enlightenment of sanctity the Fathers of the Church had.
The Church of Constantinople played the most significant role throughout the long period of great heresies and of the Ecumenical Councils, and in her turn she gave her share of blood with the martyrdom of thousands of her children during the period of the Iconoclasts.
Besides these churches which at different times had the primacy of authority, there were others which held the second or third place. They were the various patriarchates, old or new, and other important churches or metropolises. There exists, therefore, a hierarchy, but a hierarchy of churches and not of bishops. St. Irenaeus does not advise Christians to address themselves to important bishops in order to find the solution to their problem, but to the churches which have the oldest roots in the Apostles (Adv. Haer. III, 4, 1).
There are not, therefore, organizational, administrative, or legal bonds among the churches, but bonds of love and grace, the same bonds of love and grace which exist among the faithful of every church, clergy or lay. The relationship between presbyter and bishop is not a relationship of employee and employer, but a charismatic and sacramental relationship. The bishop is the one who gives the presbyter the grace of the priesthood. And the presbyter gives the layman the grace of the Holy Mysteries. The only thing which separates the bishop from the presbyter is the charism of ordination. The bishop excels in nothing else, even if he be the bishop of an important church and bears the title of patriarch or pope. "There is not much separating them [the presbyters] and the bishops. For they too are elevated for the teaching and protection of the Church .... They [the bishops] surpass them only in the power of ordination, and in this alone they exceed the presbyters" (Chrysostom, Hom. XI on I Tim.).
Bishops have no right to behave like rulers, not only towards the other churches but also towards the presbyters or laymen of the church of which they are bishop. They have a responsibility to Oversee in a paternal way, to counsel, to guide, to battle against falsehood, to adjure transgressors with love and strictness, to preside in love. But these responsibilities they share with the presbyters. And the presbyters in turn look upon the bishops as their fathers in the priesthood and render them the same love.
All things in the Church are governed by love. Any distinctions are charismatic distinctions. They are not distinctions of a legal nature but of a spiritual authority. And among the laymen there are charisms and charisms.
The unity of the Church, therefore, is not a matter of obedience to a higher authority. It is not a matter of submission of subordinates to superiors. External relations do not make unity, neither do the common decisions of councils, even of Ecumenical Councils. The unity of the Church is given by the communion in the Body and Blood of Christ, the communion with the Holy Trinity. It is a liturgical unity, a mystical unity.
The common decisions of an Ecumenical Council are not the foundation but the result of unity. Besides, the decisions of either an ecumenical or local council are valid only when they are accepted by the consciousness of the Church and are in accord with the Tradition.
The Papacy is the distortion par excellence of Church unity. It made that bond of love and freedom a bond of constraint and tyranny. The Papacy is unbelief in the power of God and confidence in the power of human systems.
But let no one think that the Papacy is something which exists only in the West. In recent times it has started to appear among the Orthodox too. A few novel titles are characteristic of this spirit, for example, "Archbishop of all Greece," "Archbishop of North and South America." Many times we hear people say of the Patriarch of Constantinople, the "leader of Orthodoxy," or we hear the Russians speaking of Moscow as the third Rome and its patriarch as holding the reins of the whole of Orthodoxy. In fact, many sharp rivalries have begun. All these are manifestations of the same worldly spirit, the same thirst for worldly power, and belong to the same tendencies which characterize the world today.
People cannot feel unity in multiplicity. Yet this is a deep mystery. Our weakness or inability to feel it originates from the condition of severance into which the, human race has fallen. People have changed from persons into separated and hostile individuals, and it is impossible for them now to understand the deep unity of their nature. Man, however, is one and many; one in his nature, many in persons. This is the mystery of the Holy Trinity, and the mystery of the Church.
XXIX. PSEUDO-BISHOPS
It is imperative that Christians realize that the Church has sacramental and not administrative foundations; then they will not suffer that which has happened to the Westerners who followed the Pope in his errors because they thought that if they did not follow him, they would automatically be outside the Church.
Today the various patriarchates and archdioceses undergo great pressures from political powers which seek to direct the Orthodox according to their own interests. It is known that the Patriarchate of Moscow accepts the influence of Soviet politics. But the Patriarchate of Constantinople also accepts the influence of American politics. It was under this influence that the contact of the Ecumenical Patriarchate with the similarly American-influenced, Protestant, World Council of Churches was brought about, and its servile disposition toward the Pope started to take on dangerous dimensions and even to exert over-bearing pressure upon the other Orthodox churches.
America thinks that it will strengthen the Western faction against communism if, with these artificial conciliations, it unifies its spiritual forces. But in this way the Church becomes a toy of the political powers of the world, with unforeseeable consequences for Orthodoxy.
Are the Orthodox people obliged to follow such a servile patriarchate forever? The fact that this patriarchate for centuries held the primacy of importance and honor in the Christian world cannot justify those who will follow it to a unifying capitulation with heresy. Rome also once had the primacy of importance and honor in the Christian world, but that did not oblige Christians to follow it on the road of heresy. The communion with and respect for one church on the part of the other churches remains and continues only as long as that church remains in the Church, that is, as long as it lives and proceeds in spirit and truth. When a patriarchate ceases to be a church, admitting communion with heretics, then its recognition on the part of the other churches ceases also.
The Orthodox people must become conscious of the fact that they owe no obedience to a bishop, no matter how high a title he holds, when that bishop ceases being Orthodox and openly follows heretics with pretenses of union "on equal terms." On the contrary, they are obliged to depart from him and confess their Faith, because a bishop, even if he be patriarch or pope, ceases from being a bishop the moment he ceases being Orthodox. The bishop is a consecrated person, and even if he is openly sinful, respect and honor is due him until synodically censured. But if he becomes openly heretical or is in communion with heretics, then the Christians should not await any synodical decision, but should draw away from him immediately.
Here is what the canons of the Church say on this: "... So that if any presbyter or bishop or metropolitan dares to secede from communion with his own patriarch and does not mention his name as is ordered and appointed in the divine mystagogy, but before a synodical arraignment and his [the patriarch's] full condemnation, he creates a schism, the Holy Synod has decreed that this person be alienated from every priestly function, if only he be proven to have transgressed in this. These rules, therefore, have been sealed and ordered concerning those who on the pretext of some accusations against their own presidents stand apart, creating a schism and severing the unity of the Church. But as for those who on account of some heresy condemned by Holy Synods or Fathers sever themselves from communion with their president, that is, because he publicly preaches heresy and with bared head teaches it in the Church, such persons as these not only are not subject to canonical penalty for walling themselves off from communion with the so-called bishop before synodical clarification, but they shall be deemed worthy of due honor among the Orthodox. For not bishops, but false bishops and false teachers have they condemned, and they have not fragmented the Church's unity with schism, but from schisms and divisions have they earnestly sought to deliver the Church" (Canon XV of the so-called First and Second Council).
The Roman excommunication was based on Patriarch Michael not having come to his senses after forcibly closing all the Latin Churches of Constantinople, and taking the Blessed Sacrament out of them and having it trampled under foot in the streets.
The Roman excommunication was based on Patriarch Michael not having come to his senses after forcibly closing all the Latin Churches of Constantinople, and taking the Blessed Sacrament out of them and having it trampled under foot in the streets.
The Roman excommunication was based on Patriarch Michael not having come to his senses after forcibly closing all the Latin Churches of Constantinople, and taking the Blessed Sacrament out of them and having it trampled under foot in the streets.
The Roman excommunication was based on Patriarch Michael not having come to his senses after forcibly closing all the Latin Churches of Constantinople, and taking the Blessed Sacrament out of them and having it trampled under foot in the streets.
", and taking the [phony] 'Blessed Sacrament', being but a bunch of wafers, out of them and having it trampled under foot in the streets." Excellent move. I totally approve.
Azymes are not and never were the matter of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
Cardinal Bessarion, Cardinal Bessarion, Cardinal Bessarion, and Cardinal Isidore of Kiev.
I never new before that our Lord Jesus Christ was a heretic! There can be no doubt that the bread that Jesus used at the Last Supper was unleavened, it being a Passover meal. The use of leavened bread is custom, not doctrine handed down by our Lord.
The sentence is simply a quotation from the Bible to proove the divinity of the Holy Spirit against those who said he was a creature created by the Son. Obviously, if the purpose of the phrase was to do this, it made little sense to speak of his relation to the Son, something admitted by the heretics, but instead to point to his relation to the Father which made Him equal to the Son.
So much talking is done about the filioque by the Orthodox, yet you never hear about why this phrase "proceeds from the Father" was added to the creed to begin with.
As for Cyril's synodical letter, again, I think it involves what Graves calls "how the Trinity behaves" (i.e. Divine Economy) versus how the Trinity is (His essence). Performing miracles took place in time. I think the Fathers were always very cognicent of the two Trinitarian issues in their interpretations.
You can "think" whatever you like, but that doesn't make it so. You would do better to cite the letter and discuss it.
When he says of the Spirit, "he will glorify me", the correct understanding of this is not to say that the one Christ and Son was in need of glory from another and that he took glory from the holy Spirit, for his Spirit is not better than he nor above him. But because he used his own Spirit to display his godhead through his mighty works, he says that he has been glorified by him, just as if any one of us should perhaps say for example of his inherent strength or his knowledge of anything that they glorify him. For even though the Spirit exists in his own hypostasis and is thought of on his own, as being Spirit and not as Son, even so he is not alien to the Son. He has been called "the Spirit of truth", and Christ is the truth, and the Spirit was poured forth by the Son, as indeed the Son was poured forth from the God and Father. Accordingly the Spirit worked many strange things through the hand of the holy apostles and so glorified him after the ascension of our lord Jesus Christ into heaven. For it was believed that he is God by nature and works through his own Spirit. For this reason also he said: "He (the Spirit) will take what is mine and declare it to you". But we do not say that the Spirit is wise and powerful through some sharing with another, for he is all perfect and in need of no good thing. Since he is the Spirit of the power and wisdom of the Father, that is the Son, he is himself, evidently, wisdom and power.
You are right that the Fathers carefully differentiate between the essential and economic levels of the Trinity, as does St. Cyril here. But the phrases I bolded above are discussing the essential level as a proof of the possibility of what occurred at the economic level. I.e., since the Holy Spirit is at the essential level from Christ, therefore Christ at the economic level was able to work through Him.
Council in Trullo: CANON XI.
LET no one in the priestly order nor any layman eat the unleavened bread of the Jews, nor have any familiar intercourse with them, nor summon them in illness, nor receive medicines from them, nor bathe with them; but if anyone shall take in hand to do so, if he is a cleric, let him be deposed, but if a layman let him be cut off.
Heiromonk Serpahim Rose quotes some of his anti-ascetic sayings in his book "Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future" and notes how he is very much approved by the Pentecostalists.
Why not google "Berdyaev Gnosticism" and see what happens?
Surely you can do better than this. This is a prohibition of partaking in Jewish ritual celebrations not a theological definition of validity for the Mass.
If you are going to treat this canon as binding on us today: I hope that you have never been attended by a Jewish doctor or nurse, or have received medicine from a Jewish pharmacist, or have jumped into a pool with Jewish bathers.
From Council in Trullo: Canon 32
For also James, the brother, according to the flesh, of Christ our God, to whom the throne of the church of Jerusalem first was entrusted, and Basil, the Archbishop of the Church of Caesarea, whose glory has spread through all the world, when they delivered to us directions for the mystical sacrifice in writing, declared that the holy chalice is consecrated in the Divine Liturgy with water and wine. And the holy Fathers who assembled at Carthage provided in these express terms: "That in the holy Mysteries nothing besides the body and blood of the Lord be offered, as the Lord himself laid down, that is bread and wine mixed with water." Therefore if any bishop or presbyter shall not perform the holy action according to what has been handed down by the Apostles, and shall not offer the sacrifice with wine mixed with water, let him be deposed, as imperfectly shewing forth the mystery and innovating on the things which have been handed down.
St. Paul certainly disagreed.
Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened. For Christ our pasch is sacrificed. Therefore, let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)
And where does it say that our Lord prescribed the use of leavened bread?
"'Azymes are not and never were the matter of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.'
St. Paul certainly disagreed.
Purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new paste, as you are unleavened. For Christ our pasch is sacrificed. Therefore, let us feast, not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness: but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. (1 Corinthians 5:7-8)"
We are not at liberty to interpret Holy Scripture on our own but only as understood by the Church. According to the Orthodox Church, azymes are not and have never been the matter of the Sacrament. This is confirmed by the canons I quoted from the Council in Trullo.
How is his use of "sources" or "authors" (auctoribus) compatible with this? I find it quite interesting that you simply assert this without actually showing this from the text. You might as well do the same thing to Augustine too, and declare that the whole idea was cooked up by Charlemagne.
Same for Tertullian. He is explicitly discussing the ETERNAL relation, not the temporal as you claim. Reception of substance is eternal unless you want to make the Holy Spirit into a creature!!! You likewise dismissed the text of St. Basil, Adversus Eunomium without any proof from the text - Mark of Ephesus, on the other hand, was confident that the text was forged, since he recognized that it taught the 'heresy' of the filioque. Mark says that texts which attribute to the Son the cause of the Spirit (as Gregory's book against Eunomius) must have been forged - you, on the other hand, assert that it has nothing to do with the hypostatic procession of the Spirit! Amazing how you can see what Mark missed.
It turned out, of course, that Mark was wrong about the filioque texts being forgeries... The logical answer is to accept the filioque and admit that the Orthodox Churches erred on this point.
Trullo was never fully confirmed by the Apostolic See - the Popes excepted those parts which contradicted the doctrine of the Church. If you're correct about the meaning of the canon (dubious - it's talking about bread "of the Jews", not of the West!), that's one of the unconfirmed parts, and the canon of Trullo has no more authority over the Catholic Church than the decrees of the Robber Council of Ephesus.
Very true.
According to the Orthodox Church, azymes are not and have never been the matter of the Sacrament. This is confirmed by the canons I quoted from the Council in Trullo.
The Council in Trullo was never recognized by the whole Church and is not an Ecumenical Council.
The Scripture says that he took "artos" and broke it. Keep in mind that the Church in the Greek-speaking world was made up of those who (gasp) spoke Greek and who lived in the near East. The Apostles were all over the Eastern parts of Christendom founding churches, consecrating bishops, and teaching the traditions of the Church.
One would expect that if the apostolic tradition was to use unleavened bread, the practice would have persisted in large parts of the East.
What is more likely, that one Patriarchate would change to a new practice, or that all of the other 4 ancient Patriarchates would simultaneously change their practices without discussion or argument?
I haven't read the article to which you refer. We certainly believe that the fullness of the Church is to be found wherever an Orthodox bishop and his flock are gathered together.
We also believe that the Body of Christ is made up of all members of the Orthodox Church, and that this Body cannot be divided.
This is no more self-contradictory than is the belief that the fullness of the Divine Essence is enhypostasized in each of the Persons of the Holy Trinity. This belief neither means that the God's essence is divided into three parts, nor does it mean that any one of the Persons can be thought of as the totality of the Godhead without reference to the others. It is a mystery, and so is the Church.
In any event, the head of the Church is Christ.
St. Cyprian's declaration that there is no salvation outside the Church has led to a fair amount of mental gymnastics on the part of both Catholics and Orthodox -- a simpler explanation is that this declaration is at best incomplete, and at worst, flat-out wrong. In any event, his words do lead to the idea of an "invisible" Church that is not identical to the visible Church -- an idea that Catholics are as likely to reject as are we Orthodox.
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.