| The concept of “patristic witnesses” can be seen in the earliest writings of the church. Notable figures such as Ignatius, Polycarp, or Clement of Rome clearly enjoyed a significant status even in their own times as elders in the faith. But the formal growth of the idea that the “fathers” were a collective defense against heterodoxy was mainly a product of the anti-Arian writers of the 4th century, which came to be adopted passionately by the Greek and Latin churches of the 5th century and afterwards. One of the early and classical examples of this specifically happening is the hagiography of Antony the Great written by Athanasius of Alexandria (Life of Antony), which depicts him as one of the great fathers who personally represents a standard of truth, holiness, and orthodoxy. Another is the hagiography of Athanasius by St. Gregory the Theologian (of Nazianzus: Oration 21; see also Oration 33.5), which lauds Athanasius as a father and pillar of orthodoxy for his defense of Nicea (see also St. Basil the Great’s Epistle 140.2). By the 5th century, the concept of “authoritative fathers” was being appealed to specifically and systematically to establish pedigree lines of doctrine; most notably by St. Cyril of Alexandria, who began to assemble florilegia of the “sayings of the orthodox fathers” in his conflict with Nestorius, thus beginning a style of theologizing that soon became a standard way of doing Orthodox theology ever after. The idea of bringing the evidence of the fathers together soon came into the synodical process of the ecumenical councils, which more and more, after the 5th century, saw themselves as the defenders and propagators of the “theology of the fathers” (see Canon 7 of the Council of Ephesus, 431; and the Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, 451; Definition of the Faith 2; 4). Patristics in this sense clearly corresponds to a certain vision of theology as the “defense and maintenance of Orthodoxy» This remains its essential meaning in the Orthodox Church today. Orthodoxy has generally accepted the great fathers of the Latin church as its own (Sts. Ambrose, Gregory the Great, Leo, and so on), though it has significantly distanced itself from many of the ideas of other influential early Latin thinkers (Arnobius, Tertullian), including St. Augustine, who so dominated the West’s sense of patristic teaching, but hardly impressed himself upon the East. |
| Thus, the triumphal refutation of the aim of expressing ecclesiastical unity, which was presented as the purpose for which the " Holy and Great Council " of Crete was called, was accomplished - in practice - with the abstention of four Patriarchates, the glaring break in communion of two Patriarchates (Jerusalem and Antioch), the synodically negligent vote in favor of the 6th text by a Primate of an Autocephalous Church (Greece), the refusal of a large number of participating Hierarchs to sign the controversial dogmatic text, and finally, the lack of participation of all of the bishops of the Church. For all of the above-mentioned theological reasons, the ecclesiastical responsibility of the Hierarchy of our Church, but also of the entire body of the Church, is exceptionally grave and extensive. Fortunately, the devout ecclesiastical body of believers remains faithful to the ecclesiology of the Second Ecumenical Council - πμενο τος γοις Πατρσι [following the Holy Fathers] - and rejects outright the two-fold ecclesiology which was introduced and passed by the " Council " of Crete, thus legitimizing " institutionally " the cancer of Ecumenism in the " spotless " body of the Church. In particular, the Hierarchs of the Church of Greece are obliged to make a responsible decision, first of all personally, but afterwards as a collective body during the next meeting of the Hierarchy, mainly with respect to the 6th text, by which heretics were recognized as Churches at the " Council " of Crete. The devout body of the faithful, as guardians of the faith of the Church (Council of 1848), likewise await an explanation as to why the Primate of their Church did not stand up for the unanimous decision of the Hierarchy. Even more importantly, the faithful await from the Hierarchy a condemnation of the two-fold, heretical, syncretistic and ecumenistic ecclesiology of the " Council " of Crete. As faithful, we also await, in due time, for initiatives to be undertaken, in cooperation with the four Patriarchates which did not take part in the " Council " of Crete, to convene in the near future a Pan-Orthodox Council which will, with its broader authority, restore - officially and synodically - the shaken ecclesiastical unity, condemn the two-fold ecclesiology of the " Council " of Crete and publish the minutes of the questionable " Council " . |
| In 1992, the first act of the newly-elected Primate of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, His Beatitude, Metropolitan Vladimir, was the translation of the relics and glorification of his predecessor on the See of Kiev, Metropolitan Vladimir (Bogoyavlensky) of Kiev and Gallich, the first New Martyr of the twentieth century, shot by the Bolsheviks in 1918. From that time until the present, the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has glorified 260 strugglers of piety into the ranks of saints, including the Holy Hierarchs Peter Mogila and Luke (Voyno-Yasenetsky), Philaret (Gumilevsky) and Innocent (Borisov); the Venerable Laurence of Chernigov and Amphilochius of Pochaev, John of Svyatogorsk and Jonah of Kiev; the Venerable Anastasia of Kiev and Helen of Florovsk. There has also been the restoration of the church-wide veneration of the Right-Believing Prince Yaroslav the Wise and the establishment of synaxes of local saints and new martyrs of the twentieth century. Evidence of the grace-filled renewal of the spiritual life of our people can be seen in the many manifestations of God’s mercy and in the appearance of miraculous icons of the Savior and our Most Holy Lady Theotokos. Newly-manifest icons have served as inexhaustible sources of grace and spiritual consolation, such as the “Look Down Upon the Humble” Icon of the Mother of God in Kiev, the weeping Boiany Icon of the Theotokos in Bukovina, the Svyatogorsk Icon of the Most Holy Virgin in the Donbass, and many others. It goes without saying that the past two decades will go down in history as those of the recovery of thousands of churches and monasteries from ruins. During these years the greatest holy places of our Church and people have been restored, among which was the Dormition Cathedral of the Kiev-Caves Lavra, blown up during the Great Patriotic War [WWII]. The entire Lavra has been transfigured, with the churches and buildings gradually restored. Now it has become a place of pilgrimage for millions of Orthodox Christians from the entire world, as well as a flourishing garden in the midst of a metropolis of many millions. |
| In October 2018, the Synod of the Patriarchate of Constantinople made a whole number of unilateral decisions concerning the church life in Ukraine. In particular, it “revoked” the 1686 Charter of Patriarch Dionysius of Constantinople on the transfer of the Metropolia of Kiev to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate. It also made a decision “on the restoration of the rank” of Philaret Denisenko and the leader of an even less representative schismatic group, Makariy Maletich. At the same time, all the consecrations and rites administered by these persons were recognized as valid. On 15 th December, chaired by a hierarch of the Church of Constantinople and then President Petro Poroshenko, the so-called “unification council” was held in Kiev, at which the two Ukrainian schismatic groups headed by Philaret and Makariy were merged into one. The head of a new structure was elected and recognized straight away by the Patriarchate of Constantinople as canonical “Metropolitan of Kiev and All Ukraine”. All this was done with complete disregard for the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, which from the very beginning stated its non-recognition of all these actions. Out of 90 bishops of the Ukrainian Church only two decided to join the newly created schismatic structure. Finally, on 6 th January 2019, Patriarch Bartholomew granted to the head of this structure the so-called tomos of autocephaly. From the perspective of the canons of the Orthodox Church, all these actions are unlawful and invalid. The Patriarchate of Constantinople has entered into the Eucharistic communion with the schismatics who have no apostolic succession. As for our Church, it has encountered an impossibility for continuing ecclesiastical communion with the Church of Constantinople. It is impossible to find explanations for the actions of the Church of Constantinople in the Orthodox canon law. They represent an evident and gross violation of the canons of the Church, Orthodox ecclesiology and the very foundations of inter-church relations. At the same time, one cannot fail to notice the presence of a non-ecclesiastical factor in the decision made at Phanar. Nobody tried and tries to conceal the exceptional role played by now former President of Ukraine in granting “a tomos of autocephaly.” Just as in the 1990s, the interference of politicians and secular authorities in church life did not only fail to unite Orthodoxy in Ukraine but, on the contrary, only inflicted new wound on it. So visible a political track in the problem of the Ukrainian autocephaly opens slightly the curtain of real motives for the decisions made by the Patriarch of Constantinople. It is impossible to believe that these motives are confined to complying with a request of an alleged majority of the Orthodox faithful in Ukraine to grant autocephaly. A different aim was pursued – to break the spiritual unity of Russia and Ukraine, as was openly stated by the highest-ranking representatives of the Ukrainian authorities. |
| It is otherwise characteristic that with this theology of the person, the Church as icon of the Holy Trinity, and the use of this theology to support the imposition of Primacy, the Metropolitan of Pergamon goes beyond even the papal theologians! At the Conventions of the Mixed Commission of Dialogue in Amman of Jordan in September of 2014, it surprised even the papal representatives. “The latter, during the breaks between sessions were conversing with the representatives of the Orthodox Churches and they declared that the Roman Catholic Church had never supported the primacy of the Pope with the arguments like those put forth by the Metropolitan of Pergamon! The Roman Catholics remarked that they understood the Pope to be successor in authority to the Church of Peter, but that never had they expressed the view that the Pope is by analogy in the place of God the Father in the Holy Trinity, the position which the Metropolitan of Pergamon supports for Rome and Constantinople!” Unfortunately the text of the Encyclical of the “Council” of Crete in Chapter 10 entitled, “The Church: Body of Christ, Icon of the Holy Trinity” contain the views of the Metropolitan of Pergamon. From the beginning, one of the aims of the “Council was, among others, the institution of the Ecumenical Patriarch as First-without-equals in the Orthodox Church. The unilateral activities of the Ecumenical Patriarchate on the issues of ecumenism - the sidelining, deprecation, debasement, and the marginalization of all of the other Orthodox Churches - created and instituted de facto this position of supremacy for the Phanar. The representatives of the Phanar, by following a unilateral strategy of systematically and persistently imposing their choices and decisions, exceeded the role of the Ecumenical Patriarchate as coordinator in the theological dialogues and Pan-Orthodox Conferences. They provoked in this way a justified reaction on the part of the other Orthodox Churches. Referring again to the events of the past, we discover that the Church of Greece has always put up fierce resistance to the scheming of the Phanar refusing to accept or in any way recognize the monocracy it sought to institutionalize over the other Orthodox Churches. She has refused, in other words, to recognize the imposition of a " Protos " [First], not among equals, but without equals; the imposition of a Primacy of authority rather than a Primacy of honor within the Orthodox Church. |
| Novelty of the Matter and Human Body Concepts in the Great Church Fathers Скачать epub pdf In this report I would like to highlight the main results of my doctoral thesis research performed at the Department of Theology of Post Graduate and Doctoral Center of Russian Orthodox Church (in the name of Saint Cyril and Methodius, Chair of Theology). It should be noted that investigation of Holy Fathers’ doctrines concerning matter was up until now a neglected area. ‘Theory of matter’ is usually considered to be a part of pure philosophy. Meanwhile directly or indirectly the majority of Christian dogmatic ideas are connected to the issue of matter. One of the main results of this research consists in the arrangement of the perceptions of matter among Holy Fathers and theologians of Alexandrian theological school, the Cappadocian Fathers, St. Cyril of Alexandria and Rev. Maximus the Confessor. Is it has been so far a conviction among Russian theologians and philosophers that Holy Fathers in their teaching of matter either repeatedly kept on affirmation of nonexistence of matter or were simply adjacent to Plato 1 . It’s been demonstrated that Holy Fathers’ view of matter couldn’t be considered as one repeating the ideas of Platonists. At the second half of the 20 th century there has appeared a range of writings of western theologians on issues quite close to ours. 2 Nevertheless, these investigations have narrow focus on works of certain representatives of heathen philosophy and Holy Fathers. Moreover, the doctrine of matter is rarely a logical center of analysis. Therefore the purpose of my research was to carry out the analysis of the concepts of matter as the tangible substance of the material world and the terminology employed to describe the matter and possible changes in it and human’s body in the church’s sacraments and in the Eschatological perspective in the works of ecclesiastical writers of Alexandrian theological tradition. It is well known that in the systems of the Middle Platonists, Philo of Alexandria and the Neo-Platonists a better future for the individual is considered as the abandonment of its earthly body and in the translation to the heavenly spheres for an incorporeal life. Even those Neoplatonist systems opposing a negative ontological status for matter did not suggest any eschatological perspective for it other than its necessary persistence in the universe as the ‘last’ (τν ντων σχατον), 3 ‘worst’ (χερων, Plotinus, Ammonius, Damascene, Olimpiodor, etc.) and ‘always in need’ (νδες, Plotinus, Simplicus) at the edge of being. As a whole, Neoplatonism preserved the tendency descending from Plato of a contemptuous attitude toward matter. 4 |
| I think that today this granite-like hardening of westernization and the alienation of the spiritual life of modern Greece has sustained some critical blows. Yet still the moderately formed Greek, with at least some philosophical and theological education, suspects or knows that it is a peculiarity of his culture to be defined in particular by the apophatic interpretation of truth – from the time of Herakleitos to that of Gregory Palamas. That is certainly an advance, so long as you do not ‘know’ what apophaticism is and mistake it for a method. For apophaticism consists primarily of a stance against knowledge and the verification of knowledge. It is the denial of ‘conceptual idols’ denial of the psychological props of egocentric assurance and the sentimental protection offered by conceptual certainties. And it would be good if the dynamic of this revelatory denial was served by the reprint of my little book. Athens, December 1986 Christos Yannaras Part I. Nihilism as Theology of Absence Chapter I. The Metaphysical Denial of God’s Divinity In 1382, Nietzsche published his, book The Gay Science (Die frhliche Wissenschaft), proclaiming in its pages the ‘death of God’: ‘God is dead, God shall remain dead’. Eighty years later, in 1961, Heidegger published his own book on Nietzsche. In its pages, the proclamation of ‘the death of God’ is interpreted as the prophetic acknowledgement of an already accomplished event, the inevitable climax of a long historical process in European metaphysics. The ‘death of God’ is the consequence or the ‘inner logic’ of the metaphysical journey of European man. 15 In Nietzsche’s discourse, consequently, we do not come across the articulation of an atheist’s views, but encounter rather the penetrating insights of a prophet. ‘God is dead‘ means that the Christian God, the God of western metaphysics, is but a dead fashioning of the mind, hardly more than a mere idea, an abstract concept. At best, ‘God’ stands for an idolized, conventional value. In reality, God is unrelated to the shaping of the life of European human kind – it is not he who gives meaning to human existence, to the universe or to history. The place of God is empty in the West – God is an absence. |
| So, speaking of apparent evidence, it is worth recalling the report of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights dated 4 October 2023, which recognized the violation of religious freedom of Ukrainian believers, or the testimony of the Ukrainian journalist and writer Yan Taksyur given in his speech at the special session of the UN Security Council on 26 July 2023. Ecumenical figures in Europe also recognize violations of religious freedom. For instance, on 15 September 2023, Prof. Dr. Thomas Bremer of the University of Münster challenged conclusions of the so-called religious expert examination carried out in Ukraine with the view of justifying the liquidation of legal entities of the Ukrainian Church. Many of these facts are mentioned in the letters, which the Primate of the Russian Church, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus " sent more than a few times to the leadership of the UN, OSCE, Council of Europe, and to many religious leaders and public figures. The persecution of the Ukrainian Church is a planned campaign devised along the lines of the atheists of communist times. It includes media accusations of betrayal of State, the closure of churches and monasteries, and terror against the most prominent clergymen. Let us take a closer look at the latter. According to the Security Service of Ukraine, seventy criminal proceedings were opened against clergymen of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church under the jurisdiction of Metropolitan Onufriy in 2022-23, including sixteen against metropolitans. Out of a total of proceedings, twenty are on “high treason” and “collaboration” charges and eighteen – on charges of “violation of the equality of citizens depending on their religious belief.” Charges were filed against twenty-six hierarchs and clerics, nineteen were sentenced by court. Someday a book about victims of the anti-church campaign of terror directed against clergymen of the Ukrainian Church will be published. The list of their names can be drawn up now. |
| Popham Blyth, Bishop in Jerusalem, and a group of distinguished laymen, such as W. J. Birkbeck, Athelstan Riley, et. al. were at that time promoters of the cause of rapprochement. By invitation of this Society, a group of Anglican bishops and clergy joined the Parliamentary delegation of Great Britain to Russia (the “Speaker’s delegation”) in 1912. Four bishops participated (Eden of Wakefield, Robertson of Exeter, Williams of Bangor, and Bernard of Ossory). Two series of lectures (on the “Life of the Anglican Church”) were organized, at St. Petersburg and Moscow, delivered by Dr. Walter H. Frere, C.R., the future Bishop of Truro and the first President of the Fellowship of St. Sergius and St. Alban, and by Fr. F. W. Puller, S.S.J.E. Fr. Puller’s lectures were published (in English and Russian) – The Continuity of the Church of England (Longmans, 1912). It was an impressive vindication of the Catholic claims of the Anglican Communion. During his visit, Fr. Puller had several theological conversations with the Orthodox, of which he speaks in the Preface to his book. The question of the Filioque had been surveyed once more, with the result diat on this point there was in principle no disagreement between the two Churches. Puller attributed this “change of attitude” on the Russian side “to the influence of the great Russian theologian, Bolotov”. The World War interrupted the work of the Society. It should be mentioned that in 1914 two British organizations, “The Eastern Church Association” and “The Anglican and Eastern-Orthodox Churches Union”, were fused together, under the name of “The Anglican and Eastern Churches Association” (which still continues). Even on the eve of the Revolution the Russian Society was meeting, and at the last meeting, in 1917, Archbishop Sergius “delivered a most beautiful address on the similarity and differences in the course of history, between the Eastern and Anglican Churches, and on the promising aspects of the Anglican Church”. It must be added that the great All-Russian Church Council of 1917 – 1918, in its very last meeting (September 20, 1918), passed the following resolution, upon the proposal of the Section on the Union of the Christian Churches (Archbishop Eudokim, of North America, chairman): “The Sacred Council of the Orthodox Russian Church, gladly seeing the sincere efforts of the Old Catholics and Anglicans towards union with the Orthodox Church on the foundation of the doctrine and tradition of the Ancient Catholic Church, bestows its benediction on the labors and efforts of those who are seeking the way towards union with the above-named friendly Churches. |
| The seizure of church buildings is still taking place, but in less number. A good many time Vladimir Zelensky made it plain that he denounces his predecessor’s policy on religion. He defined his line of conduct for religious confessions right after his election: he met with religious leaders and underscored that he did not want to interfere in the internal life of religious organizations. During these meetings he declared himself a politician striving for unity, reconciliation and mutual forgiveness. Almost all Christian, Muslim and Jewish leaders of Ukraine responded to his call to take part in the video address to people in the Crimea and Donbas. In its spirit this statement contrasts with the ideology of aggression and irreconcilable hatred so characteristic of the outgoing regime of Petro Poroshenko. The only one who did not appear on video was the nominal “head” of the so called “Orthodox church of Ukraine” Epiphany Dumenko. We are looking with hope to the first moves of the new leadership of our fraternal country. We hope for the establishment of peace in Ukraine, elimination of hatred and enmity, protection of the rights of believers of all confessions and non-interference in the affairs of religious communities in the country. The intrusion of Constantinople upon church life in Ukraine done with support of the preceding Ukrainian authorities can be considered only as an attempt to undermine the spiritual unity of peoples of the historical Rus’. We understand that most probably Ukraine is not the last attempt of such kind. From the point of view of the Patriarchate of Constantinople, the cancelation of the Charter on the transfer of the Metropolia of Kiev to the jurisdiction of the Moscow Patriarchate means that all territories that historically were a part of this metropolia had returned to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Constantinople. It should be noted that the territory of the present-day Belarus was also once within the Metropolia of Kiev. However, the claims of the Church of Constantinople will hardly find support in Belarus. Its people do not strive for autocephaly. The Belarusian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate is the largest confession of the country. Being the true Church of its people and bringing considerable contribution to the development of national culture, the Belarusian Church, like the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, cherishes its unity with the entire Russian Church that unites the fraternal Slavic nations – the inheritors of Vladimir’s Baptism. |
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