27-Orthodoxy, with an Eastern Flavor

02/23/14 • 0 min

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This Episode of CS is titled, “Orthodoxy, with an Eastern Flavor.”We need to begin this episode by defining the term “Orthodoxy.”It comes from Greek. Orthos means “straight” & idiomatically means that which is right or true. Doxa is from the verb dokein = to think; doxa is one’s opinion or belief.As it’s most often used, orthodoxy means adherence to accepted norms. In reference to Christianity, it means conforming to the creeds of the early Church; those statements of faith issued by the church councils we’ve looked at in recent podcasts and we have a series on in Season 2.In opposition to orthodoxy is what’s called heterodoxy; other-teaching. Heterodoxy deviates from the Faith defined by the Creeds. Specific instances of heterodoxy, that is - deviant doctrines are called heresy; with those who hold them known as heretics. When heresy causes a group of people to remove themselves from the Communion of Saints so they can form their owndistinct community, it’s called a Schism.But there’s another, very different way the word Orthodox is used in Christianity. It’s the name of one of the 4 great branches of the Church; Roman Catholic, Protestant, & Eastern Orthodox. The fourth is that branch of the Faith we’ve been looking at for the last couple episodes – The Nestorian Church, AKA The Church of the East.In the West, we’re familiar with Roman Catholicism & Protestantism. We’re less aware of Eastern Orthodoxy and most people haven’t even heard of the Nestorian Church. Ignorance of Eastern Orthodoxy is tragic considering the Byzantine Empire which was home to the Orthodox Church continued to embody the values & traditions of the Roman Empire until the mid-15^th C, a full millennium after the Fall of Rome in AD 476.It’ll be many episodes of CS before we get to the year 1054 when the Great Schism took place between the Eastern & Western churches. But I think it helpful to understand how Eastern Orthodoxy differs from Roman Catholicism so we can stay a little closer to the narrative timeline of how the Church developed in upcoming episodes.One of the ways we can better understand the Eastern Orthodox Church is to quickly summarize the history of Roman Catholicism in Europe during the Middle Ages as a contrast.In the West, the Church, led by the Pope with cardinals & bishops, oversaw the spiritual& religious aspects of European culture. The affiliation between church & state that began with Constantine the Great & continued for the next century & a half was at best a tense arrangement. Sometimes the Pope & Emperor were close; at other times they were at odds & competed for power. Overall, it was an uneasy marriage of the secular & religious. During the Middle Ages, the Church exerted tremendous influence in the secular sphere, & civil rulers either sought to ally themselves with the church, or to break the Church’s grip on power. Realizing how firm that grip was, some civil rulers even sought to infiltrate the ranks of the church to install their own bishops & popes. The Church played the same game & kept spies in many of Europe’s courts. These agents reported to Rome & sought to influence political decisions.The situation was dramatically different in the East where the church & state worked in harmony. Though foreign to the Western Mind, & especially the Modern Western Mind which considers a great barrier between Church & State, in the ancient Byzantine Empire, Church & State were partners in governance. They weren’t equivalent, but they worked together to shape policies & provide leadership that allowed the Eastern Empire to not only

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26-And In the East Part 2

This episode of Communio Santorum is titled, “And In the East – Part 2.”In our last episode, we took a brief look at the Apostle Thomas’ mission to India. Then we considered the spread of the faith into Persia. Further study of the Church in the East has to return to the Council of Chalcedon in the 5^th C where Bishop Nestorius was condemned as a heretic.As we’ve seen, the debate about the deity of Christ central to the Council of Nicea in 325, declared Jesus was of the same substance as the Father. It took another hundred years before the deity-denying error of Arianism was finally quashed. But even among orthodox & catholic, Nicean-holding believers, the question was over how to understand the nature of Christ. He’s God – got it! But he’s also human. How are we to understand His dual-nature. It was at the Council of Chalcedon in 451 that issue was finally decided. And the Church of the East was deemed to hold a position that was unorthodox.The debate was sophisticated & complex, and not a small part decided more by politics than by concern for theological purity. The loser in the debate was Bishops Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople. To make a complex issue simple, those who emphasized the unity of the 2 natures came to be called the Monophysites = meaning a single nature. They regarded Nestorius as a heretic because he emphasized the 2 natures as distinct; even to the point of saying Nestorius claimed Jesus was 2 PERSONS. That’s NOT what Nestorius said, but it’s what his opponents managed to get all but his closest supporters to believe he said. In fact, when the Council finally issued their creedal statement, Nestorius claimed they only articulated what he’d always taught. Even though the Council of Chalcedon declared Nestorianism heretical, the Church of the East continued to hold on to their view in the dual nature of Christ, in opposition to what they considered the aberrant view of monophysitism.By the dawn of the 6^th C, there were 3 main branches of the Christian church:The Church of the West, which looked to Rome & Constantinople for leadership.The Church of Africa, with its great center at Alexandria & an emerging center in Ethiopia;And the Church of the East, with its center in Persia.As we saw last episode, the Church of the East was launched from Edessa at the border between Northern Syria & Eastern Turkey. The theological school there transferred to Nisibis in Eastern Turkey in 471. It was led by the brilliant theologian Narsai. This school had a thousand students who went out from there to lead the churches of the East. Several missionary endeavors were also launched from Nisibis – just as Iona was a sending base for Celtic Christianity in the far northwest. The Eastern Church mounted successful missions among the nomadic people of the Middle East & Central Asia between the mid-5^th thru 7^thCs. These included church-planting efforts among the Huns. Abraham of Kaskar who lived during the 6^th C did much to plant monastic communities throughout the East.During the first 1200 years, the Church of the East grew both geographically & numerically far more than in the West. The primary reason for this is because in the East, missionary work was largely a movement of the laity. As Europe moved into the Middle Ages with its strict feudal system, travel ground to a standstill, while in the East, trade & commerce grew. This resulted in the movement of increasing numbers of people who carried the Faith with them.Another reason the Church in the East grew was persecution. As we saw last time, before Constantine, the persecutions of the Roman Empire pushed large numbers of believers East. Then, when the Sassanids began the Great Persecution of Christians in Persia, that pushed large numbers of the Faithful south & further East. Following the persecution that came under Shapur II, another far more severe round of persecution broke out in the mid-5^th C that saw 10 bishops and 153,000 Christians massacred within a few days.When we think of Arabia, many immediately think of Islam. But Christianity had taken root in the peninsula long before Muhammad came on the scene. In fact, a bishop fr...

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28-Justinian Sayin’

This week’s episode of Communion Sanctorum is titled – “Justinian Sayin’”During the 5^th C, while the Western Roman Empire was falling to the Goths, the Eastern Empire centered at Constantinople looked like it would carry on for centuries. Though it identified itself as Roman, historians refer to the Eastern region as the Byzantine Empire & Era. It gets that title from Byzantium, the city’s name before Constantine made it his new capital.During the 5^th C, the entire empire, both East & West went into decline. But in the 6^th Century, the Emperor Justinian I lead a major revival of Roman civilization. Reigning for nearly 40 years, Justinian not only brought about a re-flowering of culture in the East, he attempted to reassert control over those lands in the West that had fallen to barbarian control.A diverse picture of Justinian the Great has emerged. For years the standard way to see him was as an intelligent, ambitious, energetic, gregarious leader plagued by an unhealthy dose of vanity. Dare I say it? Why not: He wanted to make Rome Great Again. While that’s been the traditional way of understanding Justinian, more recently, that image has been edited slightly by giving his wife and queen Theodora, a more prominent role in fueling his ambition. Whatever else we might say about this husband and wife team, they were certainly devout in their faith.Justinian's reign was bolstered by the careers of several capable generals who were able to translate his desire to retake the West into reality. The most famous of these generals was Belisarius, a military genius on par with Hannibal, Caesar, & Alexander. During Justinian's reign, portions of Italy, North Africa & Spain were reconquered & put under Byzantine rule.The Western emperors in Rome's long history tended to be more austere in the demonstrations of their authority by keeping their wardrobe simple & the customs related to their rule modest, as befitted the idea of the Augustus as Princeps = meaning 1^st Citizen. Eastern emperors went the other way & eschewed humility in favor of an Oriental, or what we might call “Persian” model of majesty. It began with Constantine who broke with the long-held western tradition of Imperial modesty & arrayed himself as a glorious Eastern Monarch. Following Constantine, Eastern emperors wore elaborate robes, crowns, & festooned their courts with ostentatious symbols of wealth & power. Encouraged by Theodora, Justinian advanced this movement and made his court a grand showcase. When people appeared before the Emperor, they had to prostrate themselves, as though bowing before a god. The pomp and ceremony of Justinian’s court were quickly duplicated by the church at Constantinople because of the close tie between church & state in the East.It was this ambition for glory that moved Justinian to embark on a massive building campaign. He commissioned the construction of entire towns, roads, bridges, baths, palaces, & a host of churches & monasteries. His enduring legacy was the Church of the Holy Wisdom, or Cathedral of St. Sophia, the main church of Constantinople. The Hagia Sofia was the epitome of a new style of architecture centered on the dome, the largest to be built to that time. Visitors to the church would stand for hours in awe staring up at the dome, incredulous that such a span could be built by man. Though the rich interior façade of the church has been gutted by years of conflict, the basic structure stands to this day as one of Istanbul’s premier attractions.Justinian was no mean theologian in his own right. As Emperor he wanted to unite the Church under one creed and worked hard to resolve the major dispute of the day; the divide between the Orthodox faith as expressed in the Council of Chalcedon & the Monophysites.By way of review; the Monophysites followed the teachings of Cyril of Alexandria who'd contended with Nestorius over the nature of Christ. Nestorius emphasized the human nature of Jesus, while Cyril emphasized Jesus’ deity. The followers of both took their doctrines too far so that the Nestorians who went East into Persia tended to diminish the deity of Christ, while the Cyrillians who went south ...