Eastern Orthodox Ecclesiology: against false unions [my title]

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.

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).

Orthodox Christians regard the Council in Trullo as a continuation of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, for which reason it is also called the Quinisext Council. For Orthodox Christians, therefore, the Council in Trullo is God inspired and not open to question.

In 692 the Greek bishops, even by Orthodox standards, did not have the right to speak for the whole Church. Nor can you claim that it was a continuation of the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical Councils. The Fifth Ecumenical Council (the Second Council of Constantinople) ended in 553. The Sixth Ecumenical Council (the Third Council of Constantinople) ended in 681. No western bishops were invited to the Council in Trullo in 692 nor was it approved by the pope or papal legates; it was clearly a local Greek affair. By your own concept of reception the Council in Trullo must be rejected as ecumenical because it was never received or accepted by the West. Or are you now positing that only reception by the Greeks is necessary: Ubi episcopi Graeci ibi Ecclesia?

My point is simply that Canon 32 is clear evidence of the liturgical Tradition of the Church and it provides implicit evidence as to the non-employment of azymes in the liturgy.

Even if I were to accept the ecumenical status of Trullo, nothing in the canons that you quoted gives any evidence on the nature of the bread that was used; on this point the canons are silent.

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.

But the Greeks did use artos to mean unleavened bread. In the Septuagint we find this usage for the unleavened shewbread: Ex. 25:30; Lev. 24:5-6; and I Sam. 21:3-6. In Matt. 12:4 when our Lord describes how David ate the unleavened consecrated bread artos is used. Josephus also uses artos for unleavened bread (Ant. 3.6.6.).

The Last Supper was the Passover. The use of leavened bread would have been highly significant and would have been expressly noted. The fact that it was not leads to the conclusion that the use of the term artos meant bread in general and withing the context of a passover meal must have been unleavened. Additionally, since all leavened bread would have to be destroyed in anticipation of Passover, leavened bread would have been unavailable.

One would expect that if the apostolic tradition was to use unleavened bread, the practice would have persisted in large parts of the East.

This would only be true if there were any real significance as to whether the bread was leavened or not. If it were understood that bread is bread then it is easy to see that they would use whatever bread was most available.

"Even if I were to accept the ecumenical status of Trullo, nothing in the canons that you quoted gives any evidence on the nature of the bread that was used; on this point the canons are silent."
The evidence is implicit in Canon 32. Note that the canon tells us that the Liturgy was given to St. James complete with directions, i.e. what we would call rubrics. These would surely have included not just the matter of mixing water with the wine, but other important details, e.g. what sort of bread could be used.
Note also that the Liturgy of St. James is seen as the root liturgy. All other liturgies of the Church, according to Canon 32, are derived from the Liturgy of St. James. Thus, the Liturgy of St. Mark in Alexandria is from the Liturgy of St. Peter in Rome which was from the Liturgy of St. James. How do we know? Tradition tells us that St. Mark the Evangelist helped St. Peter in his ministry to the people in Rome.
The Liturgy of St. Basil came from the Liturgy of St. Peter the Holy Apostle as celebrated in Antioch which came from that of St. James. The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom came from St. Basil's.
All over the Church, the various liturgies used have their origin in the Liturgy of St. James. And yet, as Agrarian noted in one of his posts, nowhere in the East, except in Armenia, do we detect the use of azymes.
That's a clue. Now apply the Vincentian Canon to the evidence and the only conclusion possible, it seems to me, is that azymes were not originally employed in Rome or in Armenia.

"It is just as easy to see the fact that bread is bread, leavened or not. Canon 32 is silent on this and so should we be."
That's your opinion. In the Church, we do not have the luxury of personal opinions on such matters as this. According to St. Photius the Great, the use of azymes is not a minor matter. No father prior to St. Photius that I know of said, "This is but a minor matter", or words to that effect.
I do know that there was/is room for some flex in the Church as to uses from diocese to diocese, but not as to what is or is not the matter of a sacrament. The only flex I am aware of as to the matter of a sacrament has to do with baptism in extremis. But even there, such baptisms are to be reported to the authorities and may, under certain conditions, have to repeated entirely because they are not up to standard and so not baptisms at all.

Cyprian's words:

The spouse of Christ cannot be adulterous; she is uncorrupted and pure. She knows one home; she guards with chaste modesty the sanctity of one couch. She keeps us for God. She appoints the sons whom she has born for the kingdom. Whoever is separated from the Church and is joined to an adulteress, is separated from the promises of the Church; nor can he who forsakes the Church of Christ attain to the rewards of Christ. He is a stranger; he is profane; he is an enemy. He can no longer have God for his Father, who has not the Church for his mother. If any one could escape who was outside the ark of Noah, then he also may escape who shall be outside of the Church. The Lord warns, saying, "He who is not with me is against me, and he who gathereth not with me scattereth." He who breaks the peace and the concord of Christ, does so in opposition to Christ; he who gathereth elsewhere than in the Church, scatters the Church of Christ. The Lord says, "I and the Father are one; " and again it is written of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, "And these three are one." And does any one believe that this unity which thus comes from the divine strength and coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church, and can be separated by the parting asunder of opposing wills? He who does not hold this unity does not hold God's law, does not hold the faith of the Father and the Son, does not hold life and salvation.

In the Church, we do not have the luxury of personal opinions on such matters as this. According to St. Photius the Great, the use of azymes is not a minor matter. No father prior to St. Photius that I know of said, "This is but a minor matter", or words to that effect.

First, I still cannot see how you can claim that Trullo was an Ecumenical Council. Beyond that, your interpretation that Canon 32 requires unleavened bread is a personal opinion, and one that is far fethced as far as I am concerned. You are reading into the canon something that it simply does not say.

With regard to Patriarch Photius, it seems to me that you are giving to him an infallibility that you are denying to the pope. Why should the decision of the Patriarch of Constantinople be held in higher regard than that of the pope.

That being said, however, it may come as a surprise to you but Photius never condemned the West for the use of unleavened bread. That was first done by Patriarch Michael I in 1053 when he closed the Latin churches in Constantinople. Thus for hundreds of years no one thought that it was a serious matter. The novelty was the condemnation of Patriarch Michael.

"First, I still cannot see how you can claim that Trullo was an Ecumenical Council."
I accept it as Ecumenical because the Church does. The teaching of the Church is that the Council in Trullo was a continuation of the Fifth Council that dealt with matters left unfinished at the Fifth Ecumenical Council. All of the canons in Trullo were confirmed at the Sixth Ecumenical Council.

"You are reading into [Canon 32] something that it simply does not say." Yeh, me and the rest of the Church are "reading into".

"With regard to Patriarch Photius, it seems to me that you are giving to him an infallibility that you are denying to the pope." HOGWASH. I render to him the respect that all Orthodox Christians render to him. It's the Tradition that's
infallible, not St. Photius.

"Why should the decision of the Patriarch of Constantinople be held in higher regard than that of the pope." It's the Tradition that is held in higher regard. No pope and no ecumenical patriarch can override the Tradition. I have just as hard a time with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew as I do with Pope Benedict XVI. You should hear what we say of the present EP. He is generally held in very low regard, so much so it mystifies us that Pope Benedict XVI bothers to talk with him at all. Another stinker is Patriarch Alexei II, called by some the Ghetto Orthodox Patriarch because of his past.

"That being said, however, it may come as a surprise to you but Photius never condemned the West for the use of unleavened bread."
I believe you may want to double check that statement.

I believe you may want to double check that statement.

Sure on that?

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02172a.htm
Certain it is that in the ninth century the use of unleavened bread had become universal and obligatory in the West, while the Greeks, desirous of emphasizing the distinction between the Jewish and the Christian Pasch, offered up leavened bread. Some surprise has been expressed that Photius, so alert in picking flaws in the Latin Liturgy, made no use of a point of attack which occupies so prominent a place in the polemics of the later schismatics. The obvious explanation is that Photius was shrewd and learned enough to see that the position of the Latins could not successfully be assailed. Two centuries later, the quarrel with Rome was resumed by a patriarch who was troubled with no learned scruples. As a visible symbol of Catholic unity, it had been the custom to maintain Greek churches and monasteries in Rome and some of Latin Rite in Constantinople. In 1053, Michael Cærularius ordered all the Latin churches in the Byzantine capital to be closed, and the Latin monks to be expelled. As a dogmatic justification of this violent rupture with the past, he advanced the novel tenet that the unleavened oblation of the "Franks" was not a valid Mass; and one of his chaplains, Constantine by name, with a fanaticism worthy of a Calvinist, trod the consecrated Host under his feet. The proclamation of war with the pope and the West was drawn up by his chief lieutenant, Leo of Achrida, metropolitan of the Bulgarians. It was in the form of a letter addressed to John, Bishop of Trani, in Apulia, at the time subject to the Byzantine emperor, and by decree of Leo the Isaurian attached to the Eastern Patriarchate. John was commanded to have the letter translated into Latin and communicated to the pope and the Western bishops. This was done by the learned Benedictine, Cardinal Humbert, who happened to be present in Trani when the letter arrived. Baronius has preserved the Latin version; Cardinal Hergenröther was so fortunate as to discover the original Greek text (Cornelius Will, Acta et Scripta, 51 sqq.). It is a curious sample of Greek logic. "The love of God and a feeling of friendliness impelled the writers to admonish the Bishops, clergy, monks and laymen of the Franks, and the Most Reverend Pope himself, concerning their azyms and Sabbaths, which were unbecoming, as being Jewish observances and instituted by Moses. But our Pasch is Christ. The Lord, indeed, obeyed the law by first celebrating the legal pasch; but, as we learn from the Gospel, he subsequently instituted the new pasch.... He took bread, etc., that is, a thing full of life and spirit and heat. You call bread panis; we call it artos. This from airoel (airo), to raise, signifies a something elevated, lifted up, being raised and warmed by the ferment and salt; the azym, on the other hand, is lifeless as a stone or baked clay, fit only to symbolize affliction and suffering. But our Pasch is replete with joy; it elevates usfrom the earth to heaven even as the leaven raises and warms the bread", etc. This etymological manipulation of artos from airo was about as valuable in deciding a theological controversy as Melanchthon's discovery that the Greek for "penance" is metanoia. The Latin divines found an abundance of passages in Scripture whereunleavened bread is designated as artos. Cardinal Humbert remembered immediately the places where the unleavened loaves of proposition are called artoi. If the writers of the letter had been familiar with the Septuagint, they would have recalled the artous azymous of Ex., xxix, 2.

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