[Part I of II]
What is name-glorifying
[imiaslavie]? The reply of the majority
of both common believers as well as non-believers will likely be: “I don’t know.” Those few who have heard
or read something about the Epistle of the Russian Synod of 1913 and consider
it trustworthy will likely say that it is some sort of “name-worshipping [imiabozhnicheskaia] heresy.” Those with
an interest in philosophy will recall the names of Fr. Paul Florensky, Sergei
Bulgakov, and Alexei Losev, each of whom wrote about a teaching they called
name-glorifying. The answer to the question, however, should be sought neither
in the works of these philosophers nor in the Synodal decrees of the pre-revolutionary
period, but rather in the works of someone who until recently was known better
by scholars of Ethiopian history than by theologians or the common faithful:
the Athonite Hieroschemamonk Anthony (Bulatovich, d. 1919). Fr. Anthony, then
still a layman, did in fact become well known in scholarly circles by making
several journeys through
Now,
just as eighty years ago, there appear to be different approaches to Athonite name-glorifying:
one side considers it to be Orthodox, while the other considers it heresy. (The
latter were called “onomatoclasts” [imiabortsy,
literally “name-destroyers”] by the name-glorifiers at the beginning of the
twentieth century; in what follows I myself will employ this term, which was
used by the Athonite confessors of the Divine Name in reference to their
opponents.) Many people have learned only recently of the existence of this
theological controversy and do not yet know what to make of it. The intention
of the present article is to explain more or less systematically the essence of
this controversy. I will present fairly briefly the historical episodes that
accompanied the Divine Name polemics in the beginning of the twentieth century,
and then will give primary attention to its theological aspect.
How
it Began, and How it Developed
Opponents of name-glorifying state that
the “Athonite trouble” [Afonskaia
smuta] began with the publication of Schema-monk Ilarion’s book In the Mountains of the Caucasus [Na Gorakh Kavkaza]. This is in fact not the case. Fr. Ilarion, after
having spent more than twenty years on Athos, left for the
Meanwhile,
trouble had already arisen on Athos. The popularity of the book In the Mountains of the Caucasus had given
birth to envy on the part of the superiors of the Russian monastic communities
on Athos, who appealed to a certain monk Khrisanf to write a critical review.
The critic’s fundamental point of criticism was Fr. Ilarion’s assertion that
God is present in the Divine Name, that His Name has divine dignity, and is
God Himself. It was this review that laid the foundation of the trouble. Initially
distributed among the inhabitants of Athos in manuscript form, it elicited
disquiet among many monastic practitioners of the Jesus Prayer who found the
teaching of monk Khrisanf to be non-Orthodox.[3]
This disquiet found expression when the monastic “name-glorifiers” (as supporters
of Schema-monk Ilarion began to call themselves) shunned the “onomatoclasts”
(supporters of monk Khrisanf), refusing to take blessings from them or to
serve with them. This, in turn, upset the onomatoclasts who, having well-placed
and influential protectors in the highest circles of the Russian Church (the
foremost among them being Archbishop, later Metropolitan, Anthony [Khrapovitskii]),
began to slander them to their brothers, accusing them of the “name-worshipping
heresy” and “sedition.”
Fr.
Anthony (Bulatovich), who struggled in St. Andrew’s Skete, did not initially
participate in the controversy; he entered the polemics only in 1912, when
God called him miraculously, through the prayers of St. John of Kronstadt[4],
to enter the battle for the God-pleasing veneration of the Name of God[5].
This evidently disturbed the onomatoclasts, for the above-mentioned review
by monk Khrisanf was soon published with the blessing of Archbishop Anthony
(Khrapovitskii) in the journal Russian
Monk published in Pochaev[6]; remarks
of Archbishop Anthony himself, comparing the teaching of Schema-monk Ilarion
to the khlystovschina heresy [the “Flagellants”][7],
then appeared in the same journal. In this way the non-Orthodox perspective
of the Name of God and the Jesus Prayer, as expressed in monk Khrisanf’s review
and endorsed by Archbishop Anthony, began to spread throughout all
In
the same year, Fr. Anthony (Bulatovich) wrote Apology of Faith in the Name of God and the Name Jesus, which was
distributed at first in lithographic form and later printed in St. Petersburg
(1913) with the help of Fr. Paul Florenskii and M. A. Novoselov (the future New
Martyr and Catacomb bishop). In the person of Fr. Anthony, the name-glorifiers
found fundamental theological support, something which they, the majority of
whom were simple uneducated monks, initially lacked; they at first were unable
to present to the onomatoclasts the teaching concerning the divinity of the
Name of God that they knew through their experience of prayer, but were not
always able to articulate in words.
In
January 1913, the brotherhood of the St. Andrew’s Skete on Athos, by majority
vote, and in accordance with their skete’s charter, dismissed Igumen Jerome (an
onomoclast), and chose in his place Archimandrite David (a name-glorifier). Inasmuch
as Fr. Jerome was unwilling to vacate the superior’s quarters voluntarily, it became
necessary to remove him by force. Desiring to maintain power, the deposed abbot
and his supporters among the monks in the skete (who were in the minority) appealed
to the ruling authorities: the Patriarch of Constantinople, the Vadopedi
Monastery (under whose authority St. Andrew’s Skete was), the civil powers on
Athos, the Russian Synod, etc., accusing the monks of the skete of heresy,
sedition, and the use of force. A similar conflict took place at the Russian St.
Panteleimon’s Monastery.
In
February 1913, Fr. Anthony (Bulatovich) travelled to
The situation of the name-glorifiers became very
difficult. They were treated with suspicion and considered heretics; priests
refused to give Holy Communion even to dying monks or to bury them. However,
far from everyone in ecclesiastical circles – among them hierarchs – was in
agreement with the condemnation of the name-glorifiers; many were dissatisfied
with the Synod’s actions[11]. Many Russian
monastics were sympathetic to the plight of the expelled Athonites. Fr. Anthony
continued ceaselessly to work, write, and defend the veneration of the Name
of God[12].
In
February 1914, Tsar Nicholas received four monastic name-glorifiers, listening
to the story of their deportation and flight with great sympathy. Soon thereafter
the Sovereign appealed to the Synod with a request that they “forget the strife”
and allow the expelled to commune of the Holy Mysteries. The Synod ordered
the Office of the Moscow Synod, under Metropolitan Macarius of Moscow, to
carry out a legal investigation of the matter of the monastic “name-worshippers.”
Meanwhile the Athonite monks sent a declaration to the Synod, in which it
was stated: “In conclusion… [because]
the incorrect teaching about the Name of God is not an accidental mistake
that has crept in, but has now been irrevocably adopted by the Synod as a
dogma, we are required, with deep sadness and bitterness, in order to preserve
the purity of the Orthodox faith, to cut off all spiritual communion with
the All-Russian Synod and all those of like-mind with it, until the aforementioned
errors are corrected and until recognition of the Divinity of the Name of
God, in accordance with the Holy Catechism and the Holy Fathers.”[13]
This
frightened the Synod, inasmuch as there appeared to be a schism on dogmatic
grounds; moreover, the ecclesiastical authority was accused of the heresy
of the Moscow Synod. As a result of several meetings with name-glorifiers,
Bishop Modest presented a speech to the Synodal Office in which he said that
the monks were generally Orthodox, that they did not venerate the Name of
God as His Essence and, moreover, that they did not venerate the Name apart
from God and did not deify letters and sounds. Following this, the Synodal
Office issued a statement on May 7,
During
the First World War ordained name-glorifiers served as army chaplains. The
Athonite monks expected that their affair would be considered by the All-Russian
Local Council, and wrote petitions to both the Council and to Patriarch Tikhon.
The Council of 1917-1918, however, although intending to examine the affair,
was unable to do so and did not arrive at a decision. The Patriarchal Synod
of 1918 once again suspended the name-glorifiers, among them Fr. Anthony,
from serving and communing, declaring that they could be received into communion
“only under the condition that they renounce name-worshipping and express
their submission to the
The
primary leader of the name-glorifiers after Fr. Anthony became Archimandrite
David. According to available information, in the beginning of the 1920s he
openly served in
Let
us now proceed to the theological aspect of the controversy.
What
is Name-Glorifying?
The question before us is how to understand
what is called “name-glorifying.” The formula “The Name of God is God Himself”
may indeed seem strange to one unfamiliar with patristic doctrine or with
the practice of noetic prayer. In my opinion, this formula evoked and continues
to evoke misunderstanding because people are accustomed to understand as “names”
only conventional signs and symbols that could of course not be identified
with the object named. But since we are investigating a theological
controversy, we cannot operate here on the terms of linguistics or generally
proceed from the perspective of common sense. Rather, we are obligated to
explain how the Holy Fathers understood the Names of
God and what they taught about prayer, and then compare their teaching
with the teaching of the name-glorifiers and then decide whether the former
is a heresy (inasmuch as a heresy can be only that which contradicts patristic
teaching).
The
opponents of the name-glorifiers accused them of deifying the very sounds
and letters of the words “God,” “Jesus,” and other Divine Names, of regarding
the Name as some sort of fourth hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, of falling
into ditheism, pantheism, and other such heretical views. Indeed, if we were
considering a teaching that equated created letters or sounds with God, which
it would be enough for anyone to write or pronounce in order to achieve the
desired miracle, then such a teaching could be called “name-worshipping” and
compared with magic and shamanism. Yet
this comparison is entirely incorrect. While it is possible that among uneducated
monastic name-glorifiers there were those who deified the letters of the Divine
Names (and it is unknown whether there were such cases), it is in fact the
case that the main defender of the name-glorifiers, Fr. Anthony (Bulatovich),
wholly renounced any such teaching[18],
about which he wrote at length, of which one can be easily convinced by reading
any of his works in defense of name-glorifying. Neither did Fr. Ilarion fall
into the deification of the letters and sounds of the Divine Names, pantheism,
or anything similar. Considering that the Russian Synod judged name-glorifying
specifically as the teaching expounded by these two monks, a consideration
of this teaching should proceed from how Fr. Anthony and Fr. Ilarion (especially
the former, as the primary apologist) expounded it.
If
Fr. Ilarion, in his defense of the expression “The Name of God is God Himself”
proceeded above all from the immediate experience of prayer, Fr. Anthony laid
the patristic foundation. The opponents of the name-glorifiers frequently
accused them of having created a “new dogma,” citing a not very precise expression
from letters of Fr. Ilarion to his spiritual father[19].
However, Fr. Anthony demonstrated in his works that this “dogma” is not new,
but rather old, having always been confessed by the Church, but forgotten
by recent “theologians.” He founded his teaching on the Divinity of the Names
of God above all on the basis that the Divine Name is, according to the Holy
Fathers, His energy or operation, and that God’s energy is God Himself. This
is the point around which the polemics essentially turned.
St.
Dionysius the Areopagite writes this about the divine energies: “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][20] 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” (The Divine Names
2.11). That is, the names that names the hypostases of the Holy Trinity in
Holy Scripture do not simply “reveal” God and point to Him, but are His operations,
inasmuch as these names are “beneficent” (or “good-energizing”) or capable
of action; that is, they are essentially uncreated energies of God, through
which God communes with creation.
It
was in accordance with this patristic teaching that the name-glorifiers understood
the formula “The Name of God is God”: the Divine Names are God according to His energies. Fr. Anthony
(Bulatovich) writes: “In
the Names of Christ we have, so to speak, the created shell – that is, the
sounds and letters – with which we express Truth. These sounds and letters
are different in every language, and they will not carry over into eternity,
and are not united in any way with the Lord Jesus Christ, because when we,
speaking about the Name, have in mind created human words with which we express
ideas about God and about Christ, then it is appropriate to speak of the presence
of God in His Name; but when we have in mind the Name itself, that is Truth
itself, that is God Himself, as the Lord said of Himself: ‘I am… the Truth’
(Jn 14:6).”[21] Fr. Anthony understood
as Truth that which God reveals
to people about Himself: namely, that which according to St. Dionysius “reveals”
Him to us – His energy.
Fr.
Anthony writes: “The Energy of God means
the Operation of the Essence of God… St. Gregory Palamas established on the
one hand the non-mergence of the Operation of God with the Essence of God,
and on the other hand the non-dividedness of the Operation of God from the
Essence of God and the Divine worthiness and the Divine nature of the Divine
Operations.”[22]
Name-Glorifying and Icon Veneration
The opponents of the name-glorifiers, particularly
Archbishop Anthony,[23] described as “nonsense”
Fr. Anthony’s words on the Divine Names as Revelation, which is God Himself according
to energy, and on the Names in material expression, in which God participates. But this teaching is not
only not nonsensical, but it has an essential connection to the dogma of icon
veneration. According to the teaching of the Church, icons are not blessed
by prayer and the sprinkling of holy water (as many now mistakenly think on
the basis of the Latin practice of “blessing” icons), but by inscribing the name of
the person depicted on it.
Let
us turn to the Acts of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (in what follows the
emphasis in bold is mine).
The
iconoclasts argued: “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 remain forever every day items.”[24]
The
Council replied: “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.”[25]
Here
is what St. John of Damascus writes[26]:
“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). “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). The Name of God is
holy because He Himself is present in it through His energies. And the saints
are holy, “since the Godhead has taken
to Himself our nature, it has become glorified as a vivifying and efficacious
remedy, and has been transformed unto immortality. Thus the death of the saints
is rejoicing, and churches are raised to them, and their images are set up”
(Treatise 2). “God, the Scripture says,
stood in the synagogue of the gods [Ps 81.1], so that the saints, too, are
gods. Holy Gregory takes the words, ‘God stands in the midst of the gods,’
to mean that He discriminates their several merits. The saints in their lifetime
were filled with the Holy Spirit, and when they are no more, His grace abides
with their spirits and with their bodies in their tombs, and also with their
likenesses and holy images, not by nature, but by grace and divine power”
(Treatise 1).
We
revere and venerate the Theotokos and the saints, icons and relics because
God is present in them in His energy, and because the saints themselves, through
their union with God, are themselves called gods – although not by essence,
but by grace. The designation, however, is one and the same. The name, in
its inner essence, is greater than the icon, inasmuch as it is the energy
of God (this is evident from the fact that the Name sanctifies the icon);
the imprinting of the name is in fact equal to the icon, inasmuch as in it, as in the icon,
God is present in His energies. Fr. Anthony had in mind the
consequence of grace and divine action when he wrote: “when we, speaking about the Name, have in mind
created human words with which we express ideas about God and about Christ,
then it is appropriate to speak of the presence of God in His Name; but when
we have in mind the Name itself, that is Truth itself, that is God Himself.”[27]
That
the inscribed Divine Name is His icon, but that its inner essence is His energy
can be seen, for example, from the following statement of the great defender
of icon veneration, St. Theodore the Studite. Responding to the iconoclasts’
definition of icons as “artistic depictions
drawn in order to destroy the soul in life,” he wrote: “What are you saying so brazenly, calling destructive for the soul in life the
likeness of Christ, which is salvific for the world? What a most perditious,
unlawful, and Christ-hating man! You are against Christ, you are against the
depiction of Christ, which angels venerate and demons fear? For whose name is written on it? Could
it be Kronos or Zeus… the invocation of which is a lie and the depiction of
which is godless? But if Christ is depicted, ‘no man can say that Jesus is
the Lord, but by the Holy Spirit’ (I Cor. 12:3), as it is written in Scripture.
Behold, you speak blasphemy like the Jews, not only against Christ, but against
the Holy Spirit, calling the depiction
in the Holy Spirit and the name of Jesus Christ destructive to the soul in
life.”[28] Therefore one who asserts
that God is not present in the Divine Name unintentionally becomes an iconoclast.[29]
It
is indicative that during the rout and expulsion of name-glorifiers from Athos
their persecutors trampled icons underfoot; before this, when the Divine Name
controversy was proceeding on Athos, the onomatoclasts, mocking the name-glorifiers,
wrote the Divine Name on paper and then stuck them in their pockets or trampled
on them[30], just as had been done earlier
with icons. In this way the kinship of onomoclasm and iconoclasm is evident
not only from their teaching, but also from their corresponding actions.
Let
us now examine the teaching of the onomatoclasts more systematically.
Onomoclasm
Compared to Patristic Teaching
The Epistle
of the Russian Synod of 1913 was published in Church News [Tserkovnye Vedomosti] accompanied by three articles explicating
it by Bishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky), Archbishop Anthony (Khrapovitsky), and
S. V. Troitsky (the Epistle was compiled on the bases of speeches of these
three by Archbishop Sergei [Starogorodsky]). The opponents of the name-glorifiers
later published the Epistle, articles, and other materials in its own book.
The
Epistle is constructed on the assertion that “The Name of God is only a name, and neither God Himself nor His attribute…
therefore it can neither be recognized nor called either God or Divine,
inasmuch as it is not God’s energy” (Church
News, 285) Several un-Orthodox conclusions follow from this formulation.
1.
The
Heresy of Iconoclasm
If the Name of God is not God’s energy,
then icons cannot be sanctified therewith, inasmuch as God, Who in His essence
is inaccessible and entirely beyond bounds not only to our senses but also
to our thoughts and comprehension, reveals Himself to the world through His
operations or energies; everything else is part of creation, and something
created and not related to God called sanctify
anything. We venerate icons because God is actually
present in them through his energies (if He were not present in them, then
we would be idolaters), and this presence is ensured by the inscription of the name, as the Holy Fathers taught. The Synod’s
definition openly contradicts the definition of the Seventh Ecumenical Council
when it states: “The incorrectness of
the new dogma [i.e., name-glorifying] is expressed by the conclusions reached
by its adherents, particularly Fr. Bulatovich in his Apology. According to him, icons, and the sign of the cross, and the ecclesiastical sacraments
themselves are operative only because
the Name of God is depicted or pronounced at their performance.” This
appears to be the heresy of iconoclasm.
The
onomatoclasts accused the name-glorifiers of allegedly making God “dependent upon man,” because if God is
present in His Name, then even if someone without faith vainly calls on His
Name, then “God, as it were, is bound to
respond to this appeal with His grace” (Church
News, 279). The Epistle opposed the assertion of the name-glorifiers that “the Name Jesus is all-powerful to perform
miracles as a consequence of the presence of Divinity in it,” by stating
that the “Name of God works miracles only
on the condition of faith” (Church News,
283). These two assertions, however, do not contradict one another. St.
Theodore the Studite writes the following about the veneration of the 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
those who approach without faith do not receive sanctification and do not
behold miracles (although this is not always the case, since there are cases
when the Lord has miraculously warned unbelievers and those who scoffed at
icons and His Name); but this by no means implies that grace (i.e., the energy
of God or Divinity) does not abide in them at all times. The same goes for the
Name of God, inasmuch as its material expression is equivalent to an icon.
God
acts sovereignly; it is not possible to “coerce” Him to do anything.
Therefore the formula “The Name of God is God Himself” not only does not lead
to magic, but its altogether excludes it. The evangelical account in well known
in which Christ “did not many might works there because of their unbelief”
(Mt 13:58). According to the logic of the onomatoclasts,
one must reach the conclusion that the Lord Himself
was unable to perform miracles. Thus the teaching of the onomatoclasts
leads inevitably to blasphemy, of which the Synod falsely accused the
name-glorifiers.
2.
False Teachings about the Performance of the Mysteries
It is stated in the Synod’s Epistle 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 mysteries are performed neither by the faith of the celebrant, nor by
the faith of the 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” (Church
Herald, 285). But here is how St. John of Damascus explains the Orthodox
teaching about this: “The 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… The 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). The saint speaks of the invocation of God, and not about the “faith
of the Church,” and therein the Synod contradicts Orthodox doctrine.
3.
Teaching of Prayer Leading to Delusion
The Synodal teaching on the Name of God
explicitly contradicts all patristic teaching on prayer. Here is one example
of the latter: “The Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, descending into the depths
of the 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).” This instruction from these monastic saints is fully
in accord with the teaching that the Name of God is His energy and is He Himself.
The
Epistle, however, states: “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 is
it the energy of God” (Church News,
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 is
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’ [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 we see once again that the accusation of magic hurled by the
onomatoclasts against the name-glorifiers falls on the head of the Synod
itself.
In fact, the means of prayer
suggested by the onomatoclasts inevitably leads to delusion, as can be seen
with particular clarity in monk Khrsanf’s review of the book In the Mountains of the Caucasus. The
review states: “When performing the prayer of the heart is only the name of
Christ present and clear in our mind and heart, and not He Himself with His
boundless, elevated qualities?... For this solely intermediary reason are these
names worthy of exaltation and glorification: that as soon as one pronounces
them in prayer one remembers the Savior; then the whole mind and heart of the
one praying communes with Him, and not in order to dwell on His name alone.” Here
we see an obvious appeal to prayer with
the imagination, something that the Holy Fathers strictly prohibit, as it
leads directly to delusion. The Holy Fathers taught that one should enclose one’s mind in the words of prayer
(cf. The Ladder of Divine Ascent, 28:17),
that is, in the Name of God; but monk Khrisanf teaches that one needs to leave
the Name behind and make the mind strive towards “God Himself” – and what can
this mean but to begin to imagine God
with His “elevated qualities”? If this entire review is not simply a matter of
abstract reasoning, and if Fr. Khrisanf – and along with him Archbishop Anthony
and other onomatoclasts – practiced this method of prayer, then they were
inevitably in delusion. This is not
unlikely, judging by the ferocity and even cruelty, uncharacteristic of
Christians but entirely characteristic of the deceived, with which they
attacked the name-glorifiers.
4.
The Barlaamite Heresy
The
fundamental assertion of the Epistle is that the energy of God (Divinity,
theotes) is not God Himself and cannot be called God (theos): “St. Gregory Palamas… nowhere calls
the energy ‘God,’ but teaches that one should call it ‘Divine’ (not theos, but theotes)… The word ‘God’ indicates
Personhood, 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” (Church News
#20, 1913, 280-281). The word “Personhood” is not known in patristic theology,
and therefore at first glance it is not entirely clear what the Synod is attempting
to say. But if we turn to one of the three speeches from which the Epistle
was compiled we will immediately understand where the Epistle got the word
“Personhood.”
Archbishop Nikon stated the
following in his speech: “Most importantly, the as it were all-encompassing
attribute of this understanding [God] in our Christian thought is all-perfect
spiritual personality” (p. 51); “the grace of God… is God’s activity in us;
however we do not call our own activity ‘God,’ but namely only the activity of
God, that is, not the Essence of God, or the Personhood of God, but a
manifestation of God’s attributes” (p. 68). Here Archbishop Nikon immediately
identifies “Personhood” with the Essence of God, and claims that the grace
(energy) of God is not called God. Further on he writes: “one should not
confuse under the single name ‘God’ His attributes and the very Essence, the
Personhood of God” (p. 69).
Hence it is clear that the Synod
called “Personhood” the Essence of God and refused to call God’s energy God.
The latter represents the Barlaamite heresy, condemned in 1351 at the Council
of Constantinople, which recognized as Orthodox and binding on all members of
the Church the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, who taught: “the energy is God
(theos) Himself” (Letter to John of
Gavra, Hagio Gregoriou tou Palama
Syggrammata II (Thessalonica, 1966) 340. 12-13).
It is no wonder why the
name-glorifiers accused the onomatoclasts of the Barlaamite heresy. This
heresy, like other heretical delusions, is expressed in the three speeches on
the basis of which the Epistle was composed.
Conclusion:
The Orthodox cannot and must not accept the teaching set forth in the Epistle
as Orthodox, and the Synod’s condemnation of the name-glorifiers cannot be
considered as theologically established. For if the Epistle of the Synod is
not Orthodox, then it is obvious that its authors could not have correctly
judged the Orthodoxy of any teaching, inasmuch as it judged the name-glorifiers
from the point of view of an “Orthodoxy” that was in fact heretical.
TO BE CONTINUED…
[1]
The future Fr. Anthony published several works as a result of his journeys,
which were republished in the 1970s and 1980s: A. K. Bulatovich, S voiskami Menelika II [With the Armies of Menelik II], ed. I.S.
Katsnel’son (
[2]
Cf. Nachala. Religiozno-filosofskii
zhurnal No. 1-4. Imiaslavie. [Beginning: A Religio-Philosophical Journal,
No. 1-4. Name-Glorifying] Issue I. The entire issue is dedicated to name-glorifying
and contains many materials on the given theme, including letters of Hieroschemamonk
Anthony (Bulatovich) and a chronicle of the Athonite affair, compiled by S.
M. Polovinkinym with an afterword and commentary by V. M. Lourie; Protopresbyter
John Meyendorff, Zhisn’ i trudy sviatitelia
Grigoriia Palamy. Vvedenie v isuchenie [Life and Works of St. Gregory Palamas:
An Introductory Study, tr. G. N. Nachnikin, ed. I. P. Medvedev and V.
M. Lourie (St. Petersburg, 1997). (Subsidia Byzantinorossica, pp. 339-343,
393-396 (the Afterword comments on the Divine Name controversy from a theological
point of view connected with the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas); “Kratkii
ocherk zhizni startsa Ilariona i istorii imiaslaviia v Rusii” [“A Short Description
of the Life of Elder Ilarion and the History of Name-Glorifying in Russia”]
in Schema-monk Ilarion, Na gorakh
Kavkaza [In the Mountains of the Caucasus] (St. Petersburg, 1998), p.
901-930 (it was after the critical review of this book in 1912 that the Divine
Name controversy began); Priest Pavel Florenskii, Perepiska
sviashchenika Pavla Aleksandrovicha Florenskogo i Mikhaila Aleksandrovicha
Novoselova s prisoedineniem pisem ieroskhimonakha German Zosimovskogo, ieroskhimonakha
Antoniia (Bulatovicha), ieromonakha Panteleimona (Uspenskogo), V. M. Vasnetsova,
F.D. Samarina, F. K. Andreeva, S. N. Durylina, I. P. Shcherbova [Correspondence
of Priest Pavel Aleksandrovich Florensky and Mikhail Aleksandrovich Novoselov
with accompanying letters by Hieroschemamonk German of Zosimova, Hieroschemamonk
Anthony (Bulatovich), Hieromonk Panteleimon (Uspenskii), V. M. Vasnetsov,
F.D. Samarin, F. K. Andreev, S. N. Durylin, I. P. Shcherbov] ed. Igumen
Andronik (Trubachev) (Tomsk, 1998); recently an anthology of documents relating
to the Divine Name controversy of the beginning of the twentieth century was
published: Zabytye stranitsy russkogo
imiaslaviia. Sbornik dokumentov i publikatii po afonskim sobytiiam 1910-1913
ff [Forgotten Pages of Russian Name-Glorifying: An Anthology of Documents
and Publications Relating to the Athonite Events of 1910-1913], ed. A.
M. Khitrov and O. L. Solomin (
[3]
The review contained the Nestorian heresy and a non-Orthodox teaching on prayer,
on which see below.
[4]
It was with the blessing of this great saint of the Russian land that Fr.
Anthony accepted monasticism and went to Athos; St. John also foretold the
coming witness of the Athonite monks, writing to Fr. Anthony on October 1,
1908: “To the Athonite monks – martyrs’ crowns” (for the autograph, cf. Hieroschemamonk
Anthony (Bulatovich), Moia mysl’ vo
Khriste. O Deiatel’nosti (Energii) Bozhestva [My Thought in Christ: On the
Activity (Energy) of the Divinity] (
[5]
For a detailed account of these events, cf. Hieroschemamonk Anthony (Bulatovich),
Moia bor’ba s imiabortsami na Sviatoi
Gore [My
[6]
Russkii inok [The Russian Monk],
No. 4, pp. 71-75; No. 5, pp. 57-59; No. 6, pp. 52-60; reprinted in Sviatoe Pravoslavie i imenobozhnicheskaia eres’
[Holy Orthodoxy and the Name-Worshipping Heresy], pp. 1-17; this edition
is cited in what follows.
[7]
No. 8 and 15, 1912.
[8]
He called them “a gang of lunatics,”
“madmen,” who created a “Khlyst rebellion,” and he called Fr. Anthony
an “ambitious hussar,” “obviously not a believer in anything” (cf.,
Istoriia afonskoi smutty ili imiabozheskoi
eresi [History of the Athonite Disturbance or of the Name-Worshipping Heresy],
compiled by the Athonite monk Pachomius and annotated by A. A. Pavlovskii
(St. Petersburg, 1914),
[9]
“Bozhieiu milostiiu, Sviateishii Pravitel’stvuiushchii
Vserossiiskii Sinod vsechestnym bratiiam, vo inochestve podvizaioshchimsia”
[“By God’s Mercy, the Most-Holy Governing All-Russian Synod to the Honorable
Brothers Struggling in Monasticism”] in Tserkovnye Vedomosti [Church News] (hereafter
CN) No. 20 (1913), pp. 277-278. Reprinted in Sviatoe Pravoslavie i Imenobozhnicheskaia eres’ [Holy Orthodoxy and the
Name-Worshipping Heresy] pp. 39-49.
[10]
The Patriarch of
[11]
Cf., Dym otechestva [The Smoke of the
Fatherland] (1914) No. 14-15.
[12]
Fr. Anthony would pray all night with his cell attendant, Hieromonk Philaret,
reading Midnight Office, Matins, and the Rule with Canons; he observed a strict
fast, eating only vegetables. He spent nearly all his remaining time, overcoming
severe eye disease, publishing his works on name-glorifying and the Athonite
affair. He slept no more than six hours a day. (Cf., Dym otechestva [The Smoke of the Fatherland]
(1914, No. 21).
[13]
Cited in Nachala [The Beginning]
pp. 23-24.
[14]
This declaration did not make it to the provinces, where the name-glorifiers
continued to be counted as heretics and to be oppressed.
[15]
Cf., Nachala [The Beginning] pp.
24-26.
[16]
Cited in Nachala [The Beginning],
pp. 33-34.
[17]
Only the letter of Bishop Juvenaly to Patriarch Tikhon is known, which appears
to have been one of the points leading up to the restoration of communion
between the name-glorifiers and the Patriarchal Synod.
[18]
Fr. Anthony wrote nothing without first finding confirmation in the writings
of the Holy Fathers (the most self-contained of his writings on the theological
level is Moia mysl’ vo Khriste [My Thought
in Christ], in which he lays out his own thought, although even there
everything he teaches is in accordance with ecclesiastical doctrine). In this
he immediately parted ways with Fr. Paul Florensky, who was more inclined
to magic. Thus, on December 2, 1912, concerning sounds, he writes: “I am entirely ready to believe this, but at
present do not have sufficient data in order to affirm it. St. Symeon the
New Theologian clearly calls God ‘Divine Truth.’ Sounds are structurally neither
essence, nor substance, but a vibration of the airwaves; therefore this proposal
about vibration in Christ can hardly be spoken of. Finally, sounds are not
a required accessory of the Name of the Lord and of words in general, for
words can operate silently in the mind. So I am more inclined to regard sounds
in the same way as letters, that is, as symbols. But the Truth of God in His
Name is God Himself IN ESSENCE, AS THE VERBAL ACTION OF THE DIVINITY.” (Priest
Paul Florensky, Perepiska [Correspondence],
p. 78). Subsequently, not finding support for Florensky’s magical views in
the Holy Fathers, Fr. Anthony never accepted them. Florensky continued to
develop occult theories; something similar can be seen in the thought of Bulgakov
and Losev (falling eventually into the heresy of Sophianism); consequently,
Florensky, Losev, and Bulgakov and their followers could indeed be called
“name-worshippers” in the proper sense of the word.
[19]
Cf., Sviatoe Pravoslavie i imenobozhnicheskaia
eres’ [Holy Orthodoxy and the Name-Worshipping Heresy], p. 28.
[20]
Here and in what follows words in square brackets are my own.
[21]
Hieroschemamonk Anthony (Bulatovich), Moia
bor’ba s imiabortsami na Sviatoi Gore [My Battle with the Onomatoclasts on
the Holy Mountain] , p. 117.
[22]
Hieroschemamonk Anthony (Bulatovich), Moia
mysl’ vo Khriste [My Thought in Christ], pp. 6-7.
[23]
In his speech, which was later printed in the supplement to CN No. 20 (1913),
and then republished: Archbishop Anthony, “O
novom lzheuchenii, obogotvoriaiushchem imena i ob ‘Apologii’ Antoniia Bulatovicha”
[“On the New False Teaching, Deifying the Name, and on the ‘Apology” of Anthony
Bulatovich” in Sviatoe Pravoslavie
i imenobozhnicheskaia eres’ [Holy Orthodoxy and the Name-Worshipping Heresy],
p. 78-101, citation on p. 93.
[24]
Deianiia Vselenskikh Soborov, vol.
4 [Acts of the Ecumenical Councils] (Kazan,
1909; Reprint, St. Petersburg: Voskresenie, 1996), pp. 540-541.
[25]
Ibid., pp. 574-575.
[26]
Cited in this edition: St. John of Damascus, Tri zashchitel’nykh slova protiv poritsaiushchikh sviatye ikony ili izobrazheniia
[Three Homilies Against the Opponents of the Holy Icons or Images] (St.
Petersburg, 1892 [reprint: St. Sergius Lavra, 1993).
[27]
Hieroschemamonk Anthony (Bulatovich), Moia
bor’ba s imiabortsami na Sviatoi Gorei [My Battle with the Onomatoclasts on
the Holy Mountain], p. 117.
[28]
Theodori Studitae Refutatio et subversio
impiorum poematum Ioannis, Sergii, et Stephani, recentium christomachorum,
in Tvoreniia prepodobnogo Feodora Studita
v russkom perevode [Works of St. Theodore the Studite in Russian Translation],
Vol. 1-2 (St. Petersburg, 1907-1908), 202-203.
[29]
On the connection between name-glorifying and icon veneration, see also: E.
Pavlenko, “Imiaslavie i bizantiiskaia
teoriia obraza” [“Name-Glorifying and the Byzantine Theory of Images”],
in Bogoslovskii sbornik [Theological Anthology],
volume VIII (Moscow, 2001), pp. 56-69.
[30]
Cf., Hieroschemamonk Anthony [Bulatovich], Afonskoe
delo [The Athonite Affair] (Petrograd, 1917), pp. 8-9.