| Если бы сказали, что средоточие догматики – союз Бога с человеком в Христе: тогда догматика была бы учением о Христе 41 . Для богословия догматического центр всего есть Бог . Идея о Боге – то начало, на котором покоится всё; учение о Боге – догмат всего. – При этом центре не исключаются из догматики, но занимают в ней определённое, приличное место и учения о Христе и человеке; при этом средоточии не теряется ни одна существенная часть догматики и не относится к ней ничего не принадлежащего ей 42 . При этом средоточии в составе догматики, согласно с содержанием откровения, являются Бог сам Себе, Бог в Его явлении тварям и человеку. При более близком внимании к тому же составу, открываются следующие предметы и части догматики: а) Бог в Себе; 1 . Единый по существу, 2 . Троичный в лицах. II. Бог в явлении тварям: а) Творец и Промыслитель. 1 . Мира вообще. 2 . Мира духов бестелесных. 3 . Человека. б) Бог Спаситель падшего человека. 1 . Бог Отец в совете о спасении человека; 2 . Бог Сын совершающий искупление человека; 3 . Бог дух св. совершающий освящение человека. в) Бог выполнитель цели своей о мире. 4 Так объясняли слова апостола о догматах св. Златоуст Hom.5. in ер. ed Ephes. comm, in ep. ad. Galat p. 710. Hom. 33 ad. ep. ad. Corinth. Феодорит, ad. Coloss 2 11. Феофилакт comm. in Pavli epist. 8 Orat. b. in Нехаёт. – In psal. 44. 4. Шестой вселенский собор говорить: «аще кто либо не содержит и не приемлет догматов благочестия и не так мыслит и проповедует, но покушается идти против оных: тогда будет анафема по определению прежде составленному св. и блаженными отцами... ибо мы сообразно с тем, что прежде определено, совершенно решили ниже прибавляти что либо, ниже убавляти, и не могли сделать иначе никоим образом». Прав. 1 тоже св. Златоуст Serm. 8. t. 5. p. 133. Horn. 33. in ep. ad. corinth. p. 462. Horn. 47. in. act. apost. p. 873), Кирилл алекс. (Lib. 2. in. Iohan. e. 3 p. 168). Отселе очевидно, как несправедливы новые протестанты Бретчнейдер, Шотт другие, когда выдают догмат за мнение господствующее в той или другой церкви, в то или другое время. |
| 349 He might have argued that this charge could not have been put forward in that form and those circumstances, i.e. outside Judaea, where alone a Roman governor could be expected or invited to take cognizance of breaches of the Law in the Jewish sense. The narrative of Acts makes the absence of any specific malefaction the ground on which the proconsul refuses to take cognizance. 350 It is rather severe to make this recognized defect the grounds for objecting to the narrative itself. The narrative in fact agrees very well with the workings of cognitio extra ordinem. It is within the competence of the judge to decide whether to accept a novel charge or not. 351 In the middle of the second century there were proconsuls of Asia who were ready to refuse to accept even the generally recognized charges against Christians, and to dismiss them out of hand. 352 The question is whether Jewish residents at Corinth, who presumably were not citizens of Corinth, could expect the proconsul to enforce their domestic law within the territory of a community that was a Roman colony; the passage in Acts distinguishes amply the Jews from the Corinthians proper. 353 This in turn raises the question of the synhedria and synagogues of the Diaspora, and the privileges granted to them by the Roman government. All that is certain, from the numerous decrees quoted by Josephus, is that the Jewish communities were protected against any interference with their religious and social customs on the part of the local governments of the Hellenistic cities. 354 There is no clear evidence that the local Sanhedrins had any formally recognized right to force obedience upon their own adherents. Juster argued that the high-priest or Ethnarch at Jerusalem had a general control in matters of faith over the local communes of the Diaspora, derived originally from Caesar the Dictator’s edict of toleration; which control might be delegated to the local Sanhedrins. 355 Certainly Saul’s authority in the mysterious mission to Damascus derived from the high-priest and not from the local community of Jews. |
| The message of His Beatitude Daniel, Patriarch of Romania, addressed to the participants of the 27 th Pan-Orthodox Conference of the Delegates of Orthodox Churches and Holy Dioceses on Matters Pertaining to Heresies and Para-religion with the theme: “Aspects of Contemporary Occultism,” in Corinth, Greece, November 2-4, 2015: We address our fraternal greetings to His Eminence Dionysios, Metropolitan of Corinth, the host of this meeting, and bless with paternal love all the participants in the 27 th Pan-Orthodox Conference “Aspects of the Contemporary Occultism.” We would also like to address our sincere congratulations to the organizers of this inter-Orthodox meeting which aims at presenting and studying the pastoral issues created today by the proselytism carried out by some occult currents. Such inter-Orthodox conferences are necessary in the context of the contemporary world, because in a society of strong contrasts, of profound discords, of individualistic relativism, Christian spiritual values are increasingly contested or ignored, which calls the Church to new pastoral work. The missionary and pastoral action of the Church must be lively, dynamic, and relevant to people nowadays, in order to counter the negative influences of contemporary occult trends, which are clear signs of a spiritual crisis of the modern times, and not a solution for this crisis. The ideological orientation of secularized capitalist society tries more and more to impose itself onto the conscience of every person, promoting a new individualistic and materialistic view of the world and life that questions traditional Christian values, refusing any form of institutionalized religion in favor of a individualistic spirituality, a spirituality of the self-sufficient ego. In this enormous vacuum of profound spiritual life of postmodern society caused by secularism, the prospect of the occult and Eastern practices becomes particularly tempting for contemporary man. Different directions are proposed to modern man from astrology to satanism, from re-actualizing the old techniques and methods of Chinese Mantic to aggressive new ways of Hindu and Buddhist mystic, that is, an array of spiritual methods of “turning inwardly,” of self-withdrawal, of self-discovery, in order to change the actual system of values, by changing the individual conscience. |
| “I told them St Paul collected money for Christians in Jerusalem. He collected it in Corinth, although Corinth was in the far-off territory of Greece, quite far from Palestine. I gave people the same reason now: probably you don’t know these people in Syria, but these are our brothers and sisters who are suffering. We have passed through great persecutions and World War II not so many years ago, so many of us remember what that is, or our parents remember how it was. And so we have to help those people who are suffering nowadays,”Father Alexander said. The Kremlin also expressed its support by saying it’s ready to consider a Russian citizenship request from about 50,000 Syrian Christians following the Russian Foreign Ministry publishing a collective request for a double Russian-Syrian citizenship from a group of Christians living in the Kalamoon district. However, the majority of Syrian Christians are determined to stay in the country protecting their heritage even under threat of being physically eliminated by terrorists. Sadly, it means the number of the victims of the carnage is to go up. Source: Voice of Russia Tweet Donate Share Code for blog Christians fall victim to the Syrian carnage admin Most of the armed conflicts in the Middle East go down to religious confrontation. Syria is a glaring example of this. Christians make up around 10 percent of country " s 20-million population. According to the Syrian Patriarch of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church Gregory Laham, 450,000 ... Since you are here… …we do have a small request. More and more people visit Orthodoxy and the World website. However, resources for editorial are scarce. In comparison to some mass media, we do not make paid subscription. It is our deepest belief that preaching Christ for money is wrong. Having said that, Pravmir provides daily articles from an autonomous news service, weekly wall newspaper for churches, lectorium, photos, videos, hosting and servers. Editors and translators work together towards one goal: to make our four websites possible - Pravmir.ru, Neinvalid.ru, Matrony.ru and Pravmir.com. Therefore our request for help is understandable. |
| The division among the Greek Orthodox parishes continued without resolution until 1930. On 9 April of that year, Patriarch Photios II of Constantinople, with the support of Archbishop Chrysostomos of Athens, appointed Metropolitan Damaskinos (Papandreou) of Corinth as exarch to America. 128 Having visited the United States in 1928 to collect the money for victims of the earthquake in Corinth, the metropolitan was well aware of the grave problems that afflicted the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and its parishes. Following his arrival on 20 May 1930, Metropolitan Damaskinos began a series of meetings with clergy and laypersons. Being a highly respected hierarch who was admired for both his deep faith and his administrative ability, Metropolitan Damaskinos found support among many persons of both political persuasions. In accordance with his instructions, he formulated proposals to resolve the difficult situation and submitted these to the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Based upon these recommendations, the Patriarchate, in cooperation with the Church of Greece, made two major decisions. First, Archbishop Alexander was relieved of his responsibilities. He was to be replaced by Metropolitan Athenagoras (Spirou) of Kerkyra, who was elected Archbishop of America on 13 August 1930. Second, all the bishops in America who had been involved in the dispute would be reassigned to new sees. Only Bishop Kallistos of San Francisco was permitted to remain in the United States to assist the new archbishop. While all the difficulties that afflicted the Greek Orthodox parishes in America were not resolved at once, these decisions provided a basis upon which reconciliation could take place. 129 THE IMPACT OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION The Russian Orthodox Archdiocese in America was also gravely afflicted by difficulties resulting from the political developments occurring in Europe following World War I. As we have seen, in the four decades prior to the war, the Russian Orthodox Archdiocese underwent a period of remarkable growth as a result of immigration and the return of Carpatho-Russian immigrants to the Orthodox Church. In addition to the parishes of these immigrants, the archdiocese also included a small number of parishes composed of either Arab, Serbian, Romanian, Albanian, or Bulgarian immigrants. Having about one hundred parishes in the continental United States by 1917, the Russian Orthodox Archdiocese had also established a number of institutions. Among these were the Theological Seminary in Minneapolis (1905); Saint Tikhon Monastery in South Canaan, Pennsylvania (1906); and the Holy Annunciation College for Women in Brooklyn, New York (1915). 130 |
| Similarly the understanding of the external marks of catholicity takes on a new emphasis as we believe is shown in the following example. Irenaeus mentions 1 Clement at one point 465 and refers incidentally to apostolic succession. But the interpretation of it that he gives is noteworthy and forms a clear picture of the development that had taken place in the understanding of the marks of catholicity. Whereas Clement, as we have seen, connects apostolic succession with the offering of the Gifts, meaning the Divine Eucharist – the dismissal from which of the Apostles’ successors had prompted the composition of the letter – this is overlooked by Irenaeus who sees the purpose of 1 Clement as being instead the renewal of apostolic faith in Corinth. The disturbance in Corinth which 1 Clement attempts to quell is for Irenaeus a matter of faith rather than of liturgy. Because apostolic succession, for the Church of his time, meant principally the guarantee of orthodoxy and the transmission of the apostolic tradition. In Tertullian, it is equally clear that “Catholic Church” is a technical term denoting the “Orthodox Church” in contradistinction to the heresies 466 . The term “Catholic Church” also has the sense of “orthodoxy” in the fragments of the so-called Muratori Canon. In this text, a distinction is made between those books of the New Testament which the “Catholic Church” accepts and uses and those which the heretics accept and which, therefore, “cannot be accepted by the Catholic Church” 467 . Here, too, the term “Catholic Church” means the true and Orthodox Church which possesses the correct canon of Holy Scripture in contrast to the heretical groups. It should be noted that the term does not indicate the “universality” of the Church in this text either, given that, when it is a matter of her “universality”, the Church is described as “one Church, spread over all the world” 468 . After Irenaeus and at the beginning of the third century, the term “Catholic Church” continues to be connected mainly with the notion of orthodoxy. |
| 638 There was, however, a small number of Roman military colonies founded mostly by Julius Caesar and Augustus, at a time when they had to provide land for an unusually large number of veterans and civilian settlers in a period of crisis. There was also a group of three or four military colonies in southern Asia Minor around the highlands occupied by the turbulent Pisidian mountaineers; these had been established by the generals of Augustus. It happens that the direction of Paul’s travels took him remarkably often through these Roman settlements. He visits Antioch and Lystra in Asia Minor, though Acts does not mention their status, and also two Roman colonies in Macedonia and Achaea, Corinth, and Philippi – where they were more frequent than in Asia Minor – and one of the three colonies on the long coasts of the province of Asia, Alexandria Troas. 639 This recurrence of the colonies in Acts, largely due to the Roman habit of placing their colonies at centres of communication, gives a misleading impression of the part played by colonies in the East. It is precisely because the Roman colony was exceptional that Acts notes the colonial status of Philippi, which was relevant to the story because the disturbances at Philippi involved a point of Roman custom. 640 The population of Roman settlers maintained themselves with some vigour in the eastern colonies, but they formed only a small proportion of the total local population, sometimes constituting a city within a city. The Roman class formed an enclave of which a passing stranger might not be aware in the smaller settlements, though the government was in its hands. In Acts, Antioch, Lystra, and Corinth have as many Hellenes and Jews in their streets as Romans. 641 Elsewhere in the hundreds of Greek and half-Greek cities, large and small, the Roman citizen was a somewhat rare bird. Tribal lists of inhabitants and even lists of annual magistrates from the Greek cities in the Julio-Claudian period frequently contain the names of no recognizable Roman citizens. |
| The Church’s unity is therefore rooted in the fact that the Lord who appears in one congregation is the identical Lord who appears in another congregation. Their Eucharistic experience is identical, because the same Lord appears when both groups gather together even though they gather separately. The Church’s unity therefore does not depend upon shared membership in an organization, but on the shared phenomena of the same Lord being among them. Because the Lord who appeared in Thessalonica was the same Lord who appeared in Corinth, the Christians in Thessalonica and Corinth belonged to the same Church. The Christians in those places—and throughout the world—had the same experience of Christ. The astonishing liturgical diversity that obtained early on (which included in the very early days a different New Testament canon in different churches) only served to emphasize the unity of the geographically scattered Church. It is important to remember how important this unity was—and how the unity revealed the Church as a new and heavenly reality. In those days, all the Christians of a given town, village, or hamlet met in the same place, under the liturgical leadership of the same pastor and his team of elders (i.e. the bishop and his team of presbyters). If they could not all fit in the same place on a Sunday, there might be another “overflow” group meeting elsewhere in the same village, under the liturgical leadership of one of the presbyters. But all the Christians in the village belonged to the same group, and were served by the same bishop and his presbyters, who served no one apart from them. Those Christians might have been a diverse lot. They might have included people of wildly differing languages, ethnicities, backgrounds, and colours—people who before their baptism were at odds with each other (one thinks of the early Church of Antioch containing both Jews and Gentiles). In the world the tribes to which they belonged might have been mutually hostile, existing in a state of sustained war. But in the Church, all these tribal hostilities were transcended, as the Christians living in the same village all worshipped together and were one because of their shared weekly experience of Christ. |
| Melito of Asia, bishop of Sardis, addressed a book to the emperor Marcus Antoninus Verus, a disciple of Fronto the orator, in behalf of the Christian doctrine. He wrote other things also, among which are the following: On the passover, two books, one book On the lives of the prophets, one book On the church, one book On the Lord " s day, one book On faith, one book On the psalms (?) one On the senses, one On the soul and body, one On baptism, one On truth, one On the generation of Christ, On His prophecy one On hospitality and another which is called the Key– one On the devil, one On the Apocalypse of John, one On the corporeality of God, and six books of Eclogues. Of his fine oratorical genius, Tertullian, in the seven books which he wrote against the church on behalf of Montanus, satirically says that he was considered a prophet by many of us. 25. Theophilus of Antioch Theophilus, sixth bishop of the church of Antioch, in the reign of the emperor Marcus Antoninus Verus composed a book Against Marcion, which is still extant, also three volumes To Autolycus and one Against the heresy of Hermogenes and other short and elegant treatises, well fitted for the edification of the church. I have read, under his name, commentaries On the Gospel and On the proverbs of Solomon which do not appear to me to correspond in style and language with the elegance and expressiveness of the above works. 26. Apollinaris Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis in Asia, flourished in the reign of Marcus Antoninus Verus, to whom he addressed a notable volume in behalf of the faith of the Christians. There are extant also five other books of his Against the Nations, two On truth and Against the Cataphrygians written at the time when Montanus was making a beginning with Prisca and Maximilla. 27. Dionysius of Corinth Dionysius, bishop of the church of Corinth, was of so great eloquence and industry that he taught not only the people of his own city and province but also those of other provinces and cities by his letters. Of these one is To the Lacedæmonians, another To the Athenians, a third To the Nicomedians, a fourth To the Cretans, a fifth To the church at Amastrina and to the other churches of Pontus, a sixth To the Gnosians and to Pinytus bishop of the same city, a seventh To the Romans, addressed to Soter their bishop, an eighth To Chrysophora a holy woman. He flourished in the reign of Marcus Antoninus Verus and Lucius Aurelius Commodus. 28. Pinytus |
| This volume is intended to provide an introduction to the theological thinking of Saint Maximus the Confessor. I stress ‘thinking’, rather than just ‘thought’, as there is already a host of introductions to his thought. Maximus himself provided such introductions – notably his Centuries on Love and his Centuries on Theology and the Incarnate Dispensation of the Son of God. In these works Maximus presents his thoughts in pithy form as a series of propositions, or at best brief paragraphs. They have been very popular, and both of them are available in two different English translations. More recently others have provided introductions to Maximus’ thought, or aspects of it: most famously and influentially, the great Swiss Catholic theologian, Hans Urs von Balthasar (Balthasar 1961, originally published in 1941). There is even an introduction to other people’s thinking about Maximus (Nichols 1993). But what has been lacking so far has been an introduction to Maximus’ thinking: and it is my hope that this book will help fill that gap. If it does, it will do that by providing, for the first time in English (or in many cases for any Western language save Latin and Romanian), translations of some of Maximus’ major theological treatises, drawn especially from his two collections of Ambigua, or Difficulties, in which Maximus does not simply present his conclusions, but displays a theological mind, drawing on Scripture and all that is meant in Orthodox Christianity by Tradition–the Fathers, the Councils, spiritual experience–and bringing this to bear on our understanding of God’s engagement with humankind, an engagement summed up in his assuming humanity itself in the Incarnation and overcoming the brokenness of fallen humankind in his death and resurrection. But the contrast between Maximus in his major treatises and in his condensed summaries is not at all that between ‘theology’ and ‘spirituality’ (despite the fact that the condensed summaries found a place in that great compendium of Orthodox spirituality, the Philokalia of St Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain and St Makarios of Corinth), for, as we shall see, even in the densest of his theological treatises, Maximus’ concern for the life of prayer and engagement with God is still uppermost. The purpose of theology is to safeguard against misunderstandings that frustrate a Christian life of prayer. |
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