Sebastian Brock: The Syriac Tradition and East -West Christian Ecumenism

[Pavel Mosko]

On the Messianic board someone mentioned Memra that got me talking and posting on Syriac Christianity over there... But that got me listening to this historian, I am considering this video for the Oriental Orthodox board which is the stand in place for Syriac stuff seeing how we don't have a Church of the East place here due to that Church tradition not only being small but mostly hanging out in their own online neighborhoods.

Anyway listening as I type this, and posting for other folks interested....

Listening to it so far..... might be a little dry. If he doesn't tell me something I don't know I may check out myself in 15 min or so.

 

[Andrewn]

The Chalcedon formula is often mentioned as the reason for controversy with the OO. However, "In May 1973, he [Pope Shenouda] visited the Vatican and met with Pope Paul VI. They issued a common declaration that ended fifteen centuries of quarrels: the doctrine of the two natures in Christ was agreed upon (Acta Apostolicae sedis 65, 1973, pp. 299-301; cf. also pp. 314-22)."

From the above, it seems that Chalcedon is no longer a major issue. Pope Shenouda was Coptic Patriarch for a long time, from 1971 to 2012. Before this, he was bishop of Christian Education and as Dean of the Coptic Orthodox Theological Seminary since 1962. Thus he had a huge influence over the Coptic Church for 50 years. In addition, most of the current bishops had been appointed by him and follow his direction, which is theologically close to the RCC.

There are other reasons, beside Chalcedon, which prevent full communion between Catholics, OO, and EO. These reasons need further investigation instead of blaming Chalcedon.

The video hints at a certain "enmity" between the Coptic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. Unfortunately, the speaker did not elucidate further on this issue. I wish he had described in more detail the current relations between churches of Syriac origin.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

lol funny I mentioned the 15 minute mark comment above, before that he mentions that for nonChaldedonians and Salvation and the Incarnation the moment of conception itself was important, while the Chalcedonians want to parse things out.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

The video hints at a certain "enmity" between the Coptic Church and the Assyrian Church of the East. Unfortunately, the speaker did not elucidate further on this issue. I wish he had described in more detail the current relations between churches of Syriac origin.

That kind of easy, just look up everything under the term Nestorius, the Coptic Synaxarion has lots of stuff.


1. The Assembly of the Third Ecumenical Council at Ephesus to Judge Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople.
On this day of the year 431 A.D., the Holy Council at Ephesus which was attended by 200 bishops, was convened. It was the third of the Ecumenical Councils. That was in the twentieth year of the reign of Theodosius II, son of Arcadius, son of Theodosius the Great. They assembled because of the heresy of Nestorius who was Archbishop of Constantinople. He believed that St. Mary did not give birth to the incarnated God, but only to a human being, and that afterwards the Son of God dwelt in him, not the dwelling of unity but just the dwelling of will, and therefore, Christ because of that reason, had two natures and two wills. So these fathers convened, debated with Nestorius, and proved to him that He, who was born of the Virgin, was the incarnated God, as the angel said, "The Lord is with you; that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God." (Luke 1:28-32) And according to the saying of Isaiah, "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Emmanuel," (Isaiah 7:14) and also, "His name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father." (Isaiah 9:6)

St. Cyril, 24th Pope of Alexandria, explained to Nestorius that, "Natures cannot be separated after they have become one by their union. Therefore we say that the Incarnated Word of God has only One Nature." Nestorius would not turn from his teaching nor change his opinion. St. Cyril along with the whole Council rebuked him and threatened that they would excommunicate him, but he was adamant. Therefore, they excommunicated him and banished him from his chair. They confirmed that the Virgin St. Mary had given birth to the Incarnated God the Word, (Theotokos) or "The Mother of God". They drew up the Canons and laid down the Laws. These are the laws of the faithful till this day.

If it is said that the Nestorians do not say that today, we reply by saying that it is because they have mingled with the Christians of the East, and that some of them have turned from their erroneous opinion.


Tout 12 : Lives of Saints : Synaxarium - CopticChurch.net



This gives a more detailed treatment
http://orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/coptic-christology-a-commentary.pdf

 

[Andrewn]

If it is said that the Nestorians do not say that today, we reply by saying that it is because they have mingled with the Christians of the East, and that some of them have turned from their erroneous opinion.

This statement is very interesting as the same thing could be said of the Miaphysites: that they changed their understanding after prolonged discussions with Caledonians over many centuries.

I think at this time, anyway, the theological positions on this issue seem to be very close. But the historical enmity is difficult to deal with. For example, in many countries there are churches that follow Rome or Constantinople and this will always produce canonical problems with the OO and between Rome and the EO. This is in addition to other theological issues beside Chalcedon such as primacy of the Pope of Rome.

Anyway, I think you wanted to talk about "memra" and I diverted the conversation.

 

[Pavel Mosko]

This statement is very interesting as the same thing could be said of the Miaphysites: that they changed their understanding after prolonged discussions with Caledonians over many centuries.

The problem is the non-Chalcedonians have had much more contact with Chalcedonians that the Assyrians have had. The Assyrian theological dialogues only started in recent times aka the 1980s (being from places like Iraq etc.) while the nonChaldenonians started their issues going back to Cyril the Great, Severus of Antioch, and Saint Samuel the Confessor. He had a great Blog that disappeared years ago that explained this stuff, in a essay talking about why he became Oriental Orthodox (converted from a being raised with no Faith).


But as I previously said, and accidently erased I think politics plays a big role in this stuff. I had an online Syriac Orthodox friend who had a great blog talking about how idioms and prepositions were misunderstood by opposing sides reading heretical stuff into the expressions.