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Holy Catechism

Nikolaos Voulgaris, tr. Daniel, 1893

Of the Œcumenical Holy Councils

73. Ex. You have told us several times about the Œcumenical holy Councils—explain to us briefly, one by one, what they contain: because so we get clearer understanding also of the very articles of the divine Creed, which you rehearsed.

C. First comes the first Nicene Council, which anathematized Areius, who called the Son of God a creature. “Those who say there was once when He was not, and before He was born He was not, and that He arose out of the nonexistent, or say that He is of different hypostasis or substance, or that the Son of God is created or mutable or variable, these the Catholic and Apostolic Church anathematizes.” It defined also about the holy passover that it should not any more be kept on the 14th day of the moon, as was the practice of the Judaizing Christians of Syria, nor on any day except the Lord’s day, and that it should be kept not later than the vernal equinox, to the overthrow of those schismatical bishops who celebrated the Passover on one and the same day with the Hebrews.¹

Here I cannot refrain from recounting the far-famed marvel of that simple and saintly old man, who, as Gelasius narrates in his Transactions of the Nicene Council, “in order that God, Who taketh the wise in their own craftiness, might show that His kingdom consists not in word but in power,” overthrew and silenced that great philosopher, who “with frenzied demeanour boastfully attacked the most peaceful Council, in hopes to be victorious, and borrowing boldness from the diabolical trickery of oratory, pressed forward to rebut the truth proclaimed by the Bishops.” Then, I say, when “our holy Bishops, on perceiving the man’s simple character and his guilelessness of learning, urged him not to venture on the combat for fear of making himself a laughingstock among the ill-conditioned and the enemies of the truth.”

Spyridon was that triumphant old man, the Bishop of Trimuthus, and acquainted with nought else but “Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” The story is told by Glycas in the Chronicle, by Symeon the Metaphrast, Dec. 12, by Nicephorus, viii. 15, by Rufinus, i. 3. But the philosopher was glad to be beaten by the old man (such are the words of Cedrenus, in the 20th year of the reign of Constantine,) and to all who had gathered to hear, he cried: “Listen, sirs; so long as I was paying attention to arguments, I matched them with other arguments, and turned aside the assault by the art of speech; but when, instead of arguments, a sort of divine force proceeded from this old man’s mouth, arguments were of no avail any more to array against such force.”

This is the force which, as we have had it from tradition, is marvellously seen to be included in a brief epigram by the pious Barbesius, in the life he lately printed at Messina, in Sicily, of this our guardian and patron. The epigram is this:—

“Spyridon laterem dum dextra strinxit, ab ipso
En subito tellus exiit, ignis, aqua.
Sicque Patrem terra, unda et Natum, Pneumaque flamma
Ostendit, Trinum simplicitate Deum.”

This the most wise Metropolitan of Philadelphia, Gerasimus Blachus, translated into Greek:—“With his right hand Spyridon grasped a tile; thence leapt forth suddenly earth, fiery flame, water. Thus earth declares the Father, much water the Son, and flame the Spirit, threefold Unity in single nature.”

Let any one consider what joy was then felt by Apollodorus of Corcyra, who was then present, one of those inspired Fathers, when, owing to Spyridon’s prize of victory, he looked forward in the spirit to the conqueror of that day being the continual city guardian of his metropolis, its vigorous patron and champion. All this favour our Corcyræans owe to one George Calochæretes, grandfather of Asimina, the ancestress of blessed memory of us Bulgari (from whom we get the distinguished right of the custody of the famous Relics,) who, in A.D. 1453, fleeing before the godless and brutal violence of the Hagarenes, transferred from Constantinople such a priceless treasure, with which he so enriched, glorified, and blessed Corcyra.

The second Œcumenical holy Council is the First Council of Constantinople, which anathematized Macedonius, who called the Holy Ghost a creature, concerning Whom the Divine of Nazianzum thus taught before the Council:—“If He be God, He is not a creature, for what is created is reckoned with us, who are not Gods; but if He be a creature, He is not God, for He began to be in time, and whatsoever had a beginning, there was when it was not; now that whereto the was-not is antecedent, has no proper existence; but how can what does not properly exist be God? Not any one therefore of the Three is a creature,” and so on. It anathematized also the Eunomians, who said the Son of God was of different substance; and the Apollinarians, who held that from the womb of the spotless Mother of God the flesh of Christ went forth without reason; since they alleged that the Deity performed in Christ the operations of the Reason and of the Godhead. It anathematized also Valens and the rest who believed the Son to be in all things like the Father, but would not allow Christ to be called homoousios, in agreement with the Orthodox, nor homoiousios in agreement with the Arians, nor heteroousios in agreement with the Eunomians, because they said the divine Substance is incomprehensible.

Thirdly comes the Council of Ephesus, which anathematized Nestorius, who said that the All-holy Virgin did not give birth to the Son of God personally incarnate of her, but to a mere man, and then He was united to the Godhead, and so he would not in any fashion call the Mother of God, as we said, Theotókos.² Of this the great Cyril writes:—“We do not preach a man deified, but we confess God incarnate. He Who in substance is without mother, and by dispensation is without father on earth, entitled His own handmaid His Mother.” And Proclus, then of Cyzicus, whilst the heresiarch Nestorius was sitting in his great church, thus expressed himself before the most holy Council: “We are summoned together here by the holy Mother of God, the Virgin Mary, the spotless treasure of Virginity, the reasonable Paradise of the second Adam, the workshop wherein the two natures were united, the assembly-room of the contract of salvation, the bridal-chamber wherein the Word espoused flesh, the living bush of nature, which the fire of the Divine travail consumed not, the truly light cloud, which supported in the body Him Who rides upon the cherubim, the fleece pure and free of the rain from heaven, whence the Shepherd clothed Himself with the sheep, the handmaid and Mother, the Virgin and Heaven, the only bridge between God and man, the awful Loom of the Dispensation, wherein the coat of union was mystically woven, whereof the weaver is the Holy Spirit, His attendant the power that overshadowed from on high, His wool the original fleece of Adam; His woof, the spotless flesh taken from the Virgin; His shuttle, the boundless grace of Him Who wore that flesh; the artificer, the Word Who leaped down through the hearing. Who understands? who hath heard? how God dwelt in the womb yet without circumscription, and Him Whom Heaven could not contain, the Virgin’s womb did not straiten.”

Fourthly comes the Council of Chalcedon, which anathematized Eutyches the Archimandrite and his fellow-workman Dioscorus, who said that there were two natures in Christ before the union, namely, the Godhead and the Manhood, yet afterwards there remained but one nature, namely, the Godhead.³ Wherefore Flavian of Constantinople “pronounced Him synodically to be perfect God and perfect Man at the same time, of one substance with the Father as touching the Godhead, and of one substance with His Mother too touching the Manhood. For in two natures, but one hypostasis and one person, we acknowledge one Christ, one Son, one Lord: and those who preach two sons, or two hypostases or two persons, but do not declare that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, is one and the same, we anathematize and pronounce to be alien from the Church.”

The same is affirmed by Leo of Rome (whose memory the Church celebrates on the 18th February) in his holy Epistle to Flavian himself. “Either form operates in conjunction with the other, whatsoever it has peculiar to itself, the Word effecting that which belongs to the Word, and the body bringing to pass what belongs to the body—one is conspicuous through miracles, the other falls under ill-treatment. And as the Word is inseparable from the equality of the Father’s glory, so the body has not quitted the nature of our race; for one and the same is truly Son of God and truly Son of Man, in one respect God, as in the beginning the Word was, and was with God, and the Word was God; in another respect Man, in so much as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

On this Epistle’s being read before the most holy Council, it is said all the Fathers shouted with one accord, “This is the Faith of the Apostles, this is the Faith of the Fathers, so we all of us believe; the orthodox believe so; anathema to every one that believeth not so.” And I observe that among the rest of the testimonies of the holy Doctors of the Church, which refer to this Epistle, namely of Hilary, Gregory the Theologian, Ambrose of Milan, John of Constantinople, and Cyril of Alexandria, there are also three testimonies of the most holy Bishop Augustine (so we read in the very Acts of the Council, Act 2): 1st, from the Epistle to Volusianus; 2nd, in the exposition on the Gospel according to S. John; 3rd, in the treatise on the exposition of the Faith. I observe further that Pope Gregory, called Dialogus, wrote likewise on the Four Holy Councils themselves, as receiving and reverencing them like the Four Holy Gospels of Christ. So high is the eminence and authority of the holy Œcumenical Councils.

The Fifth holy General Council is the Second Council of Constantinople, which anathematized Theodore of Mopsuestia, who said that God the Word was different from Christ Who was troubled by the affections of the soul and the desires of the flesh. It anathematized also the heresy of Peter the Fuller, and all the Patripassians who added to the hymn Trisagion, “Who wast crucified for us,” an opinion which the great light of the scholastic theology, John of Damascus, said, “crucified the Father and the Holy Ghost with the Son,” Bk. iii. c. 54.⁴ It anathematized also many doctrines of the great Origen, as the pre-existence of souls, the animation of the heavenly bodies, the termination of punishment, and the future salvation of Beelzebub with all his foul legions, and the rest of his absurdities.

The Sixth Council is the Third of Constantinople, which anathematized Macarius of Antioch with all the Monothelites; who asserted of the two wills and activities of Christ: “I speak not of number, but of the divine-human activity of Christ, according to S. Dionysius.” And it was synodically determined that in the hypostasis of the God-Man Word “both forms operate in conjunction each with the other, whatever it has proper to itself; the Word operating that which is proper to the Word, and the body effecting that which is proper to the body,” as we saw it previously defined even in the Fourth Council. But there were some who held with the thrice-cursed Macarius, Honorius of Rome, Sergius and Pyrrhus, and Paul and Peter, all of Constantinople, and Cyrus of Alexandria, whom by name the Council denounced in its 17th Act.

The Seventh holy Œcumenical Council is the Second Nicene Council, which anathematized the Iconoclasts, or Image-fighters, and enjoined the formal worship of the holy Images. Since “the honour done to an image, it says, passes to the original, and he who worships the image worships therein the person of him who is sculptured; and to them it is right to offer salutation and honourable worship, not however the true Latreia which belongs to our faith; for in proportion as they are continuously seen through the representation of an image, so much are those who view them stirred to the remembrance of the original, and to regard them with affection.”

Honourable adoration is what the holy inspired Fathers call what is generally termed Douleia, which belongs to the images and the Saints, and was so named since “it is offered to the saints as servants and ministers of God;” so teaches the Damascene in his 3rd book on Images, just as “the Emperor, he says, is served when he sees the servant that he loves reverenced, not as Emperor, but as minister and subject.” With like intent Balaam is said to have adored the angel of God, Numb. xxii. 31: “And he sees the Angel of the Lord standing in the way, and his sword drawn in his hand, and he bowed down and adored on his face.”

Latreia is not given to images or to Saints, or even to the Angels, but only to the God and Former; and the first kind of adoration is what the great illuminator of Damascus describes in his treatise on the subject. The first kind of adoration, he says, is by way of Latreia, which we address to God Who alone is by nature adorable. In this way the Son of thunder, the evangelical John, Rev. xix. 10, says, “And I fell before his feet (that is the Angel’s) to adore him, and he saith to me, See thou do it not; I am thy fellow-servant.” According to that command, “Thou shalt not serve nor worship other gods, because I am a jealous God,” Ex. XX. 5.

In the divine and holy Liturgy we honour the holy Bread and the Wine as sanctified, and as being emblems of the Lord’s Body and Blood; nay, we adore with Latreia, as being then changed into Christ’s Body and Blood; since thenceforward Christ is found on the Altar, no more symbolically, but actually and essentially. “For I show you not Angels or Archangels, or Heavens and Heaven of Heavens, but the very Master of them all,” so wrote the great Chrysostom (1 Cor. Hom. 24) about the Bread of Celebration over which we give thanks.

To the All-holy Virgin neither Latreia nor Douleia is suitable, but the honour and adoration of Hyperdouleia; forasmuch as she alone who is higher than the cherubim and more glorious than all creation, was esteemed so worthy as to receive within her the Son and Word of God in such fashion that we can say she was united and identified with Godhead. Her the Holy Spirit overshadowed, the power of the Most High, even of the God and Father Himself, the entire All-holy Trinity. With her the heavenly hosts rejoice, with her the things on earth dance for joy. And all the saints are called simply saints, the Mother of God is called supremely holy and All-holy, so the reverence of Hyperdouleia itself is due to her, the adoration of Hyperdouleia.

“The holy furniture too is adored, as set apart for God. I mean, the holy gospels, patens and chalices, censers, lamps and tables: we adore Mount Sinai and Nazareth, the Bethlehem manger and the cave, holy Golgotha, the wood of the Cross, the nails, the sponge, the reed, the holy spear of salvation, the raiment, the coat, the linen cloths, the swathing bands, the holy tomb, the fountain of our Resurrection, the stone of the sepulchre, Sion the holy mountain, the Mount of Olives too, the sheep gate, the happy grove of Gethsemane: not for their natural qualities, nor with Latreia or Hyperdouleia or Douleia: but because they are receptacles of divine operation, and through them God was pleased to effect our salvation.” These are the words of the great Father in his 3rd discourse about Images.⁵ Thus S. Ambrose in his Funeral Sermon on Theodosius writes of the blessed Helena that “she did not adore the wood of the Cross; for this is a Gentile custom and is the vanity of the ungodly; but she adored Him Who hung upon the Tree and is signified by the Title.” The Israelites trembled because of the Ark, we perceive how they honoured, how they reverenced the Tables of the covenant, Aaron’s Rod, honouring and worshipping, not wood and stones, but the most venerable dispensation of God made in them and through them and the divine good pleasure. Baltasar’s kingdom was overthrown because he made the people be served in the priestly vessels: so we read in Scripture.

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