That They May Be One - Part IV

Part 4: Winning Hearts and Minds

In the present efforts being made towards reconciling the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox Churches there are perhaps few obstacles greater than the opposing positions taken by these two communions with respect to the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon. A genuine Orthodox ecumenism cannot operate under the assumption that these issues can be swept under the carpet. Both the Tome and the Council must be faced up to if real reconciliation is to take place. But a true Orthodox ecumenism does not require either a repetition of polemical formulas, such as is usually found on the internet, nor a passing over the issues as if they were of no consequence.

This paper of course can only reflect an Oriental Orthodox contribution. It is not possible to prescribe what the Eastern Orthodox must do. But it should be possible to see how far the Oriental Orthodox might go in making our own position understood more completely and in turn seeking to understand that of the Eastern Orthodox tradition without diminishing the integrity of our own Christological position.

It is clear that any Christian wishing to participate in such an effort must reject a merely polemical approach. There is no value at all in an Eastern Orthodox simply parroting the polemical slogan, “Accept the Seven Councils!”, while his Oriental Orthodox opponent parrots the equally polemical slogan, “Anathema to the Tome and the Council”. This kind of sloganeering may make us feel good for a while but it is not Christian, let alone likely to achieve any sort of positive result. Even were we Oriental Orthodox convinced that the Eastern Orthodox were Nestorian to any degree we would find an aggressive and polemical approach completely counter-productive in winning souls for the truth. Even more so is it an inappropriate response when our bishops teach us that we should consider the Eastern Orthodox communion to confess an Orthodox Christology. We might well imagine the response to St Paul 's preaching on the Areopagus had he chosen to focus on the negative aspects of Athenian religious life rather than drawing attention to that which was commendable. A polemical approach is always simplistic and simply counting councils says nothing at all about what is actually believed. Indeed it is not clear how many Ecumenical Councils even the Eastern Orthodox should accept. Father John Romanides taught that there were nine Ecumenical Councils , while the patriarchs of the Eastern Orthodox communion, in an encyclical issued in 1848 refer to “ the eighth Ecumenical Council” .

This paper will seek to explore several aspects of these issues. Firstly it will consider the basis on which Oriental Orthodox synods, bishops, priests and lay folk have come to conclude that the substance of Eastern Orthodox theology, and especially Christology, is Orthodox. Then it will consider in what sense the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon have been rejected. It will also be necessary to understand in what sense these two controversial matters are understood by our Eastern Orthodox brethren today. Then there will be some scope for considering what the possibilities might be for an Oriental Orthodox response to the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon, which is more positive than has been possible in the past, but which equally maintains the integrity of our Orthodox Christology and is consistent with the substance of the teachings of our Fathers among the saints, St Cyril, St Severus and others.

Finding Agreement

Our consideration must begin with the modern statements produced by the Joint Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Orthodox communions since these reflect, even if in summary, the present beliefs of both communions. The Joint Commission is a body which has the full support of our hierarchies and whose Agreed Statements have been received in our Synods. These statements therefore reflect the opinions and aspirations of our Synods towards reconciliation, even if accepting them cannot in itself bring about a reconciliation that depends on reciprocity of action, which has so far not taken place.

Some of the key statements in these documents state:

“Both families condemn the Nestorian heresy and the crypto-Nestorianism of Theodoret of Cyrus. They agree that it is not sufficient merely to say that Christ is consubstantial both with His Father and with us, by nature God and by nature man; it is necessary to affirm also that the Logos, Who is by nature God, became by nature Man, by His Incarnation in the fullness of time.”

“Both families agree that the Hypostasis of the Logos became composite ( synuetoq ) by uniting to His divine uncreated nature with its natural will and energy, which He has in common with the Father and the Holy Spirit, created human nature, which He assumed at the Incarnation and made His own, with its natural will and energy.”

“Both families agree that the natures with their proper energies and wills are united hypostatically and naturally without confusion, without change, without division and without separation, and that they are distinguished in thought alone. ( th uevria monh ).”

“Both families agree that He Who wills and acts is always the one Hypostasis of the Logos incarnate.”

“Both families agree in rejecting interpretations of Councils which do not fully agree with the Horos of the Third Ecumenical Council and the letter (433) of Cyril of Alexandria to John of Antioch .”

“The Orthodox agree that the Oriental Orthodox will continue to maintain their traditional Cyrillian terminology of "one nature of the incarnate Logos" ( mia fysij toy ueoy Logoy sesarkvmenh ), since they acknowledge the double consubstantiality of the Logos which Eutyches denied. The Orthodox also use this terminology. The Oriental Orthodox agree that the Orthodox are justified in their use of the two-natures formula, since they acknowledge that the distinction is "in thought alone" ( th uevria monh ). Cyril interpreted correctly this use in his letter to John of Antioch and his letters to Acacius of Melitene (PG 77, 184-201), to Eulogius (PG 77, 224-228) and to Succensus (PG 77, 228-245).”

“In the light of our Agreed Statement on Christology as well as of the above common affirmations, we have now clearly understood that both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition, though they have used Christological terms in different ways. It is this common faith and continuous loyalty to the Apostolic Tradition that should be the basis for our unity and communion.”

What must be immediately apparent to any reader is that these statements absolutely preclude any scope for what may be called a Nestorian understanding of Christology. If Nestorianism is the introduction of division between the humanity and Divinity in Christ such that there are two subjects or centres of activity and being, then these statements reject such an understanding in every paragraph. No-one who could sign these statements can be considered a Nestorian of any stripe. Indeed it is clear that our own contributors to this document have ensured that our own Christological tradition is represented.

On the part of the Eastern Orthodox communion these passages were agreed by members and representatives of the following Churches; The Ecumenical Patriarchate, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch, the Russian Patriarchate, the Romanian Patriarchate, the Serbian Patriarchate, the Bulgarian Patriarchate, the Georgian Patriarchate, the Church of Cyprus, the Church of Greece, the Church of Albania, the Czechoslovakian Orthodox Church, the Polish Orthodox Church and the Finnish Orthodox Church. Nor were these minor lay folk, but they were in most cases Metropolitans, Bishops and theologians of note.

Now it is the case that some Eastern Orthodox will insist that these members were merely modernist theologians with no representative authority. Nevertheless it is the case that these members of the Eastern Orthodox Churches, none of whom have been found guilty of heresy as far as I can see, have agreed that these statements reflect their Christology. Indeed in 1994 the synod of the Romanian Orthodox Patriarchate went further and issued a statement which says:

“…the Holy Synod of our Church, in its session of 8-9 December 1994, analyzing the conclusions of that meeting, and based on the documents elaborated during the official meetings of the Joint Commission for the dialogue, has decided …..to take note of and to approve the conclusions of the dialogue between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches .”

Also in 2001 the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria entered into a pastoral agreement with the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and Pope Petros VII signed a document, on behalf of his synod which stated:

“….the Holy Synods of both the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and all Africa have already accepted the outcome of the official dialogue on Christology between the Orthodox Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches, including the two official agreements.”

It is therefore not possible to suggest that the Eastern Orthodox contributors to these Agreed Statements have no official or representative authority. On the contrary at least three Eastern Orthodox Patriarchates have taken these statements as the basis for engaging in a commitment to reconciliation and in the cases of the Antiochean Patriarchate and the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria have actually entered into a limited measure of inter-communion.

All of these examples have been enumerated to show that the Agreed Statements reflect an official Eastern Orthodox contribution and describe the Christology of the Eastern Orthodox Churches , as well as our own Orthodox communion. If the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria, and that of Antioch and that of Romania have been able to synodically accept the Agreed Statements then it is not possible to describe these Churches as Nestorian or semi-Nestorian, or crypto-Nestorian. Their acceptance of these passages from the Agreed Statements completely preclude any acceptance of a Nestorian spirit and prevent anyone accusing them of holding to a Nestorian Christology.

Therefore it is quite clear that the passage from the Agreed Statement which says:

“In the light of our Agreed Statement on Christology as well as of the above common affirmations, we have now clearly understood that both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith, and the unbroken continuity of the apostolic tradition, though they have used Christological terms in different ways. It is this common faith and continuous loyalty to the Apostolic Tradition that should be the basis for our unity and communion.”

is based on the fact that the Eastern Orthodox have clearly described an Orthodox Christology as their own when they have contributed to the Agreed Statement. It is not a papering over of real differences but a discovery of a real agreement.

The other passages make quite clear that when our own bishops have agreed that “both families have always loyally maintained the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith” it is based on having found that the substance of the Eastern Orthodox faith is the same as ours, not at all because they have watered down the standards of Orthodox Christology.

His Eminence Metropolitan Bishoy describes this Synodal reception of the Agreed Statements on the part of the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate when he writes to Metropolitan Damaskinos of Switzerland, the Eastern Orthodox co-Chairman of the Commission and says:

“I would like to inform Your Eminence that the Holy Synod of the Coptic Orthodox Church, headed and presided by His Holiness Pope Shenouda III of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, on its meeting in Cairo on 12 November 1990, has accepted the Agreed Statement of our last commission”.

Now this is of great importance to the subject at hand. It means that our bishops have agreed that those Eastern Orthodox Churches who have accepted the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon are still to be considered as “loyally maintaining the same authentic Orthodox Christological faith”. It must therefore be the case that it is possible to be Orthodox while also accepting the Tome and the Council, just as it is the case that the Oriental Orthodox communion is entirely Orthodox while rejecting the Tome and the Council.

The question this then raises is, in what way do we reject the Tome and the Council such that our Orthodoxy is not impaired, and in what way might the Eastern Orthodox accept the Tome and the Council such that their faith is equally Orthodox?

Our fathers the bishops have already said that this is the case. Both those who reject and those who accept are Orthodox. What then is rejected and what is accepted?

Historical Overview

The most useful summary of the period before, during and after the Council of Chalcedon, at least from an Oriental Orthodox perspective is that by Father V.C. Samuel, The Council of Chalcedon Re-Examined . This covers the period from even before the first Council of Ephesus, in 431 AD at which Nestorius was condemned, through to the last efforts at a reconciliation between the opposing parties in the 7 th century.

In brief, there had always been a tension in the Church between those who took as their starting point for considering the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, either the aspect of the unity of subject, or the aspect of the diversity of his being. This could be epitomised as a difference between those who started with asking WHO Christ is, and those who asked WHAT Christ is. Of course in the balanced middle ground of opinion there was substantial agreement about both WHO Christ was and WHAT He was. But always on the fringes of both opinions there were those who were likely to stray beyond the bounds of acceptable Christology and describe a false Christ, one without the power to save mankind.

For instance, in the period after 360 AD a heresy was propounded, which has taken the name of one of its chief proponents, Apollinarianism, a bishop of Antioch . He sought to safe guard the unity of subject in Christ and suggested that this was achieved by considering that the humanity of Christ was devoid of a human mind and spirit, and this lack was made up by the presence of the Divine mind and spirit of the Word. It was clear from the start that this point of view was unacceptable and damaged the very heart of the Gospel, because if God had not taken upon Himself our fallen mind and spirit then there was no possibility of it being redeemed. If God the Word had become man in a manner that excluded our human mind and spirit then He had not become a man at all.

As the Scriptures teach,

“ Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren , that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people.” Hebrews II : 17

Another attempt to describe the relationship of the humanity and Divinity of Christ was proposed by Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople in 428 AD. He rejected the use of the term Theotokos, or God Bearer, which was used of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He said that she might be called Christo-tokos, but not Theo-tokos because,

“ I do not say God is two or three months old."

Of course the Orthodox asked who Christ was if He was not God, and it was certainly in the tradition of Diodore and Theodore, whom Nestorius followed, to stress the distinction of humanity and Divinity so much that two subjects could not help but be formed. It naturally came about that Nestorius was understood to be teaching that God the Word had united Himself externally to a man, Jesus Christ, rather than had Himself become a man.

This was of course an equally unacceptable position. If it is not God Himself who has become man and died for us and rose again to raise us with Him then we are still lost. We cannot be saved by a man unless that man is really and truly God.

This Nestorian way of thinking had deep roots. Diodore and Theodore had been teaching between the middle and end of the 4 th century, much at the same time that the opposite heresy of Apollinarianism had been current. Even where Christians rejected the extremes of Diodore and Theodore there was a natural tendency, especially in Syria and Antioch where they were most popular, to describe Christology in their terms and to have a suspicion of other terminologies such as that which came to be used in Alexandria by St Cyril.

Likewise in the Alexandrian circle there was a tendency to describe Christology in an Apollinarian terminology, even where that heresy was clearly rejected, and to have a suspicion of those who used an Antiochean vocabulary.

This is rather a stereotype since there were Syrians who were entirely Cyrilline and Alexandrian in their thought. But there were certainly two theological parties in the Church by the beginning of the 5 th century and already there was a difficulty in understanding what others meant.

We find that St Cyril, whom all Orthodox agree is entirely sound in his Christology, was accused by the Antiocheans of holding to the error of Apollinarius. Even today there are authors who are quick to level that charge against him based on the fact that he used a terminology which had some similarities with that used by Apollinarius, even while he preserved his Christology from all error. Now if even St Cyril could be falsely accused of heresy and if his writings could be misunderstood and misinterpreted, how much more might we expect the writings of lesser men to be liable to such erroneous interpretations.

When Nestorius rose to prominence it must have seemed to the Cyrilline party that their worst fears had been proved. Here was the very head of the Constantinopolitan Church teaching outright heresy. It must have seemed only reasonable that anyone who used the Antiochean terminology was liable to be suspected of Nestorianism.

But unfortunately at the same time as the real heresy of Nestorianism was being dealt with the Antiochean party was reacting to the teaching and vocabulary of St Cyril with the same horror. Many were convinced that the ghost of Apollinarianism had come back to trouble the Church.

Indeed when the aged archimandrite Eutyches fell foul of his enemies in Constantinople and was accused of a form of Apollinarianism it seemed to the Antiocheans that they had been right all along. It didn't help that Eutyches was in fact a very weak theologian and stumbled into error whenever he sought to defend himself.

This was the context in which the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon occurred. There were two parties in the Church and both were increasingly convinced that the other party, which used a different vocabulary and defended different Christological emphases, must have fallen into error and that only an exclusive use of one or other terminology could save the Church.

It is undoubtedly the case that there were real heretics at this time, teaching Christologies which either diminished the real humanity of Christ, in the case of Apollinarius and Eutyches, or created a division between them, destroying the real unity, as in the case of Diodore, Theodore and Nestorius, but it cannot be inferred from this that everyone who did not speak as an Antiochean was an Apollinarian or Eutychian heretic, or that everyone who did not speak as an Alexandrian was a Nestorian. Things are never that simple. We must go beyond what is said and discover what is meant. I have often used the example of the difficulties which exist when English and American speakers try to communicate. We do not quite speak the same language. If an American told me that he wore suspenders I would be quite worried about him, but he would not understand my confusion. He would mean braces, I would mean, well, suspenders. Who is right? Of course that depends on what is meant. Likewise when we come to discuss the Tome and the Council of Chalcedon and natures and hypostases. It is not enough to use words, we must make sure that we are understood, that we really communicate, otherwise we simply add to the confusion that already exists.

I have a correspondent in a very traditional Eastern Orthodox jurisdiction. He knows his theology well. When we first started writing to each other we were constantly shocked by what the other had written. It seemed so heretical. But when we took the time to explain what we meant then it was clear that despite us both being theologically very conservative and on the look out for even a hint of heresy, we actually believed the same things though we used different words to describe what we believed.

But it was not only a matter of historical theological controversy. Added to these theological circumstances were the political aspects of an Eastern emperor struggling to recover authority and influence in the West and in Rome , and a papacy that was attempting to exercise an almost modern papal supremacy over the whole Church. Even in the first letter written by Pope Leo of Rome to Pope Dioscorus of Alexandria he is attempting to ensure that Alexandria submit in every practical as well as theological matter to the opinions and practices of Rome. Nor did it help that Rome was reliant on Latin while the East spoke Greek, and of course communication was fragmentary and letters took months rather than days to be delivered.

There were many intertwined factors which must be considered. Nothing takes place in a vacuum, especially theological controversy, and without taking all of these issues into account we will merely return to polemics. I have often corresponded with Eastern Orthodox who cannot even consider that anyone could read the Tome of Leo in a manner different to them. The spirit of the 5 th century is not dead and we ourselves must be careful that we do not slip into easy stereotypes when we consider what the Eastern Orthodox might actually believe.

This was the historical context in which the Tome of Leo and the Council of Chalcedon took place. The second part of this paper will examine some of this context in detail together with the reasons why the Tome and the Council were rejected and will seek to discover to what extent this controversial ecclesiastical environment influenced not only the rejection but the outcome of that rejection on both sides.

We may thank God that we can communicate quickly and easily with people on the other side of the world. If something is not clear then we can ask for clarification immediately. Nor are any of us liable to be sent to prison or exile for our Christological beliefs. God has given us this opportunity to take the time to understand what the other believes. May we make the most of it. Our bishops have already understood that we share the same faith. We may investigate the same issues without needing to skate over real differences, or manufacture empty ones. Rather we should thank God at every step where we discover agreement, until He brings us to a visible unity, in His will and in His way.

PETER THEODORE FARRINGTON

A search on the internet found over 4000 pages referring polemically to ‘monophysite heretics'.

Encyclical of the Eastern Patriarchs, 1848.

Second Agreed Statement, 1990.

Statement of the Romanian Orthodox Church on the Theological Dialogue. Published at http://www.orthodoxunity.org/state10.html

Pastoral Agreement between the Coptic Orthodox and Greek Orthodox Patriarchates of Alexandria . Published at http://www.orthodoxunity.org/state05.html

Statement of the Coptic Orthodox Church on the Theological Dialogue. Published at http://www.orthodoxunity.org/state09.html

Recently republished by the British Orthodox Church. Available at Amazon and other on-line booksellers. Xlibris Corporation ( August 1, 2001 ) ISBN: 1401016448

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