Dialogue-1b
Forty
Martyrs of Sebastia, 2001.
Dear Vladimir,
I completely agree with you that all questions
should be reviewed unhurriedly. Therein lies half the success.
First of all, let us formulate a general principle
for the consideration of decisions by ecclesiastical authorities that relate
to dogmatic questions. I believe we can agree on the following:
If a decision made by an ecclesiastical authority
in any instance contains heretical opinions, there cannot be any possibility
of its mandatory character in the disciplinary sense (this is especially evident
in cases of known and previously condemned heresies, inasmuch as the fifteenth
rule of the Double Council is applicable here).
In responding to your questions, I will review
the decisions mentioned by you both in their essence (from the point of view
of their theological content) and in their formal aspect of canonicity (without,
as it were, taking into consideration the dogmatic content of the dispute).
In the preamble to your questions you mention
“imiaslavie, i.e., the teaching that the
Name of God is God Himself.” I would like, in advance, to call your attention
to the fact that not everyone that considered themselves imiaslavtsy adhered to the same teaching. As you well know, the statement “the Name of God is God” can be
found in the writings of St. John of Kronstadt, whom no one dared to judge,
as well as in P. A. Florenskii, who thought himself an imiaslavets, but was very far from Fr. Antonii Bulatovich (and, I
may add, from the teachings of the Church). Let us therefore agree for the
future to speak only about the teaching of Fr. Antonii Bulatovich, which was
condemned in all the documents you mention.
Let us turn to each document individually.
1. Decision by the Athonite
Kinot of Feb. 2, 1913.
This contains absolutely no dogmatic content (it
only mentions that the explanations of the former abbot of St. Andrew’s Skete
were accepted by the Kinot as Orthodox; however, nothing is said either specifically
about Orthodox teaching or about the heresy ascribed to the imiaslavtsy).
From the canonical standpoint, however, the decision
made by the Kinot is completely inadequate. The Kinot declared the imiaslavtsy
as “ill-praising” not after, but before the “investigation and definition”
of the Great Church and, based on that declaration, subjected the imiaslavtsy to ecclesiastical suspension
(prohibition from performing all rites). But the Kinot had no right to pronounce
punishment, because it had no right of court (and punishments can be declared
only by a court); a priest can be tried only by a council of seven bishops,
one of whom should be his ruling hierarch (i.e., for Athos, the Patriarch).
See Carthage
rules 12 and 29. Even if a contradiction can be seen between the
rules of the Carthage Council and rule 4 of the Antioch Council, still the position that a priest cannot
be punished without a bishop remains true. Thus, the suspension by the Kinot
could not have had any authority, since it was made up entirely without a
bishop’s participation.
This is the formal side of the question. Informally, however, it is well known that
precisely in 1913 the idea of transferring Athos under Greek authority was
discussed (until then Athos had maintained an international status, belonging
to no state), and Russian monks were the only among all its inhabitants to
resist this transfer. It was specifically
the history of imiaslavie, exaggerated
by the pro-Greek rulers of Athos, that gave grounds for neutralizing the Russians,
after which the transfer of Athos to Greece was a fait accompli (which predestined the tendency
to transform Athos into a Greek, rather than an international, monastic republic).
Under such circumstances it was difficult to expect objectivity from the Athonite
Kinot.
2. Condemnation of the
Imiaslavtsy by the Patriarch of Constantinople.
The dogmatic content of this document is defined
by the response of the theological school on the Island of Halki quoted by
the Patriarch. I will mention this
response below.
In accordance with the canons, specifically the
Patriarch and his Synod should have tried the imiaslavtsy. In this case,
however, judicial procedure was severely disrupted. The only one tried was Igumen David, who did not understand Greek
and was required to renounce “pantheism” without ever having heard this word
previously. The correct judicial procedure, which Fr. Antonii Bulatovich was
preparing to face while in St. Petersburg by making the necessary arrangements
with the government and Ministry of International Affairs, was spoiled through
the efforts of Mr. Girs, the Russian Ambassador in Constantinople. Any of
these violations (e.g., the absence of the primary defendants, the absence
of interpreters) would have been sufficient to declare invalid such an in absentia heresy trial. According to Carthage 29, the trial of a clergyman
is based on the same general rules as the trial of a bishop and, according
to Carthage 28 et al., a court in
absentia is possible only if the defendant refuses to appear.
Another violation was that the Patriarch’s court
did not begin with the repeal of the illegal decision of the Kinot, which
was subservient to it.
2.1 The Response of the
Theological School on the Island of Halki.
The response contains the authors’ admittance
that they had not been able to study Fr. Antonii Bulatovich’s “Apology” sent
to them (which was then the foundational doctrinal document of the imiaslavtsy) owing to a “lack of time.”
Their response was compiled based on coincidental evidence that they themselves
list as follows: “some other Russian and Greek manuscripts and printed media
offered for review by, or send to, the Holy Synod, in the form of confessions
and also in the form of instruction and teaching” (cited in: Sviatoe Pravoslavie i imenobozhnicheskaia eres’
[Holy Orthodoxy and the Name-Worshipping
Heresy]. Harkov, 1916. p.33). As a contemporary Greek historian of this case,
K. Papulidis, writes, only one among all the Halki theologians who signed
the response could read Russian; thus there could have been no possibility
of the Greek theologians truly studying the arguments provided by the imiaslavtsy.
The response reads as follows: “Their teaching
about the divinity of the name of Jesus, however central, is not limited to
this name only, but is related to the divine names in Revelation generally.
(…) Basing themselves on the Church’s well-known definition attributing Divinity
to the nature, and consequently to God’s attributes and energies, they conclude
that the name Jesus, just as any revealed name in general, not only indicates
the attribute and the energy of God, but is itself energy and is itself God.
It is superfluous to state that such a conclusion
is indeed in agreement with the idea they had formed about divine names as
energies of God, but this very opinion, that they are the energies of God – this is
novel and vain” (Ibid., 33–35).
It is evident from this response that the teaching
of the imiaslavtsy was accepted
as logical and internally non-contradictory; however, they deny the opinion
that the energy of God is, as it were, a name. However, it is always important to understand
the sense in which names and energies can be differentiated, and the sense
in which names and energies may be identified. It is clear that for the theologians of Halki, the latter is impossible
in any sense.
The patristic teaching about names as energies
is presented in a special treatise that in the times of Sts. Theodore the
Studite and Gregory Palamas stood immediately after the New Testament in terms
of authority. This was The Divine Names by St. Dionysius the Areopagite
(unfortunately, by the beginning of the century, there was no Russian translation
of this treatise in existence, and even the imiaslavtsy in Russia did not know it well).
The entire tract is dedicated to different energies of God (e.g., “peace,”
“goodness,” “unity,” “motion”) as names, which gives the name to the entire
treatise. In the beginning of the treatise, a theoretical definition of names
(“divine names,” in the terminology of the Areopagite) as energies (“good-doing”
or “beneficent,” in his terminology) is given:
These
common and united distinctions, or rather the blessed emanations of the whole
divinity we try to praise, to the best of our ability, from the
names of God in the Oracles [i.e., the Holy Scriptures] that
reveal them — first having laid down, as was already said, that every
beneficent Name of God, to whichever of the supremely
divine hypostases it may be applied, must be understood as pertaining to the
whole supremely divine wholeness without exception. (St. Dionysius the Areopagite, The Divine Names 2.11.)
What
is being discussed here (in this case, of no interest to us) is the possibility
of naming the hypostases of the Holy Trinity (the “divisions” and “processions”
mentioned here pertain specifically to the hypostases). However, something
said here is also of direct importance to us: the names (“divine names”) that
are ascribed to the hypostases of the Holy Trinity in the Divine Scriptures
(the author means the Old and the New Testaments) are not simply “revelatory”
names of God, but names which reveal Him in action: these names themselves
are called “beneficent” (if you prefer, this can also be translated as “good-energizing”).
The name is here literally said to be capable of action. I shall underscore that the discussion here
is about the name itself, and not about anything else that is contained within
the name and capable of action. Thus, it is in some sense correct to
equate name and energy, since it is the usual language of the Holy Fathers
that we very often see used in practice, and in this case we see a theoretical
definition as well.
The
meaning of this definition is that God simultaneously supersedes any and all
naming and is nameable. This does
not mean to say that in God one “part” (let us say, the essence) is not nameable,
and another one (let us say, the energy) is nameable, because such a view
would disrupt the divine simplicity, i.e., the absence of “complexity” in
God (His being put together of different “parts”).
Specifically the essence of God itself is not nameable as such, but
it is nameable through its energies, each of which becomes its name
(compare I Peter 1:4, where it is said that we shall become “partakers of
the divine nature,” but the nature cannot be participated in other
than through the energies). It is
obvious that in this sense the understanding of the
name of God in general does not include in itself anything created – so, for
example, the divine uncreated light which (according to all the Fathers),
being one of the names of God, is at the same time also not something created. Such a definition of the name of God does not
contradict another definition, which by “name” implies an idea that exists
in a created mind. Of course, names
in this sense cannot be equated with energies, but it would be correct
to say that energies are present in names.
(I am not speaking about the fact that sounds and letters can be understood
as “names,” for that is already a third meaning.)
One more quotation (from Sts. Kallistos and Ignatios
Xanthopoulos, who in turn quote other Fathers), in which the name of God is
understood as the “action (energy) of the Holy Spirit” is shown below, in
part 3.1.1.5.
It is obvious that the wording of the Halki theologians
does not leave room for similar patristic citations. At the very least, it
could be viewed as unfortunate, and their reply as a whole as insufficiently
representative of patristic doctrine and, at the same time, insufficiently
considerate of the teaching of the imiaslavtsy criticized in it. (It
is quite possible that the Halki theologians were ascribing some crass theological
error to the imiaslavtsy.)
Nor can the reply of the Halki school be considered
an authoritative reply by an Orthodox theological school. Very few years would
pass before precisely this school – with the same faculty and led by the same
Metropolitan Germanos of Selevkia who, as the school’s supervising authority,
signed the reply of 1913 – would produce the famous heretical encyclical of
Metropolitan Dorotheos of Brussia (1920).
***
Thus, regarding the condemnation of the imiaslavtsy by the Patriarch of Constantinople,
we finally arrive at our conclusion:
This condemnation is valid neither for formal
reasons (such as the severe disruptions of judicial procedure), nor for theological
reasons as well (it is based on an inexact and perhaps even completely un-Orthodox
reply by a theological institution that was moreover famous for its heretical
views in regard to another theological issue).
3. The Documents of the
Pre-Revolutionary Synod.
While addressing these documents one should remember
that the very attempt to decide the fate of the Athonite monks by the authorities of a local Church to which they
did not belong (i.e., the Russian Church) was not canonical.
It goes without saying that any local Church has
the right to form a judgment in regard to any theological opinion. However,
it was the fate of specific persons – many of whom belonged to the clergy
– that was decided in 1913, which the authorities of just any local Church
cannot do.
The holy canons generally do not foresee a judicial
procedure for a clergyman in which his ruling hierarch would not be present
among the judges. An exception would be the case where the accused clergyman
uses his power to veto precisely against his ruling hierarch (Carthage 29).
Thus the Patriarch of Constantinople had no right
to hand over the trial of Athonite monks to the Russian Synod; and the Russian
Synod, basing itself on the Patriarch’s illegal decision, had no right to
begin the trial of clergymen from another local Church.
The holy canons make no mention of the forced
transfer of clergymen and monks from the jurisdiction of one local Church
to another as a punishment.
The violation of these norms of canon law represents
the specifically “canonical” side of that blatant lawlessness that turned
into the entire “Athonite route” of 1913 (when the authoritative, albeit canonically
insignificant, rules of the Holy Mountain, Vatopedi monastery, and St. Andrew’s
Skete were trespassed against, along with many norms of civil law). The arguments
that the imiabortsy brought in defense
of their position (that the Patriarch supposedly had the right to transfer
the power of deciding the fate of the imiaslavtsy to the hands of the Russian Synod) were completely devoid
of reference to the holy canons, and thus openly ignored canon law.
These considerations should suffice to repudiate
all suspensions of the Athonite imiaslavtsy
that later would be imposed on them by the Russian ecclesiastical authority.
Even if in 1910 both sides were giving little consideration to that
aspect of the problem, this does not in the least diminish its importance
when we are viewing this case from the canonical, and not purely historical, point
of view. This could be ignored only
by being led into the temptation of a phyletistic [ethnocentric] understanding
of the borders of local Churches (in which case, naturally, Russian monks and clergymen belong under
the jurisdiction of the Russian,
and not the Greek, Synod).
Having made this preliminary note, we will, as
it were, ignore it in the following; we shall evaluate the decisions of the
Russian ecclesiastical authority as if it were a question that fell within
its jurisdiction.
3.1 The Subscription
of the Russian Synod to the Ecumenical Patriarch’s Decision (1913).
What is meant here is the
Epistle of the Russian Synod that contained not only agreement with the
decree of the Patriarch of Constantinople, but also an attempt at an independent
ecclesiastical investigation.
Ecclesiastical juridical procedure was severely
disrupted in this case as well. The
trial was reduced to only one defendant being spoken to by one layman alone,
namely S. Troitskii. None of the defendants
was present at the trial, and Fr. Ilarion (the author of the book Na gorakh Kavkaza [In the Mountains of the Caucasus] found out about himself and his
book having been tried only post factum. There was no mention at all of allowing the
defendants to exercise their right to recall the judges (on April 20, 1913,
the imiaslavtsy filed a petition
with the Synod to recall Archbishop Antonii Khrapovitskii from their trial
“as a person participating in the matter”; in accordance with Rule 29 of Carthage,
the Synod was required to approve
this petition, but they left it without notice), and thus it happened that
the imiaslavtsy were judged by the very same
hierarchs whom they were accusing of heresy.
Such trial procedure cannot, under any circumstances,
be accepted as valid. However, in
our case the situation is even worse because the Synod maintained a teaching
in its decree (the text of which was developed by Archbishop Sergii Stragorodskii)
that was quite obviously in disaccord with Orthodoxy.
3.1.1
The Doctrinal Content of the Synod’s Epistle of 1913.
A whole series of dogmatic statements in this
epistle corresponds to teachings that were at various times condemned by the
Orthodox Church.
It should be noted that the publication of the
Synod’s epistle was accompanied by the publication of the three reports that
had provided the initial basis for the epistle. The theological views of the
authors of these lectures are quite different from one other, as well as from
the Synod’s epistle, despite their similarity in fundamental dogmatic errors.
We shall, however, review below only the text of the Synod’s epistle, since
only it has value as an official document rather than a private opinion, and
since you have asked me about this one only.
The epistle repeats the thesis of the Halki theologians
that the names of God are in no way the energy of God. However, in contrast to its Greek predecessors,
it does not stop at this incorrect definition, but develops its own teaching
about the energies of God.
3.1.1.1
The Heresy of Barlaam.
The Synodal Definition states:
“St. Gregory taught that the name ‘Divinity’ can be applied not only to the ‘essence’ of God, but to His ‘energy, ’ or energies, i.e., Divine attributes
(...) with which God
reveals Himself outwardly and, in such manner, taught that one should employ
the word ‘Divinity’ in a somewhat broader sense
than is common (...) the
saint never names the energies ‘God,’ but teaches that one should
call them ‘Divine’ (not 
but 
). (…) The word ‘God’ indicates Personhood [Lichnost’], while ‘Divinity’ indicates attribute, quality, or nature.
In such a way, even if one recognizes the Name of God as His energy, even
then one may call It [the Name] only Divine, but not God, and especially not
‘God Himself,’ as do these new teachers” (Tserkovnye Vedomosti [Church
News] # 20, 1913. p. 280–281).
According to this statement:
Such a teaching about God’s energy – as if it
were not God – stands under the anathema of the Orthodox Council of Constantinople,
1351, and under the anathema against the Barlaamites from the Synodikon of
the Sunday of Orthodoxy.
By 1913, it was known to the imiaslavtsy that the imiabortsy were accusing them of Barlaamism,
quoting specifically the anathemas mentioned. This decision of the Council anathemizes those
who refuse to accept God’s energies as “divinity” (or “divine”), and thus energies are accepted as
“divinity” by the Synodal epistle of 1913.
However, an unexpected move is made: it is declared that “divinity”
is not God, except if by this word the essence of God is meant.
Thus, for resolving the question about whether
the Synod’s definition falls under the anathema of Barlaamites, it must be
clarified whether “divinity” is God Himself in the same sense as God’s energies
are called by this term (“divinity”).
I shall immediately mention that in the fourteenth
century even the Barlaamites themselves would not have doubted this.
However, here is a quotation:
“Every [divine)] power or energy is
God Himself.”
(St. Gregory Palamas, Hagiou Gregoriou tou
Palama Syggrammata II [Epistle to John of Gavra]
(Thessalonica, 1966) 340. 12–13).
There is absolutely no sense in multiplying such
quotations (e.g., see one more in the next paragraph; I also recommend specifically
one work of St. Gregory Palamas, On the Deifying Communion). It
is sufficiently clear that those Fathers who formulated the anathemas against
Barlaam understood them to mean that “divineness” and “energy” were considered
as precisely “God Himself.” They proclaimed
specifically that which the Synod’s epistle rejects.
Thus, a conclusion is inevitable about the heresy of Barlaamism – such
a heresy that accepts as God only the divine essence (while either equating
it with the energy or, as it was done in the Synod’s epistle, denying the
divine energies as being God) – as being present in this epistle.
3.1.1.2
The Heresy of Eunomius.
Further, I shall include a quotation from St.
Gregory Palamas that shall allow one to see yet another heresy, not less than
Barlaamism, in the text of the Synod’s epistle:
“In addition, the Holy Fathers affirm
unanimously that it is impossible to find a name to manifest the nature of
the uncreated Trinity, but that the names belong to the energies. ‘The divinity’
also designates an energy, that of moving or
contemplating or burning, or else it indicates the ‘deification-in-itself’
But He Who is beyond every name is not identical with what He is named; for
the essence and energy of God are not identical. But if the divinity of God
designates the divine energy par
excellence, and if the energies are, as you say, created, the divinity
of God must also be created! However, it is not only uncreated, but unoriginate.”
(St. Gregory Palamas, Triads in Defense of the Holy Hesychasts 3.2.10.)
Here, a claim is made about energies and “divinity”
as uncreated; but, as we know, nothing can be uncreated apart from the Creator,
i.e., apart from God. In addition,
St. Gregory writes here that the “nature” (and this is the same as “being”
or “essence”) of God has no name at all (except, obviously, other than through
energy).
The Synod’s epistle, in contrast, assigns the
name of “divinity” (in a “usual” sense) only to the essence of God, contrasting
it to the energy, which is not God. Thus,
the epistle assumes the possibility of naming God’s essence (at the very least,
by the name of “divinity”) apart from God’s energy.
However, apart from the energy, the essence of
God is not at all nameable, as we just have heard from St. Gregory Palamas
and, most importantly, as was written many times by the Holy Fathers (Sts.
Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom),
while attacking Eunomius.
Eunomius was of the opinion that the essence of
God can both be known and named. To
which St. Basil the Great wrote: “There is not one name which, as it were,
while encompassing the entire essence of God, would be sufficient to express
it completely. (…) What superiority of those bragging that they know the essence
of God! (…) Even to His saints, God has not revealed His name, and even less
has He revealed His essence, what it is.
For He says, ‘I am the LORD: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac,
and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name LORD I was not
known to them’ (Ex. 6:3) – and did not reveal it, obviously, because it is
higher than any human hearing can contain.
However, it seems to Eunomius that God has shown not only His name,
but even His very essence. (…) [H]e does not allow for the very essence of
God to be higher than all reason and higher than all human knowledge.” (Against Eunomius. Book 1.)
If the statement about “divinity” being the name
of God’s essence in the Synod’s epistle would be at least accompanied by a
statement (or at least an implication) about the essence of God being inseparable
from the uncreated energy of God which is also God Himself, then this thought
of the epistle would be Orthodox (it would have had the meaning that the essence
of God, un-nameable in itself, can be named “divinity” through God’s energies,
which by themselves are called “divinity” as well). But the Synod claimed
the opposite, separating God’s energies from God’s essence so sharply that
it completely declined to accept the energies as God. And this is already heresy.
Thus, this statement of the Synod’s epistle –
about the “essence” of God having a name (regardless of what name it might
be, including that of “divinity”) in another way than through its energies
– is the Eunomian heresy.
Such Eunomianism is an anticipated result of Barlaamism,
for Barlaam was known to fall prey to this himself.
3.1.1.3
The Heresy of Iconoclasm.
The Synod’s definition states: “The untruth of
the new dogma [i.e., imiaslavie]
is evidenced, finally, by those conclusions which are made from it by its
adherents, in particular, Fr. Bulatovich in his ‘Apology.’ According to him, it seems that an
icon, as well as the sign of the cross, as well as the very ecclesiastical
sacraments, are all valid only because the Name of God
is either depicted or invoked on them during their performance.” (Tserkovnye
Vedomosti [Church News], p.
283).
These words are in direct contradiction to the
teaching of the Seventh Ecumenical Council as well as to that of the Holy
Fathers who defended the veneration of icons.
The iconoclasts objected:
“The impious establishment of the falsely-named
icons has no basis in the tradition of Christ, the Apostles, or the Fathers;
there is also no sacred prayer which sanctifies them to change them from everyday
objects to holy ones; but they forever remain everyday items.”
The Council replied:
“Let them, too, hear the truth. Many of those items that we accept as holy
do not have a sacred prayer read over them; for they, by their very name,
are full of holiness and grace. (…) In the same way, the very image of the
life-giving cross, in spite of not having a special prayer for its blessing,
is accepted by us as worthy of veneration, and it serves as a sufficient means
for us to receive sanctification. (…) The same relates to the icon; by denoting
it with a known name, we give honor to its prototype; by kissing it and venerating
it with admiration, we receive sanctification.” (Sixth Act. “Refutation of
the So-Called Definition Insidiously Concocted by a Crowd of the Enemies of
Christianity.” Vol. 4.)
“The name ‘Christ’ designates divinity
and humanity, the two perfect natures of the Savior. Thus in that nature in which He made Himself
visible, it is according to that same nature that Christians learned to depict
His icon, and not according to the one in which He is invisible; the latter
is not depictable, for even in the Gospel we learn that no one has ever seen
God (I John 4:12). Thus, when Christ is artistically depicted in human nature
it is obvious that Christians confess, as the truth itself demonstrates, that
a visible icon has communion with the prototype only according to name, but
not according to essence.” (Ibid.,
Vol. 3.)
“‘Christ’ is a name that designates
two natures, one visible, the other invisible.
Through this curtain, i.e., through the flesh, people have seen Christ
Himself. Although His divine nature
was concealed, He revealed it through His signs.
– Therefore, the holy Church of God (…) presents to people the very
same visible image, without dividing Christ, as they idly slander it. An icon, of course, has communion with the
prototype only in name, and not according to very essence. (…) The Church
(…) does not separate His flesh from the divinity united with it; on the contrary,
it believes that the flesh is deified and confesses it as one with the Divinity,
in accordance with the teaching of the great Gregory the Theologian and with
truth. (…) We, making an icon of the Lord, confess the Lord’s flesh as being
deified, and recognize the icon as nothing other than an icon representing
an image of the prototype. That is
why the icon receives the very name of the Lord; only through this is it in
communion with Him as well; and for the same reason, it is venerable and holy.”
(Ibid., Vol. 6).
Here is what St. John of Damascus writes:
“Either do away with reverence and
veneration for all these or submit to the tradition of the Church and allow
the veneration of images of God and friends of God, sanctified by name and
therefore overshadowed by the grace of the divine Spirit.” (Treatise 1.26;
p. 12 [English edition, tr. by Louth, Treatise 1.16.])
“Divine grace is given to material
things through the name borne by what is depicted.” (Treatise 1, Comment on
St. Basil’s On the Holy Spirit;
p. 26 = p. 66 [English edition, Treatise 1.36].
The imiabortsy
accused the imiaslavtsy of allegedly
making God “dependent on man” (Tserkovnye
Vedomosti [Church News]) p.279) because if God is always present
in His Name, then even if a person without faith calls upon God’s Name in
vain, then “God allegedly is required to be present in His grace with this
person” (ibid.). Therefore the Definition is opposed to the statement of the
imiaslavtsy that the “Name Jesus omnipotently
performs miracles as the result of Divinity present in it,” stating as if
in contradiction: “The Name of God can only work miracles upon the condition
of faith” (Tserkovnye Vedomosti [Church
News], p.283). But these two statements in no way contradict
one other.
St. Theodore the Studite writes this about the
veneration of an icon:
“One must with fear and reverence approach
and venerate it, for the veneration transfers to Christ; and one must believe
that divine grace enlivens it, that it communicates sanctification to those
who approach it with faith.” (Epistle
to His Spiritual Father, Platon, On the Veneration of Icons.)
It is obvious that one who approaches without
faith does not receive sanctification and will not see miracles (although
even this is not always so, for there are known cases when God, by His miracles
instructs non-believers and those mocking the icons and His Name); but this
does not at all mean that the grace (i.e., God’s energy or divinity) is not
always present in the icon. The same
is true in regards to the Name of God.
Thus, the Synod’s Definition does not only deny
the real presence of God in the names of God, but also, by denying the fact
that icons are sanctified by the name of God, does not leave open the possibility
of understanding how the real presence of God can be realized in an icon.
This constitutes
the heresy of iconoclasm.
The next dogmatic error reflected in the Synod’s
epistle stands very close to the heresy of iconoclasm.
3.1.1.4
Incorrect Teaching About the Performance of Sacraments.
In the Synod’s definition it is stated that the
Name of God “can also perform miracles, but not by itself, not as the result
of some Divine power seemingly forever enclosed in it,” and that the “holy
sacraments are performed neither by the faith of the celebrant, nor by the
faith of their recipient, and also not by the invocation or depiction of the
Name of God; but by the prayer and faith of the holy Church, in whose person
they are performed, and on the authority of the Lord’s promise” (Tserkovnye Vedomosti [Church News]), p. 285).
This is also unheard of in Orthodox doctrine.
Here is what St. John of Damascus says on this subject:
“[T]he
very bread itself and the wine are changed into God’s Body and Blood. But if you enquire how this happens, it is
enough for you to learn that it was through the Holy Spirit. (…) And we know
nothing further save that the Word of God is true and energizes and is omnipotent,
but the manner of this cannot be searched out. (…) [T]he bread of the table
and the water and wine are supernaturally changed by the invocation and presence
of the Holy Spirit into the Body and Blood of Christ.” (Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith,
4.13.)
Here, the invocation
of God is specifically mentioned (compare to the Synod’s epistle: “not by
the invocation or depiction of the Name of God”), but nothing is said in the
entire chapter about the “faith of the Church.”
We shall note that the iconoclasts’ teaching about
the performance of ecclesiastical sacraments was also distorted, so that the
appearance of such an error in the Synod’s epistle is in order.
3.1.1.5
Teaching About Prayer Which Leads to Delusion.
The Synod’s teaching about the Name of God is
clearly in contradiction to all patristic writing regarding prayer. Here is only one example:
“The Name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
descending into the depths of heart, will subdue the serpent holding sway
over the pastures of the heart, and will save our soul and bring it to life. Thus abide constantly with the name of our
Lord Jesus Christ, so that the heart swallows the Lord and the Lord the heart,
and the two become one. (…) ‘No man
can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit (I Cor. 12:3). By ‘by
the Holy Spirit’ he means when the heart is made active by the Holy Spirit
and prays through Him. (…) ‘Those who mentally keep this holy and most glorious
Name unceasingly in the depth of their heart, can see too the light of their
mind (clarity of thought or a definite consciousness of all inner movements).’
And again: ‘When this wonderful Name is kept in thought with intense care
it very effectively scorches every filth which appears in the soul ‘For our
God is a consuming fire’” (Heb. 12:29).”
The teaching of these monastic Fathers is in complete
agreement with the teaching about the Name of God as His energy and He Himself.
V. Ern reviews the Definition’s teaching about
prayer in detail in his work, Razbor
Poslaniia Sviateishego Sinoda ob Imeni Bozhiem [Review of the Holy Synod’s Epistle About the Name of God] (Moscow, 1917). The definition reads:
“In prayer (especially the Jesus Prayer) the Name of God and God Himself are
recognized by us as inseparable, as if identified
(…) but this is only in prayer and only for our heart;
in theologizing, however, as in reality, the
Name of God is only the Name, and not God Himself (…) and neither it is the
energy of God” (Tserkovnye Vedomosti
[Church News]), p. 285).
Vladimir Ern has noted quite correctly that by
this the Synod:
“[A]ffirms that, even in moments of
the most intense and most elevated, instantaneous, and heartfelt enthusiasm,
man does not escape the closed sphere of his
own consciousness. He only ‘imagines’
God and tries, in his imagination,
to join and equate the Name of God spoken by the heart with God Himself (…)
A prayer does not break the solitude of man’s
soul and does not place it in a real relationship to God. This, however, is the purest Protestantism!
(…) [I]n this case invoking God in prayer is an occupation completely idle
and futile: our invocation of the Name of God as not objectively connected
with God, does not create any real relationship between the praying soul and God, and our prayers,
being wholly ‘the creation of our consciousness,’ have absolutely no relation to the Existing God. The Synod manages to avoid this conclusion
and (…) says: ‘We are not separating
Him Himself (i.e., God) from the invoked Name.
The Name and God Himself are equated for
us in prayer. Fr. John [of Kronstadt] advises not to separate them, and not to attempt
during prayer to imagine God in separation from the Name or apart from it’
[Tserkovnye Vedomosti [Church News], p. 282]. In other words, we, by our own will magically
create an illusion of equality that
does not exist in reality” (p. 18, 21).
Thus, the accusation of magic, hurled by the imiabortsy at the imiaslavtsy, returns to the head of the Synod itself.
3.2 Conclusions Regarding
the Synod’s Decree of 1913.
The decrees of 1913 proclaimed by the Russian
Synod against the imiaslavtsy were
canonically invalid.
In addition, they contained a heretical confession
of faith, based on which it would be impossible to accept them as valid even
if they had been irreproachable from the formal point of view.
4. Definition of the
Russian Synod No. 7644 (August 27, 1913).
This definition was a partial conclusion from
the abovementioned epistle of the Synod.
It cannot have authority for the same reasons that all the declarations
of the Synod’s epistle directed against the imiaslavtsy
are invalid. Please see above concerning
the judicial procedure of which this definition was the fruit.
5. The Subscription of
Patriarch Germanos
to the Measures Taken by the Russian Synod (1913).
From the canonical point of view, my position
on this act is obvious. The Patriarch
and the Synod acted the entire time as accomplices, trespassing against every
imaginable canonical norm of judicial procedure.
This Patriarch’s approval of the doctrinal content
of the Synod’s epistle once again testifies to the dogmatic indifference that
even then was already a norm for the Ecumenical Patriarchate (even by the
predecessor of this Germanos). It
is well known that the forces that would later prepare the final fall of Constantinople
into heresy would ripen specifically during the patriarchate of Germanos,
and especially in the theological school on the island of Halki.
In my view, the primary intention of the Patriarch
in this epistle to the Russian Synod is that “no one of these persons” (imiaslavtsy),
even those who were repentant, be re-admitted to the Holy Mountain. Orthodoxy
is thus sacrificed to Greek nationalism.
6. The Synodal Decree
of May (not March) 24, 1914, No. 4136.
You cite this decree, but I reply that a decree
containing the words you cite did not exist until 1918. This historical episode is worthy of review,
for it allows one to form an opinion about the methods used by the Synod in
its polemics against imiaslavie.
“To publish” any decree means that the ecclesiastical
authority prints it officially for common knowledge (the Synod usually published
such decrees in the official part of Tserkovnye Vedomosti (Church
News) or, if the decree were classified, they brought it to the attention
of all concerned parties.
In 1914 the Synod did neither with the degree
you cite.
There was no official publication of it either
then or later (even in 1918), despite it not having been classified in either
content or in form, and not having a classified seal.
A copy of the decree was delivered to the interested
parties (the imiaslavtsy) that,
however, did not contain the words quoted by you, nor a note that the text
of the decree is not complete in this copy. That part of the text that was promulgated by being delivered the
imiaslavtsy contained only a reference
to a statement of justification by the Moscow Synodal Office (led by the highly
esteemed ascetic hierarch, Metropolitan Makarii Nevskii): “The Synodal Office
found that the ‘confessions of faith in God and in the Name of God’ given
by said monks in these words: ‘I repeat that, by naming the Name of God and
Name of Jesus as God and God Himself, I am far from venerating the Name of
God as His essence, as well as from venerating the Name of God separately
from God Himself as some sort of separate Divinity, as well as from deifying
the very letters and sounds and incidental thoughts about God’ – amounts to
evidence for concluding that there is no basis for excommunication from the
Orthodox Church due to the teaching about the Names of God.”
From this text, which was thus published for common
knowledge by the Synod itself (since the imiaslavtsy had to present it often to various ecclesiastical offices),
it follows that all prohibitions of 1913 were rescinded (since the teaching
of the imiaslavtsy was accepted
as Orthodox within the boundaries of
this text). That many understood
it in this sense is evidenced by instances of imiaslavtsy clergy serving in the military as well as in churches
of the dioceses of Moscow and Kiev.
The Synod never officially protested against it,
which would have been the natural thing if the imiaslavtsy themselves had forged the Synod’s document. It is hard to believe that the Synod would
have overlooked such an opportunity to catch the imiaslavtsy in a lie. Even
more important is this: how could the Synod allow convicted heretics to care for the Christ-loving troops who, in so
doing, would be blessed to march to the other world not with the Holy Mysteries,
but with the fodder of demons?
However, the issue here was that the Synod itself
had lied. For it was the Synod itself
that quite officially presented a tampered copy of the document to the imiaslavtsy. It is obvious that from the very beginning
the document was compiled in such a way that its final part, where the Synod
confirmed its previous charge of heresy against the imiaslavtsy, could be separated from the
main body of the document so that its meaning would be then replaced by its
opposite.
This gives rise to a canonical question: How should
the decisions of an ecclesiastical authority be treated when this authority
is lying?
I think the canons do not foresee such cases.
(And not in vain: for an authority that is lying would most likely
originate from the father of lies, and not from God.)
It is my understanding that in 1914—1917 all decisions should have
been based on the text of the decree that had been promulgated
by the Synod itself. In other
words, a revision of the case based on the essence of the matter should have
been prepared, and meanwhile all prohibitions against the imiaslavtsy should have been considered as null.
The majority of Russian hierarchs held this opinion
by 1917 (not the members of the
Synod in the pre-revolutionary or February period, but specifically all Russian
hierarchs), as is evidenced by placing the question about imiaslavie on the agenda of the Local Council
of the Russian Church. If the question
had been considered as essentially resolved, the Council would not have discussed
it.
7. The Synod’s Decree
of 1916.
This decree was also never published and, moreover,
it was never officially promulgated in any form. It was impossible to learn of its existence
before 1918.
This decree is a periodic document that records
the mood of the Synod members, but it did not become an official decree of
the ecclesiastical authority (in contrast to the previous decree, which became
an official decision precisely in the form in which it was published in 1914).
8. The Decree of Patriarch
Tikhon, 1918.
This decree does not touch on any dogmatic questions,
since at that time it was assumed that questions of that kind were to be resolved
by the Local Council.
The decree concerns only specific persons subjected
to suspension by the synodal decrees from 1913—1916. All means of suspension
are confirmed without additional review (based only on the texts of decrees
preserved in the archive of the Synod).
It was specifically with this decree that the
Russian ecclesiastical authority officially
returned to its positions of 1913.
It goes without saying that I view this decree
as a serious mistake made by His Holiness, Patriarch Tikhon. Unjust suspensions do not transform themselves
into correct ones, even they are repeated by holy men. (You, Vladimir, remember
this well.)
By this the patriarchal ecclesiastical authority
put itself into a very bad position.
Fortunately this situation did not last for long.
No later than at the very beginning of 1920, the decree of 1918 has
already lost its authority. The leader of the imiaslavtsy
at that time, Igumen David, it is said, concelebrated with Patriarch Tikhon
in various Moscow churches and, what is more important for us, continued openly
to serve in communion with the patriarchal church until his death at the end
of the 1920s, while simultaneously continuing to preach imiaslavie.
Unfortunately we do not know which documents accompanied
the restoration of contact between Patriarch Tikhon and the Moscow imiaslavtsy.
***
I hope I have answered the first series of questions.
Now I expect your opinion regarding each of the positions addressed. I hope
that each of us shall support his opinion with references to patristic works
and the holy canons.
In Christ yours,
Hieromonk Gregory.