>Most of this article is revisionist nonsense. +Athanasius the Great was NOT a proto-protestant of any kind and what he was fighting was the theology of probably the then majority of the Church of Antioch, not of the “Established Church”.
Proto-protestant? He was a protestor against what he saw as heresy in the church. As such, he was a protestant.
Did he hold to what I hold? No. Do all the church fathers agree on everything? No, there is a cacophony of voices from the fathers, and there is little agreement on anything, just as in the Protestant church. Hmmm.
Does that matter that he does not agree with me? No, he is not the authority for faith, but as he said to the Arian, (I paraphrase) it is to the scriptures we must turn, since we do not hold to the same traditions. And I agree whole-heartedly with him. Do you?
So what is meant by Athanasius Contra Mundum if it was only his diocese that was turned away from orthodoxy? Why was is the Emperors that repeatedly banished him if it was only a local phenomenon? Why did Nicea need to happen if it was only Antioch? Why was there STILL Arians about after Nicea, or was Antioch the only bad seed? Or is that just a bunch of revisionist double-talk?
>That said, from an Orthodox perspective, it is even more nonsensical to say that the reformers had no right to attempt to reform the Latin Church in the 16th century. The “laos tou Theou”, the People of God, the laity, ALWAYS are the guardians of orthodox Christianity and it is their duty and role within The Church to keep hierarchs and clergy on an orthodox path. To say otherwise is to turn The Church over to hierarchs, some of whose skulls, we are taught, pave the floor of Hell, and reduce the laity to the status of pay, pray and obey serfs.
Interesting! So the church is held on it path by the laity, not those that teach the laity? That the hierarchs and clergy, those that know the sacred traditions, and pass them from generation to generation, are the source of heresy?
That is, as I could easily hear a Catholic say, is a blueprint for anarchy! Where is the authority, if it does not come from the Apostolic Succession, if those that are OF the succession are the ones we need to keep our eyes on for apostasy? Search your doctrine with fear and trembling! :o) You are sounding downright protestant there, Koloktronis! (I feel the protestant rising within you! Turn to the Dark Side! Bwah-ha-ha-HA!)
(Darth Kolokotronis? Hmmm. A bit long I think....)
>> He was a protestor against what he saw as heresy in the church. As such, he was a protestant. <<
By that logic, Pope Benedict is a Protestant. The difference is that Benedict and Athanasius fought FOR established apostolic doctrine, AGAINST those who sought to change it. (And, of course, that they happened to be correct, but that’s a self-asserting argument.)
“No, there is a cacophony of voices from the fathers, and there is little agreement on anything, just as in the Protestant church. Hmmm.”
There is no cacophony of patristic voices, O. There is the consensus patrum which, along with the Divine Liturgy and the Scriptures, forms the greatest part of Holy Tradition.
“So what is meant by Athanasius Contra Mundum if it was only his diocese that was turned away from orthodoxy?”
Not just a diocese, O, the entire Church of Alexandria, one of the original four Patriarchates. His authority extended up to Jerusalem and throughout all of Africa.
“Why was is the Emperors that repeatedly banished him if it was only a local phenomenon?”
Arianism was not a local phenomenon, indeed the Emperor at Constantinople had Arian sympathies, but the Church of Antioch was the Patriarchate with the closest official, theological connection to Arianism.
“Why did Nicea need to happen if it was only Antioch?”
The Church of Antioch, in those days, was probably the largest of all the Churches. One would never have said “only Antioch”.
“Why was there STILL Arians about after Nicea.”
It hung on for centuries in the West, especially among the Germans and the Visigoths. My suspicion is that the Western bishops had trouble with Greek. Certainly the filioque would indicate that as would some of Blessed Augustine’s writings.
“So the church is held on it path by the laity, not those that teach the laity?”
Within The Church, the hierarchy, the lower clergy, the monastics and the laity all have their role. The ultimate guardians of Christian orthodoxy, however, are the laity.
“That the hierarchs and clergy, those that know the sacred traditions, and pass them from generation to generation, are the source of heresy?”
The laity pass on the Holy Traditions from generation to generation and reliably so. Are hierarchs the source of heresy? Almost invariably.
“Where is the authority, if it does not come from the Apostolic Succession, if those that are OF the succession are the ones we need to keep our eyes on for apostasy?”
The authority of hierarchs comes from their ordination as bishops within the Apostolic Succession. That the AS is the source of their authority is no guarantee that it won’t be abused. The laity watch for that abuse as we have for 1800 years. Within just the past 10 years, an Eparchial Archbishop was toppled from his see by the laity because of his uncanonical abuses of power. Even more recently the Pat. of jerusalem was removed for similar abuses.
“That is, as I could easily hear a Catholic say, is a blueprint for anarchy!”
It might be such a blueprint in the West. The mondset of the Western Church when it comes to hierarchs and ecclesiology is very different from that found in Orthodoxy.
“You are sounding downright protestant there, Koloktronis!”
You see, there was so much in Orthodoxy your predecessors should have embraced! :)
>> So the church is held on it path by the laity, not those that teach the laity? <<
The difficulty with the doctrine known to us Papists as “sensuum fidelis” (sense of the faithful) is that people focus on only half of it, the “sensuum” part, and not the “fidelis” part. The Holy Spirit does guide the conscience of all faithful, so that the “top-down” hierarchy is interdependent with the “bottom-up” experience of the faithful.
But it’s not called “sensuum Joe Schmoe.” “Fidelis” refers to those who accept the authority of bible AND sacred tradition, who are in a state of grace, who reject heresy, and who strive to remain reconciled with the Holy Church.
So....
Lame-man: “We think abortion should be permitted!”
Bishop: “It is a sin”
Lame-man: “I don’t find it mentioned at all in the bible!”
Bishop: “The bible condemns murder, and abortion is murder! Pope John Paul II wrote an excellent explanation in his encyclical huma...”
Lame-man: “John Paul II? That right-wing, patriarchical, homophobic, anti-sex...”
BZZZZZZTT!!!!
Sorry, Lame-man, but you’re not part of the sensuum fidelis.
I should have added that Arian like Christological heresies persisted in the East and again in the greatest numbers within the Patriarchate of Antioch. Nestorianism (though Nestorius was Pat. of Constantinople) and Severianism spring to mind, so it certainly isn’t as if the East was free from heresy after Nicea. In fact, as a general proposition, it was the Church of Rome which was the bulwark of Christian orthodoxy against heresies which arose in the East until the 9th century at least.