Nestorius: Heretic or Misunderstood?

[Oblio]

[Gatekeeper voice]

What is the speed of a letter laden 'thelogian' ... ?

[voice]

 

[Rick of Wessex]

Hi, Duchess!

I have to admit that after seeing several websites (some Orthodox) that indicate Nestorius was simply misunderstood, combined with the new idea that the Monophysite issue was only a case of misunderstanding.......I'm left wondering if these are attempts at some sort of false ecumenism. It concerns me that some are so quick to dismiss ecumenical councils as "political", or that the Holy Fathers were just confused or something.

You're absolutely right! Since we still have a Nestorian Church (The Assyrian Church of the East) and a group of Christians who claim that they were never Monophysites (which is just false, according to each and every historian and theologian I've read), some people are just trying to be politically correct and claim that the differences between the Orthodox and other Eastern Christians (suach as the Nestorians and Non-Chalcedonians) are just "semantics". That's a lie!

The Church Fathers were not ignorant men. They knew exactly the heresies they were dealing with, and saints who championed Orthodoxy, such as Flavian of Constantinople and Maximus the Confessor, didn't geive their lives for "politics".

When these false ecumenists say otherwise they're blaspheming! We know that in the Ecumenical Councils the Church Fathers were guided by the Holy Spirit - as Our Lord said they would.

So, saying that a Council was wrong equals saying the the Holy Spirit was wrong. This is Outrage!

To quote from the Orthodox Tradition Magazine (the text below aplies to Copts, but could also refer to Assyrians and their founder, Nestorius):

Anyone who believes that the Orthodox Fathers were wrong in condemning the Monophysites, and that the Copts have always been Orthodox, is guilty of blasphemy against the Church Fathers and the Ecumenical Synod at Chalcedon, which condemned the Monophysite heresy. He is also guilty of heresy, in that such a proposition presupposes not only that the Fathers of the Church were in error and that this error entered into the conscience of the Church, but that the Orthodox Church has for centuries been "divided" between the two "families" of right-believing Orthodox and the supposedly "right-believing" Copts. Moreover, such a view presumes that our Orthodox Fathers, ignorant of the truth, "divided" the Church over semantics and over word games.

There are even some conservative Orthodox, insufficiently familiar with the primary historical materials and following Western historiographical views of the events surrounding the Council of Chacedon (which have often shown, as Father Florovsky has observed, sympathies both for Monophysitism and the Nestorian heresy which provoked it), who imagine that misinterpretation, misunderstanding, and intransigence are the sources of the Chalcedonian schism. This mimicking of Western scholarship, however popular, breeds an un-Orthodox approach to the Christological debate between the Orthodox and heterodox parties. The Orthodox party was staunchly defending the truth, the non-Orthodox party staunchly defending a false view of Christ. While "objective" historians may thus attribute to the two sides in this debate "intransigence," it is obviously not consistent with Orthodox piety to accuse those who defend the truth of intransigence. It is heresy, a resistance to the truth, which actually has its roots in, and which is defined by, intransigence.

What, too, can we say of the Monophysite Churchmen and theologians who condemned our Orthodox Fathers as heretics and who are today revered by the Copts? Are we to praise and honor them along with the Monophysite "Saints" whose intercession the Copts invoke? Are we to commemorate together the memories of Churchmen who stood diametrically opposed to one another and pretend that such commemorations are consistent with the "one mind" of the Apostolic Church? And must we now reject the counsel of the great Abba Euthymios, who warned St. Gerasimos of the Jordan against the Monophysite heresy, bringing the latter to bitter tears for his former errors?

Theologians and Churchmen who do not read the Fathers, who do not lead spiritual lives, and who see the union of men as something more important than our union with God in the unity of Faith have no business conducting dialogues between the Orthodox and the Copts. They are not acting in a spiritual way, and the results which they achieve will not be spiritual. They are too weak to speak the truth and to lead the Copts, as they must be led, back to the Church in humble submission.

We deeply respect and admire Coptic piety. Many Copts far exceed Orthodox in their dedication to God and fidelity to their faith. But our respect must not impede us from telling them the truth, bringing them into the Church properly, and offering them bread, rather than the stone of cheap ecumenical politics. Spiritual men pine for unity in the truth. Politicians seek to exalt themselves by great feats of human prowess. Those spiritual men who have been misled by their understandable enthusiasm for Church unity should reflect seriously on who is leading them into this false unity and what their motives are. When the Copts, too, reflect on this, we will undoubtedly see a cooling in what is now unfounded enthusiasm. And as the Copts grow in their desire to return to Orthodoxy, they will themselves wish to do so in an orderly way and not through the back door which has been opened to them by politicians and spiritually irresponsible clergymen.

From Orthodox Tradition, VOL. IX, NO. 1, pp. 8-10.

In XC,
Rick

 

[Grand_Duchess-Elizaveta]

I half expect that any day now we'll hear that Arias was either misunderstood or black-balled by Holy Fathers with a political vendetta.

 

[Oblio]

Have you ever read JW/Mormon Apologetics here at CF ?

Warning, that is a Rhetorical Sarcastic question DO NOT go looking for these, they are around CF but you do not want to read them.