[ CONTENTS
]© John S. Romanides
1 ) The key to the
transition of the Orthodox Catholic Tradition from an illegal to a legal
religion and then to an established Church lies in the fact that the Roman
Empire realised that it was not confronted simply by another form of religion or
philosophy, but by a well organised society of psychiatric clinics which cured
the happiness-seeking sickness of humanity and produced normal citizens with
selfless love dedicated to the radical cure of personal and social ills. The
relation between State and Church which developed was exactly parallel to that
between the State and modern medicine.
The incorporation of
the episcopate of Carolingian Francia into the Frankish army and its occupation
by military officers whose duty was to pacify the revolutionary Gallo-Roman
population is the key to understanding the so-called Great Schism between Roman
and Latin Christendoms. These Frankish bishops and their successors never
understood the meaning of Apostolic Tradition and succession which they reduced
to episcopal power over a system of sacramental magic which sends people either
to heaven or hell. This they transferred to the Papacy when they forcefully took
it over during a struggle which reached its final stages between 983 and 1046.
This break in
Apostolic Tradition and succession was provoked and sustained for centuries by
military and political power as a normal function within Latin Christendom.
Considered just as normal was the distortion of both the reality of the East
Roman Empire and its Church and civilisation which continues today under
modified guise. This guise caked in "Byzantine" honey does not change distortion
into truth.
2) Canon Law makes
specific provisions for the regular convocation of the Synods of bishops
presided over by a Metropolitan, Archbishop, or Patriarch at regular intervals
for dealing with the proper execution of the Church's mission of cure within
society. There are no such provisions for Ecumenical Councils.
The reason for this
is that the local synods were part of the original structure of the Church,
whereas the Ecumenical Synod was of an extra-ordinary and imperial nature. One
may draw a parallel between Ecumenical Councils and the Apostolic Council
convoked in Jerusalem (Acts 15, 6:6-29). Ecumenical Councils, however, were
convoked by the Roman Emperor for the purpose of signing into Roman Law what the
synods of Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches believed and practised in
common.
Arius, Nestorius and
Eutyches were condemned by local Councils first and then by Ecumenical Councils.
Paul of Samosata was condemned by a local council whose decision was accepted by
all other synods. The same was the case with Sabellius. Even at Ecumenical
Councils bishops participated as members of their own synods whose spokesmen
were their Metropolitans, Archbishops, and Patriarchs, or their legates. It
should be clear that neither can an Ecumenical Council become a substitute for
local synods, nor can local synods take precedence over an Ecumenical Council,
unless the one or the other strays from the faith. The reason for this is that
authority resides neither in the Ecumenical nor Local Council, but in the
glorified Prophets, Apostles and Fathers who participate in Councils or whose
teachings the Councils follow.
The method underlying
this presentation is rather simple. The New Testament writers and the Fathers
read back into history their own experience of purification and illumination of
the heart and glorification which they identify with that of the Prophets of all
ages beginning at least with Abraham. This is parallel to repetition of cure in
medical science passed on from doctors to doctors, except that in this case
Christ is the doctor Who personally cures and perfects His doctors in both the
Old and New Testaments. This historical succession of cure and perfection in the
Lord of Glory, both before and after His incarnation, is the heart and core of
the Biblical and Patristic Tradition and the Synodical System.
We divide our
presentation into 1) Historical Context, 2) Synods as Associations of
Psychiatric Clinics, 3) Synods and Civilisations, 4) Conclusions.
Biblical Faith is
one's co-operation with the Holy Spirit Who initiates the cure of the sickness
of possessive love in the heart and transforms it into love which does not seek
its own. This cure is consummated in glorification (theosis) and constitutes the
heart of the Orthodox Catholic Church, which replaced paganism as the core of
the Hellenic Civilisation of the Roman Empire.
Political architects
whose historians report history within the context of their plans for the future
claim that the world is being Westernised by means of technology and economics.
Orthodox Civilisation is listed among those which are arrested.
Their
claim that the Hellenic Civilisation of the Roman Empire disappeared in the
8th century [
2 ] and was replaced in the East by a
"Byzantine" Civilisation and Empire and in the West by a European Civilisation
is a modern modification of Charlemagne's theology of history.
Charlemagne (768-814)
fabricated this disappearance of the Roman Empire and its Civilisation in order
to solve a family problem. His grandfather, Charles Martel (715-741), had
finally suppressed Gallo-Roman revolutions in the battles of Poitiers and
Provence in 732 and 739, which were supported by Arabs and Numidian Romans who,
together with the Spanish Romans, had recently overthrown the Goths in Spain
(711-719). The Numidian Romans were under the command of Gonstantinople's
governor of Mauritania in Ceuta. Another Gallo-Roman revolution was suppressed
by Gharlemagne's father and uncle in 742, the year he was born.
Charlemagne had to
find a way to break the religious and cultural unity between his own enslaved
Romans and the Roman Empire which now extended from parts of Italy to the
frontiers of Persia. He devised a plan to convince his subjugated Romans that
the Papal States, called Romania and Res Publica Romana, under his family's
control since 756, was all that was left of the Roman Empire. The rest of the
Empire would become "heretical" and therefore a hateful "Greece", inhabited not
by Romans, but by "Greeks", and headed not by an Emperor of the Romans, but by
an Emperor of "Greeks". The Franks called the Empire Roman for the last time in
their Libri Carolini which attack the Empire as pagan and heretical. The Franks
then decided by their Council of Frankfurt in 794 to give the names Graeci to
the free Romans and Graecia to free Romania. This became Franco-Latin customary
law.
The
modern guardians of this law 1) replaced "Greek" with "Byzantine", and "heresy"
with "change of Civilisation". 2) Following Napoleon's plans for the dissolution
of the Ottoman Empire and of the ecclesiastical remains of the Roman Empire
within it, these same guardians destroyed the legal identity of the citizens of
Greece with the Romans of Constantinople, by presenting them as having been
under the yoke of this so-called "Byzantine Empire". 3) They have used this
fabrication to Balkanize the "Roman Milet" [
3 ] and destroy its Ecumenical Patriarchate of
New Rome Constantinople in the process.
Turning to
8th century Western Europe we are indeed confronted by real and
radical changes. Europe is dominated in its centre by the Empire of Charlemagne.
Gothic Spain is overrun by Arabs and Numidian Romans, who together had fought as
liberators of the Spanish Romans but ended up as their masters. These Numidians
were converted to Islam several times according to Ibn Khaldoun.
The
birth of Frankish Civilisation is described in a letter of St. Boniface to Pope
Zacharias (natione Graecus [
4 ]) in 741. The Franks had rid the Church in
Francia of all Roman bishops by 661 and had made themselves its bishops and
clerical administrators. They had divided up the Church's property into fiefs
which had been doled out as benefices according to rank within the pyramid of military vassalage. These Frankish bishops had no Archbishop and
had not met in Synod for eighty years. They had been meeting as army officers
with their fellow war-lords. They are, in the words of St. Boniface, "voracious
laymen, adulterous clergy and drunkards, who fight in the army fully armed and
who with their own hands kill both Christians and pagans" [
5 ].
Fifty three years
later the successors to these illiterate barbarians condemned the East Roman
Empire as "heretical" and "Greek" on Icons at their Council of Frankfurt in 794
and then on the Filioque at their Council of Aachen in 809. For 215 years the
Roman Popes refused to conform to their Frankish masters on Icons and the
Filioque.
These Frankish
bishops were neither familiar with the Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils,
nor were they aware of, nor interested in learning anything about, illumination
and glorification which were the presuppositions of these Councils. Between the
end of the 8th and the l2th centuries the Franks were familiar only
with St. Augustine, who was neither a Father of an Ecumenical Council, nor did
he understand Biblical illumination and glorification, which he confounded with
Neo-Platonic mysticism. He therefore did not understand the Apostolic Tradition
and succession and deviated sharply from St. Ambrose who had baptized him. What
the Franks finally accepted from the Eastern and Western Fathers they forced
into Augustinian categories and so created the myth of Platonising Eastern
Fathers, which is still dominant.
The Frankish bishops
encountered by St. Boniface understood Apostolic succession as a magical power
which allowed them to make it the property of their race and use it as the prime
means of keeping their subjugated populations pacified by fear of their
religious and military powers. Augustine's theories about original sin and
predestination helped them in this direction.
This schism between
Franks and Romans expanded into a schism between Franco-Latin and Roman
Christendom with their diametrically opposed understandings of the mission of
bishops and their synods within the Church and in society. The Franks literally
captured a medical association and transformed it into a quack medical
association. The East Franks completed the job when they took over the Papacy
definitively between 1012-1046.
While the Norman Franks were in process of expelling the Roman army
from Southern Italy and of helping the Italo-Franks wrest the Papacy from the
Franconian emperors, their Duke, William of Normandy, invaded England with Pope
Alexander II's blessing in 1066. He had his Lombard friend, the "Blessed Saint"
Lanfranc, the pope's teacher, installed as the first non-Roman /Saxon Archbishop
of Canterbury in 1070, and together they replaced all native
bishops with Franco-Latins. All Celtic and Saxon bishops and
abbots were dismissed en masse [
6 ] and sentenced to prison to die premature
deaths by torture and starvation [
7 ]. The new noblemen bishops from the Frankish
Empire were in turn killed by the people whenever opportunity presented itself
[
8 ]. Indeed the Saxons and Celts celebrated the
death of Lanfranc in 1089 by launching their third and most severe revolt
against the foreign intruders [
9 ]. Such reforms by military might became
crusades in both East and West. They ultimately provoked the Protestant
Reformation and met with little success among the East Romans and some among the
Slavs.
This
.tradition of killer bishops, clergy and monks was given its near final
theological foundation by "Saint" Bernard of Clairvaux in his sermons "De
Laude novae militiae ad midites Templi" [
10 ] in which he argues that the religious
Knight Templer "who kills for religion commits no evil but
rather does good, for his people and himself. If he dies in battle, he gains
heaven; if he kills his opponents, he avenges Christ. Either way, God is
pleased," [
11 ]. Its final form was given by the
Inquisition which condemned to death but usually turned executions over to
laymen:
Orthodox Civilisation
may indeed become arrested, not, however, because of Westernisation; but because
of strong doses of Franco-Latinisation introduced by Peter the Great
(1682-1725), whose religious policies became the law of the Neo-Hellenic Nation
in 1827.
Western Europe had
been in a long process of De-Franco-Latinisation by means of powerful elements
of Re-Greco-Romanisation, but not in its Apostolic form. Its embryo appeared in
the l2th century with the rise of the middle class and went into labor during
the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. It was born in the Enlightenment
and matured during the American and French Revolutions. American and French
Democracies, based on human rights and the equality of all citizens, began the
progressive destruction of the class distinctions which had been imposed by the
Franks and their allies, who had brought Latin Christendom into existence on the
ruins of those parts of Roman Christendom they conquered, including the Papacy.
Franco-Latin metaphysics, cosmology and psychology were made past history by
parallel developments in modern science.
But this has neither
all happened everywhere, nor at the same time. Royalties, nobilities, the
Papacy, and those Reformation Churches which still serve as props for the
remnants of Teutonic royalty and nobility, badly need the identification of
Franco-Latin and Western Civilisations for their own survival.
It is exactly this
identity which parts of the Reformation and the American and French Revolutions
rejected.
We must have a clear
vision of the context within which both Church and State saw the contribution of
the Prophets to the cure of the sickness of the human personality and its
perfection in order to understand both the mission of Synods and the reason why
the Roman Empire incorporated them into its code of law. Neither Church nor
State reduced the mission of the Church to salvation by forgiveness of sins for
entrance into heaven after death. This would be identical to doctors forgiving
their patients for being sick so that they may be cured after death. Both Church
and State knew very well that forgiveness of sins was only the beginning of the
cure of the happiness-seeking sickness of humanity. This cure passed through the
purification and illumination of the heart and culminated in the perfection of
glorification. This resulted not only in proper preparation for life after death
but also in the transformation of society here and now from that of selfish and
self-centred individuals to that of individuals with selfless love which does
not seek its own.
Everyone will see the
glory of God in Christ and reach that degree of perfection one has both chosen
and worked for. Following Saint Paul and the Gospel of John, the Fathers support
that those who do not see the resurrected Christ in glory in this life, either
in a mirror dimly by unceasing prayers and psalms in the heart, or face to face
in glorification, will see His glory as eternal and consuming fire and outer
darkness in the next life. The uncreated glory that Christ has by nature from
the Father is heaven for those whose selfish love has been cured and transformed
into selfless love, and hell for those who choose to remain uncured in their
selfishness.
Not only are the
Bible and the Fathers clear on this, but so are the Orthodox Icons of the last
judgement. The same golden light of glory within which Christ and His friends
are enveloped becomes red as it flows down to envelope the damned. This is the
glory and love of Christ, which purifies the sins of all but does not glorify
all. All humans will be led by the Holy Spirit into all the Truth which is to
see Christ in glory, but not all will be glorified. "Those whom he justified
those he also glorified", according to St. Paul (Rom. 8:30). The parable of
Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham and of the rich man in the place of torment is
clear. The rich man sees but he does not participate (Luke 16:19-31 ) .
The Church does not
send anyone to heaven or hell, but prepares the faithful for the vision of
Christ in glory, which everyone will have. God loves the damned as much as He
loves His saints. He wants the cure of all but not all accept His cure. This
means that the forgiveness of sins is not sufficient preparation for seeing
Christ in glory.
It goes without
saying that the Anselmian tradition whereby the saved are those to whom Christ
supposedly reconciled God is not an option within the Orthodox Tradition.
Commenting on 2 Cor. 5:19, for example, St. John Chrysostom says that one must
"be reconciled to God. Paul did not say, `Reconcile God to yourselves', for it
is not He who hates, but we. For God never hates".
It is
within the above context that the State understood the Church's mission of cure
within society. Otherwise religions promising happiness after death are not much
different from each other.
1 Cor. 12-15 is a
unique window through which one may look at the reality of the Church as the
Body of Christ. Membership in the Church has its degrees of cure and perfection
within two groupings, the illumined and the glorified. The members of the Body
of Christ are clearly listed in 1 Cor. 12:28.
One begins by
becoming a private individual believer (idiotes) who says "amen" during
corporate audible worship. At this stage one is engaged in the purification of
one's heart under the direction of those who are already temples of the Holy
Spirit and members of the Body of Christ.
The degrees of
illumination begin with the foundation charisma of "kinds of tongues" at the
bottom in eighth place and reach up to the "teachers" in third place.
At the head of the
local Church are the "Prophets" in second place, who have received the same
revelation as the "Apostles" (Eph. 3:5) in first place, and are together with
them the foundation of the Church (Eph. 2:20). Apostles and Prophets are the
foundation of the Church in a way similar to doctors being the foundation of
hospitals.
"Kinds of tongues" are the foundation on which all the charismata are built and
are temporarily suspended only during glorification (1 Cor.13:8). As an Apostle,
St. Paul puts himself at the head of the list of members God has placed in the
Church. Yet he still has the foundation charisma of "kinds of tongues". He
writes, "I thank God in tongues more than all of you" (1 Cor. 14:18). This means
that "kinds of tongues" belong to all levels of charismata within the Body of
Christ. Paul's question, "do all speak in tongues?" is a reference to the
"private individuals" who do not yet have the gift of tongues and are therefore
not yet members of the Body of Christ and temples of the Holy Spirit [
13 ].
The illumination and
glorification of the members of the Body of Christ are not grades of authority
by human appointment or election. They are those whom God prepares and places
within the Church for advancement to higher degrees of cure and perfection. That
Paul calls on all lower degrees of membership in the Body of Christ to seek
advancement to higher spiritual stages means clearly that all are supposed to
become Prophets, i.e. to reach glorification. "I indeed want all of you to speak
in tongues that you may prophesy" (1 Cor. 14:5).
This Pauline Church
is like a psychiatric clinic. But its understanding of the malady of human
personality is much more sophisticated than anything now known in modern
medicine. In order to see this reality we must look through Paul into the
Biblical understanding of human normality and abnormality.
The normal human
being is he who has been led into all the Truth by the Spirit of Truth, i. e.
into vision of Christ in His Father's glory (John 17). It is because the
Apostles and Prophets are glorified in Christ that the people believe that God
has sent His Son and that they too can be cured by selfless love (ibid.). Humans
who do not see the uncreated glory of God are not normal. "All have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). In other words the only human who
was born normal is the Lord of Glory, Who by choice assumed the blameless
passions (i. e. hunger, thirst, weariness, sleep, fear of death, etc.), although
by nature the source of glory, which abolishes them.
The other side of
this coin is that God does not reveal His glory to everyone because He does not
wish to harm those not prepared for such a vision. The surprise of the Old
Testament Prophets that they have seen God and yet live and the people's request
that Moses ask God to cease showing His glory, which had become unbearable, is
clear in this respect.
The concern of the
Apostolic Churches was not to reflect and speculate about God in Himself, since
He remains a mystery to the intellect even when He reveals His glory in Christ
to those who participate in the mystery of His Son's Cross by their
glorification. Their only concern was each individual's cure in Christ, which is
brought about by the purification and illumination of the heart and
glorification in this life (1 Cor. 12:26) for service to society. "... Those
whom he has justified, he has also glorified" (Rom. 8:30) means that
illumination and glorification are interdependent in this life, yet not
identical.
The
sickness of human personality consists of the weakening of the heart's communion
with the glory of God (Rom. 3:23), by its being swamped by the thoughts of the
environment (Rom. 1:, 21,24, 2:5). In such a state one imagines God to be in the
image of one's sick self or even of animals (Rom. 1:22). The inner person (eso
anthropos) suffers spiritual death "because of which (eph'ho) [
14 ] all have sinned" (Rom. 5:12) by becoming
enslaved to the instinct to self-preservation which deforms love by its bondage
to the self-centred search for security and happiness.
The cure of this
sickness begins by the purification of the heart of all thoughts (Rom. 2:29),
both good and bad, and their restriction to the intellect. In order to do this
one's spirit dissipated in the brain must spin itself by prayer into a ball of
light and return to the heart. It becomes like a repaired diskette to which
prayer texts from the brain may be transferred and back to the brain. One thus
becomes free from slavery to everything in the environment, e. g. to self
indulgence, wealth, property and even to one's parents and relatives (Math.
10:37; Luke 14:26). The purpose of this is not to attain to Stoic indifference
or lack of love, but to allow the heart to accept the prayers and psalms that
the Holy Spirit transfers there from the intellect and energises unceasingly
while the intellect is occupied with daily activities and while asleep. It is
thus that sick love begins its cure.
This is the context
of St. Paul's reference to the Holy Spirit praying in the heart. The Holy Spirit
as such advocates on behalf of all humans "with sighs not spoken" (Rom.8:26).
But He transfers the prayers and psalms of the intellect to the human spirit in
the heart when it is purified of all thoughts, both good and bad. At this point
one's own spirit empowered by the Holy Spirit does nothing else but pray and
recite psalms unceasingly while the intellect engages in its normal daily
activities liberated from happiness-seeking self-centredness. Thus one prays
with one's spirit in the heart unceasingly and one prays with the intellect at
given times. This is what Paul means when he writes, "I will pray with the
spirit, but I will also pray with the intellect. I will recite psalms with the
spirit, but I will also recite psalms with the intellect" (1 Cor. 14:15).
Paul has just told us
that praying by means of other tongues than one's own includes Old Testament
psalms. He is, therefore, not speaking about incomprehensible audible prayers
since the psalms were familiar to all. Paul is speaking about the prayers of
one's spirit in the heart which are audible only to those with this same
charisma of "kinds of tongues". Those who did not yet have this gift could not
hear the prayers and psalms in the hearts of those who did have this gift.
The Corinthians in
the state of illumination had introduced the innovation of conducting corporate
worship in the heart in the presence of the "private individuals" who had not
yet received this gift of "kinds of tongues". This made it impossible for these
"private individuals" to be edified and say their "amen" at the proper times
simply because they could not hear.
Paul states clearly
that "no one hears", (1 Cor.14,2). "if I come to you speaking by tongues, what
will I benefit you if I do not speak to you?" (ibid. 14:6-7). "For if the
trumpet gives an unmanifested sound, who will prepare for battle? Thus also you,
if you do not give a well-shaped word by means of the tongue, how will that
which is spoken be known?... Thus many may happen to be the kinds of sounds in
the world, and none are soundless. For if I do not know the force of the sound,
I will be a foreigner to the speaker and the speaker a foreigner to me". (1 Cor.
14:8-11). Those without the gift of "kinds of tongues" must hear the "force of
the sound" of the prayers and psalms to react with their "amen" (ibid.
14:11,16). One must not pray and recite psalms with "unmanifested sound," in the
presence of those without this gift of tongues (ibid. 14:10,11). "For you give
thanks well, but the other is not edified" (ibid. 14:17).
When Paul says, "he
who prophesies is greater than him who speaks in tongues, except if he
interprets that the church may receive edification" (1 Cor. 14:5), he means that
he who speaks only in tongues must learn to translate the psalms and prayers in
his heart into psalms and prayers of his intellect to be recited audibly. When
he thus learns to pray and recite psalms simultaneously with his spirit and his
intellect he may then participate in corporate thanksgiving for the benefit of
the "private individuals" who will know when to say their Amen. "Thus let him
who speaks in tongues pray that he may translate. For if I pray in tongue, my
spirit prays, but my intellect is without fruit. So what is (the situation)? I
will pray with the spirit, but I will also pray with the intellect. I will
recite psalms with the spirit, but I will also recite psalms with the intellect.
For if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the
private individual say the Amen to your thanksgiving? Because he does not know
what you say. You give thanks well, but the other is not edified. I thank God in
tongue more than all of you, but in church I prefer to speak five words with my
intellect, so that I may instruct others, rather than ten thousand words in
tongue" (1 Cor. 14:13-19).
Paul never says that
one interprets what another is saying in tongues. One interprets what he himself
is saying in tongues. In each case where Paul relates "speaking in tongues" to
"translation" it is always the one who has the gift of tongues who translates
himself in order to be heard audibly for the benefit of the "private
individuals". It is within this context that Paul directs that "if one speaks in
tongues, he should be grouped in twos or the most threes, and let one translate.
If there is not a translator, let him keep quiet in church, let him speak to
himself and to God" (1 Cor. 14:27-28). The interpreter is clearly he who has the
gift of translating his own prayers of his own spirit in his own heart to his
own intellect that they may become audible for the edification of others.
Otherwise he must keep quiet and restrict himself to praying in tongues which
others are also doing but also audibly. Paul thus deprives those with only the
gift of kinds of tongues of their majority power to impose their innovation of
corporate prayers by only tongues in the presence of the "private individuals".
Paul is speaking
about psalms and prayers not recited by one's own tongue, but heard coming from
the heart. This illumination of the heart neutralises enslavement to the
instinct to self-preservation and begins the transformation of possessive love
into selfless love. This is the gift of faith to the inner person which is one's
justification, reconciliation, adoption, peace, hope and vivification.
These unceasing
prayers and psalms in the heart (Eph. 5:18-20), otherwise called "kinds of
tongues" (1 Cor. 12:28), transform the private individual into a temple of the
Holy Spirit and member of the Body of Christ. They are the beginning of one's
liberation from bondage to the environment, not by retreat from it, but by
controlling it, not exploitatively, but by selfless love. It is thus that, "the
law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has liberated me from the law of sin
and death...If one does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to
Him. If Christ is in you, then the body is dead to sin, whereas the Spirit is
life unto justice..." (Rom. 8:2ff).
As love is being
cured by perfection one receives the higher charismata listed by Paul in 1 Cor.
12:28 which are consummated in glorification. Paul states that, "if one is
glorified, all members rejoice" (1 Cor.12:26) in order to explain why Prophets
are second to the Apostles and before all other members of the body of Christ.
To be justified by the prayers and psalms of the Holy Spirit in the heart is to
see Christ in a mirror dimly (1 Cor. 13:12). Glorification is the coming of "the
Perfect" (1 Cor. 13:10) by seeing Christ face to face (1 Cor. 13:12). In saying,
"I know now in part" (ibid.) Paul is referring to his current state of
illumination or justification. By his next phrase, "but then I will be known as
I was known" (ibid.), Paul is saying that he will be glorified as he had been
glorified. In the state of illumination one is a child. Once glorified one
returns to illumination a man (1 Cor. 13:11).
During glorification,
which is revelation, prayer in the heart (tongues), knowledge and prophecy,
together with faith and hope, are abolished since replaced by Christ Himself.
Only love does not fall away (1 Cor. 13:8-11). During revelation words and
concepts about and to God (prayers) are abolished. After glorification one
returns to illumination. Knowledge, prophecy, tongues, faith and hope return to
join love which had not fallen away. Those words and concepts used in prayer and
teaching by one glorified to lead others to glorification are inspired and to be
abolished in glorification.
It is this vision of
the resurrected Christ in glory which Paul had and which puts Apostles and
Prophets at the head (1 Cor. 12:28) and foundation (Eph. 2:20) of the Church.
This foundation includes women prophets (Acts 2:17, 21:9, 1 Cor. 11:5) and is
the context of Paul's statement that in Christ there is neither male nor female
(Gal. 3:28).
Glorification is not
a miracle, but the normal final stage of the transformation of selfish love into
selfless love. Both Paul and John clearly consider vision of Christ in glory in
this life as necessary for the perfection of love and service to society (John
14:21-24, 16:22, 17:24, 1 Cor. 13:10-13, Eph. 3:3-6). The appearances of the
resurrected Christ in glory were not and are not miracles to astound observers
into believing in His Godhead. The miracle was the crucifixion of the Lord of
Glory, not His resurrection. The resurrected Christ appears only for the
perfection of love, even in the case of Paul who had reached the threshold of
glorification (Gal.1:14ff), not knowing the Lord of Glory he was about to see
had been born, crucified and resurrected. 1 Cor. 15:1-11 are the glorifications
which complete Paul's treatment of spiritual gifts begun in 1 Cor. 12:1.
All subsequently
glorified in history are equal to the Apostles in their participation in
Pentecost because they too have been guided into all the Truth (Acts 10.
47-11:18). All the Truth is the resurrected and ascended Christ Who returned in
the uncreated tongues of fire of Pentecost to dwell with His Father in the
faithful who have become temples of His Spirit advocating in their hearts. He
thus made the Church His body against which the gates of death can no longer
prevail.
Glorification is both
the soul's and body's participation in immortality and incorruption for the
perfection of love. This may be of short or long duration. After an initial loss
of orientation one goes about one's daily work seeing everything saturated by
the glory of God which is neither light nor darkness, nor similar to anything
created. The passions, which had been neutralised and made blameless by
illumination, are abolished. During glorification one does not eat, drink,
sleep, or fatigue and one is not effected by heat or cold. These phenomena in
the lives of saints (prophets) both before and after the incarnation of the Lord
of Glory are not miracles but the restoration of humans to normality. It is
within this context that one places such sayings of Christ to the living, but
sick, that "I came that they have life (in illumination) and that they have it
(in glorification) abundantly" (John 10:10). The gospel of John, and especially
14-16, is a detailed description of the cure of illumination and John 17 is
Christ's prayer for the cure of glorification.
Gerontologists have
concluded that the aging process is a sickness and are looking into whether
death itself is also a sickness. In this respect both the glorified and their
relics should prove of interest since many hundreds of them remain with their
bodies intact for centuries in an intermediary state between corruption and
incorruption. One of the oldest examples is St. Spyridon on the island of Corfu
who was a Father of the First Ecumenical Council in 325. There are 120 in Kiev
alone.
This is the context
of Paul's statement that "even this creation will also be liberated from bondage
to corruption unto the freedom of the glory of the children of God" (Rom. 8:21).
It is clear from the context that "the freedom of the glory" is here freedom
from mortality and corruption. But even those whose inner person has been
adopted by illumination and who have tasted of physical immortality and
incorruption during and limited to the period of their glorification await "the
adoption, the liberation of our body" (Rom. 8:23). "The dead will be raised
incorruptible and we will be changed... this corruptible will put on
incorruption and this mortal will put on immortality..." (1 Cor. 15:53,54). One
knows this not by speculation on Biblical texts, but from the experience of
glorification, i. e. from "the freedom of the glory of the children of God." The
experience of glorification and not only Biblical texts is the basis of the
Church's belief in the physical resurrection of the biological part of the
person.
The distinction
between active and contemplative lives does not exist within the Body of Christ.
The Holy Spirit's gift of unceasing prayers and psalms in the heart makes such a
distinction impossible. It can exist only outside the Body of Christ.
No one can say Lord
Jesus in the heart except by the Spirit and no one can say Anathema Jesus in the
Spirit (1 Cor.12:3). This is Biblical and Patristic spirituality and the power
by which it was impossible to torture a temple of the Holy Spirit into
renunciation of Christ. Such renunciation simply proved that one had not been a
member of the Church. The primary mission of the temples of the Holy Spirit was
to work at whatever profession they were engaged in and to seek to pass on their
own cure to others. They literally worked in their societies in a capacity
similar to that of psychiatrists. Unlike them, however, they did not seek mental
equilibrium by conformity to social standards of normality. Their standard of
normality was glorification. Their healing power was not and is not of this
world. Yet they are in this world as part of its transformation.
All who have reached
glorification testify to the fact that "it is impossible to express God and even
more impossible to conceive Him" because they know by their experience that
there is no similarity whatsoever between the created and the uncreated. God is
"unmoved mover" and "moved" and "neither one. nor oneness nor unity,. nor
divinity... nor sonship, nor fatherhood, etc." in the experience of
glorification. The Bible and dogmas are guides to and abolished during
glorification. They are not ends in themselves and have nothing to do with
metaphysics, either with analogia entis or with analogia fidei.
This means that words
and concepts which do not contradict the experience of glorification and which
lead to purification and illumination of the heart and glorification are
Orthodox. Words and concepts which contradict glorification and lead away from
cure and perfection in Christ are heretical.
This is the key to
the decisions of all Seven Roman Ecumenical Councils as well as that of the
Eighth of 879 and especially of the Ninth of 1341.
Most historians of
dogma do not see this because they believe the Fathers were, like Augustine,
searching by meditation and contemplation to understand the mystery of God
behind words and concepts about Him. They induct even such Fathers as Gregory
the Theologian into the army of Latin theology by translating him to say that to
philosophise about God is permitted only to "past masters of meditation,"
instead of "to those who have passed into theoria", which is vision of Christ
"in a mirror dimly", by "kinds of tongues" and "face to face" in
"glorification".
The Fathers never
understood the formulation of dogma as part of an effort to intellectually
understand the mystery of God and the incarnation. St. Gregory the Theologian
ridicules such heretics: "Do tell me, he says, what is the unbegottenness of the
Father, and I will explain to you the physiology of the generation of the Son
and the procession of the Spirit, and we shall both of us be frenzy-stricken for
prying into the mystery of God".
Neither did the
Fathers ever entertain the Augustinian notion that the Church understands the
faith better with the passage of time. Every glorification is a participation in
all the Truth of Pentecost, which can neither be added to nor better understood.
This also means that
Orthodox doctrine is purely pastoral since it does not exist outside the context
of the cure of individual and social ills and perfection.
Being a theologian is
first and foremost to be a specialist in the ways of the Devil. Illumination and
especially glorification convey the charisma of the discernment of spirits for
outwitting the Devil, especially when he resorts to teaching theology and
spirituality to those slipping from his grip.
The most important
result of l8th and l9th century Franco-Latinisation of Orthodox theological
education has been the disappearance of the context of the very existence of the
Church in purification, illumination and glorification from Dogmatic Manuals,
and especially from chapters on the Mysteries. These manuals were not aware of
the biblical and patristic fact that the charisma of the presbyterate
presupposed the state of prophecy. "...do not neglect the charisma within you
which was given to you by means of prophecy with the laying on of hands of the
presbyterate (1 Tim. 4:14)."
Creation is
completely dependent on God although there is no similarity whatsoever between
them. This means that there is no difference whatsoever between the educated and
non-educated when both are passing through the cure of illumination on their way
to becoming Prophets by glorification. Superior knowledge about created reality
does not give one any special claim on knowledge of the uncreated. Nor is
ignorance about created reality a disadvantage for reaching the highest
knowledge of uncreated reality.
Of the five Roman
Patriarchates the Franks captured that of Rome and replaced the Roman Popes with
Teutonic Popes by military force during a struggle which began in 983 and ended
in 1046. They thus extended their control of Apostolic succession to the Papacy
as part of their plans for world dominion. They transformed the Roman Fathers
into Greeks and Latins and attached themselves to the latter and so invented the
idea of two Christendoms. For Islam the Papacy is still Latin and Frank, and the
Patriarchs of New Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem are still Roman.
Ignorance of who and
what the glorified are and why they are second and successors to the Apostles
created the void which was filled by the infallibility of the Latin Pope.
Gregory of Nyssa
informs his readers that heresies appear in those churches which have no
Prophets. The reason is that their leaders attempt to commune with God by means
of meditation and contemplation about Him instead of by illumination and
glorification. To confuse one's concepts about God with God is idolatry, not to
mention bad scientific method.
It is about Apostles
and Prophets that St. Paul says, "For the spiritual person examines all, but he
is examined by no one" (1 Cor. 3:15). The reason for this is that by their
glorification in the uncreated glory of God in Christ they became witnesses to
the fact that "the leaders of this age" "crucified the Lord of Glory" (1 Cor.
2:8). This is the very same Lord of Glory (the Angel of Great Council), Who
calls Himself "He Who Is, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of
Jacob", the Almighty, the Wisdom of God, the Rock which followed (1 Cor.
10:1-4), which the Old Testament Prophets saw. St. John the Baptist was the
first of the Prophets to see this same Lord of Glory in the Flesh. Of course the
Jews also, who formally believed in the Lord of Glory, "had they known, would
not have crucified the Lord of Glory" (1 Cor. 2:8).
Paul
adapts the sayings, "that which eye has not seen and ear has not heard and has
not arisen in the heart of man, which God has prepared for those who love him",
to the crucifixion of the Old Testament Lord of glory, which "God has revealed
to us by His Spirit" (1 Cor.3:9-10). Those thus glorified are the only
authorities within the Orthodox Church. They produce the doctrinal formulations
which serve as guides to the cure of the centre of the human personality and as
warning signs to stay away from quack doctors who promise much and have nothing
to give in preparation for the experience of God's glory in Christ which
everyone will finally have.
By
Scriptures both Christ and the Apostles meant the Old Testament to which the New
Testament was added. The Gospels of Mark, Matthew and Luke were edited to serve
as pre-baptismal guides during the stages of the purification and the
illumination of the inner person in the heart. That Christ is the same Lord of
Glory Who revealed Himself to his O. T. Prophets became manifest at His baptism
and transfiguration wherein He showed the glory and rule (вбуйлеЯб) of His
Father as His own by nature. The Gospel of John was edited for the purpose of
continuing one's advance within illumination (John 13:31-16) and press on to
glorification (John 17) by which one fully sees the glorification of the Lord of
Glory in His Father and the latter in His Son (John 13:31, 18-21). This was the
reason why John was called the "spiritual Gospel" [
16 ].
Those being thus
initiated into the Body of Christ did not learn about the incarnation, baptism,
transfiguration, crucifixion, death, burial, resurrection, ascension and
pentecostal return of the Lord of Glory in His Spirit's uncreated tongues of
fire to become the head of His Body, the Church, by simply studying texts of the
Bible. They studied the Bible as an integral part of the process of having their
hearts purified, illumined and readied for glorification, in the same Lord of
Glory, Who had glorified His Old Testament Prophets, but now in His human nature
born from the Virgin Mary.
It was within this
context that the ancient Church identified Christ with the Lord, Angel and
Wisdom by Whom God created the world and glorified His friends, the prophets,
and by Whom He delivered Israel from bondage and guided her to the time when He
Himself became flesh to put an end to the rule of death over His (O. T.) Church
(Matt. 16:18). In spite of their glorification the O. T. Prophets died. But now
"if one keeps my word, one will never see death" (John 8:52-53). There is now a
first resurrection of the inner person (Rev. 20:5) and a second resurrection of
the body (Rev. 20:6) and there is also a second death of the body (Rev. 20:14).
Even
such heretics as the Arians and Eunomians, condemned by the First and Second
Ecumenical Councils [
17 ], took this identity of Christ with the Old
Testament Lord of Glory for granted. However, they claimed that this Angel of
Glory was the first creation of God's will from non-being before both time and
the ages and not co-eternal with the Father. They used the visibility of the
Angel of Glory to the Prophets as proof of His created nature in a way somewhat
similar to those gnostics who identified this Old Testament Angel with their
lesser creator god of this supposed evil world and who duped Israel.
The Arians and
Eunomians either ignored or rejected the fact that by glorification one becomes
god by grace (theosis) and that one therefore sees the uncreated glory and rule
(вбуйлеЯб) of God in Christ by means of God Himself. At stake was the fact that
God Himself reveals Himself to His glorified friends and not by means of a
creature, with the sole exception of the created nature of His Son. Yet the
grace and rule (вбуйлеЯб) of illumination and glory which Christ communicates to
His Body the Church is uncreated. The Franco-Latin doctrine that communicated
grace is created has no place in the tradition of the Ecumenical Councils.
The
reason why the above aspects of the Ecumenical Councilsplay no role in the Latin
and Protestant histories of doctrine is thefact that Augustine deviated sharply
from Ambrose and the Fathers in his understanding of the appearances of the
Logos to the O. T. prophets [
18 ]. His misunderstandings became the core of
the Franco-Latin tradition. The Protestant and Latin histories of doctrine,
which are aware of Augustine's deviation from this ancient identification of
Christ with this Angel of Glory, assume that it was dropped from the tradition
because of its usage by the Arians. However this tradition was preserved intact
within the Churches of the Roman Empire and continues to be the heart of the
Orthodox tradition. This is the sole context for the Trinitarian and
Christological terms: Three substances, one essence and the homoousion of the
Logos with the Father and us. They were and remain meaningless in the
Augustinian context.
Augustine had
mistakenly believed that it was only the Arians who identified the Logos with
this O. T. Angel of Glory. He was not aware that both Ambrose, the bishop he
claims to have opened his Manichaean mind to the Old Testament and baptised him,
and all other Fathers did the same. The Arians and Eunomians had argued that
proof that the Logos was created was that He was by nature visible to the
Prophets, whereas the Father alone was invisible. Augustine had not understood
the Biblical experiences of illumination and glorification, which he had
confounded with Neo-Platonic illumination and ecstasy. He relegated
glorification to life after death and identified it with the vision of the
divine substance which supposedly satisfies man's desire for absolute happiness.
His utilitarian understanding of love made it impossible for him to understand
the selfless love of glorification in this life. In this regard he did not
differ from the Arians he was attacking.
Within the above
Neo-Platonic presuppositions Augustine solved the problem at hand with the
following explanation: the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, being equally
invisible, supposedly reveal themselves and their messages to the prophets by
means of various creatures which they bring into existence to be seen and heard
and which they then cause to pass out of existence, such as the glory, cloud,
fire, burning bush, etc. God permanently became visible in the human nature of
His Son by Whom He communicates messages and concepts. Yet He supposedly also
continues to reveal visions and messages by created means which He passes into
and out of existence as needed, such as the bird at the baptism of Christ, the
tongues of fire of Pentecost, the glory /light /rule (вбуйлеЯб) of God revealed
at the transfiguration, the cloud /glory on which Christ went to heaven, the
voice of the Father by whichHe announced His pleasure in His Son, the fire of
hell, etc.
These
verbal symbols by which the Old and New Testamentwriters expressed experiences
of illumination and glorification werethus reduced to temporary objects and
unbelievable miracles [
19 ]. This became the Franco-Latin tradition to
which both Latins and Protestants still basically adhere to.
One of the most
remarkable side effects of such misunderstandings is the use of the word
"kingdom" which saturates translations ofthe New Testament and which never once
appears in the Greek original. The Greek term "вбуйлеЯб of God" designates the
uncreated rule of God and not the created Kingdom ruled by God.
The
Holy Spirit advocating in one's heart "with sighs unspoken", (Rom. 8:26) is not
in itself membership in the Body of Christ. One must respond with one's own
unceasing prayer of one's spirit so that the Spirit of God may testify to our
spirit "that we are children of God and co-heirs of Christ, that since we
co-suffer that we may also be co-glorified", (Rom. 8:16-17). Although this
response is our own, it is also a gift of God. This is exactly what St. Paul
presupposes when he commands, "Pray unceasingly... Quench not the Spirit. Do not
disregard prophecies". (1 Thes. 5:17-19). Paul is here telling us to take care
to remain temples of the Holy Spirit by preserving our spirit's unceasing prayer
in the heart that we may become prophets by glorification. This is also why such
Fathers as St. John Chrysostom says, "Let us not think that we have become
members of the Body once and for all" [
20 ]
Baptism by water unto
forgiveness of sins is an indelible mystery because God's forgiveness for being
sick is the given fact for the beginning of cure. However, baptism by the Spirit
is not an indelible mystery since one either does have, or does not have, or may
lose, unceasing prayer in the heart. Whether one responds or not the Holy Spirit
advocates in the heart of every single human being whether he believes in Christ
or not. In other words the love of God calls everyone equally but not all
respond.
Those who do not
respond should not imagine themselves to be temples of the Holy Spirit and
members of the Body of Christ and thereby impede others from responding. Those
in the state of illumination pray together in their liturgies as temples of the
Holy Spirit and members . of the Body of Christ that non-members become members
and former members become again members since this was not guaranteed to them by
their baptism of water unto forgiveness of sins.
At some point in the
history of the early Church the charisma of simultaneously translating the
psalms and prayers from the heart to the intellect for the corporate worship
benefit of the private individuals was replaced by fixed written liturgical
texts with fixed points at which laypersons (idiotes) responded with their amen,
Kyrie eleison, etc. Also the prayer in the heart was reduced to either a short
prayer (e. g. Lord Jesus Christ have mercy upon me the sinner) or a sentence
from a psalm (a form found in the desert Fathers of Egypt brought to the West by
St. John Casaian). Otherwise the charismata remained intact.
Gregory of Tours described the phenomena of both unceasing prayer
and glorification. But having not understood what they are, he described them as
miracles and in a confused way [
21 ]. The Franks continued this confusion and
finally confounded illumination and glorification with Augustine's Neo-Platonic
mysticism, rightly rejected by most of the Reformation.
The origin of the
synodical system are 1) the group of Prophets within each congregation and 2)
the Apostles who supervised churches they established.
It was from among the
Prophets that the bishop and presbyters originated within the congregations. The
general oversight of geographical groupings of churches by the Apostles was
continued by the mutual supervision of churches by Synods of Bishops
representing their own clergy of glorified and illumined. This is why the
bishops were successors to the apostles.
At some point
congregations like the one in Laodicea (Rev. 3:14-22) increased to such a point
that they were accepted as semi-normal so long as they remained under
supervision. It was evidently at this juncture that congregations appeared
headed by presbyters instead of bishops since there were not enough glorified to
cover them.
That bishops must be
elected from among the glorified remained the standard requirement within the
Orthodox tradition especially supported by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, right
up to the l9th century. The Prophets became generally detached from the
congregational clergy to become the central figures of what came to be known as
monasticism which in turn became the supply source for the episcopacy and
presidents of synods, i. e. Patriarchs, Metropolitans and Archbishops.
The main
responsibility of the Synods of Bishops was the promotion of the cure of
illumination and the perfection of glorification by their full support of all
programs dedicated to this task. This presupposed the election and ordination of
genuine doctors and the protection of the faithful from quack doctors whose
speculations either led away from this cure and perfection or stopped short of
them.
It is exactly because
of the identity of cure and perfection in all illumined and glorified that the
Orthodox never understood doctrinal authority as imposed from above. Also
because this common experience establishes the fact that "it is impossible to
express God and even more impossible to conceive Him", it was not possible for
the glorified to become split over the use of differing terms, so long as they
led to illumination and glorification. The split between the Chalcedonians and
the non-Chalcedonians is an example of one side accepting varying ways of saying
the same thing and of the other accepting only one way.
The power of
illumination and glorification not only withstood persecutions, but captured the
Roman Empire and became the heart of its Hellenic Civilisation. Historians not
familiar with this reality have no way of understanding its impact on society.
The criterion by which the Roman Empire made the Orthodox faith and practice
part of Roman law and its synodical system part of the imperial administration
was not much different from today's legal support for genuine medicine and for
the protection of citizens from unlicensed quack doctors. Religions and dogmas
which lead away from illumination and glorification were not only considered
dangerous for salvation, but also not conducive to producing the kind of
citizens who could help transform society.
The contribution of
the illumined and glorified to Hellenic Civilisation in both the Eastern and
Western parts of the Roman Empire was much greater than historians have been
able to imagine, even though much of the imperial expectations proved to be
utopian.
The claim that the
Roman Empire and its Hellenic Civilisation was replaced by a "Byzantine" Empire
and Civilisation is sheer caricature. Glorification had become the heart and
core of both the Eastern and Western parts of the Roman Empire. This tradition
of cure and perfection was of no interest to the Germanic conquerors of the West
Romans. But the East Romans continued this tradition which is not "Byzantine"
but Apostolic.
The Merovingian Kings
of the Franks first usurped veto powers over the election of Roman bishops. Then
they usurped the right to appoint Roman bishops. In doing this they discovered
the profit to be had by selling the office of bishop to the highest bidder. At
this point Roman bishops within Francia lost contact with the illumination and
glorification which survived among their clergy, monks and people. Then the
Carolingian Franks forced themselves upon the Church as bishops with the special
responsibility of policing the Romans, now all reduced to variations of serfdom.
Latin royalties and nobilities made apostolic succession their class property.
The disobedience of slaves and commoners to this apostolic succession was
corrected by the episcopal armies.
Not one of the
8th and 9th century Frankish doctrinal initiatives were
the result of searching for information and explanations from the Romans whose
doctrinal formulations they were tampering with. The Franks were at this time
not capable of dialogue simply because they were ignorant barbarians with an
unbelievable self-confidence that they are God's chosen race and that Augustine
is the best guide to all essentials of the faith. Unfortunately the bishop of
Hippo did not understand Biblical illumination and glorification.
Some centuries later
the Franks did begin to become aware of the Fathers of the Roman Ecumenical
Councils. They simply subjected them to their own tradition and made Augustine
the key to their interpretation. Thus they did not see and the Latins still do
not see illumination of the heart and glorification either in the Old and New
Testaments or in the Fathers. They had not and still do not see the need to
transform selfish happiness-seeking love into selfless love. They continue to
believe that vision of God satisfies the desire for happiness and that the lack
of this vision makes one unhappy.
Parts of the
Reformation made a cleaner break with Franco-Latin Christendom than other parts
and returned to justification by that faith which is the gift of the Holy Spirit
in the heart. The recent agreement between Lutherans and Orthodox on the Canon
of Holy Scripture and Divine Inspiration accepted that justification as gift of
the Holy Spirit in the heart is completed in this life by glorification. This
should prove to be the major step in the right direction, not only for the
re-union of the Churches, but also for the elevation of a still developing
Western Civilisation.
Franco-Latin and
Western Civilisation and Islam have been consistently dominated by the quest for
happiness. It is this very sickness which has been at the centre of all personal
and social ills. When left unchecked it cannot but lead to conflicts of interest
at all levels of society and to the selfish exploitation of humans and the
environment by humans. Modern science and technology have been forced into the
service of this sickness as expressed in consumer economics which is saturating
social structures and pushing exploitation of natural resources to the limit.
Humanity has managed
to survive past destructions caused by this sickness: However, our generation
has the honour of being that part of human history which for the first time is
witnessing to the ability of humanity to destroy itself completely either by a
nuclear event or by ecological contamination and disequilibrium.
Sheer self-interest
for the world's survival and society's well-being may finally force a solution
to the spectre of either atomic or ecological destruction. Ascetial restraint is
the obvious key.
The Biblical
messages, that 1) the drive for happiness is "the" sickness of humanity and that
2) its cure "is" purification, illumination and glorification, are two truths of
revelation which society may do well not to ignore.
This also happens to
be the key to the unity in glorification Christ prays for in John 17 that the
world may believe.
Collection of Patristic Sources in the original Greek on Prayer in the Heart entitled "Philokalia," edited by the Metropolitan of Corinth, Panteleimon Karanikolas, vol. 1-5, Athens, 1957-1963.
- "Original Sin According to St Paul," in St. Vladimir's Quarterly (in the original George Florovsky numbering discontinued by new editors who expelled him from the School.), New York 1955, vol. IV, nos. 1-2. Paper delivered in 1954 to the faculty of St. Sergius Orthodox Theological School in Paris.
- "The Ancestral (Original) Sin," 1st edition Athens 1957, 2nd edition by Domos Athens 1987, 1992.
- "The Ecclesiology of St. Ignatius of Antioch," Atlanta 1956, reprinted in the Greek Orthodox Theological Review, Brookline 1961-62, vol. VII, nos. 1-2, pp. 53-77.
- "Dogmatics", vol I and "Symbolic", vol II (in Greek) Pournaras Press, 1973.
- "Romanity, Roumeli, Romania," Thessaloniki 1975, Athens 1997.
- "Critical Examination of the Applications of Theology," in Procès Verbaux du Deuxième Congrès de Théologie Orthodoxe tenu à Athènes 1976, ed. S. C. Agourides, Athens 1978.
- "St. Cyril's 'One Physis or Hypostasis of God the Logos Incarnate' and Chalcedon," in "Does Chalcedon Divide or Unite?" Edited by Paul Gregorios, William H. Lazereth, Nikos Nissiotis, WCC, Geneva 1981, pp. 50-75. Published also in "Christ in East and West," edited by Paul R. Fries and Tiran Nersoyan, Mercer University Press, 1987, pp. 15-34.
- "Franks, Romans, Feudalism and Doctrine," Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brookline 1982.
- "Jesus Christ-The Life of the World," A study which demonstrates from passages of the Fathers of the Ecumenical Council that Christ is Jehovah who appeared to the Old Testament Prophets, a tradition unknown to the Augustinian tradition. Published in Xenia Oecumenica, Helsinki 1983, no. 39, pp. 232-275.
- "Justice and Peace in Ecclesiological Context", edited by Gennadios Limouris, in "Come Holy Spirit Renew the Whole Creation", Holy Cross Press, Boston 1990, pp. 234-249.
- "Charlemagne, Napoleon, Roman Revolutions, and The United States of Europe", Domos, Athens 1992.
|
[ 1 ] VIth Meeting of the Lutheran -
Orthodox Joint Commission 31/5 - 8/6/1991 Moscow, USSR. Revised for
Subcommision Meeting, June 17-21,1992, Geneva.
[ 2 ] The exact date has been
shifting from time to time.
[ 3 ] Islamic Law provided for the
self rule of each of the Jewish and Christian societies called a Milet.
[ 4 ] I.e. a native of the Roman
province, Magna Graecia, in Southern Italy.
[ 5 ] Migne P. L. 89, 744; Mansi 12,
313-314.
[ 6 ] For documented sources of the
details of the murder of the Celtic and Saxon Bishops and abbots and their
replacement by nobles from the Frankish realms of Francia, i.e. Gallia,
Germania and Italia see Auguste Thierry, Histoire de la Conquête de l'
Angleterre par les Normands, Paris 1843, vol. 2, pp. 147 (1071-1072),
215-219 (1075-1076), 284, 313-314, 318 (1087-1094); vol. 3, pp. 35
(1110-1138 ), 214-215 (1203 ).
[ 7 ] Ibid. voI. 2, pp. 55;' 66 (1068
) 111,145,184 (1070-1072 ), 215 (1075-1076), 240-242 (1082), 313-316
(1088-1089); vol. 3, pp. 35, 44, 47 (1110-1140).
[ 8 ] Ibid.; vol. 2, pp. 232, 236
(1080); vol. 3; pp. 27, 36-37; 39 (1110-1138), 55 (1141-1142); vol. 4, p.
349 (1387).
[ 9 ] Ibid., vol, 2, p. 315.
[ 10 ] Migne, P. L.182, .921-940.
[ 11 ] As summarised in The
History of Feudalism, edited by David Herlihy, 1970, p. 282-283.
[ 12 ] This interpretation of Paul is
based on the Patristic Tradition, but also on information provided during
a dialogue meeting in Bucharest (October 1979) between Orthodox and Jews.
The latter pointed out that the Patristic illumination and glorification I
described to them was that of the Hasidim. Evidently the Apostles and the
Pharisees of Paul belong to this tradition.
[ 13 ] Commenting on 1 Cor. 12:27-28
St. Simeon the New Theologian writes, "That he may prove the differences
of the members and what they are and who they are, he says: You then are
the body of Christ... kinds of tongues. Do you see the differences among
the members of Christ? Did you learn who are his members?" Book Six on
Ethics, entitled, "How one is united to Christ and God and how all the
saints become one with Him."
[ 14 ] For Patristic interpretation
of Paul's "eph'ho" in Rom. 5:12 see J. S. Romanides, "Original Sin
According to St. Paul," in St. Vladimir's Quarterly (in the original
Georges Florovsky numbering discontinued by new editors) New York, 1955,
vol. IV, nos. 1-2: ФП РСOРБФПСЙКП БМБСФЗМБ, Athens 1957, 2nd
ed. 1989, chapter 6.
[ 15 ] See bibliography for Christ in
the Old Testament according to the Fathers, and especially of the
Ecumenical Councils.
[ 16 ] J. S. Romanides, "Justin
Martyr and the Fourth Gospel", in The Greek Orthodox Theological Review,
IV, 2 (1958-59),115-139.
[ 17 ] For the common philosophical
presuppositions between Paul of Samosata, his Co-Lucianist Arians and the
Nestorians see my " Debate over Theodore of Mopsuestia s Christology," The
Greek Orthodox Theological Review, vol. VII, 2 (1959-60), pp. 140-185.
[ 18 ] For analyses of these
deviations see ibl>bibliography.
[ 19 ] One may find the above
concentrated in Augustine's following writings: De Beata Vita, Contra
Academicos, Confessions, and scattered in a11 his writings. Especially
interesting are his explanations of the visions of God in both the Old and
New Testaments by the Prophets and Apostles in his De Trinitate, Books II
and III. Also of interest are his writings against the Pelagians and the
so-called Semi-Pelagians who belong to the Pauline tradition of this
paper.
[ 20 ] Migne, P. G. 60, 23: J. S.
Romanides, Original Sin (in Greek) 1st ed. Athens 1957;
2nd ed. Athens 1989, p. 173.
[ 21 ] John S. Romanides, Franks,
Romans, Feudalism and Doctrine, Brookline 1981, p.
53-57. |
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