“One canon reduced to writing by God himself, two testaments, three creeds, four general councils, five centuries, and the series of Fathers in that period – the centuries that is, before Constantine, and two after, determine the boundary of our faith.” Lancelot Andrewes I have seen this quote several times now and I wonder why Lancelot Andrewes didn’t include the seventh ecumenical council as a boundary of faith. I am curious about this, did early Anglicans reject the 7th ecumenical council? Would early Anglicans allow images, and their veneration, outside of church?
By the early Anglicans, do you mean the English Christians of the 2nd century AD?... You probably mean the Anglican Church after the Reformation, in which case yes generally there is a lot more skepticism about the seventh Council, and parts of the 6th, and in general there is skepticism about the 'holy numerology' of the number seven: 7 sins, 7 sacraments, 7 councils, it has a resemblance of kaballah mysticism rather than authentic Christian theology you would find in Saint Augustine and the like As for the images, they were not after the 16th century, and down to today, allowed for veneration, that being reserved for the holy Trinity alone
The Oriental Orthodox only approve of 3 councils and the Assyrians, of two. It’s not that big a deal. And the Fifth Council is often conflated with a series of unilateral actions by Emperor Justinian, which I consider to be unBiblical and uncanonical: the anathematization post-mortem of Origen, Theodore of Mopsuestia and Ibas. Of these three only Ibas was anathematized by anyone in his lifetime, and so this action was not improper, but Origen and Mar Theodore died in the peace of the church beloved by all. It wasn’t until the heresiarchs Arius and Nestorius decided to appeal to Origen and Theodore of Mopsuestia in defense of their heresies, but Origen was certainly not an Arian, nor were the Origenist monks of the 4th century despised by St. Jerome and St. Epiphanius (who I love, aside from his anti-Origenism, which also proved to be his undoing, for he was baited to set out for Constantinople in his dotage by the Emperor, who had come to loathe St. Chrysostom, who was, incicidentally, Mar Theodore’s best friend, as the Emperor had falsely accused St. Chrysostom of being an Origenist; when St, Epiphanius learned the truth of the matter, he reversed direction, but sadly did not make it home to Salamis). And Nestorious only eisegetically quoted Mar Theodore. Also, there could be more than seven councils. The Serbian Orthodox Church considers the Photian Synod the Eighth Ecumenical Council and I have seen traditional Orthodox Old Calendarists enumerate ten (by counting the Council of Trullo as its own Council rather than as the Quinisext, and also adding to the list not only the Photian Synod but the anti-Barlaamist Council, which ruled in favor of St. Gregory Palamas and the Hesychasts.
What a wonderful post! It really goes to show that in the East there is some variance on which councils count for what, and there isn’t a mystical attachment to the number seven, which was an errant infusion of mystical numerology promulgated by the Roman church that has no basis in scripture or church history
Well, unfortunately a large number of EO catechisms blindly print that there are seven councils, and this error is especially common among those who the Russians call “conwertsy.” And it has caused a huge problem for the process of EO-OO reconciliation, because these puffed-up converts with convertitis and hyperdoxy like to exclaim how the Oriental Orthodox are “monofeeezite heretics” because “they don’t accept the seven councils.” Nevermind that the OO have no need to accept them, because their doctrine is conformant with it, and were never monophysites (there was a Greco-Egyptian schismatic church whose most prominent members were Eutyches, the instigator of the schism, and later John Philoponus, a noted philosopher. The sect descended into Tritheism and disappeared, and there were no Monophysites until the Mormons in the 19th century revived the concept among other errors).
THere is a really odd romanization I see you reporting for us that is going on in the Eastern churches, adopting Roman patterns, ways of thinking... what accounts for it?
Confusion during Turkocratia and the Jesuits attempting to “help” especially after the introduction of Uniate churches with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. And also Roman domination of the printing presses. For several years, primting presses in Rome and Venice were the only place one could economically acquire the service books, and they printed other things as well. Thus it was the monasteries and their manuscript libraries which preserved authentic Orthodoxy, and still do.
So then are you saying that there will be Orthodox who can come here in this thread and totally disagree with your POV, on catechisms and such? It's not something we realize, in the Western churches, looking east
Not on catechisms, it is well known that we have a lot of them and some reflect undue Western influences. For example, I think the Smaller Catechism of the Syriac Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch is a recent example with some Roman Catholic copy-pasta, (the Syriac Orthodox in India have better catechtical materials but then also work with the not inconsiderable advantage of living in a peaceful region of India without ISIL terrorists attempting to procure their extermination). In the 19th century, Greek and Russian material could display traces of Romanization (in the case of the Greeks, because Rome attempted to exploit the confusion following the end of Turkocratia, and in the case of Russia because the Holy Synod, or rather the bureaucrat who ran the Holy Synod, uncanonically, after Peter “the Great” deposed the successor to Patriarch Nikon until the consecration of Patriarch Tikhon in 1917, really didn’t care. But the worst problems with Latin influence are invariably in the diaspora.
All apostolic churches, in practice, seem to reject Canon II in our time: "Whoever is to be a bishop must know the Psalter by heart: he must thoroughly understand what he reads, and not merely superficially, but with diligent care, that is to say the Sacred Canons, the Holy Gospel, the book of the Apostle, and the whole of the Divine Scripture. And should he not have such knowledge, he is not to be ordained." Then there is the thorny issue of Canon VII: "Let relics of the Holy Martyrs be placed in such churches as have been consecrated without them, and this with the accustomed prayers. But whoever shall consecrate a church without these shall be deposed as a transgressor of the traditions of the Church." I think most bishops have lazily accepted the overly truncated presentations of their church history textbooks and taken for granted that Nicaea II was only about the veneration of icons. They have not read the canons. The canons of all of the ecumenical councils address any number of issues: some doctrinal, some practical, some a product of their time. So when we hear Anglican bishops and senior clergy affirming seven councils, I suppose what they mean is the doctrinal statements of those councils.
All Coptic monks who can are required to memorize the entire Psalter, and their bishops are appointed from the hegumens of the monasteries, and thus ironically the Coptic Orthodox Church does comply with Canon II, despite never having acceded or indeed been invited to the Second Council of Nicea, but rather due to the most unfortunate schism of the fifth century having been anathematized at the same.
The Books of Homilies only quote from the first 6 councils and only consider the 6 necessary for acceptance.