Dr Peter Gilbert, of De unione ecclesiarum (one of a few blogs by an Orthodox Christian I can bear to read) has just posted the text of a lecture he recently gave to the Youngstown, Ohio chapter of the Society of St John Chrysostom. Please leave any comments you have at Dr Gilbert’s blog.

I will only reproduce here a quote of St Gregory the Theologian, which seems to sum up so well the history of theological wrangling between Greek and Latin Christianity:

Others, mutually divided, drive East and West
into confusion, and God has abandoned them to their flesh,
for which they make war, giving their name and their allegiance to others:
my god’s Paul, yours is Peter, his is Apollos.
But Christ is pierced with nails to no purpose.
For it’s not from Christ that we’re called, but from men,
we who possess his honor by hands and by blood.
So much have our eyes been clouded over by a love
of vain glory, or gain, or by bitter envy,
pining away, rejoicing in evil: these have a well-earned misery.
And the pretext is the Trinity, but the reality is faithless hate.
Each is two-faced, a wolf concealed against the sheep,
and a brass pot hiding a nasty food for the children.

[Poem 2.1.13, To the Bishops, vv. 151-163; PG 37, 1239-1240]

From my favorite Orthodox blog, Prof. Peter Gilbert’s De Unione Ecclesiarum –

I finally have some good news to report. Today I received an e-mail from the Managing Editor of the journal Communio, informing me that the Summer 2009 issue is now, at last, in print, and that they have decided to feature my article on “John Bekkos as a Reader of the Fathers” on their website. A link to the website, showing the contents of their current issue, is http://www.communio-icr.com/latest.htm; a permanent link to the article, in PDF format, is http://www.communio-icr.com/articles/PDF/gilbert36-2.pdf

A few choice bits from the article, emphasis mine (but please read the whole thing before commenting) –

John Bekkos, who served as Patriarch of Constantinople during the years of the Union of Lyons (1275–1282) and who not merely accepted that union as a practical political necessity but defended it on the grounds of its theological truth, is not a popular man in much of the Christian East; many people view him as a traitor to Orthodoxy. He earns this reputation by virtue of having defended the view that the Latin doctrine of the procession of the Holy Spirit, the teaching that the Spirit proceeds eternally from the Father and the Son as from a single principle, is reconcilable and compatible with Greek patristic tradition.

… How far John Bekkos did or did not convert to Catholicism is a legitimate question; but it is not the question I chiefly wish to ask in this paper. I mention it here merely to give one specimen of new thinking about John Bekkos, thinking that presents some hope that long-entrenched views about him—the automatic assumption of his estrangement from the mind and heart of Orthodoxy—might be due for reassessment. Bekkos is increasingly being recognized as an early practitioner of what is now called “ecumenism.” The word “ecumenism” did not exist in Bekkos’s day, and it may be doubted whether he would have looked favorably on all modern varieties of it—whatever people may say about him, John Bekkos was not a doctrinal relativist—but that Bekkos was, in some sense, a thirteenth-century Orthodox ecumenist can hardly be denied. What is vital to note is that Bekkos consciously modeled his “ecumenism” upon the practice of the fathers of the Church. He saw the effort to move beyond verbal differences to a recognition of fundamental doctrinal agreement, where such agreement in truth existed, as an essential part of the fathers’ theological work. Christian faith is, in the final analysis, a faith not in words, but in things—and intellectual effort is sometimes needed to get beyond mere words to the realities that words signify. The fathers were willing to engage in that intellectual effort in order to preserve the unity of the Church; Bekkos saw himself as following in their footsteps.

… I would contend that his reading of the fathers of the Church provides real insight into what the fathers, or some of them at least, were saying. To dismiss John Bekkos as an “anthologist,” a man who “juggles texts” or collects them mechanically without any genuine insight into their meaning, is to perpetrate a gross misrepresentation. Bekkos was a theologian; and his continuing ecumenical significance has to be based on the very real possibility that some of his readings of the patristic evidence are true.

The central part of the present article attempts to substantiate the claim that Bekkos’s patristic interpretation is an insightful one, that is, that he sees important aspects of the fathers’ teaching that others have missed. In particular, I shall argue (a) that Bekkos rediscovers something that may be called “Old Nicene” theology, (b) that, in line with this theology, Bekkos identifies a certain “logic” to the way the fathers speak about divine substance, (c) that crucial to Bekkos’s understanding of the trinitarian doctrine of the fathers is a recognition of what I would call “referential causality,” and (d) that, contrary to the claims of some, the reliability of most of Bekkos’s patristic citations is not in doubt, and that, for those texts whose genuineness is in doubt, there is reason to think that at least some of them are authentic.

… Whether or not one calls John Bekkos’s change of mind regarding the orthodoxy of the Latin Church a “conversion,” it seems undeniable that John Bekkos did, in fact, change his mind about the orthodoxy of the Latin Church as a result of the things he read while in prison in 1273 and immediately after his release from jail—basically, as a result of an intense study of the Greek Church fathers and of the interpretations of the fathers given by men like Niketas of Maroneia and Nikephoros Blemmydes. After publicly stating that the Latins were heretics, he came to see them as orthodox Christians, differing from Christians of the Greek Church, not in the essentials of their belief, but in the manner in which the one, common faith was expressed.

… John Bekkos was not a juggler of texts or an anthologist, but a man who was concerned to state the logical coherence of traditional Christian belief in the Trinity, and to state it in such a way as to show that the insights of the Latin and Greek Christian traditions are ultimately harmonious. He saw, and I think saw correctly, that the Filioque debate had deep historical roots; this debate arose out of earlier misunderstandings concerning person and substance in God. Bekkos sees Photius and Gregory of Cyprus as teaching, not Cappadocian theology pure and simple, but a kind of neo-Cappadocianism that, by radicalizing the person/substance distinction through logical premises which the Cappadocians themselves do not state, draws from this distinction consequences which the Cappadocians themselves do not draw. They could not have drawn these consequences, because to do so would have disallowed much of their own stated thought; they would not have done so, because they recognized that those who spoke differently than they did nevertheless shared with them one faith.
The Cappadocians practiced a kind of ecumenism; John Bekkos, in his role as bishop and teacher, thinks that he is authorized and obliged to do the same in the circumstances of his own time. The Cappadocians, in their day, articulated the mystery of the Trinity in a way that differed, in some significant respects, from the way St. Athanasius or St. Epiphanius or Pope St. Damasus articulated it; yet the Cappadocians strove to maintain communion with St. Athanasius and St. Epiphanius and Pope St. Damasus. Similarly, St. Maximus, in his day, recognized that the Latin-speaking Church articulated the mystery of the Holy Spirit’s procession in a way that differed from the way most Greek-speaking Christians did; yet he strove to maintain the bonds of communion, and said that he had never known the fathers to disagree with each other in thought, even though, very often, they disagree with one another verbally. John Bekkos thinks that reasons of Christian truth and love oblige him to imitate these holy men.

… Trinitarian language becomes meaningless if it loses its concrete moorings in the revelation of God in Christ. John Bekkos understood that, as there is no approaching the Father except through the Son, so there is no knowing the Holy Spirit’s eternal relation to the Father except, implicitly or explicitly, through the Son. The Spirit does not lead to the Father except through the Son, nor does the Spirit come forth from the Father to us except through the Son. When theologians deny a mediation of divine being, when they confidently assert an ontology that makes the Son’s mediation of the Spirit’s ousia impossible, one must ask how they have acquired this mystical knowledge of the Father that shunts the Son off to the side.

John Bekkos did not shunt off the Son. He worshiped God the Logos, and logic played a role in how he worshiped him. He had no use for a “spirituality” that was not true rationality, just as he had no use for any new Spirit who is not through the Son. He was a diligent, painstaking researcher who cared about fact, because he cared about truth; but he did not worship the status quo. Pachymeres and others testify to Bekkos’s faith that, even if his own generation failed to appreciate what he had tried to do, future generations would understand. Time may yet prove him right.

Orrologion has posted the original text of the “Twelve Differences between the Orthodox and Catholic Churches” by Teófilo de Jesús along with excellent responses to each of the twelve points from Fr Alvin Kimel, of Pontifications* fame, who in his extended period of discernment after leaving the Episcopal Church studied the claims of both Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy in great depth.

Some excerpts:

On Primacy. Is it true that the Orthodox Church rejects totally any understanding of ecclesial headship? What about the bishop of a diocese? Does he not wield and embody a divine authority given to him by Christ Jesus? Is he not the head of his community, which precisely is the Church? And when Catholics speak of the Pope as the earthly head of the Church, are they in any way denying that Christ alone is properly head of the Church? When Catholics speak of the primacy of the Pope, are they exalting the Pope above the Episcopate, as if their power and authority derived from him? And are Orthodox theologians incapable of entertaining an authentic primacy within the episcopal college for the bishop of Rome? …

On Conciliarity. The Catholic Church understands the Church precisely as a communion of particular Churches and local dioceses; moreover, the Church as the universal Church is not to be understood as simply the sum or collection of all particular Churches: each diocese is itself a truly catholic body … Catholic ecclesiology is so much more complex and diverse than is sometimes appreciated …

On Original Sin. I’m sure there are differences between Catholic construals of anthropology and Orthodox construals of anthropology (please note the plural); but I do not believe that this is because the Catholic Church authoritatively teaches a forensic imputation of original sin and the Orthodox Church does not. Why do I say this? Because it is not at all clear to me that the Catholic Church authoritatively teaches the *forensic* imputation of Adam’s guilt to humanity. I know that some (many?) Catholic theologians have sometimes taught something like this over the centuries, but the Catholic Church has strained over recent decades to clarify the meaning of Original Sin not as the forensic transfer of Adam’s guilt but as the inheritance of the Adamic condition of real alienation from God–i.e., the absence of sanctifying grace … Important differences on the nature of original exist between St Augustine and magisterial Catholic teaching …

On Liturgical Reform. I agree here that there are important differences between Catholic and Orthodox liturgical praxis at the present time. Sadly, many sectors of the Catholic Church appear to have uncritically embraced the thesis that the Church must adapt her liturgy to the spirit of the modern age. This has been disastrous for Catholic life and spirituality. One does see signs, however, that the insanity is passing.

On Grace and Deification. While perhaps it might have been true at some point in the past that Catholic theologians tended to reduce grace to a created power, this cannot be asserted today. Catholic theologians are quite clear that everything begins with and centers around Uncreated Grace. Catholic theologians do have a problem with some of the Palamite construals of grace and the popular Orthodox rejection of any notion of created grace–they do not see how the Palamite position does not lead to the annihilation of human nature–but this does not mean that Catholic theologians and poets cannot envision an eschatological life as full and vivid as the Orthodox. Surely Dante’s Paradiso may be invoked at this point. But I do acknowledge a difference of homiletical and ascetical emphasis between Catholics and Orthodox on theosis, sanctifying suffering, and the life of the resurrection.

* I was inspired to begin blogging after reading Pontifications, though I am not nearly as erudite and well-spoken as Fr Kimel and some of his interlocutors, both Catholic and Orthodox.

From the blog Gregorian Rite Catholic:

Benedict XVI is “on board” with ecumenism, but he calibrates it carefully. It is a refreshing change from the near-indifferentism that characterized the previous pontificate.

The first substantial ecumenical address he gave was in Cologne. And everyone was all aflutter when he said this: “On the other hand, this unity does not mean what could be called ecumenism of the return: that is, to deny and to reject one’s own faith history. Absolutely not!

“It does not mean uniformity in all expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline. Unity in multiplicity, and multiplicity in unity: in my Homily for the Solemnity of Sts. Peter and Paul on 29 June last, I insisted that full unity and true catholicity in the original sense of the word go together. As a necessary condition for the achievement of this coexistence, the commitment to unity must be constantly purified and renewed; it must constantly grow and mature.”

One Fr. Brian Harrison ventured the point that the Holy Father had not included doctrine in his list of those things that could not be uniform:

“The first impression here is that Pope Benedict is right in line with Cardinal Kasper and other ecumaniac luminaries. … But what, precisely, is Benedict ruling out when he rules out so categorically this dreaded, abhorrent, unthinkable ‘return’ of the separated brethren? He answers this question by proceeding to rule out any future requirement of ‘uniformity’ in four distinct and specific areas of the Church’s life: theology, spirituality, liturgical forms, and discipline. Note well that the Pope conspicuously fails to include doctrine among these areas in which uniformity will not be required.

“Now I would suggest that this omission,” continues Harrison, “to the extent that it comes to be taken seriously and implemented at high levels, really amounts to a pulling the rug out from under the feet of heretical ecumenists. It’s the old Catholic orthodoxy creeping in again by the postconciliar back door. For what preconciliar pope ever insisted on uniformity in any of the four areas specified now by Benedict XVI?”

I would go further than Fr. Harrison. Theology, spirituality, liturgical forms, and discipline are not “doctrine free.” They do admit of variety in the sense that the Church grants us a wide field in which to explore legitimate differences of expression of the essence of the faith. But fundamentally liturgy is doctrine, however differently the various rites manifest themselves. The various theological schools, whether in Carthage, Alexandria, Aosta, or Aquino, expressed differently the essence of the faith, but this did not amount to new faiths. The problem of theologies, such as those of Duns Scotus and Gabriel Biel was precisely that they did pose new doctrinal formulations and so were repudiated at the Council of Trent.

So what Pope Benedict is saying here is that while strict uniformity has never been characteristic of Catholicism (and that is true even of the so-called “Tridentine” era; cf. Simon Ditchfield, Liturgy, Sanctity and History in Tridentine Italy: Pietro Maria Campi and the Preservation of the Particular. Cambridge, 2002), doctrinal uniformity is and it affects all aspects of Catholicism. Notice that the Holy Father says: “expressions of theology and spirituality, in liturgical forms and in discipline.” Expressions are ways of explaining the regula fidei and doctrinal essence of Catholicism. They themselves are not the regula fidei and doctrinal essence. The same obtains for liturgical forms and discipline.

On 6 December 2007, the Holy Father addressed the joint international commission sponsored by the Baptist World Alliance and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. Among the remarks the Holy Father offered were these:

“The theme which you have chosen for this phase of contacts – The Word of God in the Life of the Church: Scripture, Tradition and Koinonia – offers a promising context for the examination of such historically controverted issues as the relationship between Scripture and Tradition, the understanding of Baptism and the sacraments, the place of Mary in the communion of the Church, and the nature of oversight and primacy in the Church’s ministerial structure. If our hope for reconciliation and greater fellowship between Baptists and Catholics is to be realized, issues such as these need to be faced together, in a spirit of openness, mutual respect and fidelity to the liberating truth and saving power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

How do you think the Holy Father is going to come down on these issues?

Or, when he addressed an ecumenical on his visit to the United States in April, 2008: “Too often those who are not Christians, as they observe the splintering of Christian communities, are understandably confused about the Gospel message itself. Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called “prophetic actions” that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of “local options”. Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic koinonia – communion with the Church in every age – is lost, just at the time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel (cf. Rom 1:18-23). . . . My dear friends, the power of the kerygma has lost none of its internal dynamism. Yet we must ask ourselves whether its full force has not been attenuated by a relativistic approach to Christian doctrine similar to that found in secular ideologies, which, in alleging that science alone is “objective”, relegate religion entirely to the subjective sphere of individual feeling. Scientific discoveries, and their application through human ingenuity, undoubtedly offer new possibilities for the betterment of humankind. This does not mean, however, that the “knowable” is limited to the empirically verifiable, nor religion restricted to the shifting realm of “personal experience. For Christians to accept this faulty line of reasoning would lead to the notion that there is little need to emphasize objective truth in the presentation of the Christian faith, for one need but follow his or her own conscience and choose a community that best suits his or her individual tastes. The result is seen in the continual proliferation of communities which often eschew institutional structures and minimize the importance of doctrinal content for Christian living. Even within the ecumenical movement, Christians may be reluctant to assert the role of doctrine for fear that it would only exacerbate rather than heal the wounds of division. Yet a clear, convincing testimony to the salvation wrought for us in Christ Jesus has to be based upon the notion of normative apostolic teaching: a teaching which indeed underlies the inspired word of God and sustains the sacramental life of Christians today.”

I wonder who he’s talking about here? So far, the Holy Father has adduced religious relativism, the sacraments, doctrine, individual communities organized according to individual tastes, subjectivity, Scripture AND Tradition, and “so-called ‘prophetic’ actions.” In particular, the Pope makes a point of highlighting: “. . . the need for diachronic koinonia – communion with the Church in every age . . . ,” which is precisely where the evangelical Protestant groups (as well as the pentecostals and “independent Christians”) are in arrears.

Traditional Catholics who are always in distress whenever ecumenism comes up would do well to reread the Holy Father’s ecumenical addresses. He is not about to give away the store.

The Bulgarian Orthodox Church has decided to bow out of the Meeting of the Combined International Theological Committee for the Dialogue between the Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Church, which is to be held in Cyprus in October.

The Holy Synod of the Bulgarian Church reached its decision, according to the Greek Orthodox news agency Romfea, after expressing concern that “such theological dialogues between Orthodox and Catholics had not led to even the slightest settlement between Roman Catholic and Orthodox Dogmatics.”

The Holy Synod did, however, “express its willingness to discuss other social and humanitarian issues in the future, during such meetings.”

Via Fr Anthony Chadwick, I present “ΟΜΟΛΟΓΙΑ ΠΙΣΤΕΩΣ Κατά του Οικουμενισμού” (“A Confession of Faith Against Ecumenism” (original Greek text and unofficial English translation), signed by a number of metropolitans, bishops, clergy and monks of the Orthodox Church of Greece.

I tend to agree with Fr Chadwick’s commentary on the text (link, see July 18) –

I see this whole thing in simple terms. The Christian world has been torn between relevance to the world and its specific identity. Ultimately, the whole thing goes back to the Donation of Constantine and “if the salt loses its savour”.

This is a problem that is intrinsic to Christianity. If a religion is to expand and assume a missionary vision, then it must be prepared to compromise its identity and inculturate. Western Catholicism is a missionary religion and addresses itself to the world. Eastern Orthodoxy, like Judaism, is a vast “monastery” and keeps its identity by keeping the infidel out and at arm’s length. The latter vision is coherent if it considers, like Jansenism and Calvinism, that the majority of humanity is nothing more than “hell fodder”. Islam is both “missionary” and medieval hard-line, and will continue to make inroads until it falls victim of its missionary ambitions and goes – - – secular.

… The Orthodox, like the Roman Catholic traditionalists (especially the sedevacantists) have come to this out of an instinct for survival. We traditional Anglicans also to an extent, because we can only survive by our difference from secular humanism. When you look at the historical pattern, we can begin to understand. All this is to say that I understand those Greeks who have had enough of relativism and liberalism. But, where is the love and charity or the will to share the Gospel with the world as Jesus asked of his Apostles?

Veritatem facientes in caritate. Not easy…. I would even say that we all seem to have got it wrong.

From Fr Pat’s Pastoral Ponderings, June 28, 2009:

Saint Anselm, as we have seen, begins his reflections on soteriology—the theology of salvation—by addressing the question: What is sin? This he identifies as the affront to the honor of God. He then goes on to inquire: What is required to satisfy the offended honor of God. This move from apologetics to theology is known as St. Anselm’s “theory of satisfaction.”

In the history of the theology of salvation, few developments have been more significant than the introduction of “satisfaction” as a category of study. Few likewise, I believe, have proved more troubling.

I concede that some notion of satisfaction was always implicit when Christians thought about “being saved.” That is to say, the very concept of salvation carries with it, at least tacitly, the question, “What was required for us to be saved?”

In fact, that question was raised explicitly in the great Christological controversies of the early Church. For example, a major premise of the orthodox faith affirmed, “Whatever was not assumed was not healed.” This thesis declared that God’s Son, in the Incarnation, took on our full humanity, not selected parts of it. In other words, only the Word’s full assumption of our human nature could satisfy what was needed for human beings to be saved.

This principle, enunciated explicitly at the Council of Chalcedon in 451, was later applied to the question of Christ’s human will by the Third Council of Constantinople in 670. According to this latter council, the work of salvation required a complete agreement of the divine and human wills in Christ. Hence, said the council, a full human will in Christ was required for our salvation. Nothing less would satisfy.

The new component in St. Anselm’s soteriology seems to be this: He introduces the idea that some aspect of God required “satisfaction” by the work of Christ. Specifically, it was the offended honor of God. This was the “debt” that only God’s Son could pay.

I have long suspected that Anselm’s inspiration for this theory may have been a Resurrection chant entitled the Praeconium Paschale. Our earliest extant copy of this text, commonly called (from its first word) the Exultet, is contained in “The Bobbio Missal,” the seventh century manuscript of a Gallican sacramentary. This beautiful and venerable text, which may have been composed two centuries earlier, refers to the salvific work of Christ, “who for us remitted to the eternal Father the debt of Adam”—qui pro nobis aetero Patri Adae debitum solvit.

Although I am familiar with no earlier liturgical text in which the work of salvation was so described, another liturgical hymn, roughly contemporary to “The Bobbio Missal,” spoke of Christ’s work as the remission of a debt, This akathist of Sergius of Constantinople (a monothelite, alas) described Christ as “He that remits the debt of all men”—Ho panton chreolytes ton anthropon (Hymnus Acathistus 266).

This image of a “debt” owed to God is, of course, perfectly biblical. Jesus spoke of God as “a certain creditor who had two debtors” (Luke 7:41). He described the judgment of God as the summoning of the master’s debtors (16:1-12). In the Bible, however, and as understood by the Church Fathers (for instance, Hippolytus, Psalm Titles 4, and Augustine, Enarrationes in Psalmos 110.3), these texts refer to the mercy of God and to man’s obligation to imitate that mercy. The image was not used in reference to the work of Christ.

It is generally conceded that St. Anselm was the first to think of the burden of sin as a “debt of honor”: Hunc honorem debitum qui Deo non reddit, aufert Deo quod suum est, et Deum exhonorat, et hoc est peccare—”He that does not render to God this honor that is His debt, takes away from God that which is His, and dishonors God, and this is to sin” (Cur Deus Homo 11). And nothing, he went on, “is less tolerable in the order of things than that the creature should take away this debt of honor [debitum honorem] to the Creator, and not render what he owes” (op. cit. 13).

Anselm does not, strictly speaking, find salvation’s “necessity” in God’s will, nor in man. He finds it, rather, in what he calls “the order of things”—in rerum ordine. His references to the Creator and the creature indicate that he means, by this, the order of Creation. Salvation must rectify a problem in the created order.

From Fr Pat’s Pastoral Ponderings, July 26, 2009:

St Nicholas Cabasilas, after elaborating the tripartite structure of soteriology in his comments on the Sacrament of Chrismation, comes to the third and supreme sacrament of Christian Initiation, the Holy Eucharist (The Life in Christ 4.1-2).

Unlike Baptism and Chrismation, Nicholas says, this third initiation rite is repeated for the faithful during the course of their Christian life: “It helps the initiate after their Initiation, when the ray of light derived from the Sacred Mysteries must be revived after being obscured by the darkness of sins. To revive those that fade away and die because of their sins is the work of the Sacred Table alone” (4.3). Our habits of sin make reception of the Holy Eucharist a lifelong necessity.

We all continue to fall, Nicholas explains, nor can we, solely by our own efforts, be reconciled to God. In this respect, he quotes Romans 2:23—”You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law?” Nicholas Cabasilas thus—and as though out of the blue—introduces the theme central to the soteriology of St. Anselm: God’s offended honor.

Indeed, Nicholas goes on to explain this point, in lines that are nearly Greek translations from Anselm’s Latin. He speaks of Christ, who “alone was able to render all honor [timen] due to the One who begot Him and make satisfaction [apologesthasthai] for that which was taken away, achieving the former by His life and the latter by His death. To outweigh the injury which we had committed, He introduced the death He died on the Cross unto the Father’s glory, thereby making abundant satisfaction for the debt of honor we owed [opheilometha timen] by reason of our sins” (4.4).

Nicholas is clearly reliant here on Anselm, and it seems important to remark on this reliance. In fact, throughout his treatise on the Incarnation—Cur Deus Homo? —Anselm treats many of the same soteriological themes as Cabasilas and the Church Fathers: The integrity of two natures in Christ (2.7) and the unity of His person (2.9), the freedom of Christ’s will in the Passion (1.8; 2.17), man’s destiny to beatitude (2.1), and the final grace of the bodily resurrection (2.3). Although the soteriology of Anselm seems rather thin beside that of Cabasilas, the latter theologian detects no heresy in it, and, when it suits his purpose, he does not hesitate to incorporate Anselm’s thought into his own reflections.

As we noted above, Nicholas uses Anselm’s “satisfaction theory” in his discussion of the Holy Eucharist. The body of Christ received in the Holy Communion, Nicholas affirms, is the same body in which the Savior “made satisfaction for our sins”: It sweat blood in the agony, received lashes upon the back, was pierced with nails. It is to this very body, which “became the treasury of the fullness of the Godhead,” that the believer is united in the Eucharist (The Life in Christ 4.5).

Although there is also the sacrament (mysterion) of confession which, “when men repent of their sins and confess them to the priests, delivers them from every punishment of God the Judge,” yet even this sacrament is inadequate without participation in the Lord’s table. This is why, says Nicholas, we are to approach that table “frequently,” inasmuch as “it is the only remedy against sin.”

All righteousness before God, Nicholas reminds us, comes through the immolated body of Christ. Human righteousness counts for nothing. “But once men are united to Christ’s flesh and blood by partaking of them, immediately the greatest benefits ensue: the forgiveness of sins and the inheritance of the Kingdom, which are the fruits of Christ’s righteousness.”

In the Holy Eucharist, he goes on, we receive the whole Christ, everything that was assumed in the Incarnation, “soul, mind, will, everything that is human.” These God’s Son took on “in order to be united to the whole of our nature in order to penetrate us and assimilate us into Himself by totally uniting what is proper to Him with what is proper to us.”

“Thus, it is clear,” says Nicholas, “that God infuses Himself into us and mingles Himself with us, changing and transforming us into Him,” as “when iron is united to fire and thereby takes on the properties of fire” (4.6). For Cabasilas the Eucharist extends to men the salvation effected in the Incarnation, on the Cross, and in the Resurrection.

Note: Father Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor of All Saints’ Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois.

By Father Lev Gillet

From Chrysostom, Vol. VI, No. 5 (Spring 1983), pp. 151-159.

(Continued from Part I, Part II & Part III)

________________________

V. There are three principal causes which provide an explanation for the opposition with which the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has been met in the Orthodox Church.

First and foremost, there is the mistrust felt a priori by many Orthodox about any doctrine defined by Rome since the separation of East and West. That, of course, is primarily a psychological reason.

There is also the fear of formulating a doctrine which might not seem to have sufficient foundation in Holy Scripture and the patristic tradition. We have left the patristic age outside the bounds of our discussion, limiting ourselves to the Orthodox theology of Byzantium: but it seems that (from St Andrew of Crete to St Theodore the Studite) much evidence can be produced from Greek sources in favour of the Immaculate Conception.

Finally there is the fear of restricting the redemptive work of Christ. Once you have exempted Mary from original sin, have you not exempted her from the effects of her Son’s redemption? Is it not possible for a single exception to destroy the whole economy of salvation? The Orthodox theologians who think on these lines have not given careful enough consideration, or indeed any at all, to the fact that according to Pius IX’s definition, Mary was only exempt from original sin in view of the merits of Christ: ”intuitu meritorum Christi Jesu Salvatoris humani generis“. Therefore, Christ’s redemptive action was operative in Mary’s case although in a quite different way from that of the rest of mankind.

We will add this, too. Orthodox theology has always insisted on the beauty of human nature in its integrity before the fall. Now it is the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception which alone can justify this ‘humanism’. It is only in Mary conceived without sin, that human nature has reached its fulfilment and actualized all its possibilities. Mary is the one and only success of the human race. It is through her and in her that humanity has escaped total failure and has offered to the divine a point of entry into the human. Mary, said Metropolitan George of Nicomedia (19th century) “was the magnificent firstfruit offered by human nature to the Creator.” (16) “She is”, said Nicholas Cabasilas (14th century), “truly the first man, the first and only being to have manifested in herself the fullness of human nature.” (17)

VI. Let us draw our conclusions:

1. The Immaculate Conception of Mary is not a defined dogma in the Orthodox Church.
2. One can say that since the first part of the nineteenth century the majority of Orthodox believers and theologians have taken their stand against this doctrine.
3. Nevertheless. it is impossible to say that from the Orthodox point of view the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception constitutes a heresy; for canonically it has never been defined as such by an oecumenical council and in fact it has never met with the disapproval of a universal and unchanging consensus of opinion.
4. There does exist a continuous line of eminent Orthodox authorities who have taught the Immaculate Conception.
5. Therefore the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception has every right to its existence in the Orthodox Church as an opinion of a school or as a personal theologoumenon based on a tradition worthy of respect.
6. It follows therefore that the Roman definition of 1854 does not constitute an obstacle to the reunion of the Eastern and Western Churches.
7. It is my own view that not only does the Immaculate Conception not contradict any Orthodox dogma but that it is a necessary and logical development of the whole of Orthodox belief. (18)

Regina sine labe concepta, ora pro nobis.

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Footnotes:

16. Hom. III in Praesentat., Migne P.G. t. C, col. 1444.
17. Hom. in Nativ. B. Mariae, Greek Cod. 1213 of the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, fol. 3, r.
18. On the whole subject see M. Jugie, “De immaculata Deiparae conceptione a byzantinis scriptoribus post schisma consummatum edocta”, in Acta II conventus Velehradensis, Prague 1910; and article Immaculee Conception, in Dictionnaire de theologie catholique, Paris 1922, t. VII, col. 894-975. This last article by Jugie gives a complete bibliography of the subject. Much will also be found in P. de Meester, “Le dogme de l’immaculee conception et la doctrine de l’Eglise grecque”: 5 articles published in the Revue de l’Orient chretien, Paris, 1904-1905.

Many thanks to Professor William Tighe for the text of this rare article.

By Father Lev Gillet

From Chrysostom, Vol. VI, No. 5 (Spring 1983), pp. 151-159.

(Continued from Part I and Part II)

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IV. Let us now consider more closely the attitude of the Russian Church towards the question of the Immaculate Conception.

Every Russian theological student knows that St Dmitri, metropolitan of Rostov (17th century), supported the Latin ”theory of the epiklesis” (10); but young Russians are inclined to consider the case of Dmitri as a regrettable exception, an anomoly. If they knew the history of Russian theology a little better they would know that from the middle ages to the seventeenth century the Russian Church has, as a whole, accepted belief in the Immaculate Conception (11).

The Academy of Kiev, with Peter Moghila, Stephen Gavorsky and many others, taught the Immaculate Conception in terms of Latin theology. A confraternity of the Immaculate Conception was established at Polotsk in 1651. The Orthodox members of the confraternity promised to honour the Immaculate Conception of Mary all the days of their life. The Council of Moscow of 1666 approved Simeon Polotsky’s book called The Rod of Direction, in which he said: “Mary was exempt from original sin from the moment of her conception”. (12)

All this cannot be explained as the work of Polish Latinising influence. We have seen that much was written on the same lines in the Greek East. When as a result of other Greek influences, attacks were launched in Moscow against the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception, a protest was made by the Old Believers – a sect separated from the official Church by reason of its faithfulness to certain ancient rites. Again in 1841, the Old Believers said in an official declaration that “Mary has had no share in original sin”. (13) To all those who know how deeply the Old Believers are attached to the most ancient beliefs and traditions, their testimony has a very special significance. In 1848, the “Dogmatic Theology” of the Archimandrite Antony Amphitheatroff, approved by the Holy Synod as a manual for seminaries, reproduced Palamas’ curious theory of the progressive purification of the Virgin’s ancestors, a theory which has already been mentioned and which proclaims Mary’s exemption from original sin. Finally, we should notice that the Roman definition of 1854 was not attacked by the most representative theologians of the time, Metropolitan Philaretes of Moscow and Macarius Boulgakov.

It was in 1881 that the first important writing appeared in Russian literature in opposition to the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. It was written by Professor A. Lebedev of Moscow who held the view that the Virgin was completely purified from original sin at Golgotha. (14) In 1884, the Holy Synod included the question of the Immaculate Conception in the programme of “polemical”, that is to say, anti-Latin theology. Ever since then, official Russian theology has been unanimously opposed to the Immaculate Conception.

This attitude of the Russians has been strengthened by a frequent confusion of Mary’s immaculate conception with the virgin birth of Christ. This confusion is to be found not only among ignorant people, but also among many theologians and bishops. In 1898, Bishop Augustine, author of a “Fundamental Theology”, translated “immaculate conception” by “conception sine semine“. More recently still, Metropolitan Anthony then Archbishop of Volkynia, wrote against the “impious heresy of the immaculate and virginal conception of the Most Holy Mother of God by Joachim and Anne.” It was a theologian of the Old Believers, A. Morozov, who had to point out to the archbishop that he did not know what he was talking about. (15)

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Footnotes:

10. See Chiliapkin, St Dmitri of Rostov and his times (Russian), in the Zapiski of the Faculty of history and philology of the University of St. Petersberg, t. XXIV, 1891, especially pp. 190-193.
11. See J. Gagarin, L’Eglise russe et L’immaculee conception, Paris 1876.
12. See Makary Bulgakov, History of the Russian Church (Russian) 1890, t. XII, p. 681. On the Polotsk brotherhood, see the article by Golubiev, in the Trudv of the Academy of Kiev, November 1904, pp. 164-167.
13. See N. Subbotin, History of the hierarchy of Bielo-Krinitza (Russian), Moscow, 1874, t. I, p. xlii of the Preface.
14. An article by M. Jugie, Le dogme de l’immaculee conception d’apres un theologien russe, in Echos d’Orient, 1920, t. XX, p. 22, gives an analysis of Lebedev’s monography.
15. Letter of Archbishop Anthony of Volhynia to the Old Believers, in the organ of the Russian Holy Synod, The Ecclesiastical News of 10 March 1912, p. 399. Morozov’s reply is contained in the same periodical on 14 July 1912, pp. 1142-1150. 

By Father Lev Gillet

From Chrysostom, Vol. VI, No. 5 (Spring 1983), pp. 151-159.

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(Continued from Part 1)

III. I shall begin by quoting several phrases which cannot be said with absolute certainty to imply a belief in the Immaculate Conception but in which it is quite possible to find traces of such a belief.

First of all – the patriarch Photius. In his first homily on the Annunciation, he says that Mary was sanctified ek Brephous. This is not an easy term to translate; the primary meaning of Brephos is that of a child in the embryonic state. Ek means origin or starting point. The phrase seems to me to mean not that Mary was sanctified in the embryonic state, that is to say, during her existence in her mother’s womb, but that she was sanctified from the moment of her existence as an embryo, from the very first moment of her formation – therefore – from the moment of her conception. (1)

A contemporary and opponent of Photius, the monk Theognostes, wrote in a homily for the feast of the Dormition, that Mary was conceived by “a sanctifying action”, ex arches - from the beginning. It seems to me that this ex arches exactly corresponds to the “in primo instanti“ of Roman theology. (2)

St Euthymes, patriarch of Constantinople (+917), in the course of a homily on the conception of St Anne (that is to say, on Mary’s conception by Anne and Joachim) said that it was on this very day (touto semerou) that the Father fashioned a tabernacle (Mary) for his Son, and that this tabernacle was “fully sanctified” (kathagiazei). There again we find the idea of Mary’s sanctification in primo instanti conceptionis. (3)

Let us now turn to more explicit evidence.

(St) Gregory Palamas, archbishop of Thessalonica and doctor of the hesychasm (+1360) in his 65 published Mariological homilies, developed an entirely original theory about her sanctification. On the one hand, Palamas does not use the formula “immaculate conception” because he believes that Mary was sanctified long before the “primus instans conceptionis“, and on the other, he states quite as categorically as any Roman theologian that Mary was never at any moment sullied by the stain of original sin. Palamas’ solution to the problem, of which as far as we know, he has been the sole supporter, is that God progressively purified all Mary’s ancestors, one after the other and each to a greater degree than his predecessor so that at the end, eis telos, Mary was able to grow, from a completely purified root, like a spotless stem “on the limits between created and uncreated”. (4)

The Emperor Manuel II Paleologus (+1425) also pronounced a homily on the Dormition. In it, he affirms in precise terms Mary’s sanctification in primo instanti. He says that Mary was full of grace “from the moment of her conception” and that as soon as she began to exist … there was no time when Jesus was not united to her”. We must note that Manuel was no mere amateur in theology. He had written at great length on the procession of the Holy Spirit and had taken part in doctrinal debates during his journeys in the West. One can, therefore, consider him as a qualified representative of the Byzantine theology of his time. (5)

George Scholarios (+1456), the last Patriarch of the Byzantine Empire, has also left us a homily on the Dormition and an explicit affirmation of the Immaculate Conception. He says that Mary was “all pure from the first moment of her existence” (gegne theion euthus). (6)

It is rather strange that the most precise Greek affirmation of the Immaculate Conception should come from the most anti-Latin, the most “Protestantizing” of the patriarchs of Constantinople, Cyril Lukaris (+1638). He too gave a sermon on the Dormition of Our Lady. He said that Mary “was wholly sanctified from the very first moment of her conception (ole egiasmene en aute te sullepsei) when her body was formed and when her soul was united to her body”; and further on he writes: “As for the Panaghia, who is there who does not know that she is pure and immaculate, that she was a spotless instrument, sanctified in her conception and her birth, as befits one who is to contain the One whom nothing can contain?” (7)

Gerasimo. patriarch of Alexandria (+1636) taught at the same time. according to the Chronicle of the Greek, Hypsilantis, that the Theotokos “was not subject to the sin of our first father” (ouk npekeito to propatopiko hamarte mati); and a manual of dogmatic theology of the same century, written by Nicholas Coursoulas (+1652) declared that “the soul of the Holy Virgin was made exempt from the stain of original sin from the first moment of its creation by God and union with the body.” (8)

I am not unaware that other voices were raised against the Immaculate Conception. Damascene the Studite, in the sixteenth century, Mitrophanes Cristopoulos, patriarch of Alexandria and Dosithes, patriarch of Jerusalem in the seventeenth century, all taught that Mary was sanctified only in her mother’s womb. Nicephorus Gallistus in the fourteenth century and the Hagiorite in the eighteenth century taught that Mary was purified from original sin on the day of the Annunciation. But the opinions that we have heard in favour of the Immaculate Conception are not less eminent or less well qualified.

It was after the Bull of Pius IX, Ineffabilis Deus, of 8 December, 1854, that the greater part of the Greek Church seems to have turned against belief in the Immaculate Conception. Yet, in 1855, the Athenian professor, Christopher Damalas, was able to declare:

“We have always held and always taught this doctrine. This point is too sacred to give rise to quarrels and it has no need of a deputation from Rome”. (9)

But it was not until 1896 that we find an official text classing the Immaculate Conception among the differences between Rome and the Orthodox East. This text is the synodal letter written by the Oecumenical Patriarch, Anthimes VII, in reply to the encyclical Piaeclara Gratulationis addressed by Leo XIII to the people of the Eastern Churches. Moreover, from the Orthodox point of view, the Constantinopolitan document has only a very limited doctrinal importance. Although it should be read with respect and attention, yet it possesses none of the marks of infallibility, nor does ecclesiastical discipline impose belief in its teachings as a matter of conscience. and it leaves the ground quite clear for theological and historical discussions on this point.

To be continued …

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Footnotes:

1. Photius, homil. I in Annunt., in the collection of St. Aristarchis, Photiou logoi kai homiliai, Constantinople 1901, t. II, p. 236.
2. Theognostes, hom. in fest. Dormitionis, Greek Cod. 763 of the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, fol. 8. v.
3. Euthemius, hom. in concept. S. Annae, Cod. laudianus 69 of the Bodleian Library, fol. 122-126.
4. Photius, In Praesentat. Deiparae, in the collection of Sophoclis Grigoriou tou Palama homiliai kb’, Athens 1861.
5. Manuel Paleologus, orat. in Dormit., Vatic. graecus 1619. A Latin translation is to be found in Migne P.G. t. CLVI, 91-108.
6. Scholarios, hom. in Dormit., Greek Cod. 1294 of the Bibliotheque Nationale of Paris, fol. 139 v.
7. Lukaris, hom. in Dormit., Cod. 263 of the Metochion of the Holy Sepulchre in Constantinople, fol. 612-613, and hom. in Nativ., Cod. 39 of the Metochion, fol. 93.
8. Hypsilantis, Ta meta ten alosin, Constantinople, 1870, p. 131. Coursoulas, Sunopsis ten ieras Theologias, Zante, 1862, vol. I, pp. 336-342.
9. Quoted by Frederic George Lee, in The sinless conception of the Mother of God, London 1891, p. 58.