Part II. The doctrine: A. The Creed

PART II — THE DOCTRINE

The Creed

When the Apostles of the Christ preached the Good News, they gave those who accepted them definite teachings about God, the Christ, and the Holy Spirit, together with certain others revelant to them. As the churches grew in size and number, they were bound to meet opposition from the pagan as well as the Jewish teachings. But opposition from without is quite different from that which is within. And because the real spiritual import of Christianity is beyond human reasoning and logic, there arose from the ranks of the believers those who thought they could encage God’s Grace within human limitations. Thus, there grew certain sects whom the Church opposed to maintain the integrity of the Faith. These deviating Christians proclaimed diverse contrary teachings, but here we will limit our record to the most glaring ones which were condemned by the Church Universal as heresies. They center mainly on the Incarnation: impalpable and ineffable; and are Arianism, Nestorianism and Eutychianism. One other heresy was against the Holy Spirit and was propagated by Macedonius.

1. ARIANISM was started by a Libyan priest called Arius who denied the divinity of our Lord. He was under the jurisdiction of Abba Alexandros (19th Pope of Alexandria; 303 — 326 A.D.). This outstanding Prelate was considered “Perfectly irreproachable” by all the churches. He tried by patience and Christian Charity to convince Arius to repentance, but all his efforts were in vain. Concerting with Hosius, Bishop of Cordova and the envoy of emperor Constantine, Abba Alexandros sought the meeting of an oecumenical council. Consequently, the emperor invited the bishops of Christendom to meet at Nicea in A.D. 325, thus forming the first oecumenical council. Three hundred and eighteen bishops — from Iran in the East to Spain in the West — accepted the invitation. Thence forward, it became the prerogative of the Constantinople emperors to invite the bishops to convene in the oecumenical councils.

The first aim of this first council of Christendom’s bishops was to put in crystal-clear expression their belief in the Incarnate Word. They deputed for this supreme task Abba Alexandros, his deacon Athanasius (afterwards the Apostolic), and Leontius Bishop of Caesarea of Cappadocia — namely two Egyptians and one from Asia Minor, (now Syria). These three worded the needed belief which became known as “the Creed”. It was signed unanimously; it ended with the phrase “we believe in the Holy Spirit” (will be recorded in the end). Having signed the Creed, and decreed the excommunication of Arius for his heresy, the assembled Fathers discussed the following problems :

(A) ONENESS OF BAPTISM : During the persecutions, some Christians denied the Christ, then repented. The Alexandrian Fathers emphatically declared that they should be examined, and if found sincere, accepted without re-baptism. “For”, said they, “Baptism is a birth, and as the physical birth happens but once, so does the spiritual birth. It is also a death — the old man dies and the new is born. Once again, physical death happens once, and likewise the spiritual. Besides. Baptism is a Seal by which the Effigy of the Christ is stamped upon the spirit of the baptized. This seal, however, effaced It may become, will remain to witness for or against him who is thus sealed” For all these reasons, Baptism is to be administered once in a lifetime. The Nicean Fathers listened to these reasons and accepted them unanimously.

(B) MARRIAGE OF PRIESTS : Some clergymen had suggested the impostion of celibacy on all those desiring the priesthood. Abba Paphnuti, Bishop of the Thebaid (Luxor region) spoke as follows : “Among the Apostles, there were the married and the celibate. Those called while married continued in their marital state; those celibate maintained their celibacy. Therefore, we follow Apostolic pattern declaring that a man desiring to marry should do so before being ordained. Once ordained while celibate he should thus continue. Let us not, then, impose a yoke which is unbearable to many.” And because Abba Paphnuti was a monk of impeccable character who had lost his right eye and his left leg in the Diocletian persecutions, the whole council listened to him with reverence and accepted his verdict in unanimity.

(C) DATE OF EASTER : In the first centuries, the difference over the date of Easter was to the fact that it had to be celebrated after the Jewish Passover. There were two main reasons for that: a spiritual and a historical. The spiritual is that the Christ was considered the Paschal Lamb in the prophecies, and thus declared by John the Baptist: “Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The historical is that the Crucifixion of our Lord happened after He had eaten the Passover Supper with His Apostles. The problem, however, lay in the fact that the Jewish calendar is lunar, and to fix the date of the Passover, the Jews celebrated it with their offering of a sheaf of the first fruit of their harvest. (Lev. 25 : 11 — 12). In this way the Passover was celebrated within the period between the first week of April and that of May. To solve this problem for the Egyptians, Abba Demetrius the Vinedresser calculated the Epact by which Easter came to be celebrated between the first week of April and that of May, and always after the Passover Feast. This set the Copts at rest, but not their co-religionists elsewhere. At Nicea, the subject was discussed and the assembled Fathers decided to adopt the Epact decreeing that when the Pope of Alexandria wrote his Paschal Epistle, he was not to confine it to his own jurisdiction, but was to send it to all the churches including those of Rome and Constantinople. This decree continued until 1582 A.D.

2. MACEDONIANISM : This was started by Macedonius, Bishop of Constantinople; he denied the Divinity of the Holy Spirit. To refute it, Theodosius I invited the bishops to a second œcumenical council which convened in his Capital in A.D. 381. After discussing the subject, the assembled Bishops added to the Creed the last clause. Having asserted the Consubstantiality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son, the second œcumenical council excommunicated Macedonius for persisting in his heresy.

3. NESTORIANISM : This too, was promulgated by the Bishop of Constantinople — Nestorius. With the Creed declaring most lucidly that the Christ is God Incarnate, Nestorius could not deny His Divinity. So he said that the Christ was not God-man but God and man. And since the Divine could not be touched by suffering, the crucified was the man apart from God. Of course, the Church regarded this a heresy totally undermining the Divine Plan of Redemption. For if the man apart agonized on the cross, why should the Only Begotten of the Father descend from heaven, live the life of a poor man who had no where to lay His Head ? So, emperor Theodosius II decided to invite the bishops to a third œcumenical council which actually convened in Ephesus in A.D. 431. Two hundred bishops assembled. They selected Abba Kyrillos I to preside over them. In his endeavour to expound the unity of “the Word made flesh” (John 1 : 14), he gave the following symbol: “When the smith is shaping the iron into a certain object, he heats it to white heat then strikes it into the desired shape. The unity of our Lord’s Divinity with His Humanity can be likened to that between the fire and the iron. For though, fire and iron are united, neither of them changes nor mixes nor is fused into the other. When the smith hammers the iron into shape, his hammering falls on it while it is united with the fire. True, the fire does not feel the hammer blows, nonetheless it is united with the iron while it is being beaten. Thus, the Divinity of our Saviour is like unto the fire, and His Humanity like unto the iron; the beating and scourging fell on the Human in Him which was incessantly united with the Divine And though the Divine did not bleed nor sweat, nonetheless. It remained united to that which bled and sweated. Their unity began within His Mother’s womb, and continues unto eternity, for the Christ ascended up to heaven with His Body.” After this elucidation, Abba Kyrillos I worded an introduction to the Creed (recorded at the end), which was unanimously accepted. The heresiarch — Nestorius — was excommunicated.

4. EUTYCHIANISM : Some fifteen years later, Eutyches — an abbot of a monastery in Constantinople — was convicted of the heresy of denying our Lord’s Humanity, pretending that His Body was ethereal. He was condemned and excommunicated by a local council presided over by Flavianus Bishop of Constantinople. During the sessions, a letter came to the assembled bishops from Leo I of Rome known as the “Tomos of Leo” as it was an expression of his belief in the Incarnate Word. The wording of the Tomos savoured of Nestorianism, and so did the wording of the verdict against Eutyches. This roused the anger of the Constantinople populace. Eutyches who was a skilful juggler with words, capitalized this popular anger. He asserted that he was innocent, and pleaded with emperor Theodosius II to invite the bishops of other churches to come and judge between him and his condemners. The emperor complied, and decided on Ephesus again as the place for the council’s convening in A.D. 448. It was to act as a “Court of Appeal”. At this council, Abba Dioscorus Pope of Alexandria, Juvenal Bishop of Jerusalem, and Domnus Bishop of Antioch were appointed by the emperor to preside. One hundred and thirty bishops assembled. Eutyches presented to them a confession of his faith in his own handwriting and signed with his own signature. This confession, the council found to be wholly in conformity with the Creed set by the Nicean Fathers and confirmed by those of Constantinople and Ephesus. The assembled bishops acquitted Eutyches in their unanimity. And since excommunication is a two edged sword rebounding against him who decrees it unjustly, Flavianus and those who convened with him together with Leo of Rome were excommunicated. Emperor Theodosius ratified the council’s decrees and banished Flavianus and his Eastern Colleagues. The monk selected in place of Constantinople’s Bishop was Anatolius, a former deacon from Alexandria.

Emperor Theodosius died heirless. His eldest sister Pulcheria had the lust for power. So jealous was she over her father’s throne that she imposed the nuns vow on herself and her two younger sisters lest any husband would usurp her brother’s rightful throne. When, despite her efforts, her brother had no heir, she renounced her vow and married Marcianus, General of the army whom she raised to co-rule with her. She could not find among all the bishops of Christendom one who will sanctify her marriage except Leo of Rome who thus became a friend to her and to her husband. Meantime, she was insensately jealous of the authority wielded by the Pope of Alexandria. All these elements: psychic, political and personal led emperor Marcianus to invite the bishops to a council at Chalcedon which met in A.D. 451. There is no room here for recording the prevarications and the intrigues which led to the first rupture in the ranks of the Church Universal. Sufficient to say that empress Pulcheria and her partisans succeeded in letting emperor Marcianus ratify the decree of exile issued by the Chalcedonians against Abba Dioscorus who was thus banished to the isle of Gangra off the coast of Asia Minor. Unsatisfied with this injustice, the emperor unleashed a fury of persecutions against the Coptic Church. He, and the majority of his successors desired to submit the Copts to their Principles. Meeting with their adamant will to maintain their religious freedom the emperors not only tortured St. Mark’s flock, they also imposed their own minions on his August Chair. What is more, they blackmailed the Popes of Alexandria pretending that they were Eutychians. Yet in the very first session of the nefarious council of Chalcedon, when Abba Dioscorus was asked what his verdict would be on Eutyches if he denied the confession submitted at Ephesus, he immediately and emphatically replied : “If Eutyches has denied the Orthodox Faith registered in his own handwriting, and has strayed from the teaching of the Church, I do not only judge that he be excommunicated, I would say he should be burnt also.” Despite this drastic emphasis, Abba Dioscorus, his successors and his Church are regarded heretic by many well meaning Christians who are ignorant of these facts. The plain fact is that they are Orthodox since the foundation of their Church until the present.

It should be noted, that the policy set down by emperor Marcianus finally led to the fall of the Eastern empire by the onslaughts of the invading Arabs.