My heart goes out to Cross bearing and full of Holy Martyrs Church of Egypt. I am in love with the witness that she has been for our Lord.
I dont think that there is a division that makes me more sad that one between Orthodox Churches of the East.
Even more se because I still can not figure it out. I may be damned but it is a sin for a man not to speak his mind, not to say what lies on his heart.
For me might aswell be a communion between our Churches for in my mind, if I can not figure out the reasons for division, there is no division.
I guess to sum up what is being argued is that some of the EO's think we are heretics because of the way we describe Christ's nature. They say it is incorrect to say he has one combined nature. Furthermore, some of them accuse us of following the teachings that brought up this heresy in the 5th Century--which of course is just ridiculous because we in fact excommunicated the man who started that heresy. That man taught that Christ was only divine and we clearly do not teach or believe that.
The way I see it, they can disagree with our definition as much as they like, BUT I do not want them saying we believe things that we don't.
I mean one person was trying to argue with me about what my church believes. I have been part of my church since birth, know it very very well, my grandfather was a priest, my 3 brothers are deacons, and two of them teach at the church...and I can provide a zillion sources that state what we believe. Why this person things he knows what I believe better than me? Who knows.
Please, as always feel free to ask any questions that come to mind.
God Bless,
Elizabeth
so suffice it to say, the argument or whatever is solely based on the ways of explaining, instead of the meaning itself?
__________________ “I've eaten things that didn't complain this much.”-Denis Leary
"Once you realize what a joke everything is, being the Comedian is the only thing that makes sense."-Edward Blake-The Comedian in The Watchmen
Sin Vladomirov...
rest assurred that you are not alone in the Orthodox Church. i cannot agree with you about "leaving me in my dark"... as Orthodox (Coptic or "Eastern") it is our calling to seek truth no matter how unappealing it may be... but I am still unconvinced that there is any TRUE division of mind and spirit (including theology) between the EO and the OO Churches.
I pray that we are reconciled in my lifetime!
With that said, I have a question. It's not meant to be a "gotcha!" question, but real question. In the EO Church, we believe that Christ ASSUMED another nature (that being the human nature) and that the divine nature never changed. I'm not convinced that I've done a great job of representing the EO explanation of this, but that's the gist of it. Being that in your Church Christ has one God-man nature, do you believe that before the incarnation he had only a divine nature and that, upon the incarnation, that nature was transformed into a God-man nature?
John
PS: I am not trying to put you in any trap. There are no PLANNED follow-up questions. I am merely curious about this. Thanks!
We in fact do agree with that statement. I don't know if that's how other EO's represent it.
I see that others don't like us using "one nature" simply because it will make the Son different from the Father and the Holy Spirit. But then again, the "two natures" is at fault because it seperates the Logos from the humanity, and that's Nestorian.
There is no PURE way in describing Christ's metaphysics. What I can give you is an analogy to our "one nature."
The human nature is made up of three "unconfused, undivisible" natures: spirit, soul, and body. What you as an EO don't realize is that you unite these three natures into one human nature. HH Pope Shenouda makes it clear that if we were to really examine parts of Christ, Christ would have THREE NATURES (he combines the body and soul into one "animalistic" nature). So in reality, Christ would have FOUR NATURES, divinity, body, soul, and spirit. However, all three natures of a human being are of one person, or "prosopon." Yet, traditionally, Church fathers have combined them "unconfusedly, and undivisibly" into one "human" nature. This lead St. Cyril to describe Christ into one "composite nature" (mia physis). What bothers me of some so-called theologians that hate us is that they call "Mia Physis" heresy, "no different from Monophysis" of Eutyches, yet they do not realize they condemn St. Cyril, the Pillar of Faith.
Therefore, when we call Christ the "One Nature of the Incarnate Logos," Christ's nature is that of the Incarnate Logos, NOT CHANGING His divinity, neither eliminating His humanity, neither seperating the two from one another at any moment at all. Both uniting into one Hypostasis of Logos, for the humanity of Christ is the humanity of the Logos. That's why we call St. Mary the Mother of God, and that's why we say that God suffered on the cross. It is not His divinity that was born or suffering, it was His humanity, but in the prosopon of the Logos. We are not Nestorians who believe in "two prosopa," where the Logos NEVER suffered, but the human person did.
I think I confused you enough. Any questions, or did I make myself clear?
Most people don't even know who St. Cyril is and I will give a brief introduction to who he is.
Fr. John McGuckin has written a pretty good book about St. Cyril. I read it a couple of months ago. I'm going to have to go back and re-read it though to soak it all in.
The Coptic Church still rejects the last four of the seven ecumenical councils. Its leaders continue to teach and believe the same things their spiritual predecessors - the Monophysites, men like Dioscorus, Timothy Aelurus, Timothy Mongus, and Severus of Antioch - taught and believed, doctrines for which they were anathematized by the Orthodox Fathers.
And RIGHTFULLY so. We will not accept the last four councils that condemn our MIAphysite fathers, who in turn CONDEMNED the Eutychian heresy. In addition, the Coptic Church was not present in those councils to agree. Therefore, these are not "ecumenical" but LOCAL councils. Especially the Council of Chalcedon that condemned St. Dioscorus not for heresy, but for not showing up to the council, not knowing that he was under house arrest under the emperor Marcian who called for the murder of many Miaphysite Christians if they do not confess the Tome of Leo.
However, we do confess the faith of the last four councils. Fr. John Romanides wrote about us is that although we don't accept the last four councils and the Roman Catholics do, by spirit, we have always accepted the faith of those four councils, while Roman Catholics have deviated from the faith of the last four councils, although "accepting" them. However, we WILL NOT accept councils that bear false witness against our Holy Fathers.
They still maintain that our Lord Jesus has but one nature and one will (see Coptic Pope Shenouda III's The Nature of Christ). The first error (one nature) is Monophysitism. The second (one will) is Monothelitism.
I explained why we believe in "one nature" above. As for the "one will," this is no different than what St. Cyril and interestingly enough Pope Leo the First. For in his letters, he confesses that "one and the same" chooses whether to show forth His glory or His pain. The fact that only "one" chooses means that there is "one will." But let's expand this view.
There's a difference between "natural will" and "personal will". To confess two natural wills is similar as to us who confess one "unconfused" natural will. This "miatheletism" implies that there is "more than one will involved" since these wills are "unconfused" but at the same time, "indivisible." It is clear that St. Maximus the Confessor defended the notion of two natural wills. "Personal will" is what Christ chooses. As you see, since we like to unite the natures into one composite nature to define one person, so we also unite the wills into one composite will to define one personal will. TO BELIEVE IN TWO PERSONAL WILLS IS NESTORIAN AT ITS BEST, which is why we refuse to believe in "two wills." However, two natural wills don't necessarily mean "two prosopa," this we accept. However, two personal wills means there's a certain schizophrenia or a multiple personality disorder in a person. Nestorius believe that the "two prosopa" of Christ "harmoniously" agree with one another, although two personal wills continue to exist. It's like the personal will of the saints conforming to the will of Christ. Two wills continue to exist, but they're the same. This I REJECT, for it is NESTORIAN in character. If Christ is one prosopon, then there's one personal will.PERIOD!
The comments in HH Pope Shenouda's book if you read carefully talk about conforming the will of Christ to the will of the Father, just as saints conform to the will of Christ. HH writes:
He does not seek for Himself a will that is independent of that of the Father. Consequently He Says "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38).
You see, HH talks about the personal will, and not the natural will. Something interesting that may confuse people is this quote:
What the Divine nature Chooses is undoubtedly the same as that chosen by the human Nature because there is not any contradiction or conflict whatever between the wills and the actions of both.
It may seem that HH is "confusing" the natural wills, but here, He only speaks of a harmony, the same harmony that St. Maximus the Confessor defends. You notice also that implied in this quote is "two natural wills:" "will and action of both" shows that HH distinguishes the wills and actions by thought only and not by reality. If St. Maximus defends two "indivisible" and "harmonious" wills of Christ, then that would be "contradictory." Yet, St. Maximus the Confessor knows that what is "chosen" by Christ is the "one personal will" that we confess. There are not "two simultaneous choices" like Nestorius, but an Orthodox confession of one choice, i.e. one personal will. For all that HH is talking about in this book is not the natural wills, but the one personal will of Christ.
If there was not unity between the Will of the Divine nature of Christ and His human nature, this would have resulted in internal conflict. Far be it from Him! How then could Christ be our guide and our example... to follow in His footsteps
(1 John. 2:6)?
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Again, HH writes here implying two wills should not have internal conflict. Here, without realizing it, HH confesses two united wills, just as St. Maximus the Confessor did. There is nothing Monotheletic here, but Miatheletic, something that St. Cyril the Pillar of Faith also confessed.
Both errors were condemned by ecumenical councils of the Holy Orthodox Catholic Church. Both errors are still maintained to this day by the leadership of the various Non-Chalcedonian churches.
Rather, we are the ones who defend the same Orthodox faith the EO does, probably more so today than ever before. We are not Monothelites. Christ says "my will." That is one will, one personal will. In Him exists wills that belong to the nature that are harmonious with one another. If we are to examine carefully, AGAIN, Christ would have FOUR NATURAL WILLS, not just two. But the choice (personal will) IS ONE. We also are not Monothelites, but Miathelites, and we definately condemn both heresies, as much as we also condemn the Nestorian and Eutychian heresies through our own local councils as evident by our Holy Fathers who are ignorantly condemned by some with the heresy they also condemn.
These are not mere problems of semantics, politics, or misunderstanding. They are real Christological differences with far-reaching consequences. To say that they are only problems of semantics, etc., is to imply that the Orthodox Fathers - most of whom had Greek as the mother tongue - did not understand the Monophysites and that the Monophysites - who also understood Greek quite well - likewise did not understand the Fathers.
They understood each other.
There can be no union with the Copts and other Non-Chalcedonians until they repent, renounce their errors, and acknowledge the dogmatic decrees of all seven ecumenical councils.
I could not resist posting an answer to this inquiry.
Finally, my beloved Orthodox Christians by faith, I would like to share with you our side of the story. Indeed, before I did my research, I thought of the same thing. How can St. Dioscorus misunderstand Leo. To unite with EO's they must repent from their "shortcomings." Little did I realize, we both misunderstand one another, and there must be not one apology, but mutual apologIES.
Our side of the story is the problem with this quote from the Tome of Leo:
The activity of each form is what is proper to it in communion with the other: that is, the Word performs what belongs to the Word, and the flesh accomplishes what belongs to the flesh. One of these performs brilliant miracles; the other sustains acts of violence.
How can you say that the Word performs on its own and the flesh on its own. For St. Athanasius defines the flesh as the prosopon of humanity alone. While the Word is obviously a prosopon on its own. Here, Leo confesses TWO PROSOPA, although admittingly contradicts himself later:
We must say this again and again: one and the same is truly Son of God and truly son of man.
Therefore, although the former quote is Nestorian in thought, the latter quote is Orthodox in thought. You CANNOT seperate the Word from the flesh, for the Word of God suffered on the cross as confessed by St. Cyril, and here Leo says that the Word never suffered and never sustained acts of violence. Nestorius upon reading this quote (YES HE WAS STILL ALIVE) agreed with Leo and praised Leo for defending the "Orthodox faith" and condemning the "heresy of Cyril." This is serious stuff. But since Leo was not in Chalcedon to explain himself, I refrain from condemning him, for his MANY letters show he means Orthodox. Leo did defend himself, but although not to St. Dioscorus, but to a group of Cyrillian/Miaphysite Monks of Palestine:
The anxious care, which I owe to the whole Church and to all its sons, has ascertained from many sources that some offence has been given to your minds, beloved, through my interpreters, who being either ignorant, as it appears, or malicious, have made you take some of my statements in a different sense to what I meant, not being capable of turning the Latin into Greek with proper accuracy, although in the explanation of subtle and difficult matters, one who undertakes to discuss them can scarcely satisfy himself even in his own tongue. And yet this has so far been of advantage to me, that by your disapproving of what the catholic Faith rejects, we know you are greater friends to the true than to the false: and that you quite properly refuse to believe what I myself also abhor, in accordance with ancient doctrine. For although my letter addressed to bishop Flavian, of holy memory, is of itself sufficiently explicit, and stands in no need either of correction or explanation, yet other of my writings harmonize with that letter, and in them my position will be found similarly set forth. For necessity was laid upon me to argue against the heretics who have thrown many of Christ’s peoples into confusion, both before our most merciful princes and the holy synodal Council, and the church of Constantinople, and thus I have laid down what we ought to think and feel on the Incarnation of the Word according to the teaching of the Gospel and Apostles, and in nothing have I departed from the creed of the holy Fathers: because the Faith is one, true, unique, catholic, and to it nothing can be added, nothing taken away: though Nestorius first, and now Eutyches, have endeavoured to assail it from an opposite standpoint, but with similar disloyalty, and have tried to impose on the Church of GOD two contradictory heresies, which has led to their both being deservedly condemned by the disciples of the Truth; because the false view which they both held in different ways was exceedingly mad and sacrilegious.
You can see my defense of Leo against my fellow Copts who accused him of heresy here:
In this particular quote, notice I bolded the first part, mentioning that Pope Leo is saying that "perhaps, those who translated my paper gave you a heretical interpretation." This paper, as you see here, IS THE TOME. If one knows very well, these monks of Palestine accused Leo of Nestorianism, and, as I bolded later, it was necessary for Leo to clarify himself to talk in an Orthodox manner throughout this letter. I hypothesized that if St. Dioscorus would have read this clarification letter rather than the Tome, there would have been no schism.
In addition, Leo's association with Theodoret the Nestorian made us think of him as the ringleader of Nestorians, since his Apostolic See was a very influencial one. Fr. John Romanides writes:
It seems that Eutyches was trying to follow the fathers in his own way, but was not doing a good job. Then some like Dioscoros undertook to guide him, but to no avail. But neither Dioscoros himself nor any other of the Oriental Orthodox Fathers every followed Eutyches the way Leo followed Theodoret like a pet on a leash.
These are not my words, but the words of a very respectful Greek Orthodox theologian. Here, we see, although it seems insulting in nature, it is the truth of objective research. For St. Dioscorus was openly willing to condemn Eutyches in the Council of Chalcedon. "If Eutyches erred from the faith, not only would I excommunicate him, but pray for his burning." Here, you see that St. Dioscorus wished to guide Eutyches to the right faith, but Eutyches later refused, which lead to his condemnation by US, THE ORIENTAL ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS, by HH St. Timothy Aelureus, the immediate Coptic Miaphysite successor of St. Dioscorus, who lead a council, called by us the Third Council of Ephesus, to condemn Eutyches both in person and in dogma. This is PROOF that from the VERY BEGINNING of the schism, we WERE NEVER Monophysites, and PROOF that Maximus (the person that I am quoting who condemns us) is condemning someone of a heresy that he condemned. However, Leo lifted the anathema off of Theodoret and was the best of friends to Theodoret, willing to defend him while many of the Egyptian, Illyrian, and Palestinian fathers condemned them as Nestorians, just as St. Cyril condemned them.
It is interesting to note that the Fifth "Ecumenical" Council, although does not contradict in faith, but contradicts in praise. For in the Council of Chalcedon, Theodoret and Ibas were praised as "blessed" and their writings as "Orthodox," yet THESE SAME WRITINGS were condemned in the Fifth "Ecumenical" Council as damnworthy, and heretical (Nestorian obviously). Why should I believe in these two councils if they clearly contradict one another's decisions? How should Maximus and others like him who unjustly condemn us make us believe that these "ecumenical" councils are the products of the Holy Spirit if God does not contradict Himself?
Thus, this is why Fr. John Romanides found no choice but to sincerely write the truth of the relationship between Leo and Theodoret. If it wasn't for Leo sacrificial friendship with Theodoret the Nestorian, Theodoret would have been condemned in Chalcedon, and this would be another factor of "the no-schism theory" (the other factor being that Leo should have showed up to Chalcedon himself to defend himself in person against those who accused his Tome of Nestorianism).
This is the Alexandrian view of things. Please forgive me for the length. This is my attempt to show how much politics and semantics were involved. We are not the Church of Paul, or the Church of Apollo, or the Church of Peter. We are the Church of Christ. The Holy Spirit cares to preserve the faith, not the persons. I don't care if you venerate Leo; I care that Leo venerated the Orthodox faith, and on this basis, I believe therefore the EO's are blessed with the Holy Spirit regardless of the political and semantic problems that unnecessarily split our churches.
We are not the Church of Leo or the Church of Dioscorus. We are the Orthodox Church of Christ, who upheld the right faith. If the EO's upheld the right faith all along, and the OO's upheld the right faith all along, then I pray to the Lord to lift the schisms of the Church, and to embrace one another's churches to be a true Orthodox witness to the world.
I will stop for today, and I will continue some other day.
Pray for me.
Xrictoc anecti!
Last edited by minasoliman; 3rd May 2005 at 08:55 PM.
If you think that Theodoret was Orthodox, then how do you explain the Orthodox fathers of the Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD:
Second Council of Constantinople (553), of 165 bishops under Pope Vigilius and Emperor Justinian I, condemned the errors of Origen and certain writings (The Three Chapters) of Theodoret, of Theodore, Bishop of Mopsuestia and of Ibas, Bishop of Edessa; it further confirmed the first four general councils, especially that of Chalcedon whose authority was contested by some heretics.
Here, the condemnation of their heretical (Nestorian) writings, the same writings defended in Chalcedon shows a CONTRADICTION. If you don't admit that, then you are in an extreme case of denial.
These writings were also condemned by St. Cyril in his letter to the Emperor. Do not tell me you didn't read those.
Just in case you want a direct reference, according to the Sentence of the Second Council of Constantinople:
When, therefore, we saw that the followers of Nestorius were attempting to introduce their impiety into the church of God through the impious Theodore, who was bishop of Mopsuestia, and through his impious writings; and moreover through those things which Theodoret impiously wrote, and through the wicked epistle which is said to have been written by Ibas to Maris the Persian, moved by all these sights we rose up for the correction of what was going on, and assembled in this royal city called thither by the will of God and the bidding of the most religious Emperor.
Here, the Byzantine successors of Chalcedon contradicted their Chalcedonian fathers, going from "blessed" to "impious." Please reread your sources again. This sentence is DRENCHED with the word "impious."
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