Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 8: The Russian Church during the Synodal Period, Part 2

In Chapter 8 (pp.210-255), Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev surveys some of the most important literary figures of Russian history during the synodal period, and well-known to world literature. Writers such as Pushkin, Lermontov, Tolstoy, Gogol, Dostoevsky, Leskov, and Chekhov. Sometimes the poets reflect the deep religious heritage of Orthodoxy, while at other times these poets express a chasm of cynical influence that departed from the life of the Church.

Unlike the history in the chapter on Orthodoxy in Rus’, secular literary culture develops with inspiration from literary and social movements in western Europe. While Francis of Assisi and St. Mikhail the Holy Fool for Christ in Novgorod could criticize the worldliness and terrible examples of the monarchs during their times, the idea of secularism didn’t exist until the monarchy or a strong executive leader, like a CEO or Elon Musk, was overthrown as a governing body. This institution, like a modern, monarchic company, was abolished along with Christianity from the public sphere. The Russian intelligentsia are like the Enlightenment thinkers, scholastics, monastics who were the intellectual rivers of power in a culture. The reforms of emperor Peter I made secular culture possible. Russian monarchy accepted secularism along with a sort of conciliar ecclesial body called the Synod who was oversaw by the oberprocurator – “the eye of the emperor.” There were lot of questionable elections and political maneuvering that involved how the Orthodox hierarchy would function within the Synod. In 1723, the abolishment of the Moscow patriarchate was acknowledged by the patriarchates of Constantinople and Antioch who called the Russian Synod the “sister in Christ.” Synod simply means gathering, and instead of a more solid authority coming from the patriarch, the synod would become more liquid and collegial in nature. This was Tsar Peter’s vision for the Russian Church to avoid a confusion between two highly concentrated centers of power. Metropolitan Hilarion identifies this idea of Peter’s as a Protestant influence. Ancient Rome and Byzantium had the concept of dual consuls or dual emperors for a long time. Our own political system seems to monopolize on the idea that competing and “parallel” governing bodies, the three branches, will safeguard any one person or corporation form rising to the top. But maybe Peter the Great foresaw that competition would eventually lead to a sole victor, and one of those would either be the monarch or patriarch as the supreme ruler of the country. The old Byzantine ideal of symphony was abandoned in Russia with the loss of the patriarchate and the adoption of the synod.

History has shown that many empires and monarchies supported within its structures a multi-ethnic and multi-religious, mostly minority status, society with vibrant economic exchange. At other times not so much. All ideologies, as it seems from this zoom in view of history in Russia and France, that come after this movement could be said to be post-monarchical from an historical perspective: secularism, communism, democracy, capitalism, fascism, nationalism. Many of these philosophies the Russian intellectuals reacted and synthesized from neighboring Europeans. This chapter offers a survey of Russian literature, and many of the writers interact with these concepts or their influences and associated ideas. The Church, the heavenly Jerusalem, is above these considerations and eternal, not limited like what has been instituted by mankind and our worldly wisdom.

Before Russians lived mostly within Orthodoxy and monarchy as well as strong noble families called boyars who seemed to have been absorbed either into the monarchy of Muscovy or into the later intelligentsia. Other cultural pursuits did not exist on the horizon yet, as Metropolitan Hilarion would like us to remember. Peter I favored a French attitude toward art, music, education, philosophy, and religion. That isn’t necessarily a negative development as long as it respected Orthodoxy’s importance, and there are many saints and martyrs from the lands of the Anglo-Normans, the Franks, the Gauls and the Merovingians who are Orthodox. Peter the Great borrowed many social styles and ideas from the greatest European minds and powers of his time. An oversight that resulted from these western reforms were that they contributed to revolutionary ideas as a consequence. It’s not clear if Metropolitan Hilarion sees western influence in itself as the cause of later societal decay and decline in Orthodoxy or if it’s simply the result of political strife between the intelligentsia and the royal family.

From the chapter itself, it sounds as if western European culture was imposed unwillingly onto Russian society from the top down. Rather than view the situation as a foreign cultural movement infecting Russian society, it might be better to analyze it from the view that Orthodoxy could’ve converted French intellectual traditions and political developments through literary works, philosophical texts, and poetry. That’s what many Russian writers have done. This transformation and common ground that they’ve created between Orthodoxy and western Europe is something to appreciate and study. Many Russian intellectuals weren’t as open as others to Europe. Some Russians saw a clash where others saw a closeness between the French, or Franco-Latins as A. Trubetskoi pejoratively called them. Russia has become a real civilization that straddles both the Silk Route and the European continent, which is exactly what many European explorers had achieved by navigation rather than by land. So, in many respects, Russians are much akin to Europeans and Asians, and for this reason a tradition arose that began to refer to Russia as one of the Eurasian civilizations. Several topics within this chapter bring out this tension or unison, however we may want to interpret, during 19th c. Russian culture. First, some writers sought to unite Orthodoxy under the Pope of Rome to create a super-state religion of the world. Second, some writers advanced the idea that Sophia or Wisdom was a personification of the female side of God, and they introduced a fourth person into the Holy Trinity similarly to the filioque controversy. Third, there were arguments between so-called cultural Westerners and Slavophiles. The former embraced a more western European culture and the latter generally favored a more Russian nativist perspective regarding the identity of Russians that was rooted in Orthodoxy and peasant farming as well as other pan-Slavic philosophies. These ideas are two sides of the same nationalist coin. Nationalism is again another by product of the Enlightenment. This chapter can show us that Orthodoxy develops in diverse environments and cultures; there is no deus ex machina that one or another form of government can save the Orthodox Church. There also isn’t any determinism for us in American culture. Many of us such as the Silicon Valley elite, Harvard intellectuals, the media ministers, the caesar-like CEOs, big corporations, the legal powerhouses, the myriad of cultural movements aiming at what is thought to be good could all some day convert. We could use our powers, strength and unity in Orthodoxy. Our culture could convert, not like the forced baptisms or imperial decrees. But just as the most powerful empire we’ve studied, ancient Rome, was taken by the love of Christians. That’s the value of studying Metropolitan Hilarion’s volumes. We don’t have to limit ourselves to an obsession with recent tweets or events. Christian history doesn’t have to end at the 18th c., 17th c. or even the 15th c. We can choose not to ignore what has happened in the 7th c. during Iconoclasm, Late Byzantium, the Crusades, Hesychasm, and Peter’s Russian Empire. History isn’t a weapon, which is how it can be used recklessly. But it can be a wealth of wisdom if used rightly. All of these events somehow shape Orthodoxy in the 20th c. and the persecutions of the faith in Russia. But it also marks the renewal of Russian Orthodoxy in many ways. Orthodoxy also started to spread to western and eastern cultures around the globe, as we will read in the next chapter. Orthodoxy is the Kingdom of God. It’s not of this world but of the age to come. Many kingdoms and empires over the ages have attempted to extend power and rule by incorporating and changing the conquered to become like the victors. This was the general procedure for the Roman empire — to make the whole inhabited world Roman. In the same way, in the end of time, just as the Son is subject to the Father, so too all of humanity, both the sinners and righteous as the scriptures teach, will be subject to God the Father.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 8: The Russian Church during the Synodal Period, Part 1

In Chapter 8 (pp.171-210), Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev recounts how the Russian patriarchate was lost and replaced by the synodal structure under the emperor Peter I who introduced many reforms into Russian culture and religion that had far-reaching effects into the titanic events of the 20th c. The relationship between church and state took on more of the style of competitors than collaborators. Much of the so-called western influence came from exchanges between French monarchy and Russian ruling class. This interesting mix would later manifest in Russian literature and cultural movements. But it can be argued that French-Russian relations began much earlier when Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise married off his daughter, Anna of Kiev, to king Henry I of France whose lineage survives through the earls of England, many of whom fought with William the Conqueror in 1066. Anna became Queen of France around 1051.

On the one hand, the Russian Orthodox Church grew in numbers, education and schools were set up by the emperor for churches and monasteries, industry and technology developed, and successful missionary was conducted in Siberia, the Far East in China and Japan and the Alaskan territory of North America. The noetic tradition of prayer was revived, and many spiritual fathers rose up in leadership, when the Church needed it. Great, heroic saints such as Seraphim of Sarov, Innocent of Irkutsk, John of Kronstadt, Paisy Vleichkovsky, and Philaret of Moscow should be remembered.

On the other hand, the great sainthood of Russia coincides with reforms that foreshadowed the country’s revolutionary chaos of 1917. It was also a terrible time for all monarchies around the world, especially in Europe.

Some Russian Christians termed this synodal period “the Babylonian Captivity.” Leaders chosen by Peter I ran the synod with not so pious motives. The “intelligentsia” or educated elite forgot the faith and left in droves, and the western styled education created an unfortunate “clerical caste” in society, but more importantly clergy and people distanced themselves from genuine Orthodox tradition.

But the Orthodox Church never loses sight of what is ultimately important in the middle of political or cultural changes. Evidence of that is seen in the revitalization of Russian elderhood and noetic prayer. For example, in a story about St Seraphim of Sarov and Motovilov, on conversing in the Spirit, Seraphim says to Motovilov:

As good as prayer, fasting, vigils and all other Christian deeds are in themselves, the aim of our Christian life consists not only in doing them, although they are necessary means to attainting it. The true aim of our Christian life lies in the acquisition of the Holy Spirit of God.

These examples show us that wisdom flourishes everywhere; it’s universal to mankind. The Old Testament and New Testament testify to this knowledge and truth – that Christ Jesus is Wisdom. The Wisdom of Solomon 1:7 (who was a king and the wisest person) speaks of “the loving spirit” that fills the righteous who strive for moral heights and the glory of virtues that shine and are sharpened by trials and tresting, in study and struggle, in faithfulness and true friendships. That’s fulfilled in Christ the King of Glory who will always have the victory and the last word. This chapter has far-reaching significance for Christians everywhere, especially for us in the United States, for anyone under many different forms of government and cultures.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 7: Orthodoxy in Rus'

The title of this chapter gives us a starting point for understanding the development of the Russian Orthodox Church. Its homeland covers several different countries today that was called the lands of the Rus’. The political and social organization were formed by the Norse from Scandinavia. From Rurik to St. Vladimir the Great, they ruled over the Slavic and some Finnic peoples of Northern Russia and Ukraine. That would make the Normans, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, Scandinavians cousins with the modern Russian peoples as well as through royal intermarriage much later in European history. The fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans and a separated Roman Catholic Church in Italy and in the rest of Europe created the space for Russia to control more of its own interests and spiritual development. Russian history in this chapter is divided into Kievan and then Muscovite Orthodoxy. It indicates a change in the political and religious center of the Rus’ territory.

We’ve also learned before about the importance of the ancient cities of the lands of the Rus’ and Prince Vladimir’s Baptism of the Slavs with Kiev as an important political and spiritual center. The first section of this chapter outlines the political and spiritual background of the metropolia of Kiev. Metropolia means etymologically the mother city. The first metropolitan of Kiev was Michael in the 10th c. We know that Prince Vladimir married into the Byzantine monarchy through Anna. There were parish schools, growing cities, and about 400 churches built by the end of St. Vladimir’s rule with episcopal seats in the cities of Novgorod and Polotsk. The Cathedral of Holy Wisdom was built in Novgorod as well as in Kiev. The process and details of how the Rus’ became Christian is covered in the famous literary works of the Tale of Bygone Years and Metropolitan Hilarion’s Sermon on Law and Grace. Just as many nations before had done, the rulers of the Rus’ reinterpreted past history to show how God’s providence ruled and ordered events in favor of one’s kingdom, people, and Christianization. In a time when freedom of religion, democratic elections, and human rights didn’t exist as a concept, “mass baptisms” in ancient Russia is recorded as a success and gift from God. It is the near total replacement of Slavic paganism with Orthodoxy. Even in the 12th c. most of the metropolitans “of Kiev and all the Rus’” were Greeks. Over time, Greek hierarchy were replaced by native Russians.

In the 13th c. Batu Khan and the Golden Horde moved west into Russian lands and cities sacking towns and ushering in the period called the Mongol-Tatar Yoke. The steppe lands of Eastern Europe and Central Asia have seen this pattern over millennia, and it’s in fact from the very same source that the Indo-Europeans of ancient times entered Europe and changed the indigenous cultures already there. In the west, the Catholic Teutonic knights, being an extension of the Pope’s hand, posed another threat to Russia, a physical and spiritual danger of converting to Rome’s faith and forgetting Orthodoxy .The reason Russia has always needed a strong ruler is that it’s always poised to handle threats from either its western or eastern flank. So, Alexander Nevsky of Novgorod decided not to prolong a war with the Tatars but to maintain a diplomatic relationship with them. There was a crusade ordered by Pope Gregory IX against the Russians and Finns carried out by the Swedish monarchy. Alexander defeated the Swedes and the Livonian order at Lake Peipus. He also rejected offers to conversion from Pope Innocent IV through letters and cardinals sent in person to persuade his kingdom to become incorporated under the Pope and western powers. It seems from this chapter that Metropolitan Hilarion describes the rule of the Mongol-Tatars as devastating but overall less intrusive into the religious life of Russian Christians than would be the direct control of Roman Catholicism and other European monarchs who constantly had an interest in converting Russians just as they had in the councils of Ferrrara-Florence and Lyons. The Golden Horde seemed to have more interest in collecting taxes than reforming Russian churches or converting them like the Ottomans or the Teutonic orders. But both princes and metropolitans were required to obtain a yarlyk (permission) through the Mongol bureaucracy before acting in ecclesiastical or governmental offices.

In the 14th c., Metropolitan Peter and his successors moved to Moscow, and it became “de facto” center of metropolia. The shift from Kiev to Moscow was largely due to the city’s growth and importance when Grand Prince (a Tatar title) Ivan I Kalita ruled. It was also a strong city to begin the fight against Mongol-Tatar rule. Also, spiritual figures such as holy Prince Dimitry Donskoy, St. Alexei and St. Sergius of Radonezh lived during the Muscovite period. They represent in Russian fashion the holy ruler of the state, the rudder of the Church, and the ascetic visionary of the deep forests of Moscow. But Constantinople in the 14th c. still exerted much influence on the Russian Church in its patriarchs and metropolia. Moscow really attained its independence when Constantinople fell in the 15th c. But the Greeks still held control over Kievan metropolia. They set up Patriarch Gregory Mamas in 1458, for example. Moscow became independent from Constantinople while Kiev remained in the hands of the Greeks as distinct metropolia until 1685 when Kiev was incorporated into the Moscow patriarchate. There seems to be both a good precedent for both the right of the Greeks in Kiev to keep it separate as well as the cultural connection Moscow has with the metropolia of the Kievan Rus’. The rest of the chapter deals with very specific cultural and religious controversies in Russia in the 16th -17th c. One of them is particularly bloody that involved the debate about whether monastics or the monarch should own lands. Also important to note is that when Fedor replaced Ivan the Terrible in the 16th c., the patriarchate was established according to the canons of the Church whereas the earlier autocephalous actions were done without the approval of Constantinople. This idea of Church independence may seem odd to western Christians. But it isn’t much different than the interactions and desires of Christian kings and princes in Europe who had to politick with the Pope to gain the influence they sought over their lands and people, and that pattern culminates in violence and schisms in the 16th , 17th and 18th c. Europe, which we call the Enlightenment — a movement so anti-thetical and hostile to monarchy as a legitmate and stable form of government and focal point of religious exemplitude. The expectation in previous centuries was that a ruler lived upto the moral standards of the majoritiy religion. In our time, however, it’s entirely the opposite. We can keep our religious convinctions and faith private in our jobs and offices. That’s not anyone’s fault except the very structure of the government that has been established. One revolutionary basis of this foundation is the separation of church and state, public and private life. As long as that religion wasn’t Roman Catholic, that separation was favorable to most Americans. Clovis and Charlemagne set the example of kings ruling more by individual charisma and military leadership. Byzantium had a long imperial lifespan not only because it inherited what Rome conquered before but because people were loyal to an idea, a philosophy, and the Orthodox faith, not charismatic individuals or military might alone. It didn’t matter if a king was heretical or not because the people weren’t loyal to individuals but to the ideas themselves. To appreciate how many Christians used to think up until recently, we should consider that the kingdom was part of the fabric of one’s identity, a completely strange concept to us. Not because it was about politics, since the royal families were above politics, though not above immorality, intrigue and violence. But no one bought the throne, but they were born into it; wise rulers have huge potential that other systems just cannot produce. The Enlightenment, which deserves to be beaten like a dead horse, started the process of dechristianization, actually persecuting many Christians with mockery, at the same time as it was on its path of demonarchizing European cultures with its ultimate bloody victory over Christian monarchs in the world wars and revolutions. It’s worth noting too that Orthodox history may seem capricious like we tend to think of medieval history since it’s largely a monarchical or imperial world, and often a very religious environment. But it isn’t really more or less chaotic than the democratization of the globe in our own times or the never-ending upheavals that political referenda and elections can have on civil and religous life. This blog and Metropolitan Hilarion’s volumes are not meant to be an easy apology for monarchy - it’s often quite a ridiculous idea to most people in modern societies anyway. But monarchical government is a large part of Orthodox history, although there isn’t any necessity that it should be in the future. Its influence shouldn’t be overlooked, and it shouldn’t be so quickly dismissed as a backward and unimportant factor in the creation of many Orthodox countries and an enduring identity always awaiting a renewal.

The last section of this chapter deals with what Metropolitan Hilarion refers to as “Orthodoxy in Western Rus’” by which he means primarily the country of Ukraine and the Ukrainian ethnos. The Union of Brest was basically an attempt again by influences and parties from the Pope in Rome to convert Orthodox Christians in Eastern Europe. The idea is called Uniatism. It’s a pejorative term that entails Orthodox Christians keeping their outward Byzantine rite while submitting all jurisdictional and doctrinal authority to the Pope. It goes far back to 1458 when civil unrest exploded in Russia at the consecration of metropolitan Gregory in Rome. In the 1460s the Russian Orthodox in the Great Principality of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland refused to recognize the Union of Ferrara-Florence. The Kievan metropolia were consolidated back into the Moscow patriarchate in 1685, and the Patriarch Dionysios IV of Constantinople consented to this union of Kiev and Moscow.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 6: Late Byzantium

This chapter is extensive in the topics presented, and each have been given individual attention in scholarly literature. In short, it covers the Great Schism, the Crusades, the Union of Lyons, Hesychasm and the Palamite Controversy, the Union of Ferrara-Florence, the Fall of Constantinople and the following conditions of Orthodoxy in many countries under the Islamic Ottoman empire. It has a very chess board type of history that makes it difficult to really identify any purely good or bad characters. There were Latin rite Christians worshipping in the city of Constantinople and there were many well-established Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries in Italy before 1054. Rash decisions were made, and wise calculations taken too. The Hellenic and Italic cultures have been melding for millennia in the Mediterranean, not to mention how the Etruscans also helped to Orientalize Italy. How Greece and Italy have been integrated over thousands of years dwarfs in comparison this most recent and artificial break in the ecclesial and political spheres between them. Another example of integration is the Septuagint, which is the Bible translated into Greek by Alexandrian Jews as well as most of the wisdom books in scripture that could be described as products of reaction and synthesis of Hellenic and Hebraic wisdom traditions. Wisdom is universal. To reiterate a little, the Byzantines viewed themselves as Romans who did speak Greek, and no longer Latin. But for convenience sake, we refer to them as different peoples. The Byzantines were in fact heirs of classical culture, and imparted much inspiration, not its only source, to the Italian Renaissance in the 1400s. The Latins in Italy, as they came to be called by Greek Orthodox Christians, also saw themselves as inheritors of the pure faith and heirs of the Romans. So Rome and Constantinople are the apex of the schism and also probably the most similar to each other in many ways. The Byzantine empire had to be defended from multiple angles, as it happens. Often the attempts to preserve the original ecumenical territory that included Italy wasn’t perfectly reintegrated and there were new forces on the peninsula such as the Lombard kings and Norman mercenaries. Charlemagne’s translatio imperii performed and sanctioned by a part of the hierarchy, the Pope, was a strange sight for Byzantines who didn’t have this kind of direct relationship between church and state. The Roman pontiff, in the end, was able to maintain more independence from the Byzantine emperor while the patriarchs of the East submitted to the earthily authority of the rulers. These two ecclesial patterns more or less continued into the divergent histories of western Europe and eastern Europe and Asia. The Holy Roman emperors and princes vied with the Papacy while the Orthodox East fell under the control of the Muslim Ottoman empire.

Many scholars and typical accounts of the schism focus on a few characters or several key factors that are easy to list and summarize. But other crucial events and socio-political changes also began with the Merovingians and Clovis, then Charlemagne and the Franks leading to the Lombards and Normans ruling various Italian city states. There doesn’t seem to be any kingdom or culture in the past that didn’t see religion and power as working together. When Pope Leo III gave political legitimacy to the Frankish king Charlemagne, the Greeks considered this action unjustifiable and against political and religious order. Pepin the Short (probably ironically so-called) donated lands that would form the Papal States in 756. The Normans had a hand in ridding Orthodoxy from Italy and imposing the Latin rite from Rome. While in Sicily the Norman elite created an amazing amalgamation of indigenous Sicilian, Byzantine, Viking and Arab culture and art. These historical events aren’t given much detail in the volume but are worth understanding in our North American culture. But even earlier, as Metropolitan Hilarion recounts, there were provocations already in 732 when the anti-icon emperor Leo III the Isaurian took dioceses from southern Italy from the pope’s jurisdiction and placed under the control of Constantinople. All of this set up the coming collision between these two rival powers of spiritual and secular authority. It might be useful to remember that Christianity is a more accurately a kingdom not of this world, and not just a religion among other world religions. The Muslims were religious, the Jews were religious, the Franks were religious, the Latins were religious as well as the Byzantines and the lands of the Rus’. The rules and canons differed and were similar among these peoples.

Metropolitan Hilarion reminds us that “Papal Primacy was repeatedly advanced in the east …” during the age of ecumenical councils with hardly any protest at all. The Pope could be “the most divine head of all heads” if he were to maintain the Orthodox faith; and there is no doctrine of papal supremacy or infallibility in the strongly pro-papal examples provided in these volumes, or in the patristic history and literature. Both papal supremacy and infallibility are dogmas now of the Roman Catholicism. These doctrines are not accepted by the Orthodox Churches today. Papal primacy is accepted on the condition that the Bishop of Rome is Orthodox in faith. The Roman Church was one of the greatest churches because it maintained Orthodoxy, fought against heretical politicians and emperors, and they had the honor of being purified by the martyrdom of the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul. The filioque occupied more attention than purgatory or the papacy in the theological discussions at the Ferrara-Florence is noteworthy.

The Latin filioque comes from the addition to the Nicene Creed the Son (Patre filioque procedit) meaning the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. It was more serious than the minor differences in Latin ritual practices, although they were often taken together to form anti-Latin polemics with a lack of discernment. The Holy Trinity was the cornerstone of the traditions of the Church and faith that kept the Orthodox world together. The emperor Michael was the person who pushed the most for viewing the Latins as non-Orthodox, whenever they were. Patriarch Peter of Antioch wrote to Patriarch Michael Cerularius about Roman practices saying:

But I think the other things … should be overlooked, since the word of truth is not at all harmed by them. For we should not readily be persuaded by vain accusations, nor believe in our own suspicions, and we should not change the things which are established and right.

And Peter ended his letter to Cerularius by saying:

If ever they [the Romans] would correct the addition to the holy creed, I would demand nothing else, leaving as a matter of indifference, along with all the other matters, even their fault regarding the azyme.

There were schisms before 1054 that were healed. Surprisingly even this local split between Patriarch Michael Cerularius and the papal legates of Pope Leo did not end until the Fourth Crusade of 1204.

The Fourth Crusade in 1204 recounts the liberation from the Muslim armies but also the plundering of Orthodox churches and cities. Latin patriarchs were assigned to Constantinople and Antioch. It was abolished in 1291 in Jerusalem, but reinstated by the Roman Catholic Church in 1847 to the present day. Between the 10th and 15th c. the eastern Roman empire along with the patriarchates in the east began to decline slowly. But there were cultural flowerings of learning such as the Macedonian, Comneian and Palaeologan renaissances, named after the emperors responsible for supporting them in the church.

The Union of Lyons was a regrettable attempt at reunification. The Greek clergy arrived to celebrate the liturgy together and they chanted the filioque with the Latin patriarchs from western Europe. The emperor Michael VIII forced this union. Neither the Pope of Rome’s papal supremacy or his privileges healed the schism, nor did the emperor without adhering to the Orthodox faith can heal the schism by unilateral means. Emperor John VIII Palaeologos (1425-1448) met with Pope Eugene IV. Patriarch Joseph II came too. Patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem came. In 1438, a council was convened in Ferrara, Florence. Metropolitan Mark of Ephesus came.

Purgatorium. They discussed the idea of purgatory that only those who are in good standing with the Church, the elect, can be cleansed of venial sins and go to heaven after this purifying fire. Mortal sins cannot be purified and the fire of hell isn’t the same as purgatory according to the Roman Catholic Catechism. The modern catechism describes purgatorial fire as not coming from God’s anger but out of charity. It isn’t clear or talked about whether the fire is created or uncreated, literal or allegorical. But no one in hell can escape; no one in heaven needs prayers. The Orthodox Church doesn’t teach this purgatory. St. Mark of Ephesus and the Orthodox did not know this doctrine, since they prayed for all the departed either in heaven or hell. What it really ends up saying theologically is that there is a limit to forgiveness and mercy.

Filioque. They discussed the filioque clause at the council. After a year and a half of discussions they couldn’t agree to each other’s explanations of purgatory or the filioque. The Latins gave an ultimatum. The pope promised military help against the Turks on the condition that they accept purgatory, filioque, and all that the Latins teach. Only Mark of Ephesus refused to sign in agreement. Transubstantiation, papal supremacy, and the use of unleavened bread, the specific way of saying the epiklesis were also doctrines that the Greeks had to accept. Papal supremacy meant that not only did the Pope of Rome have primacy of honor, but primacy of jurisdiction and doctrine. The Orthodox had to accept that the Pope of Rome was the “vicar of Christ” and “head of the Church.” That means the Pope could act unilaterally. The filioque really implied that there is not one source of the Godhead – God the Father – that the will and energy of God are not created but uncreated.

St.Mark of Ephesus says that the Greek delegation sent to Ferrara had sold out the Orthodox Faith. He lists what the Orthodox Church taught in opposition to the Latins at that time. “And we say that the saints do not enter the kingdom and the unspeakable delights prepared for them, nor are sinners sent to Gehenna, but both await their fate, which will be entered into in the age to come after the resurrection and judgment; but they along with the Latins, wish that these might receive according to their deeds immediately after death, granting those in between … the purifying fire, which is not identical to that of Gehenna ….”

He also says about the Patriarch of Rome, “For us the pope is one of the patriarchs, and only if he is Orthodox; but they declare with great self-importance that he is the vicar of Christ, the father and teacher of all Christians …. Therefore, brethren, run from them and avoid contact with them.” The Russian Church at the time under Constantinople was the first to reject the Union of Florence.

Even though Metropolitan Isidore of Kiev accepted and commemorated the Bishop of Rome in liturgy at Moscow, the Grand Prince Vasily Vasilievich declared Isidore a heretic and arrested him. Then, all the Russian bishops and priests rose against the union with the Latins. Isidore fled to Rome and became a cardinal. (135-136). In concert, the state and church worked together to reject a false union.

Laetentur Caeli was the document that the Basel group had to sign. The Russians declared autocephaly and excoummunicated sympathizers to the Latin doctrines. Etsi non dubitemus (1441) sealed the doctrine of the papal supremacy over church councils. But just before the Union of Florence, the Great Western Schism had just been broiling among western bishops who never resolved how to settle a dispute between rival claimants to the papal office – do they hold a council or do they not? If they hold a council, a council becomes the mechanism and superior to the Pope, as they reasoned and feared that conciliarism would become a guiding precedent.

All these events are interlocking. Since the military help needed to repel the Ottomans from sieging Constantinople hinged on accepting the Union of Florence and hence a different set of dogmas and traditions of the Church, Constantinople Fell in 1443. May 28 was the last day that the divine liturgy was held in Constantinople up to today. May 29 was the day that the Turks finally took the city after a week long defense by the Greeks, Genovese Italians, and others. The city had officially accepted the Latin doctrine and Papacy, yet they fell nevertheless. Constantine XI Palaeologos was the last Roman Emperor. Cardinal Isidore was there and was caught and executed along with many Byzantine priests, nobility, and aristocracy. Churches were looted and destroyed.

Uniatism was an idea and practice that was banned by the Roman Catholic Church in 1993. Pope Benedict XVI has taught that there is nothing else required from Orthodoxy except for the first millennium (including papal primacy as defined by the Orthodox Church, not papal supremacy or the filioque).

Another Italian-Greek debate occurred between Barlaam of Calabria, a Greek, and St. Gregory Palamas of Constantinople. The knowledge of God is a topic related to hesychasm as well as the ability to experience “the divine light.” Palamas defended the essence-energies distinction that is common way of explaining how we can know and experience God while God’s essence remains unknowable and inscrutable. Barlaam lost the debate at the council in Hagia Sophia in the summer of 1341; Barlaam fled the city and sought refuge in Avignon under Pope Clement VI who appointed Barlaam bishop of Gerace in Naples, Italy with the help of Francesco Petrarca. Gregory defends that we worship one God, not two – one essence God. Hesychasm as taught by St. Gregory Palamas was confirmed three times in council in Constantinople, although one of his disciples and others later opposed him like Barlaam.

By 1453 most of the historical splits that endure today have occurred. Italy still isn’t a unified country at this time but it’s divided into various kingdoms, city-states, and the Papal states. Russia is germinating in Kiev and the northern lands of the Rus’ including Moscow haven’t been united under one monarch. What is now Greece is under Muslim control in the Ottoman empire, and it isn’t a national concept yet. But the Fall of Constantinople is considered by many scholars in the West, even Edward Gibbons, to be the last of the Roman emperors on July 4, 1453. The Byzantines, however, didn’t disappear. In 1498, the Scuola dei Greci was established by Byzantine Greeks residing in Venice after the Fall of 1453. San Giorgio dei Greci was built later. The last grand duke of the Byzantine emperor fled to Venice where treasures are kept at this church. They began building an Orthodox temple in 1456 about a decade after the city of Constantinople fell. Napoleon and the Enlightenment movement eventually closed these Greek and Slavic confraternities in 1806.

Many older Greek and Middle Eastern immigrants to America would later have the Ottoman empire on their passport while many Eastern Europeans would have the stamp ofvthe Austro-Hungarian empire, or the Russian Orthodox missionaries to America would have a passport from the Russian empire. Just as the Jewish nation fell to allow the totality of the gentiles into the church, so too global immigration, imperial missionaries, and the fall of empires have allowed those of us who live in non-Orthodox countries to experience Orthodox Christianity freely. Whatever interpretation we take on these historical events we know in divine wisdom that God orders all things according to his mercy. The next chapter discusses how Orthodoxy in Rus’ became Orthodoxy in Russia, and the historical development of Russia came to influence Europe, France, and the United States.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 5: Summary of the First Millennium

During the first millennium around 537 AD, emperor Justinian oversaw the completion of the Church of Holy Wisdom in Constantinople. It’s a common attribution that he said, “I have outdone Solomon.” The Wisdom of Solomon, includinig all sapiential scriptures, is known to have many connections to apostolic teaching and many typological references to Christ and his doctrines of resurrection, salvation, and judgment. Christ’s stands at the center of creation as Holy Wisdom Itself – a fulfillment of the prophets and patriarchs and priesthood. Justinian is also recorded to have said that God’s greatest gifts to us are the priesthood and “the dignity” of imperial rule. While the latter hasn’t surpassed the passage of time, the liturgical and royal priesthood have continued today. True royalty of the heart never fades and is always filled with treasures.

In God’s wisdom, much unlike our own thinking, he prophesied and promised to Abraham that “all nations” will be saved. The Apostles Peter and Paul teach that “all of Israel will be saved,” meaning every individual Jew according to the flesh in toto will be saved, and that until the totality (pleroma) of the nations enters the Church where Wisdom resides and saves, Israel awaits its salvation. Israel is hardened now for other nations of the world of whom we have been studying in these volumes, and about their particular history of conversion. Because Israel fell away the gentiles can be shown mercy and salvation. The Jewish people will not reject God forever, as the Apostle Paul clearly apportioned a temporary character to it, because God never rejects people forever. By keeping Israel in disobedience to have mercy on the gentiles, all Israel too will be shown mercy in the end. That logic of doctrine aligns with the teaching of the Wisdom of Solomon that God orders all things in mercy for all people teaching them the truth and virtuous way of life. It is Wisdom, the Word, the Logos, the Christ who opened the mouths of infants and the uneducated to speak wiser than the worldly philosophers, astronomers, emperors and law-givers. Solomon, not Solon, teaches that God shows mercy on “all beings” (panta onta). This explanation gives us a background for understanding how Christianity has been a fulfillment of the Old Testament and how it expanded within the Jewish, Hellenic, and Roman cultures from 70 AD to 1000 AD.

So, there were many martyrs under the Roman empire, and a long time afterward. The emperors were converted and many pagan nations converted: Latins, Greeks, Syrians, Arabs, North Africans, Britons, Gauls, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, the Slavic peoples. One after another each nation and ruler accepted wisdom as taught by king Solomon, the wisest of rulers, and by the apostolic teaching of the Orthodox Church. Christianity spread not only by martyrdom but also by monasticism and ascetical literature, and the piety of good people. The term laity is from French, Latin laicus, ultimately Greek laos (people) to refer to an uneducated person. Since that carries baggage from a certain period of history in western Europe when almost no one was educated, not even the majority of priests, and because most people are educated, it’s probably more accurate to call the people in the Church the royal priesthood or just the people. The eucharistic liturgy develops in the 2nd – 3rd c. Monastic hymnographers also have a great influence on the liturgical services in the 8th – 10th c. Fine arts and church architecture and iconography all develop, and along with that church singing grows. How else could the majority of the inhabitants of the known world be captured by Christianity? Wisdom through the Holy Spirit is stronger than the brute force of power. Wisdom is Christ Himself. He is given to us for our benefit in the liturgy, the eucharist, the feasts, the hours, the songs and cyclical services. These aspects of the Church are not just “developments of doctrine,” as if we have to be apologetic by the richness adorned in our worship, but the natural outgrowth of discernment, perception, astuteness, self-control, and the cultivation of holy wisdom in the apostolic teachings. Monasticism gained momentum in the 4th c. because they desired to pursue wisdom with a determination that could only be sought by dedicating oneself alone by tonsure and the bishops of the Church. They understood that truth appears like folly to the world. But earthily understanding is the true foolishness to be grieved. How else is it possible to make emperors and empresses bow down and kiss the holy icons? The Church vanquished iconoclasm and the basilicas rebounded with an abundance of icons to keep us from evil images and doctrines during the 7th – 9th c. The Holy Spirit instructs the Church and guides it by hierarchy (the bishops and priests and deacons) and also through the liturgical worship of the church as it is evident in history. These rules or canons teach us discernment, righteousness, glory of the virtues by hymns, scriptures, iconography, and ascetical literature or the lives of the saints. The end of the first millennium includes some setbacks in history. The social and political fabric of a unified Christianity begins to crumble. But wisdom is never perturbed by the tides and folly of human decisions, whether among monks, clergy, the people, or in councils and imperial courts. With that holy confidence and very brief summary we can proceed into the next chapter called Late Byzantium and into the second millennium of Christianity.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 4: Baptism of the Slavic Peoples

From the 4th to 7th c. monastic communities and ascetical literature developed in Egypt, Syria, Palestine as well as in Constantinople. Some belonged to the Greco-Roman culture in the Roman empire, others came from the Assyrian tradition in the Persian empire. The iconoclasm of the 7th c. had been vanquished by Orthodoxy with a large part of the brunt being taken, as it seems, by monastics in Constantinople and the royalty who at times supported or persecuted iconodules. Symphony was the idea developed in Constantinople, probably a very Roman concept, that the Church and the government should and must coexist harmoniously as much as it is possible, provided that the ruler is Orthodox as well as the majority of the people. The Old Testament is filled with examples of kings and empires. A holy nation and people will come out victorious whatever the politics because “good people always triumph” says the wisdom books of Scripture. The nobles, princes, or oligarchs (the rich masses) should also equally support the monarch and should not oppress the other classes – a point often neglected in discussion around Church-state relations. Alexander Schmemann and Metr. Hilarion admit that this symphony principle may have been an ideal more sought than practiced because there were certainly a lot of arbitrariness in the history of Byzantium. Monarchies tend to be hereditary whereas the hierarchy was not except in the Old Testament period and in certain cases in Syria. Europe had its own dilemma later than Byzantium with the Investiture Controversy that focused on the problem of how to order a good society, and how land was to be used either by the Church or the state. In the 9th and 10th c., Byzantine monks were sent and were requested to come and teach Christianity to various Slavic peoples of Europe, since they didn’t know whether to follow the Latin or Greek ritual that usually indicated different practices, and even beliefs. It was a time that also coincided with many other tumultuous events around the jurisdiction of the Greek Church in Constantinople and the Latin Church in Rome as well as competitive bishops from the Germanic lands of Bavaria bordering on Czechia and Slovakia, neighbors of the Slavs. The Franks, Normans, Bavarians, all more or less Romanized in one way or another, had already been Christians before the baptism of the Slavic nations and their respective unification.

There are a handful of large topics embedded in this short chapter surrounding the baptism of the Slavs. The Photian-Ignatian Schism, Prince Vladimir’s baptism of his nation, the deterioration of relations between Constantinople and Rome, the Filioque controversy, and the mission of Sts. Cyril and Methodius.

Many scholars and prominent Roman Catholic theologians have exculpated Photius. In fact, Photius never really desired or sought to be a bishop of Constantinople. He was content with his ascetical life. A faction of monks from the Stoudios Monastery favored bishop Ignatius who was the son of emperor Michael I (9th c.). Empress Theodora ruled instead of the young Michael III. After that, Ignatius was deposed for the first time and Photius was put on the patriarchal throne. One swift action by the monarchical power of this empress set off a long series of events that caused a schism, the second one after the Akakian schism, between Rome and Constantinople. But it may seem strange that Rome would be involved in a controversy involving another church’s bishop. As expected, the Stoudios monks didn’t accept Photius as bishop. In 863 Pope Nicholas I deposed Patriarch Photius. This action was unacceptable by the Church in Constantinople as a breach of canon law and Orthodox ecclesiology. Both the intervention of the empress and the Pope into the church affairs of an already complex city such as Constantinople caused further intensity and disruptions.

What soured the relationship more between Rome and Constantinople was the missionary activities of Sts. Cyril and Methodius as well as the often overlooked issue of the Normans eventually coercing the Latin rite on Greek Orthodox Christians populating southern Italy when they began to arrive in a vibrantly multi-ethnic and open society of trade and a high degree of religious tolerance in Italy during the 9th – 10th c. The Norman mercenaries just couldn’t stomach all of that, especially the Arab presence and occasional Saracen pirates. Most probably the latter issue had a lot to do with the 1054 schism. In the end, the Church of Constantinople canonized Ignatius and Photius post mortem. Patriarch Photius was a leading voice in criticizing the filioque teaching and raising it nearly to the level of heresy for introducing a fourth source into the Trinity by saying that the Holy Spirit proceeds (derives from, comes from - post classical meaning) from the Father and the Son, rather than from the Father alone, which was originally rejected by Pope Leo III himself when it was first brought to his attention in earlier centuries. The filioque was pushed mostly by Charlemagne’s newly founded kingdom in rivalry to the Byzantium empire in order to find fault and heresy with the Greek Church in Constantinople. Rome’s position among the pentarchy (all the Orthodox patriarchates) seems to be best described historically and theologically as the authoritative mediator not only between churches, bishops, and missions but also between outside forces like the Franks and Byzantium. But all of that changed with the advent of the Carolingian dynasty and the coronation of Charlemagne ca. 800 who had little in common with any real restoration of the Roman empire compared to the hereditary and cultural legacy of the Byzantines. In fact, more strange than to think that the capitol of the Roman Empire could be in the Greek city of Constantinople was that Charlemagne’s new Holy Roman Empire, the forerunner of modern Europe’s values and customs, was located not in the old city of Rome but headquartered in Aachen, Germany. From there all major European royalty emerges with also input from the Russian royal family as well. The term Roman pontiff is somewhat of an important word to use for the Bishop of Rome because it refers to the old Latin term that means a high official who acted as a bridge-maker. Just as the holy apostles Peter and Paul mediated between the Jews and Gentiles, so too Rome acted in this way, which precludes any idea of supremacy, jurisdictional authority, or notions of absolute monarchy that the pagans admired and worshipped. The Popes in Rome supported and mediated on behalf of Sts. Cyril and Methodius to enable them to teach the Byzantine faith to the Slavs of the Moravian kingdom in modern day Czecha and Slovakia. The Roman Popes approved of their efforts to translate the Bible and other works in the Slavonic language for the people despite the protests by the Bavarians and others who wrongly thought that only Latin, Greek, and Hebrew could be used for liturgical purposes. Their mission ultimately failed to take deeper root due to the tensions between their Germanic neighbors, and probably rightly so. But Bulgaria, Russia, Serbia and other Balkan nations accepted the Byzantine Christianity, and Greek bishops were sent there. Our grass-roots ideal of how politics, unity, and religious missions should work just wasn’t that simple according to the majority of the history of the Orthodox Church.

Prince Oleg in 911 experienced some missionary activity but it wasn’t well established, as Photius records. After a treaty was reached between the Rus’ (Russians) under Prince Igor and the Byzantine empire, Christianity flowed more freely between them. There was already a cathedral in Kiev of the Prophet Elias in 944. The traditional date of the “baptism of the Slavs” that the Church of Russia accepts is 988 when Prince Vladimir married Anna from Byzantium. The Tale of Bygone Years is a great example of ancient Russian literature mixed with Biblical themes and historical sources, which begins from Adam and Eve to Vladimir’s baptism that brings Christianity to the “peoples of the Rus’.” The next few chapters will cover Late Byzantium, its fall, and how Orthodoxy developed in Rus’ that became modern Russia. Metr. Hilarion and Alexander Schemann view the fallout of Rome and Constantinople and the subsequent fall of Constantinople as leaving Russian Orthodoxy as the leading light of Orthodoxy until the Revolution of 1918. In Russian culture, as well as most European cultures, the royals have set the best examples for us. St. King Aethelbert of East Anglia, Sts. Boris and Gleb, and St. Elizabeth the New Royal in the 20th c. are excellent models of good rulers lighting a candle in the midst of chaos rather than cursing the darkness. What can happen in a thousand years? Most of the inhabited world became Orthodox Christian. The next few chapters recount the first millennium and proceed into a time where monarchies fell and Christianity was broken up politically and socially.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 3: The Rise of Monasticism and Ascetic Literature

Some say monasticism in the Church originated from a negative reaction to the Christianization of the Roman Empire. It’s believable that some people responded this way, and many Egyptians avoided conscription in the Roman army by force who had moved to the desert regions. But the one-minded spirit to serve God alone, outside of married life, has been represented by the Old Testament prophets, St. John the Forerunner, and late Jewish groups such as the Essenes and Nazarenes who “labored for virtue” like Christians. Any person who desires to seek wisdom and its ultimate source is like a monk in heart. Just as there is the royal priesthood of holy believers, there are many who, whether married or not, understand that Wisdom, the Logos, the Incarnate Son of God has always been with mankind as a guide toward the Truth that alone can “set us free.” Our nature is made good and still is good in each of us; but our gnomic will constantly wanders off, and confuses various goods in the world with the Good.To gain a higher degree of self-control in an environment best suited for achieving that goal, monks in Egypt and Palestine flourished and spread different types of monasticism to Italy, Britain, France, Syria, Constantinople, Russia and many other places. Monasticism seeks to live the straight path in a way that relies on the source of all good, Goodness Itself. Although we belong to each other in sharing one human nature, we don’t seem to be a one-size fits all situation when we discuss each person’s individual spiritual pursuit of righteousness and wisdom. Some may need more solitary time like in the sketes of the Egyptian desert and the forests of northern Russia, others more communal situations like the cenobitic monasteries or in a city accompanied by many books. Other topics mentioned is the development of the scriptorium and monastic eldership.

The sapiential literature of the Old Testament can be understood as fulfilled in the pursuit of discernment and perception and wisdom among the monastic communities of the Church as well as among the married Christians representing wisdom in the royal priesthood, because holiness and wisdom are one – upheld by the glory of the virtues produced in the Church and as a wonderful work of Christ. For this reason, Syrian monks called themselves “the sons of the covenant” because the Old Testament wasn’t separate, but continuous with the life of Christ. With the same inclination of our gnomic or knowledgeable will to miss the mark, lacking discernment in thought and action, Christians living in the world can become too worldly just as monks can become too rigidly monkish. Some groups of monks began to develop “extreme individualism.” The Council of Gangra declared that monks who disdained marriage along with other very strict standards of living, as if imposed on all Christians, were condemned. Examples of extreme austerity can be seen in the monasticism of Cappadocia at times. But a Cappadocian father, St. Basil the Great taught the more “ecclesiastic” understanding of monasticism situated in and originating from the Church, not an outside force imposed on or added as an appendage to the ecclesial structure. Desert monasticism was characteristic of Syria-Palestine, Egypt while urban monasticism developed in Rome, Constantinople, Cappadocia. And the real jewel of knowledge that monastics have given us is that distractions follow us everywhere we go. There are sheep and goats in the pastures of our heart. Theodore the Studite from the well-known and influential Stoudios monastery of Byzantium speaks to monks saying, “I believe God will accept you and your good intention [will] if you remain the same even after moving from the most silent places to noisy and populous ones, from desert to city.” The changeable man is tossed by vices and lack of discernment, but the wise are calm even in the midst of storms, as our scriptures teach in the Wisdom of Solomon and Proverbs.

Canonical structure or the framework of rules is important for regulating the life of any Christian, especially monastic communities. Basil’s Rules, although having no word “monk” mentioned, outlines how Christians who dedicate themselves to attaining perfection can live best. It was mentioned in the chapter that monasticism isn’t an authority or standard set above the Church. The life free of many distractions was very much supported by the Roman government and culture, and so the Byzantines allowed for monasteries to become epicenters of classical and theological learning and libraries. The hot pursuit of virtue, wisdom, and righteousness, the union with God combined with the preservation of wisdom literature and theological and liturgical texts – an immense gift from God. Because Constantinople’s government supported monasticism for the most part of its history, around 100,000 monks at one time lived in Byzantium, and 76 monasteries in the city of Constantinople. And contrary to the opinion of some Roman Catholic friends who argue that the eastern Christians had a penchant for heresy deep in their psychology, which requires that the doctrine of papal supremacy is true, it is no coincidence that heresies had to come out of the Hellenistic East. The Greek Bible, the Septuagint, compiled by Hellenistic Jews, is the oldest, most authoritative version of the Bible still used by the Orthodox Church. The Greek language along with the Greek and Jewish communities, often intermarrying and exchanging ideas, are closest to the apostolic teaching and writing, and so they are best able to handle such difficulties and nuances in interpreting the scriptures. If these heresies had spread from any other area of the inhabited world, who could have resolved them with such authority and power and clarity? Most of the patriarchates are located in the eastern Mediterranean and Asian side of the world; so, that also makes it logistically and culturally easier to convene and discuss theological and ecclesial issues so much so that even the Pope had the custom of sending his legates across the sea to Constantinople. Out of the good providence of God the ecumenical councils and monasticism with rich abundant literary resources grew out of a larger Mediterranean world that was once very integrated compared to today.

Ascetical and monastic literature wasn’t always Roman. St. Isaac the Syrian (7th c.) lived in the Persian Empire. Also Jacob Aphrahat (4th c.) and St. Ephraim the Syrian (4th c.) were not Greek or Roman but belonged to the Assyrian or Syriac tradition of Christianity.

So, the next few chapters discuss the Baptism of the Slavs and Late Byzantium and the Great Schism that broke up a widespread common culture and tradition, that may have been more an idealization than a reality. Rome and Constantinople with the other patriarchates of the East finally parted ways, and new idea of “East and West” would rise in the popular minds of later thinkers and nations.

Orthodox Christianity, Vol I, Ch 2: The Age of the Ecumenical Councils

The age of ecumenical councils covers three major controversies that hit the Church: the Trinitarian heresies, the heresies about Christ, and the persecution of Christians who venerated iconography. Many people gave up their life for these doctrines. The councils didn’t always reach the right verdict the first time but there were victories that were at very crucial times supported by the state or the prevailing cultural tide at the time. What is important about each of these theological successes is that it involves the Orthodox teaching of personalism. The Trinity is one God in three persons, not the same person. Christ is a person who is perfect in his humanity and perfect in his divinity. Icons reflect holy persons who have been deified and who are praying ceaselessly for us all to be saved individually. In Holy Orthodoxy personal theology doesn’t sacrifice technical, abstract, or philosophical understanding. They are integrated. A faith that isn’t rational isn’t really faith in anything but ignorance. Rationalism shouldn’t be confused with rationality that has been given to us as a part of every human creature. Our mind can grasp through the senses what is beyond our sensate world. That is a gift of God’s wisdom to us that we are free to pursue or not to help us practice and seek wisdom and the glory of the virtues, which is how we can participate in Christ. A large part of the debates in the ecumenical councils revolve around trying to articulate and maintain the teaching about Christ’s personhood and the one Godhead. Those debates had to include Christ’s incarnation and its connection to physical bodies, matter – the stuff that is used to paint icons. The “restoration of all” of humanity and the individual choice of each person doesn’t seem to negate each other in Orthodoxy.

There seems to be a very widespread misunderstanding about the goodness of humanity and the Holy Trinity in the western world that seems to go unnoticed. Many Christians think and behave as if we are "self-enclosed individual substances” and an independently, “metaphysically simple” creature like the Holy Trinity. Especially related to this idea of every soul for himself is that evil and sin, by extension death, are inherently part of us. That is impossible in Holy Orthodoxy and it’s contrary to Orthodox teaching. Passions are foreign growths in humanity that are not consubstantial with human nature. Our human relationships and web of interconnectedness, our history of associations, cultural learning, our memories and attachments to friendships are so subtly treated nowadays as all some kind of “defiling entanglement.” This is not to contradict ascetical and monastic Christian literature, because they too struggle to be truly free in relationship to other people. By analogy, we are reflections of the Holy Trinity’s love in our relationship to other persons. Persons require other persons to exist. Solus Christianus nullus Christianus, Metropolitan Hilarion has explained in these volumes.

There are summaries of the characters, conclusions, contradictions of each of the major ecumenical councils that will bring us to a fuller and more mature understanding of how canonical structure and history of the Church unfolds.

The fathers used a Greek term, hypostasis, to indicate person while “essence” meant the unknowable and “inscrutable” nature of God to human beings. We are required to “honor and accept” the ecumenical councils that were later integrated by “consensus” after much reflection by holy fathers of the Church. But not all of them were honorable or acceptable. For example, one of the councils of Chalcedon was later considered a “robber council.” All of these councils were convoked by the Roman emperor in Constantinople with the participation of the Pope in “the West,” actually on the Italian peninsula, with his legates. But it often didn’t include the whole inhabited world. These ecclesial convocations and decisions didn’t always reach the Christians of Persia, India, Ethiopia, or Armenia until fifty, sixty, seventy or more years later. Monarchies, not necessarily identical to empires, since democracies can also be imperial like classical Athens, tend to be conservative, long-term strategizing, future oriented in behavior; resources tend to be preserved as privately owned land. St. John of Damascus reminds us that the Church and state have separate roles. He teaches, “It is not for emperors to legislate for the Church … Political good order is the concern of emperors, the ecclesiastical constitution that of pastors and teachers … We submit to you, O Emperor, in the matters of this life, taxes, revenues, commercial dues, in which our concerns are entrusted to you. For the ecclesiastical constitution we have pastors who speak to us the word and represent the ecclesiastical ordinance” (80). It’s one thing to discuss the issues of power, and it’s another to view culture and Christian practice together. There hasn’t been very strong voices that argue for a separation of culture and religion. That would seem unnatural. Social relationships and historical experiences makes us who we are, and our cultural identity doesn’t have to be uniform or singular. Often monarchies incorporated many diverse peoples and languages and religions, even if they existed in the minority. State really implies questions of power, military, human justice, and economy. The Church has always recognized a higher, divine kingdom without disparaging or escaping this current life, and our particular circumstances.

Metropolitan Hilarion reminds us that many of the theological and dogmatic victories of the Church didn’t happen without the direct intervention and help of the Christian emperor and the Pope of Rome. In fact, the Popes of Rome often stood up against the emperors who weren’t Orthodox in faith and especially the iconoclastic emperors. Metr. Hilarion, then, concludes that the highest authority in the Church isn’t a council or conciliarism as many Orthodox might think, nor is it papal supremacy and infallibility of the Pope of Rome, as Roman Catholicism teaches today. But ultimate authority is the local Church who is in communion with other local Churches headed by one bishop who can call councils and make decisions that must be reconciled with the history of the Church in its liturgical life. Christ is the Head of the Church and it is guided by the Holy Spirit. Ironically, the best example of Orthodox Church authority is the Church in Rome when it was unified with the rest of the eastern patriarchates during the age of the ecumenical councils. The Roman bishop convened its own local councils, declared its own teachings, it stood up to heretical emperors, it defended iconography and tempered the interference of the emperor into ecclesial affairs and doctrines. Rome was a bulwark of the Orthodox faith in the age of the ecumenical councils. The next chapter deals with the rise of monasticism and ascetical literature, which have made one of the biggest impacts on Orthodox theology.