Protopresbyter
Theodoros Zisis Emeritus Professor of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
The Scholasticism of the Franco-Papist West
against the Patristic East
In the
West, until the 8th century, theology and spirituality, in essence,
followed the route marked out by the East. As G. Dumont points out, the sources
and principles of theological thought, liturgy and spirituality for the West,
which characterize the flourishing era of Latin Catholicism, are to be found in
the East, however much this may come as a surprise to many Western Christians.
The West owes the East a debt as regards the fact that it formulated into
dogmas the great mysteries of Christianity concerning the Holy Trinity, the
union of divine and human nature in the one person of Christ, a large number of
feasts in the Church’s year, especially in honour of the Mother of God, as well
as the foundation and organization of monasticism. The estrangement between
East and West begins at a particular time in history: the dynamic appearance on
the historical stage of the German Franks of Charlemagne offered the
throne of Rome a powerful ally against the pressures of the Byzantine emperor
and gave the German prince and his successors the opportunity to found and
construct the Holy Roman Empire of the German people as a replacement for
Romania (New Rome/Constantinople) which was henceforth known as Byzantium.
According to the analysis of Le Guillu, Charlemagne’s ambition was to create a
new theological tradition independent of the Patristic Tradition of the East.
As he explicitly says: “In the Carolingian books, the first attempt is made by
the West to define itself in opposition to the East”[1].
The
greatest contribution to this estrangement was made by the abandonment of the
Patristic Tradition and by the construction of a new theology on the
Aristotelian syllogistic method, i.e. the formation of the Scholastic Theology.
In the 14th century conflict between Saint Gregory Palamas and
Barlaam the Calabrian, we have the clash of the new, scholastic theology with
that of the Patristic Tradition of the East which was rooted in the Holy
Spirit, and which, until then, the West had followed, too.
The Clash between Orthodox Illumination and
Western Enlightenment in the 14th Century
There was, indeed, a severe conflict
between the scholastic, post-Patristic theology of the Westerners and the
empirical theology of the Fathers of the Church which was inspired by the Holy
Spirit. The former was expressed by Barlaam the Calabrian, one of the chief
architects of the Western Renaissance and the latter by the great God-bearing
and God-revealing Theologian, Gregory Palamas, who achieved in the 14th
century what John Damascene had in the 8th: the expression and
codification of the teachings of the Fathers who came before on many issues, the most important being: a)
whether theology ought to be dialectic or demonstrative, i.e. whether it should
be founded on philosophical analysis and discussion, as Barlaam wanted,
bringing the scholasticism of the West into the East, or founded on the
certainty of the experience of the Holy Spirit which the Prophets, Apostles and
Saints had enjoyed, as taught by Palamas; b) whether human wisdom leads to
perfection and deification, as Barlaam claimed, or whether these were achieved
only through divine wisdom, which is granted to those who keep the commandments
of God and are cleansed of the passions, in which case, after purification,
they receive divine illumination and thereafter attain to the vision of God, as
Saint Gregory Palamas contended; and, c) whether this illumination is the fruit
of the created energy of the intellect, as Barlaam would have it, or of the
uncreated energy of God, as stated by Saint Gregory, which really deifies
people by energy, by grace, but not by nature and essence, because the
uncreated energies are distinct from the essence of God. Saint Gregory’s arguments
were overwhelmingly successful and a famous victory was won by the Patristic
East, inspired by the Holy Spirit over the scholastic and post-Patristic West.
We shall not analyze this here[2],
but merely observe that without observance of God’s commandments, the ascetic
way of living, and the effort to purify oneself of evils and passions, as the
Holy Fathers, those theologians of
experience, lived and taught, without these no-one can become wise in
divine matters. So the only chance that someone who is not illumined and
glorified has, when wishing speak about theology, is to follow those who were
illumined and deified by the grace of the Holy Spirit. If this condition is not
in place, we have no wisdom or theology, only foolishness and childishness. Addressing
Barlaam, and all the post-Patristic theologians of all ages- the thinkers,
philosophers, academics- Saint Gregory observes pithily in the Holy Spirit:
“Without purification, even if you learn natural philosophy from as far back as
Adam and up until the end of the world, you will be none the wiser”[3].
Over the
last few days I have been looking closely at Saint Gregory Palamas’ writings,
to confirm what I wanted to say here “following the divine fathers and this
God-revealing and God-seeing Father”. It would take a long time for me to
present the Patristic attitude of Palamas, the honour and value he accords the
Holy Fathers. Of the many things I have perused, I would present merely a few
which are indicative, in order to show how mistaken and how far outside the
Orthodox Tradition are those clergy and laity who, (at their academies and
theological schools) instead of making the Spirit-inspired and God-illumined
Holy Fathers the object of their studies, those who have given us access to the
vast, uncreated world of divine majesty, instead bring us down to the created
and petty things of human thoughts and philosophies and, often enough, initiate
us into the depths of Satan, as Saint Gregory says. For example, they get rid
of the confessional lesson of Religious Instruction from schools, catechism,
dogmatics, liturgics, history, references to the Mother of God and the Saints,
Scripture- Old and New Testaments- and have, instead, through the lesson dubbed
“Religious Knowledge”, introduced Masonic, Satanic syncretism.
In
confirming his truly wondrous accord with the Fathers over all the intervening
centuries, Saint Gregory says that it is impossible for the God-bearing Fathers
not to agree among themselves, because they are all guided by the inspiration
of one and the same Holy Spirit[4].
The Fathers are the sure guardians of the Gospel and Theology because the
Spirit of genuine truth is manifested and resides in their spirit, so any
people who apprentice themselves to them are taught by God[5].
With authority and mastery he stresses that: “this perfection is for salvation,
both in knowledge and dogmas, saying everything regarding God and His
creatures, as the Prophets, Apostles and Fathers held, and as all those through
whom the Holy Spirit witnessed”[6].
Barlaam
would not have ended in heresy, and with him all the modern, post-Patristic
Neo-Barlaamites, had he believed that the divine is not to be approached
through human reasoning but with Godly faith; had he accepted, in simplicity,
the traditions of the Holy Fathers, which we know are better and wiser than
human musings, because they come from the Holy Spirit and have been proved by
words rather than deeds[7].
In a snapshot of the Barlaam-like terminology of today’s post-Patristic
theologians, Saint Gregory asks Barlaam if the latter has understood where this
“piety greater than the Fathers” will lead[8].
Barlaam
was led there, to such a pit of impiety, because, with reason and philosophy,
he investigated what is “beyond word and nature” and did not believe, as did Saint
John Chrysostom, that it is not possible to interpret in words the manner of
the prophetic sight except and unless you have learned it clearly through
experience. For if no word is able to present the works and passions of nature,
how much more is this true of the energy of the Spirit[9]?
What we
have said so far has been aimed at demonstrating that doubts began to be cast
on the standing of the Fathers from the 9th century, with the
development of scholastic theology and then the anthropocentric Humanism of the
Renaissance. The scholastic theology of Papism is responsible for the neglect
of the Fathers, not only because it made logic and dialectics the basic tools
for theologizing and ignored the illumination from above, divine wisdom, but
also because it dogmatized the elevation of the Pope over the synods and
Fathers, even over the Church itself. The criterion for correct theological
thinking was no longer one of being in agreement with the Fathers, but with the
Pope.
Whereas
the Tradition of the Church functioned along the line of Christ – Apostles –
Fathers, the Papal monarchist view went Christ – Peter – Pope. This powerful
post-Patristic storm did not shake the Patristic tradition, the Patristic
foundations of the Church, because God revealed, in the middle and late
Byzantine times, three new, great hierarchs and ecumenical teachers: Photius
the Great, who was the first, in the 9th century, to oppose
systematically and most theologically the anti-Patristic and heretical Papist
teaching on the issue of the filioque
and that of the primacy of the Pope, endorsing the Orthodox teaching with a
decision of the synod in Constantinople in 879, which is considered ecumenical;
Saint Gregory Palamas, who, in the 14th century, opposed the
humanist philosopher, Barlaam, at the time when Scholasticism was at its
height, and who promulgated the illumination of theologians through the
uncreated grace and energy of God, as opposed to the created and limited
illumination of human wisdom, a position completely endorsed by the hesychast
synods of 1451, in Constantinople, which are also considered ecumenical; and
Saint Mark of Ephesus, that giant and Atlas of Orthodoxy, rightly called
Anti-Papist and the Scourge of the Pope, who alone negated and nullified the
decision of the pseudo-unifying synod of Ferrara-Florence, which scurrilously
and oppressively dogmatized anti-Patristic and heretical teachings, and which
to this day is numbered among the ecumenical synods by the Papists.
b) Patristics and Post-Patristics at the Pseudo-Synod
of Ferrara-Florence
Sylvestros
Syropoulos, who wrote the history of the pseudo-synod of Ferrara-Florence
(1438-1439), where, on a Synodal level, Patristic Orthodox theology came into
conflict with the post-Patristic scholastic theology of Papism, has preserved
for us facts and information which help us to realize how far the Church is
Patristic and how far the West, since the Franks seized the, until then,
Orthodox Patriarchate of Old Rome in the 9th century, was converted
into being post-Patristic, and anti-Patristic, giving rise to a whole host of
heresies and schisms.
The
Orthodox patriarchs knew that Papism and scholastic theology had transcended
and pushed aside the Fathers of the Church and had replaced them with their own
“Fathers”, chief among whom was Thomas Aquinas (13th century), and so, in their
letters appointing their representatives, (their locum tenentes) they (the patriarchs) also set out the limits
for the discussions and decisions of the Synod, whether this was to take place
in Basel, Switzerland, where the reformist delegates awaited the Pope, or in
some other place designated by the Pope. Union was to take place “canonically
and legally, in accordance with the traditions of the holy ecumenical synods
and the holy teachers of the Church and nothing was to be added to the faith
nor removed or introduced as new”[10].
Otherwise they would not accept the anti-Patristic and post-Patristic decisions
of the synod. By taking this stand, the patriarchs expressed the firm,
permanent and inviolate position of the Church over the centuries that the
Fathers constitute a sine qua non
element of the identity of the Church and its theology. There is no theology
which transcends the Fathers, and those who denigrate them, or, condemn them,
or, even worse, transcend and surpass them, as at the well-known Conference in
June 2010, at “The Academy of Theological Studies” of the Holy Metropolis of
Volos, are no theologians. According to Saint John Damascene, the mouthpiece of
all the Fathers and voice of the self-awareness of the Church, anyone who does
not believe in accordance with the Tradition of the Church is an unbeliever[11].
Earlier than this, the truly great Athanasius, in his well-known letter to
Serapion, makes it clear, in wonderful fashion, what this Tradition is on which
the Church is founded: it is what Christ handed down, what the Apostles
preached and what the Fathers preserved[12].
The
Orthodox Patriarchs’ most Orthodox and Patristic framework for the discussions
and decisions of the council immediately met with resistance on the part of the
papal theologian of the Council of Basel and legate to Constantinople, John of
Ragusa, who, expressing the Western-Frankish spirit of theology which no longer
needed the Fathers, intervened with Emperor Ioannes VIII Palaeologus to ask the
patriarchs- and he succeeded in his aims- to change their letters, omitting the
terms and limitations regarding agreement with the synods and the Holy Fathers.
Unfortunately, the emperor gave way, in the face of his great need for
financial and military assistance. But even worse, the patriarchs themselves
retreated, even though their criteria ought to have been unalterable and firm,
purely spiritual and never political, as regards matters of faith. Syropoulos
sadly notes that this was an unfortunate prelude for what was to follow and
indicated that the emperor had abdicated his role as “fidei defensor”: “It was to such preconditions that the defensor of the dogmas of our Church had
submitted us”[13].
Of
course, the theologians on the Orthodox side, particularly Saint Mark of
Ephesus, had no need of patriarchal suggestions in order to take a stand firmly
on the Fathers and to force the Latin theologians into a difficult corner[14],
since the latter did not have Patristic arguments and attempted to endorse
their positions dialectically and philosophically in accordance with the
prevailing Scholastic Theological method, which was based on the logical
categories of Aristotle. Syropoulos actually preserves a charming and most
instructive event for all of us, especially the post-Patristic innovators of
our own times. According to him, when the representative of the Orthodox Church
of Georgia (Iberia) heard Juan de Tarquemada, from Spain, frequently invoking
Aristotle, he turned to Syropoulos in consternation and said: “What Aristotel,
Aristotele? Aristotele no good”. When Syropoulos then asked him what was good,
he replied: “Saint Peter, Saint Paul, Saint Basil, theologian Gregory,
Chrysostom. No Aristotel Aristotele”. He mocked the Latin scholiast with hand
movements, nods and gestures, but, as Syropoulos observes, “he was probably
mocking us Orthodox, who had abandoned the Fathers and polluted ourselves with
such teachers”[15].
Earlier, he relates another incident,
with the same Georgian delegate leaving the Pope speechless and acting as a
teacher to him. Just before the apostasy was completed and the shameful
unifying text was signed, the Pope summoned this cleric and with the sweetest
affability, which recalls the blandishments and geniality of our contemporary
ecumenists, advised him to recognize that the Church of Rome was “the mother of
all Churches and indeed the successor to Saint Peter and the locum tenens of Christ and the shepherd
and universal teacher of all Christians”. So, in order to find salvation for
your soul, added the Pope, you must follow the Mother Church, accept what She
accepts, submit to the bishop and be taught and shepherded by him. The answer
of the truly Orthodox bishop lies within the enduring position of the Church and
is in agreement with the Fathers. It is a word for word repetition, a thousand
years later, of the stance of Athanasius the Great, whom we have mentioned, and
of all the Holy Fathers who came after him: “By the grace of God we are
Christians and we accept and follow our Church. For our Church holds true to
what it has received both from the teaching of Our Lord Jesus Christ and from
the tradition of the Holy Apostles and of the ecumenical synods and of the holy
teachers recognized by the Church; and it has never departed from their
teaching nor has it added nor left anything to chance. But the Church of Rome
has added to and transgressed the bounds of the Fathers. This is why we, who
hold fast to the things of the Fathers, have cut it off or have removed ourselves
from it. So, if your beatitude wishes to bring peace to the Church and unite us
all, you must expunge the addition of the filioque
from the Creed. You can do this easily, should you wish, because the
nations of the Latins will accept whatever you suggest, since they consider you
the successor to Saint Peter and respect your teaching”.
Syropoulos’ conclusion: the Pope
expected to lead by the nose and win over the Iberian with his false
blandishments, given that the man was a foreign-speaker, an individual both
unlearned and barbarian. “But, when he heard this answer, he was left
speechless”[16].
Expressions of post-Patricity during Turkish
rule and in the Period after 1821
a) Turkish rule
What happened, however, after the
fall of Constantinople in 1453, and after the liberation and creation of the
modern Greek state in 1821? In brief, the picture as regards the faith and
Patristic tradition is as follows: by divine providence the reins of the church
were taken over by Gennadius Scholaris, the first patriarch and ethnarch after
the fall. He had been a prominent official at the imperial court, a professor
and high judicial functionary. For two years prior to this he had also been a
monk, a faithful disciple of Saint Mark Eugenicus of Ephesus, and adhered to
the latter’s views in relation to the Fathers.
Well aware of Scholaris’ piety and
abilities, Mark, shortly before his death, named him his successor in the
struggle on behalf of Orthodoxy, and was not mistaken in his choice. Saint Mark
annulled the decisions of Ferrara-Florence with his decision not to sign them,
and Gennadius Scholaris, advisor to the two emperors, John VIII and Constantine
XII, the last, heroic emperor, prevented the renewal and implementation of the
decisions of the council for more than ten years, until he became a monk in
1450 and withdrew voluntarily from the imperial court. As a result of this, the
union was renewed with an anti-Patristic joint service on 12 December 1452,
which was the main reason God abandoned the City and why it was captured by the
Turks a few months later. Scholaris was himself an excellent Aristotelian
philosopher and familiar with the theology of Thomas Aquinas, whose works he
had translated. Moreover, he was present, as a theological advisor, at Ferrara-Florence,
took an active part in the proceedings, and knew very well that the Orthodox
faith had to be preserved in this new, painful captivity because, if it, too,
were lost, then, together with political subjugation, there was a risk that
Orthodox culture would also be lost, that New Rome would disappear and that the
Church of the Fathers would be subjugated to that of the Pope[17].
Amidst the ruins, as patriarch he
rebuilt and reorganized the Church along the Patristic lines of Photius the
Great, Saint Gregory Palamas, and his own teacher, Mark of Ephesus. As regards
the Fathers, we shall mention only two of his important positions. In the first
place, he says that the guidance of the Holy Fathers is so rich and so superior
that following it is a sign of prudence and great intelligence, so that those
who do not do so are being obtuse. Summing up the opinion of the Church
regarding the Fathers, he says: “We are convinced that nothing is more sacred,
nothing more wise than the Patristic tradition and we hope to run this course
under faithful leaders”[18].
The Church and theology proceeded
along these Patristic lines, which were never broken, until the creation of the
modern Greek state, even though new problems and challenges which were hostile
to the Fathers of the Church now presented themselves. This had to do with the
emergence and formation in the West of the great Protestant schism, which
reinforced the anti-Patristic spirit, as well as the European Enlightenment, which was linked
to the atheism and anthropocentrism of the Renaissance. This passed into the
East, too, as modern Greek Enlightenment, with Adamantios Koraïs as its main
proponent. Papist and Protestant missionaries exploited the difficult
historical circumstances, the poverty and the misery of the subjugated Orthodox
by engaging in hostile proselytism,
while many young Orthodox who went to the West to study brought back the
innovations of the Enlightenment into the spheres of the Church and education.
It might be useful if I explain why
Protestantism reinforced the anti-Patristic spirit, so that it may be better
understood that today’s prevailing heresy of Ecumenism, which organizes and
reinforces post-Patricity, is basically of Protestant provenance, with Papist
roots, of course. The only difference is that the rationality and
anthropocentricism of Papism pushed every Protestant to the extreme and changed
them into an authentic voice and interpreter of the faith. Saint Justin Popović
has this to say on the matter: “ Let us not fool ourselves: Western Christian/humanist maximalism, Papism,
is really the most radical Protestantism and individualism, because it has
transferred the foundation of Christianity from the eternal God to the
individual human person. The Protestants did no more than accept this dogma
(infallibility) in its essence, and then develop it to such an extent that it
acquired terrible dimensions and detail. Essentially, Protestantism is nothing
other than a generally applied Papism. For, in Protestantism, the fundamental
principle of Papism is brought to life by each man individually. After the
example of the infallible man in Rome, each Protestant is a cloned infallible
man, because he pretends to personal infallibility in matters of faith. It can
be said: Protestantism is vulgarized Papism…”[19].
The abandonment of the Fathers of
the Church by Papism, and its over-evaluation of philosophy, resulted in
innovations being introduced in the West, anti-traditional teachings and
heresies being formulated, and the unity of the Tradition which had linked the
apostolic and patristic ages being fragmented. In the tradition of the Church,
the faithful no longer saw the preaching and life of the Apostles, but human
and secular patterns. This is why the Reformation of Luther and others brought
everything crashing down. It turned to sola
scriptura and diminished the Fathers of the Church and Tradition in
general, because the reformers did not understand that it was the Fathers who,
first and foremost, laid bare the recalcitrant attitude of Papism. As former
papists, they were prejudiced against the “schismatic” East. They did not see
the Patristic age as a continuum of the Apostolic, or the Fathers as continuing
the work of the Apostles. Had Luther known the Eastern Patristic tradition (we
know he was acquainted with but one work of Athanasius the Great- and that not
genuine- and a few dogmatic works of the same author from Latin translations),
he would certainly not have identified the whole of Patristic tradition with
Papism and scholasticism. He may then have acknowledged in the Eastern Church
the continuity of the Apostolic Church which he was seeking, and the Fathers of
the Church as successors of the Prophets and Apostles, keeping alive, pure and
unadulterated, the word and life of Christ and the Apostles.
Of course, thereafter, both Papists
and Protestants were forced to use the Fathers of the Church- each for their
own purposes- in their internecine struggle, especially after the Council of
Trent (1545-1563), which is why we have so many editions of Patristic works in
the West at this time, not because they particularly respected and honoured the
Fathers. The most serious charge of the Protestants against the Fathers, though
it is entirely unfounded and flimsy, is that the Fathers altered the original
message of the Gospel, overturning its biblical/Judaic foundations, and turned
it into dogmas clearly influenced by Greek philosophy. This is the familiar
theory of the Hellenization of Christianity by the Fathers as was formulated by
the well-known Protestant historian, Harnack. Protestants continue to accept it
to this day, and, like the pseudo-Jehovah’s Witnesses, suggest to the Orthodox
in discussions between them, that they, too, should adopt sola scriptura and ignore the Fathers of the Church. It would be
worth looking into whether the Orthodox in today’s theological dialogue accept
this position and use the Fathers in a way which imitates that of the
post-Patristic Protestants. The truth of the matter is that the Hellenization
of Christianity, that is to say the alteration of knowledge, is what the
heretics wanted to achieve- as they always do, whereas the Fathers, working
against the heretics, saw off this danger, as was the case with Gnosticism,
Arianism and Scholasticism, and as can be seen very clearly in the teaching of
Saint Gregory Palamas against Barlaam the Calabrian. The Fathers do what the
Apostles did in using Greek terminology. This was the case with Saint John the
Theologian with the concept of the Word, and Saint Paul, with even word for
word quotations from ancient Greek sages, since they were addressed to Greek
audiences- indeed mainly to Greek
audiences. So there is also Hellenization in Scripture, in the New Testament, the sole
source of the faith of the Protestants.
Be that as it may, during Turkish
rule, and despite its captivity to a barbarous and ruthless conqueror, as well
as the lack of education and of a satisfactory number of teachers and
theologians, the Church never budged an inch from the Tradition of the Fathers,
but defended itself effectively against the attacks of the post-Patristic
Papists and Protestants, as well as of the Greek Enlighteners, who wished to
supersede the Fathers in the education of the Greek nation. Most of these
people were imbued with uncritical admiration of Classical Greek antiquity and
were intent on linking modern Greece to the ancient, missing out the
intermediate stage of Byzantium, or New Rome.
With repeated and strict Synodal
decisions, the Church condemned the Papists and Protestants to its flock as
dangerous heretics. It also condemned the subversive ideas of the supporters of
the Enlightenment. With the well-known Kollyvades movement on the Holy
Mountain, which successfully renewed the Patristic Tradition in the 18th
century, it prepared its flock to resist the anti-Patristic spirit which was to
become institutionalized with the Bavarian state apparatus after the [murder of
the] only Orthodox governor, Ioannis Capodistrias, and was to Frankify,
Europeanize Greek Orthodox culture. It did exactly the opposite of what the
Church is doing today, the heads of which, in post-Patristic fashion, not only
refuse to call Papism and Protestantism heresies, but have reached the point of
recognizing these heresies, as well as the old one of Monophysitism, as
Churches which provide grace and salvation.
As a small example of this Patristic
stance during Turkish rule, we quote a few opinions, synodal and patriarchal,
as well as some actions of the Holy Kollyvades Fathers. In reply to the
Anglican Nonjurors, the Patriarchs of the East (1716/1725) made it perfectly
clear that the dogmas of the Orthodox Church were defined “correctly and
piously” by the Holy Fathers at the Ecumenical Synods and that it is not
possible either to add to or subtract from them. They strictly exclude any
discussion on matters of faith and call upon the Anglican Protestants, if they
desire union, to agree with what the Church taught, from the time of the
Apostles and thereafter, through the God-bearing Fathers, without investigation
and discussion, but in simplicity and obedience[20].
In the same spirit, the Confessor of Faith of the Synod in Constantinople in
1727 declared: “We pious Christians of the Eastern Church have been called from
above through the Holy Spirit by the prophets, by our Saviour, Christ, by the
Apostles, by the Ecumenical Synods and by all the Holy Fathers guided by the
Holy Spirit, to believe and countenance whatever our Church of Christ has
received and preserved to this day, unchanged and unadulterated, in its entirety,
whether dogmas of the faith, terms and canons, or traditions of the Church,
whether written or unwritten”[21].
Earlier, the well-known and truly great patriarch Jeremiah II (Tranos) in his
second reply to the Lutheran theologians of Tübingen, after he had quickly
realized that there could be no theological dialogue with them, particularly
because they rejected the Holy Fathers, on whom the teaching of the Church is
based, put an end to the dialogue, politely but decisively and let them go
their own way (1581)[22].
On the basis of this most Patristic patriarchal position, all the harmful
theological dialogues with all the heretics would have ended many years ago, as
many clergymen and theologians have been demanding for long enough.
The Kollyvades, and particularly the
most prominent among them, Archbishop Makarios Notaras of Corinth, the Athonite
monk Nicodemus and the hieromonk Athanasius Parios, completely neutralized the
post-Patricity of the Papists, the Luthero-Calvinist Protestants and the
Enlighteners, essentially through these measures: with the impressively massive
publication of various Patristic works, chief of which is the ‘Philokalia’ of
the holy Niptic fathers; with the promotion of Patristic liturgical traditions,
such as frequent communion; and the performance of memorial services only on
Saturdays, not on Sundays; with the composition of a rich store of hymns and
services in the established language of the Church, despite the low level of
education of the faithful at the time; with the anti-Papist and anti-Protestant
teaching which we come across frequently in their works as well as their
opposition to the European and Greek supporters of the Enlightenment,
especially on the part of Saint Athanasius Parios, who, because of this, was
greatly criticized by these ‘enlightened’ scholars. Particularly as regards the
issue of the translation of liturgical texts, which is unnecessarily vexing
Church circles currently, apart from the fact that such a concern never
occurred to the Holy Fathers over the centuries and that, on the contrary,
indeed, they have continued to compose services in the ancient language down to
our own days, there is an almost unknown, important stance taken by Saint Nicodemus the Athonite,
which we present here, in case it, together with other Patristic views which
have been discussed[23],
may enlighten the three hierarchs, Meletios of Nikopolis, Ignatios of
Demetrias, and Pavlos of Siatista, to return to the Patristic road. This most
Patristic Athonite Saint writes: “Also beware, brethren, the thought which the
devil implants in some and which says: you are unlettered and unlearned and do
not understand what is said in church and so why do you submit to the Church in
all things? You are answered, brethren, by an abba in the ‘Sayings of the
Desert Fathers’, who tells you: ‘It may be that you do not understand what is
said in church, but the devil does and quakes and fears and flees. I mean that
you, too, even if you do not understand all the words spoken in church, you
will understand a lot of them and benefit from them’. And I would add this: if
you go often to church and hear divine words, the continuation of this is that,
in time, you will understand what you-
earlier- did not, as Chrysostom
says, because God, seeing your willingness, will open your mind and illumine
you to understand”[24].
When referring to the Holy
Kollyvades and, in general, to the Patricity of the period of enslavement, we
cannot forget the glory and boast of the Church in more modern times, the New
Martyr Saints. Not only those who had the blessing to have the Holy Kollyvades
and other blessed Elders, as ‘trainers’ for their martyrdom, but also the host
of other New Martyrs, men and women who followed the Tradition of the Holy
Apostles and Fathers which asserts that Christ is the only road to salvation.
They refused to convert, and even used harsh words against Mohammed, paying for
their refusal and confession with their blood. It is a gross insult to the new
martyrs, what is being said in the context of the inter-faith dialogues of the
Ecumenists, even by patriarchs, bishops and other clergymen and theologians, to
wit, that other religions are a road to salvation, that Mohammad is a prophet,
that the three monotheistic religions-
Judaism, Christianity and Mohammedanism-
have the same God, and that the Koran is a holy and sacred book, worthy
of being given as a gift. Do they not know of the great Holy Fathers’ severe
criticism; of the total rejection of Mohammed and the Koran by Saints Maximus
the Confessor and John Damascene, by Gregory Palamas and many others[25]?
Do they not know that that most celebrated popular teacher and equal to the
Apostles, Saint Cosmas Aitolos identified- very carefully and covertly, of
course- both Mohammed and the Pope as anti-Christs? He said: “The anti-Christ
is: one, the Pope, and the other, he who
is over our heads, though I won’t say his name. You understand, but its
saddening to tell you, because, as things stand these anti-Christs are for
perdition. We have restraint, they have perdition; we fast, they gorge; we are
chaste, they are licentious; we have justice, they have injustice”[26].
Let us not forget, also, his Patristic prophecy and recommendation: “Curse the
Pope, for he will be to blame”[27].
How encouraging for the faithful was what he said about Orthodoxy and the Holy
Fathers. “I read about sacred things and impious, heretical and ungodly. I
searched the depths of wisdom. All faiths are false. This I understood as true:
only the faith of Orthodox Christians is good and holy for us to believe and we
should be baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Let
me tell you this at the end: be glad that you’re Orthodox Christians and weep
for the impious and heretics who are walking in darkness”[28].
Post-Patricity
after the Creation of the Modern Greek State.
The conclusion from our references
to the period of Turkish rule is that the post-patricity of the Papists, the
Protestants and the Enlighteners did not shake the patricity of the Tradition
of the Church. We lost our freedom in the body, but retained our souls, free
and unsubdued, to the point where martyrs for the faith came forth. But how
were things in the period of free political life? Alas, we must begin with
“where shall I start to mourn” and write a new Jeremiad. That which the great
figures of the Greek nation- Photius the
Great, Saint Gregory Palamas, Saint Mark Eugenicus and Gennadios
Scholarios- refused to accept, that is,
the betrayal of Orthodoxy in order to save the state, or, under Turkish rule,
what the Saints and New Martyrs refused to do to save their skins and their
enjoyment of life, we unfortunately did and do worse today. We handed Greece
into the hands of foreigners, Otto’s Bavarians and their indigenous supporters,
who, from that time forth, have had as their permanent aim the uprooting and
abolition of anything that recalls Orthodoxy and Byzantium and the Fathers of the Church. They
want to weaken spiritual resistance completely, to make Greece unrecognizable,
un-Orthodox and un-Greek, so that, once it is Frankified, Latinized, Papist,
Protestant, and ‘enlightened’ (endarkened), they can then absorb it and get rid
of it.
The post-Patristic and
anti-Patristic supporters exist and have been active for years now. It is
simply that now they have been given form, outline and expression, quite
openly, by the ‘Academy of Theological Studies’ of the Holy Metropolis of
Demetrias, which, as a most pious and combative fellow-clergyman brilliantly
observed, has ceased to be academic and has become epidemic. We owe a debt of
gratitude to the hierarchs who, in the face of the danger to the faith, ignored
the much-abused ‘brotherly love’ and excoriated what was said at the
post-Patristic conference at the Academy in June 2010. In particular, to
Metropolitan Ierotheos of Nafpaktos, whom we have with us, teaching and
confessing, and who has lost no time in aligning himself with those hierarchs
with a most theological article in which he condemned the burgeoning, new
heresy of post-Patricity. And finally, to other hierarchs, clergy and laymen
who criticized the heretical gathering in Volos, in articles, comments and
phrases, and especially to the flag-ship of Orthodox struggles for fifty years
now, the combative newspaper Ὀρθόδοξος Τύπος
(Orthodox Press), the newspaper of the blessed Elders, to the founders and
editors, the late Charalampos Vasilopoulos, and his worthy successor, Fr. Mark
Manolis, which brought to the fore and highlighted the issue of the
post-Patristic heresy.
But let us now look at some of the tallest
trees and the most bitter and deadly fruits of the post-Patristic forest.
The 19th century, during
Bavarian rule, unfolded with serious anti-Patristic actions, which, however,
came up against Orthodox resistance. In defiance of the sacred canons of the
Holy Fathers, the schismatic autocephaly of the Church of Greece was
proclaimed, peremptorily, without the opinion or consent of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate. A statist system was imposed on relations between Church and
state, which brought about the subjection of the Church to Caesar, the boss of
the synod being a royal commissioner, without whose agreement the Holy Synod
was unable to decide anything whatsoever. Otto’s Protestant commissioner,
Mauer, eradicated monasticism by dissolving 400 of the 500 monasteries in
existence and, at the same time, seizing their property and casting the monks
and nuns into poverty, as that genuine Greek patriot, General Makrygiannis
charges in his very moving Memoirs[29].
The blows against monasticism in any age, including ours when a plan has been
put into operation to defame and corrode, from the inside, the Holy Mountain-
that unique ark of Orthodoxy- are costly because they are aimed at drying up
the source which produces, which gushes forth, Fathers, since it is well-known
that almost all the Holy Fathers came from the order of monks.
In the same period, the organization
and curriculum of the Theological School founded at the National Capodistrian
University followed German models, and an almost necessary requirement for a
career there was to have studied in the West. The result was that Papist and
Protestant theology began, through the teachers, to influence clerical and lay
graduates. Two telling examples, to prove the point: Professor Demetrios
Balanos, who held the chair of Patrology at the Theological School of Athens,
spoke slightingly and disparagingly of the struggles and theology of Saint
Gregory Palamas, that preacher of Grace and of the light of the
Transfiguration, the voice of the Fathers who went before him. To this day, in
the same school, the Patristic era is limited to the first eight centuries, up
to John Damascene, and lessons in Patrology deal only with them, whereas the
later saints belong to a different category of knowledge, that is Byzantine Church
writers, as if the Holy Spirit had ceased to act in the Church from then until
now and did not beget Fathers such as Photius the Great, Symeon the New
Theologian, Gregory Palamas, Mark Eugenicus, the prominent Kollyvades Fathers,
and Nektarios of Pentapolis in the 20th century. Here, too, it
succumbs to the Papist notion of sidelining the Holy Fathers by their own
scholastic ‘Fathers’ and theologians from the ninth century onwards, and, much
more so, by the Protestant concept that only those who lived almost in Gospel
times, that is in the first centuries and at the latest the 5th, can
be called Fathers. Having taught Patrology for years at the Theological School
in Thessaloniki, we have been forced, each year, to explain to the new intake
of students that for an author to be called a Father of the Church, he does not
have to have the characteristic of antiquity, as the heterodox manuals of
Patrology demand, and as indeed do some of our own; what is required is purity
of life and Orthodox teaching.
The reference to the Theological
School in Athens should not be taken to mean that every single one of the
teachers there reinforced the post-Patristic and anti-Patristic spirit. There
are splendid examples of genuine, Patristic, academic teachers, such as the late
Professor Konstantinos Mouratides and certain others, outstanding among whom is
my splendid and beloved fellow-priest, George Metallinos, whose presence in
theological literature emits the scent and authenticity of Patristic wisdom. In
relation to this, I would like to make a suggestion and a rectification which
concerns the Volos Academy. My suggestion is that an event or conference be
organized on the person and work of Professor Konstantinos Mouratides, as the
Metropolitan of Nafpaktos and Fr. George Metallinos most worthily did with the
great Patristic theologian, Fr. John Romanides. The rectification has to do
with the dean of theologians in the 20th century, that giant of
theological thought and production, the late Professor Panagiotis Trembelas. Any
misjudgements on his part regarding the theology of Saint Gregory Palamas, and
regarding his theological conflict with Fr. John Romanides, can be justified,
in part, by the ignorance, at that time, of the writings of Saint Gregory. He
was not, however, post-Patristic or anti-Patristic, as the Volos ‘Academy’ gave
out at the conference we have referred to. We will not give him up to the
post-Patricians. He is Patristic, most Patristic. The mere study of his
three-volume Dogmatics and his valuable hermeneutical notes on the Old and New
Testaments, where the reader will admire the abundant use of Patristic writings
and what he wrote critically about the theological dialogues with the
heterodox, estrange him entirely from the post-Patristic ecumenists[30].
The Theological School of
Thessaloniki, much younger than that of Athens, having been founded in 1942,
was able, within the first two decades, to shift the centre of gravity with the
decisive contribution of the late Professor Panagiotis Christou to the publication
and investigation of the writings of Saint Gregory Palamas and other Fathers of
the Church, through which it acquired international status as the School of the
Fathers of the Church. This early blossoming, however, soon faded and today it
is characterized by the Ecumenism of the majority of the professors,
outstanding exceptions being those colleagues who are present this evening,
chairmen of the session and speakers.
But the great earthquake of
post-Patricity began at the start of the 20th century with the two
synodical and patriarchal encyclicals of the reign of Ioakeim III, in 1902 and
1904. It became more powerful with the synodical encyclical of 1920 and has
continued to this day, with even greater intensity. In the encyclicals, the Ecumenical
Patriarchate, in a completely new, post-Patristic spirit, abandoned the strict
Patristic attitude towards the heretics of the West, Papist and Protestant,
which it had held until a few years before, until 1895. Addressing the heads of
the autocephalous Churches, among others, it sought their views on the
relationship of the Orthodox “with the two great branches of Christianity, that
is of the West and of the Protestants”. At the same time, it posed the question
of the reform of the calendar, not, however, taking a stand in favour of the
retention or rejection of the Julian calendar, which had been observed for
centuries, but awaiting the views of the autocephalous churches. Since the
answers from almost all the Churches was negative, the initial surge slackened
for a while, only to return with a vengence in 1920, when the modern,
post-Patristic spirit recognized, for the first time officially, the
ecclesiastical standing of the heretical communities, since the encyclical was
addressed “To the Churches of Christ everywhere”, and not only to the Orthodox.
The powerful personality of Meletios Metaxakis, who was beyond question a Mason[31]
and served as Metropolitan of Kition in Cyprus, Metropolitan of Athens,
Ecumenical Patriarch and Patriarch of Alexandria, played a decisive role at
this point in the Masonic promotion of Ecumenism, which they planned and have
been promulgating to this day. This Ecumenism is inter-Christian and
inter-faith and its aim is to weaken the uniqueness of Orthodoxy in relation to
other confessions and to equate it to them, as it does Christianity to other
religions. The most heinous achievement of Metaxakis was the promotion of the
reformation of the calendar and the replacement of the Julian, which was the
ancient practice, with the Papist Gregorian one, without a Pan-Orthodox
resolution, but with the support, unfortunately, of the exceptional
ecclesiastical historian and scholar, Archbishop Chrysostomos (Papadopoulos) of
Athens, a former associate of Metaxakis at the Patriarchate of Jerusalem,
whence he began his impressive, but, also, destructive activities which
resulted in the creation of the well-known schism in the Church.
The foundation of the Protestant
World Council of Churches in Amsterdam in 1948, in which the Ecumenical Patriarchate
willingly took part, as did other Orthodox Churches, is the worst
ecclesiological deviation on the part of the leadership of the Orthodox Church. Through the WCC, the devil,
appearing as an angel of light behind the mask of love and unity, is attempting
to shake the Apostolic and Patristic foundations of the Church, annulling what
the Holy Fathers taught about heretics and heresies which are not equated to
the One, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Patristic Church. This is not a World
Council of Churches, but a “World Collection of Heresies” as Professor
Konstantinos Mouratides eloquently dubbed it[32].
The legacy of Meletios Metaxakis was
invested and increased by another powerful personality, Patriarch Athenagoras,
who was called from America to the ecumenical throne, and it has been continued ever since then
relentlessly and powerfully, within the context of the anti-Patristic Ecumenism
of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, despite an intervening period during the
modest, but focused reign of Demetrios.
Within this climate of opposition to
the Patristic Tradition, post-Patristic and anti-Patristic positions have been
expressed which entirely justify the post-Patricity of the ‘Academy of
Theological Studies’ in Volos, which in any case is supported, protected and
justified by the Ecumenical Patriarchate.
A few indicative positions of the
post-Patristic Ecumenists who have been active for sixty years now, demonstrate
that, unfortunately, the healthy part of the Church has been slow to awaken and
react.
Patriarch Athenagoras recognized the
primacy of Pope Paul II, without the latter’s repentance and rejection of
errors. He places him directly with his namesake, Saint Paul the Apostle, and
describes him as one of the greatest popes in history[33].
The heresy of the filioque was not,
for Athenagoras, an impediment to the union of the two churches. The opposition
expressed in the theology of the Holy Fathers was not heeded in our times. He literally said: “What ink has been shed
and what hatred, over the filioque.
Love came and everything retreats at its passing”[34].
Here is another of his many other anti-Patristic declarations: “We are deceived
and sin if we think that the Orthodox faith descended from heaven and that the
other dogmas are unworthy. Three hundred million people have chosen
Mohammedanism to reach their God and hundreds of millions of others are
Protestants, Catholics and Buddhists. The aim of every religion is the
improvement of people”[35].
Two of his close and favourite
associates said terrible things and it is a matter of wonder how neither the
Synod at the Phanar nor any other Orthodox synod ever dealt with these people.
Archbishop Athenagoras (Kokkinakis) of Thyateira and Great Britain, described
the sacred canons of the Holy Fathers as “human commands and patterns of
foolishness and hatred”. He also said: “What is the criterion by which what
claims to be exclusive knowledge of the truth will be proved? Whatever we say,
the fact remains that, divided as it is, it cannot be healthy, but is wounded,
and a part cannot claim to be the whole in truth. Neither the riches nor the- oft-repeated in
words and arguments- integrity of teaching, nor the patterns of traditional
conservatism are of benefit to or strengthen the arguments of those seeking exclusivity.
I know the teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas and the positions of modern
theologians of the East, but these are human volitions and inventions”[36].
Even greater is the blasphemous
position of Iakovos of America, even worse than the heresies of Arius, because
he denies in toto the dogma of the
Holy Trinity. He was accused by scandalized Greeks in America and by
monasteries on the Holy Mountain which demanded that the Synod of the Phanar
depose him, but in vain. Iakovos said: “The notion of God is an abstract, Greek
idea which people today do not accept, nor will they tomorrow. In particular
this verdict has to do with the Trinitarian dogma. So it is necessary that the
Theology of the Church be stripped of its Greek vestments, one of these is the dogma
of the Holy Trinity”[37].
In the study “On the codification of
the Sacred Canons and canonical ordinances in the Orthodox Church”, the claim
is made that many of the canons of the Holy Fathers should be abolished, and
then follows these exact words (in Greek): “ The ordinances governing relations
between Orthodox Christians and heterodox and those of other faiths cannot be
applied today and should be amended. It is not possible for the Church to have
ordinances forbidding the entry of heterodox into churches and common prayer
with them, at the same time as, through its representatives, it is praying for
final union in faith, love and hope. Many canonical ordinances need to be
‘irrigated’ with more love in order for them to ‘revive’. We need the amendment
of certain ordinances, to make them more charitable and realistic. The Church
cannot and must not live outside space and time”[38].
In the above spirit, certain Sacred Canons have been broken in repeated, brazen
services of common prayer with heretics. It would appear that the Patriarchate
of Constantinople has abdicated from the duty of the Church to bring the
heterodox and those of other faiths to the truth of the Gospel, because it has,
literally, been said : “the Orthodox Church does not seek to persuade others
about any particular concept of the truth, nor does it seek to convert them to
any particular mode of thought”[39].
Much has been made of the sanctity and equality of the “Sacred Scriptures” of
the Church and Islam, i.e. the Gospels and the Koran. And the most terrible of
all is what has been said about the Holy Fathers by the most official lips,
which has led to intense protests from the Holy Community of the Holy Mountain.
It has been said: “Our forefathers who bequeathed to us the rift were unfortunate
victims of the evil serpent and are now in the hands of God, the Righteous
Judge”[40].
In agreement with all that has been
said above is Metropolitan John of Pergamon. Apart from his old position on
‘narcissized Orthodoxy’ which denies the exclusivity of the Truth for the
Orthodox, as Athenagoras of Thyateira had preached before him, he now promotes
so-called ‘baptismal ecclesiology’ claiming that even the baptism of the
heretics leads to the Church. He accepts the following unheard of statements:
“Baptism sets a bound on the Church. Baptism, Orthodox or otherwise,
encompasses the Church, which includes Orthodox and heterodox. There are
baptismal limits to the Church and ‘outside Baptism’ there is no Church”. On
the other hand, “within Baptism, even if there is a separation, a division, a
schism, we can speak of the Church”.
I shall refer to very few of the
positions of the still very
few post-Patristic
Ecumenists in order for us to form a first, painful picture about where
post-Patristic humanism has led us, and also to strengthen and reinforce the
awareness of the need to understand that we must not hide, or ignore, or
underestimate, the delusion and lies which appear as truth and light and thus
corrupt and seduce the uninformed and uninstructed Orthodox faithful. It is a
pressing need and urgent priority to compile all of the most important
wrongly-held opinions of known Ecumenists, clergy and laity, so that the
faithful can know them by name, and with proof, and learn of the extent of the
abuse which the truths of the faith are suffering, without, unfortunately, the
healthy part of the Church reacting and resisting in an Apostolic, Patristic
manner.
Earlier, a similarly prominent lay
theologian, Nikolaos Nisiotis, Professor of the Theological School of the University
of Athens, one of the prime movers and officials of Ecumenism, made
unacceptable statements concerning ecclesiological positions, though he was
censured by Konstantinos Mouratides (whom we have already mentioned) for
denying the truth that the Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church. Nisiotis condemns the Ecumenical provincialism of the
Orthodox and, through a question, excludes the identification of the Orthodox
Church with the One Church. He asks: “Do we not think continually and act as if
the Una Sancta were restricted to the bounds of our own Church or Confession?
But the experience of encounter at conferences and meetings shakes this
self-satisfaction of ours”[41].
Pergamon’s ‘narcissim’ was preceded by the ‘self-satisfaction’ of Nisiotis,
who, as Professor Mouratides observes: “asks that we should avoid calling each
other ‘schismatics’ or ‘heretics’, since there are no schismatics but only
historical Churches, which in their divisions present a schismatic condition
within the one indivisible Church!”[42].
We are all divided and in schism, within an undivided Church, clearly
invisible, according to the Protestants, who have made it visible as the “World
Council of Churches”.
Of the modern lay theologian
professors, one who has particularly saddened the Orthodox and brought joy to
those mistaken in their beliefs, according to the apposite Dismissal Hymn of
Saint Euphemia, is Georgios Martzelos, Professor of Dogmatics at the
Theological School of the University of Thessaloniki. He promoted and approved
two doctoral theses which rendered obsolete, in post-Patristic fashion, the
decisions of synods and the teaching of the Holy Fathers, as well as the
enduring conscience of the Church, expressed in very many texts of worship and
in the “Synodal Tome of Orthodoxy”, that Dioscorus and Severus are heretical
Monophysites. These two doctoral theses by young theologians go beyond the
Tradition of the Holy Fathers, their authors are wiser than the instructors of
the Faith. Saint Maximus the Confessor, Saint John Damascene, Photius the
Great, were all mistaken and now Professor Martzelos’ students have come to
correct them. And so, Dioscorus and Severus, who for centuries have been
anathematized as heretics, are presented as Orthodox. But the professor, in
general, acquits the Monophysites, and, in related publications by the Holy
Monastery of the Blessed Gregoriou on the Holy Mountain, has been sharply and
most Orthodoxically chastised for doing so.
The anti-Patristic post-Patricity of
Professor Christos Yannaras is different because he is not much involved in the
goings-on of the ecumenists, as are all the other post-Patristic theologians,
even though in older publications he adopted Athenagoras’ positions against the
forensic theology of the Fathers and spoke of ‘the pointless efforts of those
who are concerned with the research into the filioque’[43],
being praised for this by the Uniates. His weighty philosophical equipment and
his disposition to meditation have not allowed him to place his undoubted
gifts, in humility, at the service of the promotion and interpretation of the
concord of the Holy Fathers, as this has been manifested over the centuries, to
follow the Holy Fathers, as many other philosophers, academics and thinkers
have done with the Holy Fathers who preceded them. We would simply recall the
example of Saint John Damascene, who was endowed with rare philosophical gifts
and who, in humility, tells us that nothing that he writes is his own, but
rather an anthology of the Saints. This is why he is considered the voice of
the Patristic Tradition before him and why his Dogmatics, i.e. his work ‘Exact
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith’ is and will remain the most authentic,
genuine and most precise source for the dogmas of the faith.
Unfortunately, Professor Yannaras
has transcended the fathers, he does not follow the Fathers. He writes
anti-Patristic teachings which are also morally dangerous, such as his teaching
on human, physical love as a way to knowledge of God, for which he was chastised
with powerful and invincible arguments by the late Elder Theoklitos of the
Monastery of Dionysiou, in a series of publications in which this teaching is
called a re-appearance of the heresy of Nicolaitism, or Neo-Nicolaitism.
Indeed, Fr. Theoklitos not only found transcendence and disregard of the
Fathers, but also polemics and calumny against them. He writes: “And though, on
the one hand, he possesses ‘rather well-developed thinking and judgement’, he
does not, on the other, possess adequate spiritual experience, and having no
suspicion of this inadequacy of his, he has ranged himself, without fear of
God, against the moral and spiritual teaching of our Most Holy Orthodox Church,
with articles accusing it of Manichaeism! He has suffered a psychosis over
this, it has become his purpose, he uses it in all his attempts aimed at
reshaping, and, everywhere in Patristic spiritual teaching, he discerns
influences of Manichaeism. In one of his boldest books, which was published
recently…he feels the need to commemorate ‘the perversion of the Christian soul
by Manichaean influences’! What are we to say? Does the Church not care about
these heretical outlooks of this brazen theologian? Is there no press office…
to follow the calumnies directed at Orthodox spiritual teaching by supposedly
Orthodox theologians?”[44].
And, addressing Professor Yannaras at another point, Fr. Theoklitos writes:
“With anti-academic frivolity and journalistic shallowness you touch upon the
most basic issues of the Church, indifferent to your diversions into a variety
of heresies. You began your theological career with a war against the sacred
canons- which you are still conducting indirectly, and in a frenzy of conceit
you do not shrink from attributing carnal accretion to the Holy Fathers,
without this causing you any concern as to your unfathomable aberration. And
you continue to distort them, or ignore them or mock them”[45].
Indeed, Professor Yannaras has
continued to mock and slander the Holy Fathers, his particular target now being
the most prominent and prolific of the Holy Kollyvades Fathers, Saint Nicodemus
the Athonite. He accuses him of creating, through his writings, “an outlook
which seeks to sow into a traditional Christian society the seeds of the
Manichaean distinction between ‘pure’ and ‘impure’ people” and that,
supposedly, “scattered throughout the works of Nicodemus is the insistence of
the teaching of Anselm and the Thomists concerning the satisfaction of divine
Righteousness by Christ’s death on the Cross’” in that, in the ‘Guide to
Confession’, by Saint Nicodemus, “the legalistic, entirely Western, spirit
reigns”[46].
A fundamental and successful
critique of Yannaras’ unsupported, unjust and blasphemous polemic against a
great Father and Teacher of the Church, was written by Fr. Vasileios Voloudakis
in his exceptional work, ‘Orthodoxy and Ch. Yannaras’, in which, at the end, is
published a text from the Holy Community of the Holy Mountain entitled:
“Negation of the mistaken positions of Christos Yannaras regarding our Father
among the Saints Nicodemus the Athonite”.
The post-Patricity, then, of
Professor Yannaras assumes a more weighty character than that of the other
post-Patristic theologians mentioned, because it ends in a clear anti-Patricity
with calumnious, unjust and unfounded polemic against the whole of Patristic
Tradition, singling out Saint Nicodemus the Athonite and encouraging young
people to moral laxity. As the text of the Holy Community of the Holy Mountain
notes: “Mr. Yannaras urges his readers, and particularly the young, to become
critics of the Saints and to remain in the Church, but all the while satisfying
their passions, without being trained in the acquisition of true repentance,
humility, purity and obedience, without which true freedom in Christ is unfeasible”[47].
We would also mention, as fruits of
this anti-Patristic post-Patricity, the unacceptable texts co-signed by
representatives of the Orthodox Churches at the Theological Dialogues, texts
which overturn the Patristic, Orthodox tradition. In the dialogue with the
Papists, the text signed at Balamand in the Lebanon in 1993, apart from
acquitting the Unia for the first time, also offers ecclesiastical fullness and
validity to heretic Rome. The Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches are held to
be equal and both are considered to be possessors of the genuine apostolic
faith, sacramental grace and the apostolic succession. For the first time,
Orthodox ‘theologians’, setting aside the firm and holy Tradition of the
Fathers, denied that the Orthodox Church is the One, Holy, Catholic and
Apostolic Church, because the terms of the text mean that the Orthodox and
Roman Catholic Churches constitute the One Church, and that they are both
co-responsible for people’s salvation. The teaching of the great saints and Fathers
of the Church concerning the fact that the Latins are schismatics and heretics
was also dismissed at the same time and abandoned. The terms of the Balamand
text are very treacherous for the Creed: “On each side it is recognized that
what Christ has entrusted to his Church-
profession of apostolic faith, participation in the same sacraments,
above all the one priesthood celebrating the one sacrifice of Christ, the
apostolic succession of bishops- cannot be considered the exclusive property of
one of our Churches. It is in this connection that the Catholic Churches and
Orthodox Churches recognize each other as Sister Churches, responsible together
for maintaining the Church of God in fidelity to the divine purpose, most
especially in what concerns unity” (Balamand Declaration paras. 13,14) [48].
The text of the 9th
General Assembly of the “World Council of Churches” in Porto Alegre,
Brazil, in February 2006, is on
precisely the same wave-length. This heretical text, which was signed by the
vast majority of the autocephalous Orthodox Churches, including, unfortunately,
the Church of Greece- though they have not been called to answer before synods-
rejects the most basic Orthodox ecclesiological dogmas. It proclaims the
dreadful ecclesiological heresy that the total membership of the “World Council
of Churches” makes up the Catholic Church. “Each church is the Church catholic,
but not the whole of it. Each church fulfils its catholicity when it is in
common with the other churches” (para.6., Official Report, page. 257). “Apart
from one another we are impoverished” (para.7)[49].
What synod will call to account those delegates who signed this heretical
document, when the “leader of Orthodoxy”
(!) speaks in triumphant terms about the text and considers that with it “we
have been freed from the rigidities of the past”?
Earlier, and quite contrary to the
clear teaching of the 4th Ecumenical Synod in Chalcedon, the
Orthodox representatives signed two Common Declarations with the
Anti-Chalcedonian Monophysites (1989 and 1990) in which they recognize that we
have a common faith (!) with the heretical Monophysites, who at no stage in the
Dialogue agreed to recognize the 4th Ecumenical Synod in Chalcedon
(451) and to number as two the natures of Christ after union. The second
“Agreed Statement” of the Joint Commission of the Theological Dialogue between
the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, which was drawn up at
Chambesy in September 1990, states: “In the light of our Agreed Statement on
Christology as well as the above common affirmations, we have now clearly
understood that both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic
Orthodox Christological faith and the unbroken continuity of the Apostolic
tradition, though they may have used Christological terms in different ways. It
is this common faith and continuous loyalty to the Apostolic tradition that
should be the basis of our unity and communion” (para. 9)[50].
We would also mention certain
anti-Patristic measures which have been taken and are in operation in the
Church of Greece, such as the performance of mixed marriages, the abolition of
the reading in churches on the Sunday of Orthodoxy of the anathemas against
heretics, the removal from Lauds at Matins on Great Saturday of hymns that contain
slighting references to Jews, and other liturgical innovations of the so-called
“Liturgical Renaissance”, such as translations of the liturgical texts, to
which we have already referred. Even the visits and the welcome extended in
Orthodox churches in Greece to the Pope, as the canonical Bishop of Rome as
well as the annual increase in ecumenist joint prayer services, especially the
one appointed for the last week in January each year, in which even Orthodox
Patriarchs take part. As regards the last point it is worth noting the
Patristic and confessional statement by Metropolitan Anthimos of Thessaloniki
when he was asked why no Orthodox clergy were present at the joint prayer
service held in the Roman Catholic church in Thessaloniki. He said: “It is not within
the order of the Orthodox Church to take part in religious services or joint
prayers with heterodox, much less with representatives of other religions”. The
Pedagogical Institute of the Ministry of Education has been trying for years to
reduce the catechetical, confessional Orthodox lesson of Religious Instruction,
either by reducing the number of hours of teaching or by making it optional,
even for Orthodox pupils. The final and desired aim is to transform it into a
lesson of general religious knowledge, so that even from Primary School,
children will be initiated into the Satan-inspired heresy of Ecumenism and
World Religion. Alas, it appears to be succeeding with the collaboration,
agreement and encouragement of its theological advisors, co-workers of the
Governing Church, friends and fellow-travellers of the Volos “Academy of
Theological Studies”. The leading light in this is the theologian, Stavros
Yangazoglou who has recently been appointed editor of “Theology”, the Church’s
official periodical. How is it possible that an official in the upper echelons
of the Church should undermine the Orthodox character of the lesson of
Religious Instruction? What is worth noting here is that when it was
confessional and catechetical it was under fire, but now that it is general
religious knowledge it has been upgraded and even provides points for
university entrance. Many and great are the ploys of Satan!
Epilogue
With enduring awareness throughout
the years from Apostolic times until today, the Church has always respected and
honoured the Holy Fathers and teachers, not for their human wisdom, which,
being created, grows old, decays and becomes obsolescent, but for their
illumination by the Holy Spirit, the action of Whom, in their teaching and in
their lives, does not grow old nor become obsolescent, needing to be
transcended and surpassed by the newly-minted teaching of older and younger
Post-Patristic Theologians.
The Church is not only Apostolic, it
is also Patristic. If it were allowed to make an addition to the Creed, to the
ecclesiological article “In One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church”, we might
very well add “Patristic”: “ In One,
Holy, Catholic, Apostolic and Patristic Church”. The Fathers do not need to be
transcended or surpassed, just as the message of the Apostles cannot be
transcended, because, as Canon 1 of the 7th Ecumenical Synod says:
“for, enlightened all by one and the same Spirit, they determined what was
best”. The message of the Apostles and the dogmas of the Fathers together weave
the garment of Truth, as it says in the beautiful hymn for the feast of the
Holy Fathers. Indeed, the Synodikon of Orthodoxy repeats the Term of the 7th
Ecumenical Synod: “This is the faith of the Apostles, this is the faith of the
Fathers, this is the faith of the Orthodox, this faith has supported the whole
world”.
We are sad that Papism,
Protestantism and the Enlightenment, which first denigrated the Holy Fathers,
should have found good pupils and supporters even among the Orthodox,
particularly those who back the universal heresy of Ecumenism, to which belongs
the “Volos Academy of Theological Studies”, which gave rise to this discussion
through its anti-Patristic conference on “post-Patristic” and “contextual”
Theology. Why is it that modern anti-Patristic theologians ignore and transcend
the Fathers? For the same reason that the Papal theologian, John of Ragusa,
reacted just before the Council of Ferrara-Florence, when the Orthodox
Patriarchs bound their representatives, with official letters, to follow what
the Fathers had determined at the Ecumenical Synods and in their writings. If
that policy had been adhered to, we would not have arrived at the final
betrayal of and apostasy from the faith. So now, when a similar or worse
apostasy is being planned with Ecumenism, they believe that the Fathers of the
Church are a great obstacle to their plans and they therefore wish to transcend
them. But this, too, is a famous victory for the Holy Fathers because it
demonstrates that the post-Patristic theologians cannot argue and oppose their
teaching and so have had to find a way round them.
The anti-Patristic stance of
Masonically-inspired Ecumenism and Syncretism is a clear indication of their
anti-Christ nature, since according to the sacred text of the Revelation, the
Antichrist himself will blaspheme against the Saints: “It opened its mouth to
utter blasphemies against God, blaspheming his name and his dwelling, that is
those who dwell in heaven”[51].
We of the Church will continue to follow the Holy Fathers and will not move nor
overstep the bounds they have set. To all the post-Patrisitic and
anti-Patristic theologians of modern Ecumenism and universal Syncretism, who,
apart from anything else are imbued with egotism and philosophical arrogance,
we would repeat what Saint Gregory of Nyssa wrote: “Let us cease to want to be
teachers of the teachers. Let us detest quarrelsomeness to the detriment of
those listening. Let us believe what our
Fathers have passed down to us. We are not wiser than the Fathers: we are not
more exact than the teachers”[52].
[1]See H. Biedermann, “
Einige Grundlinien Orthodoxen Kirchenverständnisses”, Ostkirchlihe Studien19
(1970) 3rd ed.; M-J, Le Guillu, Vom Geist der Orthodoxie,
Aschaffenburg 1963, p. 7. Protopresbyter Theodoros Zisis, Ἑπόμενοι
τοῖς θείοις πατράσι, Ἀρχὲς καὶ
κριτήρια
τῆς Πατερικῆς
Θεολογίας,
Thessaloniki 1997, p 179, ff.
[2] There is a very
rich bibliography on the theology of Saint Gregory Palamas. Among many others,
see my own studies in my book Θεολόγοι τῆς
Θεσσαλονίκης, Thessaloniki 1997.
[3] Ὑπὲρ
τῶν
ἱερῶς
ἡσυχαζόντων 1, 1, 3.
[4] Περὶ τῆς ἐκπορεύσεως
τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος 2, 38.
[5] Πρὸς
Βαρλαάμ, 1, 31.
[6] Ὑπὲρ τῶν
ἱερῶς
ἡσυχαζόντων 2, 1, 42
[7] Ibid,
1, 1 14.
[8] Πρὸς
Βαρλαάμ, 1 55.
[9] Ὑπὲρ τῶν
ἱερῶς
ἡσυχαζόντων 3, 3, 3.
[10] V. Laurent, Les “Memoires” de Grand Ecclésiarque de l’Eglise de
Constantinople Sylvestre Syropoulos sur le concile de Florence (1438-9), Paris
1971, Memoirs 3, 5, p. 166.
[11] Exact
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, PG, 94, 1128.
[12] Πρὸς
Σεραπίωνα 1, 28
[13] Laurent,
op. cit., 3, 5. p. 166.
[14] Ibid,
5, 29, p. 282.
[15] Ibid,
9, 28; Laurent, p. 464.
[16] Ibid,
9, 27-8; Laurent, pp. 462-4.
[17] On this
great, prophetic figure of the Greek nation and of Orthodoxy, who has been
slandered and maltreated by Western historians and by some of our own foolish
writers, see my extensive monograph Γεννάδιος
Β’ Σχολάριος, Βίος-Συγγράμματα-Διδασκαλία, Ἀνάλεκτα
Βλατάδων 30, Thessaloniki 1988.
[18] Oeuvres completes de Georges Scholaris, ed. L. Petit-
X. Siderides- M. Jugie, Paris 1928-36, vol. II, 15 and II, 44.
[19]Archimandrite
Justin Popović,
The Orthodox Church and Ecumenism, (in Greek) pp. 176 and 219.
[20] I.
Karmiris, Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Μνημεῖα
τῆς
Ὀρθδόξου Καθολικῆς
Ἐκκλησίας, Graz 1968, vol. II, p. 819 (899).
[21] Ibid,
pp. 862-3 (942-3).
[22] Ibid,
pp. 489 (589).
[23] On
this, see Protopresbyter Theodoros Zisis, Πρέπει
νὰ μεταφρασθοῦν τὰ λειτουργικὰ κείμενα; Νεοβαρλααμισμὸς
ἡ «Λειτουργικὴ Ἀνανγέννηση», Thessaloniki 2003.
[24] Nicodemus
the Athonite, Χρηστοήθεια τῶν
Χριστιανῶν, Rigopoulos
Publications, Thessaloniki 1999, p. 305, footnote.
[25] On all
this see, Protopresbyter Theodoros Zisis, Διαθρησκειακὲς Συναντήσεις. Ἄρνηση
τοῦ Ἐυαγγελίου καὶ προσβολὴ τῶν
Ἁγίων Μαρτύρων.Thessaloniki 2003.
[26] Bishop
Avgoustinos (Kantiotis), Metropolitan of Florina, Κοσμᾶς ὁ Αἰτωλὸς
(1714-1779. Συναξάριον-Διδαχαί-ἈκολουθίαAthens
2005, p. 286.
[27] Ibid,
p. 348.
[28] Ibid,
p.p. 131-2.
[29] Makrygiannis,
Memoirs: “They demolished all the monasteries and the poor monks, if they didn’t
die in the struggle, starved to death in the streets, as if those monasteries
weren’t the outposts of our revolution. Because that’s where all our food and
supplies were and all the necessities of war and that they were hidden and a
mystery to the Turks. And the poor monks sacrificed and most of them were
killed in the struggle. And the Bavarians, expecting them to be the Capuchins
of Europe didn’t know that they were modest and good people and that they’d
gotten those things by the work of their hands, struggling and working for so
many centuries and that so many poor people lived with them and were fed. And
the accursed politicians of our country and the corrupt bishops and the
Turkish-minded Kostakis Skinas from Constantinople agreed with Bavarians and
damaged and despoiled all the churches in the monasteries”.
[30]
Protopresbyter Ioannis Romanides, Δογματικὴ καὶ Συμβολικὴ Θεολογία
τῆς
Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς
Ἐκκλησίας vol. I, Pournaras, Thessaloniki 2009[4], p. 6.
[31]For the
Masonic capacity of Meletios Metaxakis, see the entry “Geistliche” in
Internationalisches Freimauerlexikon, E. Lennhof- O. Posner, Amalthaia,
Wien-München 1975 (Reprint of the 1932 edition). Also Alexandros Zervoudakis, «Μελέτιος
Μεταχάκης» Τεκτονικὸν
Δελτίον, year 17 (Jan.-Feb., 1967), pp. 25-50.
[32] K.
Mouratidis, Ἡ Οἰκουμενικὴ Κίνησις. Ὁ σύγχρονος μέγας πειρασμὸς τῆς Ὀρθοδοξίας, Athens 1973, p. 14.
[33] See «Καθολική» 38 (1996) p. 4, in Archimandrite Spyridon Bilalis, Ὀρθοδοξία καὶ Παπισμός,
Athens 1988, p. 409.
[34] Aristeidis Panotis, Παῦλος ΣΤ’ Ἀθηναγόρας Α’. Ειρηνοποιοί, Athens1971,
in Archimandrite Spyridon Bilalis, Ἡ αἳρεση τοῦ Filioque, Athens
1972, vol. I, p. 476.
[35] See the newspaper «Ὀρθόδοξος Τύπος»,
no 94, Dec. 1968.
[36] Mouratidis, op. cit., p. 29 and idem Οἱ Ἱεροὶ Κανόνες στύλος καὶ ἐδραίωμα τῆς Ὀρθοδοξιας. Ἀπάντησις εἰς τὸν σεβασμιώατον
ἀρχιεπίσκοπον Θυατείρων καὶ Μ. Βρεττανίας κ. Αθηναγοραν, Athens
1972, pp. 21-2.
[37] See Mouratidis, Ἡ Οἰκουμενικὴ Κίνησις, p. 45.
[38] See Περὶ τὴν κοδικοποίησιν
τῶν Ἱ. Κανόων καὶ τῶν κανονικῶν διατάξεων
ἐν τῇ Ὀρθοδόξῳ Ἐκκλησίᾳ, Ἀνάλεκτα Βλατάδων 6, Thessaloniki 1970.
[39] See «Καθολική», 22-7-2003, pp. 4 and
5, and Nikolaos Sotiropoulos, Ἁντιοικουμενιστικὰ Athens
2004, pp. 24-6.
[40] See Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ Ἀλήθεια,
16/12/1998.
[41]See Mouratidis, Ἡ Οἰκουμενικὴ Κίνησις, p. 33.
[42] Ibid, pp. 34-5.
[43]See Monk Theoklitos of Dionysiou, Περὶ θείου καὶ ἀνθρωπίνου ἔρωτος Α’, Ὁ Νεονικολαϊτισμὸς τοῦ Χρ. Γιανναρᾶ, Spiliotis Publications, Athens2003,
p. 27.
[44] Ibid, pp. 28-9
[45] Ibid, p.77.
[46] Presbyter Vasileios Voloudakis, Ὀρθοδοξία καὶ Χρ. Γιανναρᾶς, Athens 1993, Ypakoë Publications, pp. 37 and 53-4.
[47] Ibid,
p. 268.
[48] More
in Protopresbyter Theodoros Zisis, Οὐνία. Ἡ καταδίκη
καὶ ἡ ἀθώωση (στὸ Freising καὶ στὸ
Balamand), Thessaloniki 2002, p. 156 ff.
[49] Synaxis
of Orthodox Clergy and Monks Οὐκ
ἐσμὲν
τῶν
Πατέρων σοφώτεροι, in Fotis Kondoglou Ἔκδοση τῆς
Συνάξεως Ὀρθοδόξων
Ρωμηῶν «Φώτης
Κόντογλου», Trikala, Christmas 2011, p. 72 ff. and Θεοδρομία13
(2011), 629.
[50] See
Stavros Bozovitis, Τὰ αἰώνια σύνορα
τῆς Ὀρθοδοξίας
καὶ οἱ
Ἀντιχαλκηδόνιοι, “Soter” Brotherhood of Theologians, Athens 1994, p.
109. We owe the best critical presentation of what transpired and was agreed in
the dialogue with the Monophysites to Dr. Andres Papavasileiou, former
Inspector of Secondary Education in Cyprus, who took part in the dialogue as
representative of the Church of Cyprus and has given us an objective
historico/dogmatic picture in his monograph:
Ὁ Θεολογικὸς Διάλογος μεταξὺ Ὀρθοδόξων καὶ Ἀντιχαλκηδονίων. Εἶναι
ἡ συμφωνία ἐπὶ τοῦ χριστολογικοῦ δόγματος θεολογικῶς
ἀδιάβλητη καὶ πατερικῶς ἔγκυρη;,
Lefkosia 2000.
[51] Rev.
13, 6.
[52] PG,
46, 1112A.
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