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FROM THE END OF THE PERSECUTIONS
TO THE SIXTH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL
Last week we
saw that three events played a decisive role in shaping the outcome of the
Church. The three events were: The edict of Milan, The Christian Capital
of Constantinople and the First Ecumenical Council. They are a landmark in
the history of the Church and paved the way for the Church’s
transformation from the persecuted religious sect that it was, into the
only recognized religion of the Roman Empire. The age of martyrs was over,
and thousands were being converted to Christianity. About the same time
that the age of martyrdom ceased, a new martyrdom began to take form. Not
a blood martyrdom, but a martyrdom of strict and disciplined monastic
life. Anchorite Monasticism existed within the Church from the very
beginning. There were men that withdrew from the world to live strict
ascetic lives practicing chastity, celibacy, poverty; prayer and fasting
in isolated hard to reach places. They were men called by Christ himself
to a life in the world without being in the world. “Ye are not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world”. (John 15:19)
With the
beginning of the fourth century, these anchorites started to increase. St.
Anthony the Great, the father of monasticism is a great model of the
eremitic life. He fled the world [c. 285] and established himself in a
deserted fort in the Egyptian desert living in total solitude for about 37
years. His fame spread to the cities and the stream of visitors that
followed forced him to abandon this life of strict enclosure. Others
wanted to imitate him and so went and lived close to him. Soon a group of
disciples gathered round him each living by himself in huts and small
houses to form a village called “lavra.” St. Anthony became their
spiritual father and guide. The anchorites, although living by themselves
in their own huts, began to have a common life, practicing daily evening
and morning prayers together, working together and having common meals.
They even began to wear the same identical monastic garb. This garb
consisted of a linen tunic and belt, a white goat or sheep skin coat and
belt, a cone-shaped hood called a koukoulion and a linen scarf (maforion).
At
this stage of monasticism, monks were still considered lay people. No
religious ceremony was required, and no monastic vows were taken. Monks
were if fact prohibited from becoming clergy. Monasticism began to thrive,
especially in Egypt, and soon more monastic centres were founded. Two
important monastic centres, were the ones founded by Abba Ammoun in the
desert of Nitria by the western bank of the Nile and by St. Makarios of
Egypt in the desert of Skete, south of Nitria. These monks were
anchorites, following the monastic ideal of St. Anthony. They lived by
themselves, gathering together for common worship on Saturdays and Sundays
only. St. Pachomios of Egypt who started as an anchorite himself in the
Thebad, Upper Egypt is the founder of the so-called “Cenobitic
monasticism” Cenobitic comes from the words Koinos+bios meaning common or
communal life. This then was the first “monastery” as we know it today.
St. Pachomius wrote the monastic rule which was later to be used by St.
Benedict in the west. Monks lived together under the guidance of the
Abbot, living everything in common, daily prayers, meals, revenues and
expenditures. Organized monasticism soon spread to other places like
Sinai, Palestine and Syria. Two monks from Egypt, St. Hilarion and St.
Epiphanios, later bishop of Salamis in Cyprus, brought organized
monasticism to Palestine. A third kind of monasticism also developed with
was a combination of the Anchorite and Cenobitic life called
semi-eremitic. Here instead of a single highly organized community there
is a loosely knit group of small settlements, each settlement containing
perhaps between two and six brethren living together under the guidance of
an elder. In a very short time, Monasticism became a strong movement in
the life of the Church. The monks could not be ignored or considered to
remain as lay people. Thus they were officially ordained as a special
class of Christians higher than the laity, but subordinate to the clergy.
A special religious service was formed were they subscribed to monastic
vows.
With the monks
now officially recognized by the Church, they began to involve themselves
in writing books on the spiritual life, many which have survived to this
day. They also became involved with the various heresies especially those
concerning the Christological dogma. Most of the monastics were the
defenders of the Orthodox faith and we see their teachings against
heretics in the Ecumenical Councils that followed. We saw last week the
First Ecumenical council. It was summoned by St. Constantine the Great to
deal with the Arian heresy which taught that Christ was not equal to the
Father: that he was not God, but merely a creature. The Council condemned
this teaching and summing up the Christian faith, gave us the Nicene
Creed. To show that the Son was in all things equal to the Father, the
word Ομοούσιος was adopted into the Creed. The English equivalent of the
word is as we say in the Creed: “Being of one substance with the Father”
or Consubstantial.
The Second
Ecumenical Council was held during the reign of Theodosius the Great at
Constantinople in 381. A total of 150 Bishops were present including Sts.
Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory the Theologian, Gregory of Nyssa, and Meletius
of Antioch. Not one bishop from the west attended it. Later, however, they
agreed and acceded to the things it decreed and even to this day the whole
of the Western Church accept and recognize this Council as a truly
Ecumenical Council. At first the Pope of Rome did not acknowledge the
authority of the third canon of the Council which dealt with the ranking
of the Ancient Patriarchates. Up until then, Rome was ranked as first in
honour, then Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. This present canon stated:
“Let the Bishop of Constantinople have the priorities in honour after the
Bishop of Rome, because of it being the New Rome.” The rankings had
nothing to do with the holiness of the cities; if that were the case then
Jerusalem would have been ranked as first in honour. The Patriarchates
were ranked in order of the importance of their cities. Rome which was the
capital of the Roman Empire naturally was ranked as first. Constantinople,
the New Rome was now the Capital of the Empire. The canon did not mean
that the patriarch of Constantinople was to be second in honour, but only
second in order. He was to have the same honour and privileges as the Pope
of Rome. If this seemed unclear to some, it was made very clear at the
Fourth Ecumenical Council in 451 that the Patriarch of Constantinople was
to enjoy the same and equal privileges in a manner as has the Patriarch of
Rome.
The main
reason the Second Ecumenical Council was held was of course not to sort
out who was first and second, but to deal with the heresy led by
Macedonius, who blasphemously taught that the Holy Spirit was a thing
constructed of created by the Son. The Council also dealt with other
heresies. The first Canon of the Council reads: “The holy Fathers
assembled in Constantinople have decided not to set aside the faith of the
three hundred and eighteen Fathers who met in Nicaea, Bithynia, but to let
it remain sovereign, and that every heresy be anathematized and especially
and specifically that of the Eunomians, including that of the Eudoxians,
and that of the Semi-Arians, including that of the Pneumatomachi, and that
of the Sabellians, and that of the Marcellians, and that of the Photinians
and that of the Apollinarians.” We will explain what these heresies are
shortly.
Macedonius,
somewhat like Arius, who taught that Christ was a creature, now taught
that the Holy Spirit was not a person ("hypostasis"), but simply a power
("dynamic") or energy of God. Therefore the Spirit was inferior to the
Father and the Son. The Council condemned Macedonius' teaching and defined
the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. The Council decreed that there was one
God in three persons ("hypostases"): Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The holy
fathers of the Council added five articles to the Creed. They read as
follows: “And (We believe) in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of
Life, who proceeds from the Father: who with the Father and the Son
together is worshipped and glorified: who spoke by the prophets. In one
Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church. I acknowledge one baptism for the
remission of sins. I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life
of the world to come. Amen.”
Most heresies
fall under one of three groups: the Monophysites, the Monothelites and the
Pneumatomachi. The Monophysites were heresies that had to do with Christ’
nature. Either Christ was made less than God or his manhood was so divided
from his Godhead that he became two persons instead of one. The
Monothelites argued that although Christ has two natures, yet since he is
a single person then he only has one will. In other words Christ does not
have a human will but only a divine will. The Pneumatomachi meaning
“Spirit fighters” were those who did not recognize the Holy Spirit as God,
they did not recognize than he was one of the three Persons of the Holy
Trinity. Macedonius’ heresy is therefore a Pneumatomachi heresy. Many of
the heretic Churches that exist today are not new heresies but revivals of
the many heresies that developed in the first four centuries. There were
two groups called Millenarians or Millennialists. They misinterpreted the
Book of Revelations where it says that Satan was shut up and bound for a
thousand years, and that the righteous who participated in the first
resurrection reigned together with Christ as kings for a thousand years.
Many imagined that when after the second coming and judgement take place,
the righteous are to reign here on earth as kings for a thousand years
together with Christ, and thereafter to ascend to heaven. During those
thousand years they are to enjoy every enjoyment and bodily pleasure. This
heresy first appeared in the first century by a certain Cerinthus and a
similar heresy appeared in the second century by Marcian. Today the
Millenarians are the Jehovah Witnesses who also belief that they will
reign with Christ for a thousand years. In Greek they are called
“Χιλιαστές” in other words Millenarians.
Earlier I
mentioned some other heresies, the Eunomians, the Eudoxians, the
Semi-Arians, the Sabellians, the Marcellians, the Photinians and the
Apollinarians. They are named after the people that taught these heresies.
What then was their belief?
Eunomius was
bishop of Cyzicus, he use to re-baptize people with a single immersion,
holding their feet up and their head down. He also asserted that there was
no hell, but that hell was used to install fear as a threat. Like Arius,
he rejected that Christ was equal and of one substance with the father,
but whereas Arius said he was like the Father, Eunomius said he was unlike
the Father, thus his followers are also called Anomians meaning the
“unlike”.
Eudoxius was
sympathetic to the Anomians, but as Patriarch of Constantinople, he felt
it necessary to discourage them. He again subscribed to the Arian heresy
and used the word “like the Father” without saying whether this likeness
was supposed to be just a likeness or something more.
Others were
called Semi-Arians because they entertained half the heresy engendered by
Arius. They said the Son was like the Father in all respects and
coessential with the Father, but they refused to admit the word
coessential or consubstantial in the creed in spite of the fact that it
had been in use among the ancient Fathers even before the First Ecumenical
Council. Their leader was Basil the bishop of Ancyra. A third group called
the Son neither like nor unlike the Father, but took a view midway between
that of the Arians and that of the Semi-Arians.
Sabellius had
served as a bishop of Ptolemais in Pentapolis. He asserted that the Father
and the Son and the Holy Spirit were three names for one and the same
person, and that that person was called at times the Father, and at times
the Son, and at other times the Holy Spirit according to the diversities
of that person’s activities and operations.
Marcellus was
bishop of Ancyra. He asserted that the Logos was not a divine Person but
only an impersonal divine power which was issued to him in the act of
creation and entered into relations with the human person of Jesus, who
thus became God’s Son. He also taught that after the second judgment the
Logos would retire from Jesus and his body would have to be thrown away,
and to go into non-being, and that consequently His kingdom will come to
an end.
Photinus, had
served as bishop of Sirmium. He didn’t recognized the Holy Trinity as a
God, calling it only a Spirit creative of the universe, and declaring the
Logos to be only the oral word, serving as a sort of mechanical
instrument, nor did he call Christ a God, but only a mere human being who
had absorbed the oral word from God and had received existence from Mary.
Apollinaris,
who became a bishop of Laodicea, Syria, embraced the heresy of Arius, and
asserted among other things that the Logos (or rational faculty) served
the body of Christ instead of a soul. At times he used to say that the
Logos received a body without a soul, while at other times, being ashamed
of his ignorance or want of knowledge, he would say that He received a
soul, but a mindless one and an irrational one, separating, in accordance
with the Platonists the soul from the mind. He made Christ a middle being
between God and man, in whom, as it were, one part divine and two parts
human were fused in the unity of a new nature. He even ventured to use
created analogies to explain his theory such as the mule, midway between
the horse and the ass, the grey colour, a mixture of white and black, and
spring, in distinction from winter and summer. Christ he said, is neither
whole man nor God, but a mixture of God and man. On the other hand he
regarded the Orthodox view of a union of full humanity with a full
divinity in one person – of two wholes in one whole – as an absurdity.
We see that
all these heresies started with bishops or priests who belonged to the One
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. They were Christian in origin, but
introduced blasphemies into the true teaching of the Church. The Church,
to protect the true teaching on the Person of Christ the God-man, the
Person of the Holy Spirit and in general the Holy Trinity, responded by
anathematizing and excommunicating them from the Church. Heresies, no
matter how trivial they might appear to the layperson were always seen by
the Church as extremely dangerous. They impair the teaching of the New
Testament and set up barriers between man and God, making it impossible
for man to attain full salvation. The New Testament teaches that man is
separated from God by sin and cannot through his own efforts break down
the wall of separation which his sinfulness has created. God has therefore
taken the initiative: He became man, was crucified, and rose from the
dead, thereby delivering humanity from the bondage of sin and death. This
is the central message of the Christian faith, and it is this message of
redemption that the Councils were concerned to safeguard. In Saint John’s
Gospel, Christ states that He has given His disciples a share in the
divine glory, and He prays that they may achieve union with God: “And the
glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even
as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in
one.” (John 17:22-23)
The Greek
Fathers took these and similar texts in their literal sense, and dared to
speak of man’s deification (theosis). They argued that if man is to share
in God’s glory, he is to be perfectly one with God, this means in effect
that man must be deified: he is called to become by grace what God is by
nature. Accordingly Saint Athanasius summed up the purpose of the
Incarnation by saying: God became man that we might be made god. Now if
this theosis is to be possible, Christ the Saviour must be both fully man
and fully God. No one less than God can save man; therefore if Christ is
to save, He must be God. But only if He is also truly a man, as we are,
can we men participate in what He has done for us. A bridge is formed
between God and man by the Incarnate Christ who is both. Christ must be
fully God and fully man. Each heresy in turn undermined some part of this
vital teaching. Either Christ was made less than God (Arianism); or His
manhood was so divided from His Godhead that He became two persons instead
of one (Nestorianism); or He was not presented as truly man (Monophysitism,
Monothelitism). Some of these heresies are not so easy to understand
especially when the person does not have knowledge of the true teaching of
the Church, but what it all boils down to is that any teaching that makes
Christ less than true God and true man at the same time teaches that man
cannot become one with God and therefore cannot be truly saved.
Today many of
these old heresies still exist but with variations. We often hear people
say that it doesn’t matter which church you belong to as long as we are
all Christians which makes us all God’s children. From time to time we
have heard this even from our own group. Can we really say such a thing
and believe it? If there is no difference between one church and another
then why are there so many different denominations? Of course we are all
God’s children, whether we be Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Jew or Hindu,
but that does not mean that we all believe that we will be saved in the
same way. Orthodoxy believes that man can obtain deification through
grace, a complete salvation by becoming one with God. This is the teaching
that Christ himself teaches us in the Gospels. Should I then expect
anything less than this? And if I believe that the Orthodox Church
contains the complete truth then should I be sympathetic to another
church’s teaching which if it doesn’t contain the complete truth is in
reality a lie? Each person should answer these questions and others
similar to them by himself. The question of whether other Christians from
other churches can be saved is not our concern, that is up to God’s
righteous judgement, our main concern should be if and how I will be
saved. This is not a selfish act. It does not mean that we do not love all
people, but that it is not in our power to save anyone, not even
ourselves. We only can pray and hope for salvation, for ourselves and for
others, but only God saves. For most Orthodox lay people it is dangerous
to attend prayer sessions offered by other denominations. Apart from the
fact that they might be enticed into their lair so to speak, they are also
participating in a lie and probably a blasphemy against the Person of
Christ or the Holy Spirit. St Paul says in his Epistle to the Romans: “Now
I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences
contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. For they
that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by
good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.”
The next
Ecumenical Council, that is the Third, was held in Ephesus in 431. It was
called to hear the charges made against Nestorius the Patriarch of
Constantinople who in his teaching had divided the person of Christ into
two and was unwilling to call the Blessed Virgin Theotokos – Mother of
God. He said that Mary could only be called Christotokos - the mother of
Christ the man for she did not give birth to the pre-existing, pre-eternal
Son of God, who already had a Father with whom He shared His divine
nature. The Pope St. Celestine had heard reports about Nestorius and asked
Cyril the Patriarch of Alexandria to send him a detailed report of
Nestorius’ doctrine. After examining the report he gave Cyril the power to
act on his behalf and send letters to all the bishops informing them of
his judgement on the case. Nestorius was to be given ten days to denounce
his heresy otherwise he would be deprived of the Episcopate and Communion.
But what the
Pope and Cyril didn’t reckon on was the power and influence Nestorius had.
He was the Bishop of the royal city and had gained many friends among the
bishops and the young Emperor Theodosius and the important great men of
the Empire. Almost all the bishops in the east, especially the
Patriarchate of Antioch, and the Patriarch John himself, were ill disposed
to Cyril, and seemed to favour Nestorius. Feelings were divided, and the
whole Empire of the East seemed to fluctuate between Cyril and Nestorius.
There was therefore the need of an Ecumenical Council. The Emperor, thus
wrote to Cyril, saying” It is our will that the holy doctrine be discussed
and examined in a sacred Synod, and that be ratified which appeareth
agreeable to the right faith, whether the wrong party be pardoned by the
Fathers or no.” We see that the Pope’s judgment on the matter was not
enough to remove Nestorius from his Episcopal duties. According to the
Ecclesiastical Canons, another judgment, that of a council was still
required and that judgment would be decisive and final. So Cyril, with
more than 200 bishops and Nestorius, came to Ephesus for the Universal
Council. Cyril was president, representing Celestine, as being appointed
by the Pontiff himself to execute his sentence. Nestorius was summoned
three times to take his seat with the other bishops in order to answer to
what was charged against him, but he refused to come, and chose to have
his doors besieged with an armed force, that no one might approach him.
The emperor therefore commanded the proceedings to begin. The charges
against Nestorius were read and examined without him being present. He was
found guilty of blasphemy, was deposed from his throne and excommunicated.
Nestorius was
not the only bishop deposed by this Synod. During the proceedings, about
30 bishops who were loyal to the Patriarch John of Antioch walked out.
John as we mentioned before was a close friend of Nestorius. He delayed
coming to the Synod. The first session of the Council commenced on June
22. John arrived in Ephesus on the 27th. After being informed that the
council had condemned Nestorius without his side being heard, he held his
own council at his residence with a total number of 43 bishops. At this
council they turned the tables on Cyril and Memnon, the bishop of Ephesus,
accusing them of Arian and Apollinarion heresies. John then proceeded to
carry out the sentence and had Cyril and Memnon deposed. All those who
approved and signed the decree of the pseudo-council were deposed from
office by the officially recognized Council of Ephesus.
The
Council also dealt with a problem concerning Cyprus. The Church of Cyprus
was and is one of the oldest autocephalous Churches. The island at the
time was under the secular administration of the Duke of Antioch. The
Bishop of Antioch thought this gave him the right to have the authority
over the ecclesiastical administration of Cyprus which was contrary to the
Apostolic canons. The Council decreed that Cyprus was Autocephalous, in
other words self-governing and was not subject to any Patriarchate. Later
in 478AD, the Archbishop of Cyprus Anthemius, after seeing a vision, found
the tomb and relics of St. Barnabas. Upon his breast was a copy of St.
Matthews Gospel. The Archbishop offered the Gospel to the Byzantine
Emperor Zenon who in turn gave the Archbishop of Cyprus the right to three
imperial prerogatives which continue to this day. They are to write in red
ink, to wear a purple cloak and instead of the usual bishop’s staff to
hold an imperial sceptre.
All the
Ecumenical Councils were summoned to condemn the many heresies that
troubled the Church and the true faith. In spite of the condemnations from
the Councils, the heresies continued or similar ones sprouted that needed
to be rooted out. The fourth Ecumenical Council was held in Chalcedon,
near Constantinople in 451 under Emperor Marcian. A total of 630 bishops
were present. Once again the Council was concerned with the nature of
Jesus Christ. The new heresy was led by an archimandrite called Eutyches
and his aid Dioscorus who was now Bishop of Alexandria. Whereas the
previous Council dealt with the Nestorian controversy which denied that
the person of Christ who was born of Mary was both God and Man and divided
him into two persons and two natures, this new heresy taught exactly the
opposite. Eutyches and Dioscorus confused the two natures into one. They
said that Christ’s human nature which was less perfect, dissolved itself
in His divine nature which was more perfect, thus Christ only had one
nature the Divine. This heresy is called Monophysite a composite word from
‘mono’ meaning one and ‘physis’ meaning nature. Hence, the term
Monophysitism overemphasized the divine nature of Christ, at the expense
of the human. The Council condemned Monophysitism and formulated the dogma
that Christ has two complete natures: the divine and the human, as defined
by previous Councils. The dogma reads as follows:
“Following the holy Fathers we teach with one voice
that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one
and the same [Person], that He is perfect in Godhead and perfect in
manhood, very God and very man, consisting of a reasonable soul and
[human] body, consubstantial with the Father as touching His Godhead, and
consubstantial with us as touching His manhood; made in all things like
unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of the Father before the worlds
according to His Godhead, but in these last days for us men and for our
salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God
according to His manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the
Only-begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures,
unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that
without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but
rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being
united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two
persons, but one and the same Son and Only-begotten God the Word, our Lord
Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning Him, and
as the Lord Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath
delivered to us.”
The Fifth
Ecumenical Council was held in Constantinople in 553 under the Emperor and
Saint Justinian the Great. The Monophysite controversy still continued
even after the condemnation of Eutyches and the issuing of the
Chalcedonian Statement of Faith. The council was asked to examine the
writings of three Antiochian Bishops and renowned teachers who were
already dead for over a century, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of
Cyrus, and Ibas of Edessa. The Monophysite-accusers wished all three to be
condemned even though they were dead. The Council presided by the
Patriarch of Constantinople Eutychios were in full agreement that the
writings of the three famous teachers were heretical. Thus their writings
were condemned and they themselves were anathematised. During the Council
a quarrel erupted between Eastern and Western bishops as to anathematising
the dead, and for a time the name of the Pope was erased from the
diptychs. But as a result of Justinian's efforts, a permanent rupture
between East and West was prevented.
The
Council also examined another famous writer who died in 254AD. His name
was Origen and came from Alexandria. He was a brilliant scholar and
Theologian and his writings are still studied and quoted by many
theologian to this day. Origen became more famous than anyone else in word
and deed and was greatly admired for his mode of living as well as for his
great intelligence, his learning, his ability and his experience. However
his renown did not remain untarnished because his experience proved in the
end to be his great blunder. Wishing to leave nothing uninterpreted in the
Holy Scriptures, he tripped himself into error and sin through his
interpretations. Among the things he wrote was that the souls of people
pre-exist and that they are spirits and holy powers. Upon the death of one
body the souls then enter another. He believed that hell was not eternal
and that there would be an end to all punishment. To this he also believed
that the demons would recover their original dignity of angelic grace
which they used to have before they fell. This would come about because
Christ in a future time would be crucified for the demons as he was for
men. He believed that the bodies of the sun, moon and stars have souls and
are reasonable beings. He was condemned with a total of 15 anathemas
against his teachings. Origen is also well known for taking the Gospel
word in the literal sense. Where Christ says “Wherefore if thy hand or thy
foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for
thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or
two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee,
pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into
life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire”
Origen took this in the literal sense and because he couldn’t control his
bodily desires castrated himself.
A little
should be said about the Emperor Justinian. He was a major figure in the
history of the Byzantine state and a great champion of Orthodoxy who
worked not only to protect its dogmatic teachings, but also to elevate the
spiritual and moral stature of its representatives.” He built many
churches; his finest structures being the monastery of St. Catherine in
Sinai and the great Church of Agia Sophia in Constantinople. He concerned
himself with the education of clergy and monks, ordering them to be
instructed in rhetoric, philosophy and theology. He also put his hand to
Church writings and composed the hymn “O Only Begotten Son and Word of
God” which is sung to this day at the Divine Liturgy after the second
Antiphon.
The Sixth
Ecumenical Council met in Constantinople in 680 AD and was convened by
Emperor Constantine IV (Pogonatos) and was attended by 170 bishops. It was
held in the domed hall of the imperial palace called Trullo. The Council
was called to examine a new teaching that was spreading in regard to the
Person of Christ. The previous Councils concerned themselves with the
Monophysite heresy, this new heresy was called Monothelitism. It said that
although the God-man Christ had two natures, yet since He is a single
person, He has only one will only and subsequently only one mode of
activity: the divine. In other words Christ didn’t have a human will or
his human will was totally absorbed into his divine will. The Council
replied that if Christ has two natures, if follows that He also has two
wills and two operations. In each act of Christ one can see two distinct
operations, for Christ acts in conformity to both natures, and by both
natures. Each nature acts according to its own properties: the human hand
raises the young girl, the divine restores her to life; the human feet
walk on the surface of the water, because the divinity has made it firm.
“It is not the human nature that raises Lazarus, it is not the divine
power which shed tears before the tomb,” said St. John of Damascus. The
two wills proper to the two natures are different, but He who wills is
one, though He wills in conformity with each of the two natures. Each
nature exercises its own free will". Christ's divine nature had a specific
task to perform and so did His human, without being confused nor subjected
to any change or working against each other: the divine performing
miracles and the human performing the ordinary acts of daily life.
The next
Council is not called the Seventh but the Quinisext in Latin and
Penthektis in Greek – both meaning fifth and sixth. It is also known as
the Trullan Council because in was held in the domed hall of the imperial
palace. It was not called the Seventh Ecumenical Council because it was
regarded as a supplement to the Fifth and Sixth Councils. The Council was
called by Justinian II in 692. Both the Fifth and Sixth Ecumenical
Councils fully occupied their time with the Christological problem and
issued no canons pertaining to ecclesiastical government and order. This
Council was therefore called to supplement the two previous Councils by
supplying disciplinary canons for the correction of evils and the
regulation of the internal policy of the whole Church. The Council set
down a total of 102 canons. The disciplinary canons of the Quinisext,
however, were not accepted by the Pope, and even though most of them were
not completely observed in the East, they contributed appreciably to the
widening of differences between East and West. For example, Rome practiced
celibacy among the clergy, and if someone who was married wished to enter
holy orders then he had to promise that he would not enter into
intercourse with his wife after ordination. Canon 13, of this Council
disagreed with this practice and stated that marriage ties should continue
and remain solid and inseverable. Other canons also were contrary to
established practices in the West and the Roman See did not wish to change
on directives from the Quinisext Council. We can see then that the
problems between East and West began long before the Great Schism of 1054.
The Seventh
Ecumenical Council will be dealt with next week as it was called to
condemn the Iconoclast Controversy and is worth looking in detail at the
problems that caused so much tension and hate within the Church.
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