History of the Orthodox Church
AGGreen
History of the Orthodox Church
by Aristeides Papadakis, Ph.D.
The true orthodox way of thought has always been historical, has
always included the past, but has never been enslaved by it. . .
[for] the strength of the Church is not in the past, present, or
future, but in Christ. --Fr. Alexander Schmemann
Introduction
Christianity has always been unusually sensitive to the past. Its
enduring relevance has, in fact, never been in doubt. The basic
reason for this pronounced sensitivity is that Christian biblical
revelation takes place in a historical context and is, quite simply,
a revelation of historical data, of God's activity in history. It is
in time (and therefore in history) that man's salvation
unfolds-God's chosen way to redeem us. That Christian Scripture
takes the form, more often than not, of a richly detailed historical
narrative should thus come as no surprise.
These considerations, taken together, explain the powerful appeal
that history has always had for Orthodox Christianity. Orthodox
worship, for example, is nothing less than a witness to history; it
recalls, in all its rich diversity, particular historical events not
only from the earthly life of the Lord, but from the life of the
Church, its saints, ascetics, martyrs, and theologians. Every
liturgy, every feast, is at once a celebration of time and of the
eschatological reality; an anticipation of the "world to come" of
what is beyond history - as well as a remembrance of a concrete
historical past. But history likewise lies at the root of
Orthodoxy's conviction that it is the true Church of Christ on
earth. It is precisely because of its possession of an uninterrupted
historical and theological continuity that it is able to make this
claim at all. The Church, as we should expect of any historical
phenomenon, had changed and developed through the centuries. True
enough. Still, the Church in its essential identity - in its organic
and spiritual continuity - remains substantially coextensive with
the Church of the Apostles. It is, in effect, nothing less than the
living continuation in time and space of the primitive Church in
Jerusalem. It can be viewed as the one Catholic Church in all its
fullness and plenitude.
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A. THE INFANT CHURCH
The Apostolic Era
This being so, our brief survey of the long and complex evolution of
Orthodox Christianity begins with the first Pentecost in Jerusalem
and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Christ's small circle of
disciples. It is then that the Orthodox Church was born - the second
largest organized body of Christians in the world. The Apostles, it
is true, had been historic witnesses to Christ's messianic ministry
and resurrection before the Spirit of God descended on them. Still,
it was only with this event that they felt authorized to preach the
Gospel to the world. Only then were the uncomprehending fishermen
able to fully understand the mystery of Easter, that God had raised
Jesus from the dead, and had begun their mission. The expansion of
the early Christian movement, however, was not without its problems,
nor was it spontaneous. Persecution and martyrdom awaited virtually
all of its initial members. The aggressive new missionary community,
nevertheless, was destined to survive and grow in numbers. By the
third century it had, in fact, become a "mass phenomenon." Though
unevenly scattered, it constituted possibly as much as ten percent
of the total population of the Roman Empire. As such, it was
sufficiently strong to compel the Roman emperors to end the
persecutions. The Church, quite simply, could no longer be ignored -
numerically or ideologically; hence the legal recognition of
Christianity by the Emperor Constantine at the beginning of the
fourth century (312), and its subsequent recognition as the official
religion of the empire by the end, under Theodosius (392).
Persecution and Success
The causes of this success are understandably complex. The
disciplined close-knit structure of the Church, its social
solidarity and internal cohesion, its care for the poor and the
deprived did not go unnoticed. Both the hostile critic and the
ordinary pagan observer were aware of them. Furthermore, the
persecution and martyrdom of Christians - despite the streak of
cruelty in some who observed these punishments - could not but raise
doubts and questions in many an individual conscience. Nor did
Christianity's message of equality before God, cutting as it did
across the social fabric, fail to make its impression of the
stratified urban population of the ancient world. Finally,
Christianity's exclusiveness, the intimate sense of belonging which
it gave its members, as well as its universality attracted new
adherents. Ultimately and at a deeper level, however, it was the
saving message of the Gospel that was the principal cause of
Christian expansion. This message promised not only reconciliation
and forgiveness of sin, but liberation from the bondage of death and
corruption. "Christians were Christians," as one scholar has put it,
"only because Christianity brought to them liberation from death."
That is to say, through Christ's own resurrection man's own
incorruptibility, his own future physical resurrection and
deification, was assured. To be in Christ, as St. Paul says, is to
be a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). It is to the simple appeal
of the primitive message or kerygma that we must turn for the more
probable cause of Christian expansion.
The Impact of Christian Victory
Whatever the case, those remarkable first four centuries are among
the most creative in the history of the infant Church. The Christian
victory was undeniably revolutionary both for the Roman Empire and
the European civilization that followed. From the Church's own
perspective and internal life the period was even more significant.
For it is then that the Church achieved a certain self-identity, a
kind of self awareness which has since remained normative for
Eastern Orthodoxy. Two illustrations which affected its self
understanding - one institutional and the other doctrinal - will
suffice. The Church was initially without a New Testament.
"Scripture" for the primitive Church simply meant the Old Testament.
Gradually however, the Church saw the need to bring together all the
writings of apostolic origin or inspiration into a canon. This
collection of twenty-seven books still constitutes the total
apostolic witness for the Church and is identical with our present
New Testament. In sum, one of the most significant events in the
history of Christianity during this period was its transformation,
to borrow Harnack's phrase, into a religion of two Testaments. These
writings, it is worth pointing out, were received and acknowledged
by the Christian community precisely because they coincided with the
Tradition which it had always possessed since the day of Pentecost,
and which was nothing less than the faithful indwelling of the
Spirit in its midst. Strictly speaking, the Church lived solely by
this Tradition decades before the contents of the New Testament were
determined. As a result, Scripture in Orthodoxy has always been
interpreted within the context of Tradition, for it alone, as the
Church's very memory, can disclose its authentic message.
Early Administrative Structure
Equally crucial for the life of the Church was the formation of its
administrative structure. We are reasonably certain that St. Peter,
followed by St. James, presided over the Church in Jerusalem. The
ministry of the Apostles, however, was itinerant, not stationary.
After founding a community they would depart for another mission,
leaving behind others to administer the new congregation and preside
over the Eucharist and Baptism. In effect, a local hierarchy
developed whose functions were stationary, administrative, and
sacramental, in contrast with the mobile authority of the Apostles.
The presiding officer of each community, especially at each Sunday
eucharistic meal, was the episcopos or bishop, who was assisted by
priests and deacons. At the outset of the second century, this
threefold pattern of bishops, priests, deacons was already in place
in many areas. There was nothing unusual in this development. As a
matter of fact, the Last Supper, as the first liturgy, could not
have taken place without the Lord's presiding presence. From the
beginning, then, the sacramental and eucharistic fellowships of the
Church took for granted the existence of a presiding head. For this
same reason, the establishment of a local "monarchical" episcopate
is still at the very center of Orthodox sacramental life and
ecclesiology.
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B. THE BYZANTINE CHURCH
The Formative Age
If the early fourth century marks the end of the period of
persecutions and the Church's formative age, it also marks the dawn
of the medieval period. With the fourth century, in fact, we are
standing on the threshold of a new civilization - the Christian
Empire of medieval Byzantium. Clearly, Constantine's recognition of
Christianity was decisive. Equally momentous, however, was his
decision to transfer the imperial residence - the center of Roman
government - to Constantinople in 330. The importance of this event
in the history of Eastern Christianity can hardly be exaggerated.
For this capital, which was situated in the old Greek city of
Byzantium, soon became the focus of the new emerging Orthodox
civilization. Historical opinion, it is true, is divided on the
question of Byzantium's contribution to civilization. Still, its
lasting legacy lies primarily in the area of religion and art; it is
these which give Byzantine culture its unity and cohesion. The new
cultural synthesis that developed was profoundly Christian,
dominated by the Christian vision of life, rather than the pagan. We
need only turn to Justinian's "Great Church" of the Holy Wisdom -
the Hagia Sophia in Constantinople - to understand this. But if
Constantinople, the "New Rome," became the setting for this new
civilization, it also became the unrivaled center of Orthodox
Christianity itself. It is during this pivotal period in the
Church's history that the city's bishop assumed the title of
"ecumenical patriarch."
Heresies and Ecumenical Councils.
Space does not permit us to elaborate on this period in detail. It
is, quite simply, the single longest chapter in the history of the
Church. The Byzantine Empire was characterized by a remarkable
endurance: it survived for over a millennium, until its fall to the
Ottoman Turks in 1453. We will therefore limit ourselves to an
outline of this age, to the events and developments which exercised
the greatest influence on the Church's life. In this respect, the
seven ecumenical councils with their theological discussions and
doctrinal formulations are of particular importance. Specifically,
these assemblies were responsible for the formulation of Christian
doctrine. As such, they constitute a permanent standard for an
Orthodox understanding of the Trinity, the person of Christ, and the
incarnation. The mystery of the divine reality with which these
verbal definitions were concerned was, of course, not exhausted. All
the same, they remain a permanent authoritative standard against
which all subsequent speculative theology is measured. Their
decisions remain binding for the whole Church; non acceptance
constitutes exclusion from the communion of the Church. Hence the
expulsion and separation from the body of the Church of many groups,
the Jacobites, Armenians, Copts, and Nestorians, all of whom refused
to adhere to them. Ultimately acceptance of these councils by the
whole Church is what made these decisions valid and authoritative.
By and large, however, their reception was also due to the great
theologians or Fathers of this age; their literary defense of the
councils' theology was decisive for the Church's victory. As we
should expect, the writings of such Fathers as Saints Basil,
Athanasius, Chrysostom, Gregory of Nazianzus, Cyril, and Gregory of
Nyssa, still constitute an inexhaustible spiritual and theological
source for the contemporary Orthodox Christian.
But the seven ecumenical councils are significant for another
reason. The Church's visible threefold ministerial structure was
already a reality in many churches by the post-apostolic period as
we have had occasion to observe. Each of these local churches, with
its own independent hierarchical structure, was a self governing
unit. However, precise standards governing the relations of these
self-contained churches with each other had not been defined. Still,
a certain "power structure" modeled, in the main, upon the
organization of the Roman Empire did emerge. Thus, even before the
fourth century a provincial system had developed in which churches
were grouped in provinces. In such cases it was customary to give
greater honor to the "metropolitan" or bishop of the capital city
(metropolis) of each province. Similarly, following the importance
of certain cities in the Roman administration, special precedence
was accorded the presiding bishop of the three largest cities in the
Empire: Rome, Alexandria, and Antioch. This development, however, in
which a church was ranked according to its civil importance in the
administrative divisions of the Roman state, had evolved by common
consensus, without any ecclesiastical legislation to support it.
This problem was eventually addressed by the ecumenical councils,
which recognized, standardized, and refined this development. For
example, the Fathers of the first ecumenical council (325), in
addition to recognizing the status of the three dioceses of Rome,
Alexandria, and Antioch, also gave honorary precedence to Jerusalem
because of its central importance in the whole stream of Christian
history. With the emergence of Constantinople as the new capital of
the Empire, this patriarchal system was further modified. Quite
simply, the change wrought in the civil administration by
Constantinople's new status could not but affect ecclesiastical
structure. A rearrangement of the existing pattern was obviously
necessary. Thus, at the ecumenical council of 381, Constantinople,
as the "New Rome," was given second place after old Rome, while
Alexandria was assigned third place. This legislation received
further confirmation at the fourth council of Chalcedon (421).
The Pentarchy
Thus, by the fifth century, a "pentarchy" or system of five Sees
(patriarchates), with a settled order of precedence, had been
established. Rome, as the ancient center and largest city of the
empire, was understandably given the presidency or primacy of honor
within the pentarchy into which Christendom was now divided.
Plainly, this system of patriarchs and metropolitans was exclusively
the result of ecclesiastical legislation; there was nothing
inherently divine in its origin. None of the five sees, in short,
possessed their authority by divine right. Had this been so,
Alexandria could not have been demoted to third rank in order to
have Constantinople exalted to second place. The determining factor
was simply their secular status as the most important cities in the
empire. Additionally, each of the five patriarchs was totally
sovereign within his sphere of jurisdiction. The primacy of Rome, as
such, did not entail universal jurisdictional power over the others.
On the contrary, all bishops, whether patriarchs or not, were equal.
No one bishop, however exalted his see or diocese, could claim
supremacy over the others. The bishop of Rome was simply vested with
the presidency, as the senior bishop - the first among equals.
The Iconclasm Crisis
In view of the prominent part played by the visual arts in Orthodox
piety and liturgical life, a brief explanation is necessary about
Byzantine iconoclasm and the seventh ecumenical council (787) which
condemned it. It has already been observed that Byzantine religious
art is among the empire's most enduring legacies. An iconoclast
victory would almost certainly have altered the course of Byzantine
painting. Iconoclasm, in general, is usually viewed apart from the
christological debates with which the earlier ecumenical councils
were concerned. Be that as it may, the iconoclastic issue was
ultimately christological. To illustrate this point we need to begin
with the fundamental iconoclast argument of idolatry. How could the
divinity of Christ - argued the iconoclast - be depicted or
represented without falling into idolatry? Plainly put, veneration
of the Lord's icon was nothing else than idolatrous worship of
inanimate wood and paint. And that certainly was expressly forbidden
by Scripture to the Christian. This seemingly cogent argument,
however, did not convince the Church or the Fathers of the seventh
council.
An icon, it is true, is made of wood and paint, but it is only a
symbol. Further, it is neither an object of absolute veneration nor
of worship. On the contrary, icons are only relatively venerated,
for the true object of veneration is ultimately the person depicted
in the icon, not the image itself. Moreover, a clear distinction is
to be drawn between veneration (proskynesis), with which the icons
should be honored, and worship (latreia), which belongs to God
alone. In sum, it was altogether unlawful to worship icons, for God
alone is worshipped and adored; they could and should, however, be
venerated. This insistence that icons should be honored brings us to
the Church's second crucial argument - the christological. This
argument maintains that a pictorial representation of the Lord or of
the saints is entirely permissible and, in fact, necessary because
of the incarnation. That is to say, the son of God can be depicted
pictorially precisely because he became visible and describable by
taking on our flesh and becoming man. Any repudiation of the Lord's
icon is tantamount to a denial of the incarnation. Fittingly enough,
the defeat of iconoclasm is celebrated annually by the Orthodox
Church on the first Sunday of Lent. This "Feast of Orthodoxy"
commemorates the final restoration of images (11 March, 843).
The Byzantinization
But if Orthodox devotional art received its definitive form during
the Byzantine period, so did the entire liturgical life of the
Church. That the see of Constantinople should have played the
crucial and determining role in this "process of Byzantinization" is
not surprising. Historically, before its rise to political
prominence in the fourth century, Constantinople was only a minor
bishopric without any liturgical tradition of its own. Its
liturgical life, as such, was gradually formed from other local
liturgical elements and traditions. Older liturgical centers such as
Antioch and Jerusalem made major contributions to this process. Also
involved in the building up of this "Byzantine rite" was the city's
resident imperial court with its own elaborate ceremonial. By the
ninth century, given Constantinople's growing importance in the
Church, this new liturgical synthesis became the standard and
eventually replaced all other local rites within the Church. The
liturgy and the whole cycle of divine services, such as compline,
vespers, etc., used today in the Orthodox world, is substantially
identical with the original Byzantine rite of Constantinople.
The Influence of Monasticism
The two areas just described - liturgy and iconography - would be
inconceivable without the contribution of Byzantine monasticism. The
victory of the Church against iconoclasm, for example, was
essentially the work of Byzantine monks, whereas the liturgical
regulations governing the cycle of Orthodox services today is
entirely monastic. Indeed, the impact of monasticism on Orthodox
Christianity was all encompassing and far-reaching. Monasticism as a
permanent institution did not exist before the fourth century. Its
institutional origins will not be found in any single specific
directive of the Lord or in any particular passage of the New
Testament. Its foundations, all the same, are rooted in the totality
of the Gospel message - the source of both its strength and its
fertility. Behind the physical withdrawal into the desert or a
monastery lies the renunciation of the world and of Satan to which
every Christian commits himself at baptism. This renunciation is a
basic condition to being a Christian. The monastic vocation and
mentality, in sum, is intimately bound up with the baptismal vow.
Entering a monastery is simply another means by which some have
chosen to live the absolute ideal of the Gospel. For many, this may
seem an extreme way to follow Christ, and yet all Christians,
whether in or outside the monastery, are ultimately called to the
same renunciation, the same perfection, the same fulfillment of the
Gospel. The personal search for holiness is not the monk's special
preserve.
It is because of its essentially Christian goals, then, that
asceticism spread and influenced Orthodox spirituality, prayer,
piety, and general Church life. Besides, the Church itself sponsored
and promoted it, having intuitively recognized its unique
charismatic ministry, usefulness, and potential for holiness. We
have already noted its contributions to the Church in two areas.
Less well known, perhaps, is the fact that the Church recruited its
episcopate exclusively from the countless monastic communities
dotting the Byzantine countryside. One monastery on Mt. Athos, for
example, in addition to producing 144 bishops, provided the Church
with 26 patriarchs. Indeed, virtually two thirds of the patriarchs
of Constantinople between the ninth and the thirteenth centuries
were monastics. But the charismatic and eschatological witness of
monasticism was crucial. As the established faith of the Byzantine
Empire, the Church was often in danger of identifying itself with
the state, of becoming too worldly and losing its eschatological
dimension. Fortunately, the monastic presence was always there to
remind the Church of its true nature and identity with another
Kingdom. Its fierce opposition to any compromise of the Christian
vision was possibly the single most important factor in the Church's
survival and independence.
Church and State
The Byzantine Church has often been described as a "state" or
"national" Church. This observation, however, is entirely
misleading, not to say offensive. True, the Byzantine world became
more Greek linguistically and geographically as a result of the
defection of the non-Greek speaking areas of Syria and Egypt during
the period of the ecumenical councils. Additionally, the schism
between Eastern and Western Christendom further isolated and
confined Christian Byzantium. These losses were, undeniably,
considerable and tragic, both for the Church and the empire. As a
matter of fact, however, although the Church is "eastern" by virtue
of its geography, above all, in its theology and tradition, it is
Catholic and Orthodox. Historically, moreover, the Byzantine Church
itself was never so confined or isolated as the Byzantine Empire.
The vigor of its missionary drive in Eastern Europe and the Slavic
world, shortly after the iconoclastic controversy, is eloquent
evidence to the contrary.
The Conversion of the Slavs
This evangelization or Christianization of the Slavs was initiated
by one of Byzantium's most learned churchmen - the Patriarch
Photius. His choice of the brothers Cyril and Methodius for the
mission was a stroke of genius and missionary insight, for both
spoke the Slavic dialect then in use among the Slavic settlers near
their native city of Thessalonica. Having received their commission,
they immediately set about creating a Slavic alphabet, the so-called
Cyrillic, in which they then translated the Scripture and the
liturgy. Hence, the origins of Church Slavonic, the common
liturgical language still used by the Russian Orthodox Church and
other Slavic Orthodox Christians. Although their first mission to
Moravia was unsuccessful (they were forced to flee by German
missionaries and the changing political situation in Moravia), their
work was not in vain. Soon Byzantine missionaries, including the
exiled disciples of the two brothers, turned to other areas. As a
result, by the beginning of the eleventh century most of the pagan
Slavic world, including Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia, had been won
for Byzantine Christianity. Bulgaria was officially recognized as a
patriarchate by Constantinople in 945, Serbia in 1346, and Russia in
1589. All these nations, however, had been converted long before
these dates. The conversion of Russia, for example, began with the
baptism of Vladimir of Kiev in 989, on which occasion he was also
married to the Byzantine princess Anna, the sister of the Byzantine
Emperor Basil II.
The Orthodox Commonwealth
But this expansion into the Slavic world also created an Orthodox
"Commonwealth." For Byzantine art, literature, and culture were no
longer confined within Byzantium's own political frontiers, but
extended far beyond into the Balkans and the north of Russia to
create a single Byzantine Orthodox commonwealth. The Slavic nations,
in sum, were not only Christianized, but civilized by the
Byzantines.The saving message of the New Testament was also
accompanied by the gift of civilization. This was understandably a
major factor in the formation and future development of Slavic
culture. But if the conversion of the Slavs was pivotal in the
destiny of the young Slavic nations it was equally decisive for the
future of the Church. It was, in the main, this missionary vigor
which preserved Byzantine Christianity's universality. The inclusion
of Slavic Orthodoxy into the Orthodox fold permanently enlarged the
Church's area of geographic distribution. Equally, the Slavic
element brought immense riches into the Church's midst. Few people,
perhaps, have embraced the Orthodox faith with such ardor and
devotion as the Slavs have. How poor the Church would be today
without its host of Slavic saints, its startski, its Dostoyevskys,
its Khomiakovs, or Florovskys!
East and West
Finally, this chapter of Church history also serves to demonstrate
another major point. Whereas Western Christianity at this time was
zealously imposing a uniform Latin liturgical language on all its
converts, Byzantine Christianity refused to do so. Generally, Greek
was seldom used as a missionary language among the Slavs. On the
contrary, the principle of a single liturgical language was avoided.
Hence, the Cyrillic alphabet and liturgy which employed the
vernacular language of the peoples created native-speaking Churches
in the Balkans and elsewhere. Orthodox Christianity, in sum,
insisted on preaching the Gospel in the ordinary language of the
people so as to be directly and immediately understood by the new
converts. And that, after all, is the ultimate goal of Christian
mission. In the history of Orthodoxy, this legacy of the "Apostles
to the Slavs," Saints Cyril and Methodius, is among the most
precious.
The preceding section has provided a survey, not exhaustive but
sufficient for our purposes, of the Church's Byzantine period.
Before examining the long Turkish domination that followed the fall
of Constantinople, we need to explore one final event in the life of
the medieval Church - the schism between Eastern and Western
Christianity. To begin with, this tragic division was not an event,
but a prolonged process stretching over centuries. The cracks and
fissures in Christian unity are indeed visible as early as the
fourth century. As such, 1054, the traditional date marking the
beginning of the schism and the excommunication of patriarch Michael
Cerularius by papal legates, is highly inaccurate.
There is, in fact, no precise date. What really happened was a
complex chain of events whose climax was only reached in the
thirteenth century with the sack of Constantinople by western
Crusaders (1204). Equally, we need to remember that the events
leading to schism were not always exclusively theological in nature.
Cultural, political, and linguistic differences were often
inextricably mixed with the theological. Any narrative of the schism
which emphasizes one at the expense of the other will be both
fragmentary and misleading. Unlike the Copts or Armenians who broke
from the Church in the fifth century and established ethnic churches
at the cost of their universality and catholicity, the eastern and
western parts of the Church remained loyal to the faith and
authority of the seven ecumenical councils. They were united, by
virtue of their common faith and tradition, in one Church. The
transfer of the Roman capital to the Bosporus inevitably brought
mistrust, rivalry, and even jealousy to the relations of the two
great sees, Rome and Constantipole. It was easy for Rome to be
jealous of the "upstart" Constantinople at a time when it was
rapidly losing its political prominence. In fact, Rome refused to
recognize the conciliar legislation which promoted Constantinople to
second rank. But the estrangement was also helped along by the
German invasions in the West, which effectively weakened contacts.
The rise of Islam with its conquest of most of the Mediterranean
coastline (not to mention the arrival of the pagan Slavs in the
Balkans at the same time) further intensified this separation by
driving a physical wedge between the two worlds. The once homogenous
unified world of the Mediterranean was fast vanishing.
Communications between the Greek East and the Latin West had now
become dangerous and, as a consequence, practically ceased.
The Photian Schism
The gap widened further in the ninth century when the missionary
ambitions of the two communions clashed over the Christianization of
Bulgaria and Moravia. The election of Patriarch Photius even caused
a temporary division, known as the "Photian Schism." But it is the
coronation of Charlemagne as emperor by the pope, and the revival in
800 of a western "Roman" Empire which best illustrate how far the
gulf had widened. In the eyes of Constantinople, the West was acting
as if the Roman Empire, with its legitimate emperor in
Constantinople, had ceased to exist. The Byzantine Empire's claims
to world sovereignty, title to which was never surrendered, were
being ignored. Charlemagne's new "Empire" was usurping the
legitimate role of the Roman Empire in Constantinople. Such a
declaration of independence and emancipation from Byzantium seemed
to threaten the unity of Christendom and, indirectly, the shared
faith of the one Church. Subsequent events, such as the Norman
conquest of southern Italy, the Crusades, the Italian commercial
penetration of the Bosporus and the Black Sea were to be added to
the already lengthy list of differences and disagreements. They
suffice, however, to demonstrate how deep the alienation had become.
Indeed, these events have often been viewed as the ultimate cause of
schism.
And yet, popular as these causes are in conventional historical
analyses of the schism, they do not alone explain the breach or
square with the historical facts. Today these causes no longer
exist, yet the schism continues. We must, therefore, search for the
ultimate root of schism in the intellectual and theological
differences rather than in the political or geographical ones. Two
basic problems - the primacy of the bishop of Rome and the
procession of the Holy Spirit - were involved. These doctrinal
novelties (for this is how the Byzantines perceived them) were first
discussed openly in Photius' patriarchate. By the fifth century, as
we have said, Christendom was divided into five sees with Rome
holding the primacy. This was determined by canonical and juridical
decision, and did not entail hegemony of any one local Church or
patriarchate over the others. For all that, during the progressive
alienation noted above, Rome began to interpret her primacy in terms
of sovereignty, as a God-given right involving universal
jurisdiction in the Church. The collegial and conciliar nature of
the Church, in effect, was gradually abandoned in favor of a
supremacy of unlimited power over the entire Church. These ideas
were, finally, given systematic expression in the West during the
Gregorian Reform movement of the eleventh century. Enough has been
said about early ecclesiology to realize how much Rome's
understanding of the nature of episcopal power was in direct
violation of the Church's essentially democratic structure. The two
ecclesiologies were mutually antithetical. No wonder subsequent
attempts to heal the schism and bridge the tragic division would
fail. To be sure, Rome based her monarchical claims to "true and
proper jurisdiction," as the Vatican Council of 1870 put it, on St.
Peter. This basis, however, was unknown to the Fathers who had ruled
on the Church's organization. Specifically, they were aware that St.
Peter's primacy could not be the exclusive prerogative of any one
bishop. For all bishops must, like St. Peter, confess Jesus as the
Christ. This being so, they are all Peter's successors and St. Peter
is simply their prototype. To believe otherwise would be to violate
the bishops' charismatic equality. For no one can hold a position
superior to that of the others.
The Great Schism
Equally disturbing to the eastern Church was the western
interpretation of the procession of the Holy Spirit. This too, like
the primacy, developed only gradually and entered the Creed in the
West almost unnoticed. The dispute is theologically too complex to
discuss here. Suffice it say that it involved the addition by the
West of the Latin phrase filioque ("and from the Son") to the Creed.
The original Creed sanctioned by the councils and still used by the
Orthodox Church did not contain this phrase; the text simply states
"the Holy Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, proceeds from the
Father." Theologically, the Latin interpolation "and from the Son"
was unacceptable to the Byzantines, since it implied that the Spirit
now had two sources of procession, the Father and the Son, rather
than one, the Father alone. In short, the balance between the three
persons of the Trinity was altered. The result, the Byzantines
believed, was false and heretical. But in addition to the dogmatic
issue raised by the filioque, the Byzantines argued that the word
was added unilaterally and, therefore, illegitimately, since the
East had never been consulted. In the final analysis, only another
ecumenical council could make such an alteration. Besides, the
councils which drew up the original Creed had expressly forbidden
any subtraction or addition to the text. The West's tampering with
the major creedal formula of the Church was, therefore,
unacceptable.
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C. THE CAPTIVE CHURCH
The Ottoman Conquest
In general, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 was a great
misfortune for Christianity. For Eastern Christendom it was nothing
less than an unqualified disaster. As a result of the Ottoman
conquest, the entire Orthodox communion of the Balkans and the Near
East was suddenly isolated from the West. For the next four hundred
years it would instead be confined within a hostile Islamic world,
with which it had little in common either religiously or culturally.
Orthodox Russia alone escaped this fate. It is this geographical and
intellectual confinement which, in part, explains Orthodoxy's
silence during the Reformation in sixteenth century Europe. That
this important theological debate should often seem distorted to the
Orthodox is not surprising: they never took part in it. And yet, it
is not the isolation alone, as much as the consequences of Ottoman
rule, that make these pages of Church history so bleak and
melancholy from virtually every point of view.
Religious Rights Under Islam
To be sure, the new Ottoman government that arose from the ashes of
Byzantine civilization was neither primitive nor altogether
barbaric. Islam not only recognized Jesus as a great prophet, but
tolerated Christians as another People of the Book. As such, the
Church was not extinguished nor was its canonical and hierarchical
organization significantly disrupted. Besides, its administration
continued to function. One of the first things that Mehmet the
Conqueror did was to allow the Church to elect a new patriarch,
Gennadius Scholarius. The Hagia Sophia and the Parthenon, which had
been Christian churches for nearly a millennium were, admittedly,
converted into mosques, yet countless other churches, both in the
City and elsewhere, remained in Christian hands. Moreover, it is
striking that the patriarch's and the hierarchy's position was
considerably strengthened and their power increased. They were now
endowed with civil as well as ecclesiastical power over all
Christians in Ottoman territories. Because Islamic law makes no
distinction between nationality and religion, all Christians,
regardless of their language or nationality, were viewed as a single
millet or nation. The patriarch, as the highest ranking hierarch,
was thus invested with civil and religious authority and made
ethnarch, or head of the entire Christian Orthodox population.
Practically, this meant that all Orthodox Churches within Ottoman
territory were under Constantinople. The authority and
jurisdictional frontiers of the patriarch, in short, were enormously
enlarged.
In the final analysis, all these rights and privileges, including
freedom of worship and religious organization, seldom corresponded
to reality. It is not "rights" but cruel facts that stare us in the
face. The legal privileges of the patriarch and the Church depended,
in fact, on the whim and mercy of the Sultan and the Sublime Porte,
while Christians were viewed as little more than second class
citizens or infidels. Moreover, Turkish corruption and brutality,
about which our textbooks wax so eloquently, were not a myth. That
it was the "infidel" Christian who experienced this more than anyone
else is not in doubt. Nor were pogroms of Christians in these
centuries unknown. Devastating, too, for the Church was the fact
that it could not bear witness to Christ. Missionary work among
Moslems was dangerous and indeed impossible, whereas conversion to
Islam was entirely legal and permissible. On the other hand,
converts to Islam who returned to Orthodoxy were automatically put
to death. Of a piece with this situation was the fact that new
churches could not be built and even the ringing of church bells was
not allowed. Finally, the education of the clergy and the Christian
population fared no better - it either ceased or was of a
rudimentary kind.
The Results of Corruption
It was likewise the Church's fate to be affected by the Turkish
system of corruption. The patriarchal throne was frequently sold to
the highest bidder, while new patriarchal investiture was
accompanied by heavy payment to the government. In order to recoup
these enormous losses, patriarchs and bishops taxed the local
parishes and their clergy. Nor was the patriarchal throne ever
secure. Few patriarchs between the fifteenth and the twentieth
century died a natural death while in office. The forced
abdications, exiles, hangings, drownings, and poisonings of
patriarchs are all too well documented. But if the patriarch's
position was precarious so was the hierarchy's. The hanging of
patriarch Gregory V from the gate of the patriarchate on Easter
Sunday 1821 was accompanied by the execution of two metropolitans
and twelve bishops. (The gate, incidentally, still remains closed in
St. Gregory's memory.) The above summary - stark and short as it
is - is sufficient to convey the persecution, decay, and humiliation
that Eastern Christendom suffered under Ottoman rule. If we add to
this tragic fate the militant communist atheism under which most
Orthodox have lived since 1917, we get some sense of the dislocation
and suffering of Eastern Christianity in the last five hundred
years. The grave problems that western Christians have had to face
as a result of the French Revolution and the secularization of
western society in general might be said to pale against these
facts. That the captive Eastern Church has retained its identity and
survived is nothing short of miraculous. It is to the credit of the
Orthodox that they have remained faithful to the saving faith of
Christ.
Papacy and Orthodoxy
Along with these conditions, mention should finally be made of
Rome's proselytizing pressure. Evidence for this phenomenon is
appallingly plentiful. Missionaries were prepared in special schools
such as the College of St. Athanasius in Rome (opened in 1577) and
then sent to the East in order to engage in direct proselytizing of
the Orthodox. This network of open Roman propaganda also embraced
the Orthodox Slavic world. The pressure of the Catholic Polish
monarchy and Jesuits in Poland and Lithuania on Orthodox dioceses
canonically dependent on Constantinople is well enough known. For
example, the Uniat Ukrainian Church was, in part, the result of such
pressure through the Union of Brest-Litovsk in 1596. There was, of
course, little that the Orthodox Church could do to counter this
aggressive Romanization, given the historical situation.
Such, then, were the severe and humiliating restrictions under which
the Church was forced to live until the early nineteenth century.
The part played by the ecumenical patriarchate, as spiritual head
and "Mother Church," in this and the preceding chapter of its
history was decisive. This was due, as we have seen, to the
preeminent position of the city of Constantinople in the Byzantine
period, when its bishop acquired a rank second only to Rome in the
pentarchy. But it was also a result of the schism with Rome. The
schism left Constantinople with undisputed primacy over the other
eastern patriarchates. This is how Constantinople became the primary
see of Orthodoxy. Finally, under the Ottoman ethnarchic system its
geographic frontiers were enlarged, with the result that most of the
Orthodox community came under its jurisdiction. How the patriarch of
Constantinople became the senior bishop in Orthodoxy is
understandably one of the great themes of Orthodox Church history.
Nineteenth century militant nationalism, however, was to introduce
vast changes. Although the patriarchate's primatial status has never
been in question - it is, and remains, the first see of Orthodoxy -
its geographical frontiers were considerably reduced as a result of
the struggle for freedom undertaken by the various Orthodox
nationalities under Ottoman rule. The new independent nation states
could not remain ecclesiastically under the jurisdiction of a
patriarch who was still within the orbit of the foreign and hostile
government of Turkey.
Constantinople and Modern National Churches
One of the earliest nations to be influenced by the French
Revolution's explosive ideas was Greece; it was the first to break
the Turkish yoke, winning its independence early in the century.
Shortly afterwards a synod of bishops declared the Church of the new
Kingdom of Greece autocephalous. The new Greek nation, in short,
could not be headed by the patriarch. Indeed, Greece's autocephalous
status, recognized by Constantinople in 1850, meant that it could
now elect its own head or kephale. Thus, the Church of Greece is
today governed by a Holy Synod presided over by the Archbishop of
Athens. Mt. Athos and the semiautonomous Church of Crete alone
remain under the patriarch's jurisdiction. The island of Cyprus,
however, is independent of both Constantinople and the Church of
Greece. Its autonomous status dates from the third ecumenical
council (431) which accorded it this unique position. Up to that
time, it had been subject to the patriarchate of Antioch. Like
Greece, this ancient Church is governed by a synod of bishops and a
presiding archbishop.
As we have seen, the ethnarchic system introduced by the Ottomans
brought most of the autocephalous and patriarchal Slavic Churches
under the jurisdiction of Constantinople. This subjection, with its
loss of patriarchal status, was never popular. As a result, several
independent national Churches came into being once political freedom
was achieved. For example, the Church of Serbia, which had lost its
patriarchate in the Turkish period, became autocephalous in 1879,
and its head was recognized as patriarch by Constantinople in 1922.
Romania, today the largest self-governing Church after Russia, was
declared autocephalous in 1885 and became a patriarchate in 1925.
Finally, the Church of Bulgaria declared itself autocephalous in
1860, but it was not until 1945 that Constantinople recognized it
and its metropolitan in Sofia assumed the title of patriarch in
1953. Russia, which was outside the Turkish fold, was recognized a
patriarchate by Constantinople in 1589. Nevertheless, this too, was
eventually abolished, but not by Constantinople. Peter the Great
replaced it by a governing Synod in 1721. The Synodal Period that
followed lasted until the Bolshevik Revolution, when the
patriarchate was once again restored (1917). Today, Russia ranks
fifth after the four ancient patriarchates of Constantinople,
Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
The Ancient Patriarchates
But the ancient sees of the Near East also achieved greater freedom
as a result of the breakup of the Ottoman Empire. For these, too,
were often under the influence of Constantinople during the period
of Turkish captivity. Despite the defection of Egypt in the fifth
century because it refused to accept the fourth ecumenical council
and created a national Coptic Church, the patriarchate of Alexandria
continued to survive. The ancient title of the patriarch is still
"pope and patriarch" an eloquent illustration that the designation
of "pope" was never the exclusive privilege of the bishop of Rome in
the ancient Church. Today, the patriarch and the clergy of this see
are Greek. Significantly, its jurisdiction extends over all Orthodox
on the African continent. A flourishing Orthodox Church now exists,
for example, in Uganda. Antioch, which was one of the largest cities
of the Roman Empire, now ranks third after Constantinople. It
consists of Arabic-speaking orthodox Christians living in Syria and
Lebanon. Until the late nineteenth century its patriarch and bishops
were Greek, but since 1899 they have been Arabs. Jerusalem has been
an independent patriarchate since the fifth century. Unlike Antioch,
its patriarch is Greek although its faithful are for the most part
Arabs. This venerable see is the guardian and protector of the Holy
Places. On the whole, the strength of these ancient sees has been
sapped by continuous submission to Islam.
The New Structure
It is plain from what has been said about nineteenth century
developments that the authority enjoyed by Constantinople today is
no longer based on any vast ecclesiastical jurisdiction. In the last
century and a half it has been stripped both of its former
territories and most of its flock. Greece and the Balkans are no
longer under its jurisdiction. Inside Turkey itself, moreover, most
of the Orthodox Christian communities of Asia Minor have
disappeared. The patriarch's immediate flock today is, in the main,
composed of those Orthodox still living in Constantinople. The
patriarchate's position, therefore, rests on its primatial status,
rather than on any wide territorial jurisdiction. No less striking
is the fact that the Church, like the ancient Church, is essentially
a decentralized body consisting of four ancient patriarchates and
numerous local or national Churches, most of which enjoy full
self-governing status. The Orthodox community of Churches is
decidedly not a monolithic structure. Despite the lack of a
centralized authority, however, all members of this living body are
bound together by a common canonical and liturgical tradition, by a
single doctrinal and sacramental unity, and a common faith
stretching back to the original Christian nucleus of Apostolic
times. Behind the historical reality, in short, lies the true
Catholic and universal Church. In Christian history, catholicity has
never been coextensive with organizational or institutional
uniformity.
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D. THE MODERN CHURCH
Orthodoxy and Modern Ideology
The tragedy of the Orthodox Church in the twentieth century has been
to live - the largest portion of its flock, at least - under the new
political framework of atheistic totalitarianism. The dislocation of
communism is indeed the latest in a long line of misfortunes -
Arabic, Seljuk, Crusader, Mongol, Ottoman - with which it has had to
cope in the last millennium and a half. As St. Paul observes, "it
was given to us not only to believe in Christ but also to suffer for
him" (Phil. 1:29). There is, however, one significant difference
between this latest crisis and those of the past: the previous
non-Christian political regimes under which the Church has had to
live were never deliberately anti-Christian. In sum, there has never
been an exact precedent for the communist catastrophe. None of the
past regimes were ever as insistent as communism in its belief that
religion must not be tolerated. According to Lenin, a communist
regime cannot remain neutral on the question of religion but must
show itself to be merciless towards it. There is, in effect, no
place for the church in Lenin's classless society.
Confrontation with Atheistic Regimes
The result of this militant atheism has been to transform the Church
into a persecuted and martyred Church. Thousands of bishops, monks,
clergy, and faithful have died martyrs' deaths for Christ over the
last fifty years, both in Russia and in the other communist nations.
Their numbers may well exceed the Christians who perished under the
Roman Empire. Equally frightening for the Church has been
communism's indirect, but systematic, strangulation policy. In the
Soviet Union, for example, in addition to the methodical closing,
desecration, and destruction of churches, ecclesiastical authorities
are not allowed to carry on any charitable or social work. Nor, for
that matter, may the Church own property. The few places of worship
left to the Church are legally viewed as state property which the
government permits the Church to use. More devastating still for the
Church, and indeed for its future, is that it is not permitted to
carry on educational or instructional activity of any kind. Outside
of sermons and the celebration of the liturgy it cannot instruct the
faithful or its youth. Catechism classes, religious schools, study
groups, Sunday Schools, religious publications are all illegal. Of
the four thousand schools operated by the Russian Church before
World War I not one remains today. Though these conditions vary
among the different communist nations the general picture remains
the same. The future of the Church is, to say the least, bleak.
Orthodoxy and Immigration
One of the most striking developments in modern historical Orthodoxy
is the dispersion of orthodox Christians to the West. Emigration
from Greece and the Near East in the last hundred years has, in
fact, created a sizable Orthodox diaspora in Western Europe, North
and South America, and Australia. In addition, the Bolshevik
Revolution forced thousands of Orthodox Russian exiles westward. As
a result, Orthodoxy's traditional frontiers have been profoundly
modified. Millions of Orthodox are no longer "eastern" since they
live permanently in their newly adopted countries in the West.
Virtually all the Orthodox nationalities - Greek, Arab, Russian,
Serbian, Albanian, Ukrainian, Rumanian, Bulgarian - are represented
in the United States. To describe them all is beyond the scope of
this short survey. Rather, only the largest of these Orthodox
diaspora groups will be mentioned, namely the Greek Archdiocese of
America, with two million faithful. Under the guidance of several
dedicated archbishops, the Greek diaspora has matured into a vital
and active Church and plays a dominant role in the lives of millions
of Greek Orthodox Christians. Significantly, the Archdiocese is
under the ecclesiastical and spiritual jurisdiction of the
ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople. Indeed, the senior See in
Orthodoxy possesses jurisdiction over a large portion of the
Orthodox diaspora now in existence. Besides the Archdiocese of North
and South America, there is also the Exarchate of Western Europe,
centered in London (with numerous parishes and bishops on the
continent), and the Church of Finland and well as Australia. Smaller
groups in the United States, such as the Carpatho-Russian and
Ukrainian dioceses, are likewise under the ecumenical patriarchate.
The Orthodox Church in the West.
Historically, 1768 marks the arrival of the first Greek Orthodox to
the New World. These pioneers founded the colony of New Smyrna some
forty miles south of St. Augustine, Florida. A small group of New
Orleans Greek merchants built the first church in 1864. The Greek
Archdiocese of North and South America itself was official
incorporated by the State of New York in 1921. The complicated and
difficult task of organizing and consolidating the Greek communities
into a centralized Archdiocese was the work of three far-sighted
leaders: Archbishop Athenagoras, who was elected to the ecumenical
throne of Constantinople in 1948; Archbishop Michael, the former
bishop of Corinth; and his successor and present spiritual head,
Archbishop Iakovos. In addition to its diverse philanthropic work,
the Archdiocese maintains numerous day-schools, a home for the aged,
and an academy for deprived and orphan children. Candidates for the
priesthood are trained at the Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of
Theology in Boston. Mention should also be made of the second
largest diaspora group, the Russian. It, too, trains its own clergy
at its St. Vladimir's Orthodox Theological Seminary, which also
receives candidates from all the Orthodox jurisdictions. Both
institutions, moreover, maintain their own press and publish their
own theological quarterly; in addition, they issue a large number of
useful and important books in English on various aspects of Orthodox
theology, history, and spirituality. Finally, both seminaries
possess a distinguished faculty with an international reputation.
Historical circumstances, then, have provided Orthodoxy in the West
with the unique opportunity to bear witness to its universality and
essential truth. For despite its historical eastern homeland the
Orthodox Church has never claimed to be anything less than universal
in its essence. True, the rigid segregation and self-sufficiency of
some Orthodox frequently give the opposite impression. All the same,
the Orthodox are becoming increasingly aware that they must overcome
both their isolation and inclination to live apart from each other
and from other Christian brethren. How else, indeed, can the
strength and unity of Orthodox truth be revealed if not through a
common witness? The subordination of national ambitions and local
loyalties is highly desirable and necessary. Archbishop Iakovos'
recent observations on this point were on target:
"We rarely give the impression of united orthodoxy as we should, and
as others expect of us. They think (and not wrongly) that we are
first Greeks, Russians, Serbs, Rumanians, Bulgarians, Arabs or
Ukrainians and then Orthodox. We often deny ourselves the honor to
speak as Orthodox and to demonstrate our theological and
ecclesiastical unity and identity.'' (Orthodox Observer, 21 Sept.
1983, p. 2)
These remarks were in reference to Orthodoxy's relationship and
participation in the ecumenical movement and the World Council of
Churches. It is a timely subject with which to draw the threads of
our survey together.
Orthodoxy and the Ecumenical Movement
Orthodoxy believes that it possesses both the unity and the faith
which alone will produce the reunion all Christians seek. It is also
at the same time painfully aware of the scandal of Christian
division. Hence two major reasons for its active role, since the
1920s, in the ecumenical movement and in the later World Council of
Churches, founded at Amsterdam in 1948. From the movement's very
inception it was, significantly, the ecumenical Patriarchate which
took the initiative and leadership by supporting a policy of full
participation. That numerous other jurisdictions followed suit is,
in some measure, due to its encouragement and affirmative attitude.
Not all Orthodox, it is true, are of one mind about this policy.
Some, understandably, believe that the Orthodox idea of the Church
is incompatible with the confessional ecclesiology which often
dominates the World Council. In some respects, of course, this is
true. Thus, the Protestant notion that the historic aggregation of
separated churches are separations in the Church itself is totally
unacceptable to the Orthodox. As one distinguished Orthodox
theologian notes, this line of Protestant reasoning negates all that
the Orthodox hold about the Church's unity and sacramental fullness.
For all of that, the Church has chosen to participate in the
ecumenical fellowship because of the Lord's command to love all our
fellowmen, whether divided or not. The primacy of love is precisely
just that. Moreover, participation implies neither equality with our
Protestant brethren, nor compromise on our part. On the contrary, we
are there for dialogue as well as to bear witness to the only common
background, and indeed common ground, on which all genuine Christian
unity must be founded. As the Orthodox statement at the Evanston
Assembly of 1954 states, it is to "the faith of the ancient, united
and indivisible Church of the seven ecumenical councils, namely to
the pure and unchanged and common heritage of the forefathers of all
divided Christians" that we bear witness. The late Georges Florovsky
never ceased stressing that the search for Christian unity should be
a "noble and blessed endeavor." Most Orthodox would agree.
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SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER READING
The first three works (all currently available as inexpensive
paperbacks) contain readable, scholarly introductions to Eastern
Orthodox history and theology. The last four titles contain more
detailed analyses of Orthodox doctrine.
J. Meyendorff, The Orthodox Church: Its Past and Role in the World
Today (London, 1962).
A. Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy (Chicago,
1966).
T. Ware, The Orthodox Church (Penguin Books, 1963).
V. Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (James Clark;
London, 1957).
J. Meyendorff, Byzantine Theology: Historical Trends and Doctrinal
Themes (Fordham University Press; New York, 1974).
A. Papadakis, Crisis in Byzantium: The Filioque Controversy in the
Patriarchate of Gregory II of Cyprus (1283-1289) (Fordham University
Press; New York, 1983).
J. Pelikan, The Spirit of Eastern Christendom (600-1700)(The
University of Chicago Press; Chicago and London, 1977).
Copyright: Š 1990-1996 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
Š 2003 Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
www.goarch.org