Heretics

[concretecamper]

Separated brethren is a term sometimes used by the Catholic Church and its clergy and members to refer to baptized members of other Christian traditions.[1] The phrase is a translation of the Latin phrase fratres seiuncti.[2] It is largely used as a polite euphemism in contexts where the terms "formal heretics" or "material heretics" might cause offense.

And false eccumanism is often the result of this practice.

 

[chevyontheriver]

Or in the words of Wikipedia:

Separated brethren is a term sometimes used by the Catholic Church and its clergy and members to refer to baptized members of other Christian traditions.[1] The phrase is a translation of the Latin phrase fratres seiuncti.[2] It is largely used as a polite euphemism in contexts where the terms "formal heretics" or "material heretics" might cause offense.​

​

PR says there are no heretics anymore.

And yet I know a priest who was excommunicated only a few years ago. As far as I know he is still on the outs. So whatever the PR, it still happens.

 

[zippy2006]

And yet I know a priest who was excommunicated only a few years ago. As far as I know he is still on the outs. So whatever the PR, it still happens.

$10 says they did not in any way call him a heretic.

It is a very deep topic why contemporary Christianity is averse to the notion of heresy.

 

[Gregory Thompson]

The word for heretic means to choose, so it implies "you choose to believe that" (but it's wrong)

The definition varies from group to group.

 

[dzheremi]

Is this the criterion singled out by the Oriental Orthodox?

It's the criterion singled out by everybody who assents to the Creed, including us.

Is adherence to later councils not required?

I don't understand how this question relates. Does the content of the later Chalcedonian councils change the content of the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan creed somehow?

 

[zippy2006]

It's the criterion singled out by everybody who assents to the Creed, including us.



I don't understand how this question relates. Does the content of the later Chalcedonian councils change the content of the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan creed somehow?

Other Christians have more stringent criteria for heresy than the creed of 381, and the more stringent criteria is based on the doctrine of later councils. I assume you understand that later councils introduced dogmas not present at Constantinople I?

 

[dzheremi]

Other Christians have more stringent criteria for heresy than the creed of 381, and the more stringent criteria is based on the doctrine of later councils. I assume you understand that later councils introduced dogmas not present at Constantinople I?

I don't think any of the councils we accept introduced any new dogmas, and as far as we're concerned there haven't been any more ecumenical councils since Ephesus in 431, so whatever others accept is their business. Our standard is the three councils.

 

[zippy2006]

I don't think any of the councils we accept introduced any new dogmas, and as far as we're concerned there haven't been any more ecumenical councils since Ephesus in 431, so whatever others accept is their business. Our standard is the three councils.

Okay. I suppose if you only accept 3 then it makes more sense.

 

[The Liturgist]

Sometimes the loving thing is to explain to someone that they have adopted a heretical position, and explain it carefully so they understand what’s what. Not necessarily calling them a heretic, because most people with odd views are not deliberate formal heretics.

Other people are deliberate formal heretics by choice and conviction so calling them that is a matter of accuracy. Still, gently explaining the matter may just possibly result in a re-evaluation. So saying ‘Heretic!’ as an epithet isn’t a very winning way. Saying it with reluctance may be simple accuracy.

The Church needs to occasionally use excommunication, and to call things as they are. To not do so is a dereliction of duty.

Indeed, I agree with that entirely.

 

[The Liturgist]

I don't think any of the councils we accept introduced any new dogmas, and as far as we're concerned there haven't been any more ecumenical councils since Ephesus in 431, so whatever others accept is their business. Our standard is the three councils.

They did not introduce any new dogmas. Arianism, Eunomianism, Pneumatomacchianism, Apollinarianism and Nestorianism were innovations.

Also, for that matter the Oriental Orthodox always rejected the heresies that were condemned by the EO and RC at the later synods, although they were falsely accused of Eutychianism, despite having anathematized Eutyches and his followers, who later degenerated into Tritheism under the leadership of people like John Philoponus.

 

[The Liturgist]

Okay. I suppose if you only accept 3 then it makes more sense.

They accept the three most important ones, and with regards to subsequent councils, for example the Seventh, they have always rejected Iconoclasm.

Of course this is the case also with the EO and RC insofar as those anathematized by the council were heterodox leaders who were installed in positions of ecclesiastical power including the very powerful office of the Patriarchate of Constantinople and other episcopal sees as a result of secular political action initiated by incompetent generals trying to avoid personal responsibility for their defeat on the battlefield by the Saracens.

After all, why risk being fired for incompetence, or in the case of the Emperor, being deposed, when you can just falsely accuse the church and its hierarchs of idolatry?

 

[The Liturgist]

It's the criterion singled out by everybody who assents to the Creed, including us.



I don't understand how this question relates. Does the content of the later Chalcedonian councils change the content of the Nicaean-Constantinopolitan creed somehow?

Not any that the EO participated in. The canons adopted by the 200 Holy Fathers at the Council of Ephesus in 433 AD prohibit tampering with, modifying or replacing the Creed.

This is one of the primary EO and OO objections to the inclusion of the filioque - even if a change would not be inaccurate, it would still constitute a violation of the canons of the Council of Ephesus.

I don’t know why the Church of the East rejects the Filioque, but I suspect it is for the same theological reasons cited by the EO and OO, relating to proper triadology.

 

[All Becomes New]

I don't have a fancy definition of heretic. I would simply say it is a person who claims to be a Christian who knowingly believes something or doesn't believe something that prevents them from salvation.

 

[chevyontheriver]

$10 says they did not in any way call him a heretic.

It is a very deep topic why contemporary Christianity is averse to the notion of heresy.

Send me the ten.

 

[zippy2006]

Of course this is the case also with the EO and RC insofar as those anathematized by the council...

No, it is not the case that the EO and the RCC only accept the first three councils. Your "insofar..." is a non sequitur, and does not show that the EO and RCC only accept the first three councils.

 

[zippy2006]

Send me the ten.

Show me the proof.

 

[dzheremi]

No, it is not the case that the EO and the RCC only accept the first three councils. Your "insofar..." is a non sequitur, and does not show that the EO and RCC only accept the first three councils.

I may have misread his reply, but I took the information after the "insofar" to be referring to the Chalcedonians' rejection of iconoclasm, not a claim that they only accept the first three councils.

 

[The Liturgist]

No, it is not the case that the EO and the RCC only accept the first three councils. Your "insofar..." is a non sequitur, and does not show that the EO and RCC only accept the first three councils.

I never said the EO and RCC only accept the first three councils. Rather, the insofar was in asserting that the RC and EO had, like the Oriental Orthodox, never engaged in Iconoclasm, insofar as the Iconoclast Chalcedonian bishops of the were heretics and thus not authentically, but only nominally, Roman Catholic and/or Eastern Orthodox. And I say and/or because the Great Schism had not yet occurred, so the Roman Catholics regard St. John of Damascus, for example, as a Roman Catholic saint, and we Orthodox claim him as an Eastern Orthodox saint.

 

[zippy2006]

I never said the EO and RCC only accept the first three councils. Rather, the insofar was in asserting that the RC and EO had, like the Oriental Orthodox, never engaged in Iconoclasm...

Ah, okay, but this seems rather tangential, as the topic that was being discussed was whether only the first three ecumenical councils are accepted. I would also point out that agreeing with a council and accepting a council are two different things (e.g. Nicea II).

 

[The Liturgist]

I may have misread his reply, but I took the information after the "insofar" to be referring to the Chalcedonians' rejection of iconoclasm, not a claim that they only accept the first three councils.

Quite right - that was exactly my point!

My overall point is that of the seven ecumenical councils held in common between the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholics, while the Oriental Orthodox only participated in the first four, and only recognize the first three councils, when it comes to the theology of the subsequent councils, the specific heresies that they were intended to anathematize, that is to say Eutychianism*, Monergism, Monothelitism and Iconoclasm, have always been rejected by the Oriental Orthodox as well. Indeed Eutyches was anathematized by Pope Dioscorus before the Council of Chalcedon - I really feel that he should not have been deposed.

The Oriental Orthodox subsequently suffered greatly, especially after Emperor Justinian, for unknown reasons, stopped pursuing a policy of reconciliation with them and instead began a violent persecution, and switched from embracing Theopaschitism to Apthartodocetism - fortunately his incorporation of the hymn Ho Monogenes (“Only Begotten Son and Word of God”) into the Byzantine Rite liturgy, a hymn originally written by Mor Severus of Antioch, remained. Later, on several occasions, the Oriental Orthodox were falsely accused of Monophysitism, but the Monophysites were in fact a distinct sect, which degenerated into Tritheism. It did not help with this confusion that the Monophysites largely resided in Egypt, but they were predominantly Greek speaking - the last Monophysite leader of note was the Tritheist philosopher John Philoponus.

Actual Monophysitism leads inevitably to Tritheism, because it is incompatible with the Nicene doctrine of the Consubstantiality of the Son with the Father, and with Humanity. By making Our Lord out to be a sort of hybrid, with His humanity blasphemously asserted by Eutyches to have been dissolved into His divinity “like a drop of water into the ocean”, He would be, in such a case, not consubstantial with the Father, and as such the only way to avoid Arianism would be to worship the three persons of the Holy Trinity as three separate gods. Thus the modern day successors of Eutyches are in fact the Mormons, although they are unaware of this, and also don’t care, since they reject the Nicene Creed and believe, like most other Restorationist sects, that there was a Great Apostasy after the last Apostle died, Matthew 16:18 not withstanding, until some random 16th-19th century prophet came along to set things right (controversially, I classify certain churches of the Radical Reformation and related movements that also believe in a Great Apostasy, for example, some Quakers, and also the Shakers, and anyone else who claimed to be restoring from non-existent the Early Church as Restorationist).

Likewise the Oriental Orthodox reject Monergism, embracing a Synergistic model of soteriology closely related to the Eastern Orthodox model, since the whole idea of Theosis is most eloquently expressed in St. Athanasius, On The Incarnation.

And in all probability, the schism that resulted in the Maronites leaving the Syriac Orthodox and establishing their own church in the hills of Lebanon was over Monothelitism. Aside from the evidence of Monothelite belief many Catholic scholars found (which left liturgical traces, which were suppressed in the years after the Maronites established a formal permanent communion with Rome during the First Crusade), this also explains why the Maronites were favorably inclined to the Roman Catholics to begin with, since, in addition to the high Petrology which characterizes the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Maronites also would likely have been aware at the time of their schism from the Syriac Orthodox that Pope Honorius I was among the more active promoters of Monothelitism (which led to him being anathematized at the Sixth Ecumenical Synod - he is the only legitimate Bishop of Rome, with the exception of some antipopes, to be anathematized by one of the first seven Ecumenical councils).