| Commemoration of the Holy Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787). The Holy Icons. The Seventh Ecumenical Council, convoked by the Empress Irene and met at Nicaea from September 24 to October 13, 787. Patriarch Tarasios (commemorated February 25) presided. The council ended almost fifty years of iconoclast persecution and established the veneration of the holy icons as basic to the belief and spirituality of Christ's Church. As the Synaxarion says, " It was not simply the veneration of the holy images that the Fathers defended in these terms but, in fact, the very reality of the Incarnation of the Son of God. " " The second Council of Nicaea is the seventh and last Ecumenical Council recognized by the Orthodox Church. This does not mean that there may not be ecumenical Councils in the future although, in holding the seventh place, the Council of Nicaea has taken to itself the symbol of perfection and completion represented by this number in Holy Scripture (e.g. Gen. 2:1-3). It closes the era of the great dogmatic disputes which enabled the Church to describe, in definitions excluding all ambiguity, the bounds of the holy Orthodox Faith. From that time, every heresy that appears can be related to one or other of the errors that the Church, assembled in universal Councils, has anathematized from the first until the seventh Council of Nicaea. " Synaxarion In Greek practice, the holy God-bearing Fathers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council are commorated on October 11/21 (if it is a Sunday), or on the Sunday which follows October 11/21. According to the Slavic MENAION, however, if the eleventh falls on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday, the service is moved to the preceding Sunday. Holy Trinity Church On the Sunday that falls on or immediately after the eleventh of this month [N.S., 21st O.S.], we chant the Service to the 350 holy Fa thers of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which ga thered in Nicaea in 787 under the holy Patriarch Tarasius and during the reign of the Empress Irene and her son, Constantine Porphyrogenitus, to refute the Iconoclast heresy, which had received imperial support beginning with the Edict issued in 726 by Emperor Leo the Isaurian. Many of the holy Fa thers who condemned Iconoclasm at this holy Council later died as Confessors and Martyrs for the holy Icons during the second assult of Iconoclasm in the ninth century, especially during the reigns of Leo the Armenian and Theophilus |
| We Orthodox Christian hear this question quite often. In fact, it strikes a much deeper issue, namely, the issue with the Holy Tradition, which incorporates the works by the Holy Fathers. Here is a 101 on the Holy Tradition and why, according to the Church, you can’t understand the Bible without it. Is the Bible Enough? The correlation between the Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition has been hotly contested between the Orthodox and the Protestants for centuries. It was as early as the 16 th century that Protestants proclaimed their famous doctrine of Sola Scriptura (Latin for “only the Scripture”), claiming that the text of the Bible is enough for proper Christian living. They declared that the Bible contains just enough information for our salvation and that the Tradition was a later and useless invention, which Christians had to get rid of as quickly as possible. Orthodox theologians radically oppose this approach. The Church teaches that the Holy Tradition is the earliest way of transmission of the Divine Revelation. The Holy Tradition existed before the Holy Scripture and served as its basis. It isn’t hard to grasp it: even during our everyday lives we experience something first and then express our experiences in written form, if necessary. Aside from that, even the Bible admits that the Holy Tradition comes first. Thus, we learn from the book of Genesis that God talked with Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses directly. We see that Abel already knows how to make a sacrifice of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof to God (Gen. 4:4). Noah knows which animals are “clean” and which are “unclean” (Gen. 7:8). Abraham knows the tradition of tithing when he gives tithes to Melchizedek, king of Salem (Gen. 14:20). It is worth pointing out that none of them read the Scripture because there weren’t any written Scriptures at those times. Old Testament characters lived without the sacred texts of the Scripture for many centuries. Likewise, early Christians did without the written New Testament because they tuned their spiritual and everyday lives in accordance with the oral Tradition of the Church. |
| St. Theodore the Prince of Smolensk and Yaroslav Commemorated on September 19 The holy right-believing Prince Theodore of Smolensk and Yaroslavl, nicknamed the “Black” [i.e. “dark” or “swarthy”], was born at a terrible time for Rus: the Mongol invasion of 1237-1239. At Baptism he was named for the holy Great Martyr Theodore Stratelates (February 8), who was particularly esteemed by the Russian warrior-princes. Prince Theodore was famed for his military exploits. The child Theodore was not in the city when, through the prayers of the Most Holy Theotokos, the holy Martyr Mercurius (November 24) delivered Smolensk from being captured by Batu In the year 1239. They had taken him away and hidden him in a safe place during the warfare. In 1240 his father, Prince Rostislav died. He was a great-grandson of the holy Prince Rostislav of Smolensk and Kiev (March 14). His elder brothers as heirs divided their father’s lands among themselves, allotting to the child Theodore the small holding of Mozhaisk. Here he spent his childhood, and here he studied Holy Scripture, the church services and military science. In the year 1260, Prince Theodore was married to Maria Vasilievna, daughter of holy Prince Basil of Yaroslavl (July 3), and Theodore became Prince of Yaroslavl. They had a son named Michael, but Saint Theodore was soon widowed. He spent much of his time on military campaigns, and his son was raised by his mother-in-law, Princess Xenia. In 1277, the allied forces of the Russian princes, in union with the Tatar forces, took part in a campaign in the Osetian land and in the taking of “its famed city Tetyakov.” In this war the allied forces won a complete victory. From the time of Saint Alexander Nevsky (November 23), the khans of the Golden Horde, seeing the uncrushable spiritual and the military strength of Orthodox Russia, were compelled to change their attitude. They began to draw the Russian princes into alliances, and the khans turned to them for military assistance. The Russian Church made use of these providentially improved relations for the Christian enlightenment of the foreigners. Already in 1261, through the efforts of Saint Alexander Nevsky and Metropolitan Cyril III at Sarai, the capital of the Golden Horde, a diocese of the Russian Orthodox Church was established. In the year 1276, a Constantinople Council presided over by Patriarch John Bekkos (1275-1282) replied to questions of the Russian Bishop Theognostus of Sarai concerning the order for baptizing Tatars, and also for receiving Monophysite and Nestorian Christians among them into Orthodoxy. |
| Contemporary scholars and certain Christian groups today tend to approach the study of scripture as archaeology. Rather than receiving the scriptures as God-breathed tradition in the life of the Church, the text is abstracted from its incarnate context, subjected to scientific analysis. While much can be learned, of course, from a knowledge of Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, this is not an end unto itself. Popular hermeneutical methods such as the grammatical-historical are recent, being flawed in a number of ways. And really, no single approach or ‘method’ should be deemed superior to the rest. In the end, this whole approach is undermined by a crippled foundation. The scriptures are not a treasure chest waiting to be unlocked with the right set of keys, nor are they only useful for the academic ‘elite.’ At the heart of this misguided, modern project is a desire to ‘get back to’ an ‘original’ text or meaning of scripture. But this begs the question of whether an original text–or interpretation–has ever really existed: Scholarly interpretation has been governed by an overriding concern to establish the original text and meaning. But there are many circumstances in which this is either not appropriate or not the whole story. For the Scriptures do not simply belong to their original context: they have been read and re-read over the centuries. When we venerate the Book of the Gospels we are acknowledging it as something that belongs to the present: it bodies forth Christ now. —Andrew Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology, p. 9 The holy scriptures are more than just another text of antiquity; they are light and life; they are a divine witness to the true Logos of God, Jesus Christ. In the liturgical life of the Church, the Holy Spirit breathes both meaning and understanding into these words as they are proclaimed from the solea or amvon. This is what Louth calls “the liturgical use of Scripture.” The way of understanding sacred writ in the early Church and down through the centuries–many years before widespread literacy and the advent of the printing press–was in how they were utilized in our daily, weekly, and annual liturgical celebrations. As the Church moves through the year, from the nativity of the Theotokos (Sep. 8) to her falling asleep or ‘’Dormition” (Aug. 15), the scriptures are carefully selected and proclaimed to God’s people, imbuing a meaning that is often inescapable and plain. |
| On Salvation and Christian Perfection Many people talk about salvation, many wish to be saved; but if you ask them what constitutes salvation, then they will find it very difficult to reply. There would be no harm done if replying was the only difficulty! No: the harmful consequence, that this gives rise to, is of great significance. Not knowing what constitutes salvation imparts indefiniteness and incorrectness to our actions in the practice of virtue. For it seems that we do many good works; but essentially we do very few works for salvation. Why is this? The answer is very simple: because we don’t know what constitutes our salvation. To know what our salvation is, we firstly need to know what our perdition is, because only the dead need salvation. The one who seeks salvation thereby plainly admits that he is dead: otherwise why would he need to seek salvation? Our perdition was brought about through the destruction of our communion with God and through our entering into communion with fallen, shunned spirits. Our salvation is rupturing communion with satan and restoring communion with God. The whole human race is in perdition, in the fall. We have been deprived of communion with God in our very root and source: in our forefathers, by means of their wanton transgression. They were created spotless, not liable to sin and corruption: from the very creation they were made partakers of the Holy Spirit; having received natural existence through their humanity, they also received supernatural existence from their union with God’s Nature. Having wantonly rejected their submission to God and having wantonly entered into submission to the devil, they lost their communion with God, their freedom and worth, they betrayed themselves into submission and enslavement to the fallen spirit. They wantonly rejected life and invoked death in themselves, they wantonly violated the wholeness given to them when good was created; they poisoned themselves with sin. As the beginning of the human race, they passed on and continue to pass on their infection, their perdition and their death to all humanity. Adam, who was created in the all-Holy Image and Likeness of God and who was supposed to bring about such descendants, defiled the Image and destroyed the Likeness and brought about descendants in accordance with the defiled image and the destroyed likeness. The Holy Scripture, which testified that man was created in the Image of God, indeed deprives the children of Adam of this testimony. The Scripture recounts that they were born in the image of Adam, that is to say, as Adam became through the fall. Due to the loss of the likeness, the image became defiled. The Scripture makes this sorrowful confession of every person who enters into fallen existence: |
| I have recently —and on a few other occasions —written about the differences between the Protestant approach to authority and the Orthodox. For Protestants, the final authority or rule is the Bible—a principle known as Sola Scriptura . And while some Protestants have written catechisms and other companion material to the scriptures themselves, these too are held in check by the proper interpretation of the Bible. With regards to the latter, I have previously offered : Even when Sola scriptura is given nuance to make room for creeds, confessions, and councils, the final arbiter is still a person’s interpretation of the Bible. While one might hold to a document such as the Westminster Confession of Faith, if there are doctrinal disagreements, the consistent Biblicist will come down in favor of a particular interpretation of the Bible over-and-against the Confession. This has led to some difficulties over the years for certain Protestant churches, but I believe that this nuance is—ultimately—pointless. For example, one might confess a creed that states Jesus is a bunny rabbit. While this belief could theoretically be held by many, anyone can deny it as being contrary to the Bible (which it obviously is), rendering the creed both incorrect and unnecessary. It doesn’t really matter what creeds or confessions say, so long as the Bible is held to be the final authority. In distinction from this viewpoint, I have explained that the Orthodox approach to authority is one that rests in Holy Tradition—the apostolic continuation of Christ that lives and breathes through the Body of Christ. By preserving and handing down this Tradition from one generation to the next ( paradosis —the very meaning of “tradition”), the Church endures as the spotless and apostolic Bride of Christ, the “pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim. 3:15). The gates of Hades—the gates of death, schism, and division—can never prevail against her (Matt. 16:18). The so-called “source” of authority in the Orthodox Church is God himself—not clergy, institutions, documents, or relics, but the very life of God by his Spirit. This is Holy Tradition. |
| Venerable Joseph the Abbot of Volokolamsk, Volotsk Commemorated on September 9 and February 13 Saint Joseph of Volokolamsk, in the world John Sanin, was born on November 14, 1440 (1439 according to another source) in the village of Yazvisch-Pokrov, not far from the city of Volokolamsk. He was born into a pious family with his father named John (in monasticism Joannicius) and his mother Marina (in schema Maria). The seven-year-old boy John was sent to the pious and enlightened Elder Arsenius of the Volokolamsk-Exaltation of the Cross monastery to be educated. Distinguished by rare qualities and extraordinary aptitude for church service, for one year the talented youth studied the Psalter, and, the following year, the entire Holy Scripture. He became a reader and singer in the monastery church. Contemporaries were astonished at his exceptional memory. Often, without having a single book in his cell, he would do the monastic rule, reciting from memory from the Psalter, the Gospel, the Epistles, and all that was required. Even before becoming a monk, John lived a monastic lifestyle. Thanks to his reading and studying of Holy Scripture and the works of the holy Fathers, he dwelt constantly in contemplation of God. As his biographer notes, he “disdained obscene and blasphemous talk and endless mirth from his childhood years.” At twenty years of age John chose the path of monastic striving and, leaving his parents’ home, he went off into the wilderness nigh to the Tver Savvin monastery, to the renowned Elder and strict ascetic, Barsanuphius. But the monastic rule seemed insufficiently strict to the young ascetic. With the blessing of Elder Barsanuphius, he set off to Borov to St Paphnutius of Borov (May 1), who had been a novice of Elder Nikita of the Vysotsk monastery, who in turn was a disciple of St Sergius of Radonezh and Athanasius of Vysotsk. The simple life of the holy Elder, the tasks which he shared with the brethren, and the strict fulfilling of the monastic rule suited John’s spiritual state. St Paphnutius lovingly accepted the young ascetic who had come to him, and on February 13, 1460 he tonsured him into monasticism with the name Joseph, thus realizing John’s greatest wish. With love and with zeal the young monk shouldered the heavy obediences imposed upon him, in the kitchen, the bakery, the infirmary. St Joseph fulfilled this latter obedience with special care, “giving food and drink to the sick, taking up and arranging the bedding, so very anxious and concerned with everything, working, as though attending to Christ Himself.” |
| The Orthodox Church The Orthodox Church is the unity of faith and love (St. Ignatius of Antioch) of all Churches which have preserved Orthodoxy , i.e., the Tradition of Faith, Order, Worship and Piety, as confessed from the beginning " everywhere, always and by all. " 11 January 2005 1. Orthodoxy THE ORTHODOX CRURCH is the unity of faith and love (St. Ignatius of Antioch) of all Churches which have preserved Orthodoxy , i.e., the Tradition of Faith, Order, Worship and Piety, as confessed from the beginning “everywhere, always and by all.” And, although historically she was for a long time confined to the Eastern part of Christendom after the separation of the Christian West from her, the Orthodox Church rejects the idea that hers is a “partial” or “oriental” expression of the Christian faith. On the contrary, she confesses her faith to be full, catholic, and universal. She sees herself as the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. The Tradition of Faith stems from Divine Revelation as recorded in Holy Scriptures and understood and interpreted by the Church in the continuity of her teaching ministry: by her Councils, Fathers, Teachers, Saints, by her worship and by the whole of her Divinely inspired life. Of especial normative character are the dogmatical and canonical decisions of the Seven Ecumenical and Ten local Councils, the writings of the Holy Fathers, the testimony of the liturgical and iconographic tradition and the universal consensus of doctrine and practice. The Tradition of Order is based on the unbroken continuity of the Ministry and, above all, on the Apostolic succession of Bishops who are, in each Church, the guardians of the catholic fullness of faith and the Divinely appointed bearers of the Church’s priestly, pastoral and teaching power and authority. Their unity expresses the unity of the Church; their agreement is the voice of the Holy Spirit. They govern the Church, and in this they are helped by the priests and deacons. They are also helped by the whole body of the Church, for, according to Orthodox teaching, all the faithful are entrusted with responsibility for the purity of faith. Church order is preserved in the Holy Canons, which constitute an integral part of Tradition. |
| Holy Hierarch Theodosius of Chernigov Commemorated September 9/22 and February 5/18 Saint Theodosius, Archbishop of Chernigov, was born in the seventeenth century at the beginning of the decade of the thirties in Podolsk governance. He was descended from a noble family, the Polonitsky-Uglitskys. His parents were the priest Nikita and Maria. The saint was taught Christian piety in his parents’ home, and this piety remained with him throughout his life. From childhood he was distinguished by a fervent love for God and zeal for the Church. The innate abilities of the youth came to light in the Kiev Brotherhood school at Kiev’s Theophany monastery. The school was flourishing at the end of the 1640s, when its rectors were Archimandrite Innocent (Gizel), and Igumen Lazar (Baranovich), who later became Archbishop of Chernigov. Among its instructors were: Hieromonk Epiphanius (Slavinetsky), Hieromonk Arsenius (Satanovsky), Bishop Theodosius (Baevsky) of Belorus, Igumen Theodosius (Saphonovich) and Meletius Dzik. These were the enlightened men of those days. The comrades of St Theodosius at the school would become future outstanding pastors: Simeon Polotsky, Joannicius Golyatovsky, Anthony Radivillovsky, Barlaam Yasninsky. The Kiev Brotherhood Theophany school was the chief center in the struggle of Orthodoxy against the assaults of Catholic clergy, particularly the Jesuits. St Theodosius grew to spiritual maturity near the relics of Sts Anthony and Theodosius and other God-pleasers of the Kiev Caves , and he tried to imitate their holy life as much as he could. He devoted all his free time to prayer, meditation on God, and the reading of Holy Scripture. It might be surmised that the saint did not finish the full course of studies, since the school ceased its activity for several years following the devastation of Podolia by the Poles. All his life the saint had a deep regard for the Kiev Brotherhood monastery where he was educated. In the Synodikon of the Kiev-Vydubitsk monastery is the following comment about St Theodosius: “He was a man of fine intellect, and generous to the Kiev Brotherhood monastery.” |
| Relations of the Orthodox Church with the rest of the Christian world: Draft document of the Pan-Orthodox Council Source: DECR Draft document of the Pan-Orthodox Council, adopted by the 5th Pan-Orthodox Pre-Council Conference in Chambésy on October, 10-17, 2015. Photo: http://www.patriarchia.ru/ Published in compliance with the decision of the Synaxis of Primates of the Local Orthodox Churches, Chambésy, January, 21-28, 2016. 1. Orthodox Church, being the One, Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in her profound ecclesiastical consciousness firmly believes that she occupies a central place in matters relating to the promotion of Christian unity within the contemporary world. 2. The Orthodox Church grounds her unity on the fact that she was founded by Our Lord Jesus Christ, as well as on the communion in the Holy Trinity and in the Sacraments. This unity is manifested through the apostolic succession and the patristic tradition and to this day is lived within her. It is the mission and duty of the Orthodox Church to transmit and proclaim the truth, in all its fullness, contained in the Holy Scripture and the Holy Tradition, the truth which gives to the Church her catholic character. 3. The responsibility of the Orthodox Church and her ecumenical mission with regard to the unity were expressed by the Ecumenical Councils. These, in particular, stressed the indissoluble link existing between true faith and the sacramental communion. 4. The Orthodox Church, which unceasingly prays “ for the union of all ,” has always promoted dialogue with those separated from her, both far and near, playing a leading role in seeking ways and means to restore the unity of believers in Christ, participating in the ecumenical movement since its inception, and contributing to its formation and further development. In addition, the Orthodox Church, due to the ecumenical spirit and love for mankind by which she is distinguished and in accordance with the divine dispensation to “ have all men to be saved and to come unto the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim 2:4), has always fought for the restoration of Christian unity. Therefore, the Orthodox participation in the movement for the restoration of Christian unity does not run counter to the nature and history of the Orthodox Church. It is the consistent expression of the apostolic faith and Tradition in a new historical context. |
|
|
