In every instance when the Church has been assailed by one or another heresy, we find that many people are fooled by the heresy without actually understanding what is happening. Heresy is always presented as the truth and in this way many are misled.

-- Metropolitan Ephraim, Holy Orthodox Church in North America, 2001


Showing posts with label Imyaslavie. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Imyaslavie. Show all posts

Monday, September 17, 2012

Statement of Bishop Demetrius

September 3/16, 2012
Hieromartyr Anthimus

Beloved Faithful:

In the Holy Orthodox Church, the bishop's first responsibility is to protect and defend the purity of our Confession of Faith. Within the past few years multiple issues have arisen which have disturbed the peace of HOCNA. These issues caused separation from Bishops, clergy, and laity. Particularly in this last year, a doctrine called Name-worshipping (or Name-glorifying) has been allowed to enter into the Holy Orthodox Church in North America, especially affecting the Metropolis of Boston. The Patriarchate of Constantinople, the Church of Russia, and the Holy Mountain of Athos condemned this teaching as a heresy some 100 years ago. From then until today, the entire Orthodox Church accepted these decisions. Now, there are some persons who wish to revive this teaching. They are casting doubt on the validity of the synods and confusing the synodal decisions in order to have this teaching gain acceptance by the faithful.

Efforts in the past year to quell this invasion of false doctrine have failed. Worse, despite pleas from clergy and laity, the Synod of Bishops of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America will not formally issue an unequivocal pronouncement accepting all the decisions condemning the heresy of Name-worshipping and excommunicating those who adhere to it. Since my responsibility is to protect and defend the purity of our Confession of Faith, I can no longer remain a hierarch on the Synod of Bishops of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America.

I am not forming a new synod; I am not creating a schism; I am not remaining a "floating" bishop. On the contrary, I am petitioning to be received as a member of the existing synod of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece, whose president is Archbishop Kallinikos of Athens. This same synod was unanimously, officially, and publicly acknowledged as a rightly confessing and canonical True Orthodox Church on September 21/0ctober 4, 2010 by the Synod of Bishops of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America. The same Synod of Bishops unanimously decided to lift the 1985 depositions against those bishops in the current GOC Archbishop Kallinikos Synod. They also dissolved the locum tenency of the throne of Athens that was held by Metropolitan Makarios of Toronto. These actions mean that Archbishop Kallinikos' Synod is the canonical successor of the True Orthodox Church of Greece under Archbishop Auxentius of Athens to which we belonged and from which we derived our hierarchy.

The Name-worshipping heresy has wreaked havoc in our Church in North America. We had already suffered division as a result of the "Awake, Sleeper" controversy. Sorne consider "Awake, Sleeper" to be a debatable theological point which unnecessarily caused controversy in the Church, while others consider it heretical as well. Name-worshipping, however, is not debatable. The synodal decisions of 100 years ago clearly condemn it as a heresy. That is why so many of our clergy and laity are disturbed by the introduction of this teaching into the Church. Metropolitan Ephraim's articles such as 'Halki' and 'Ill-Considered Decisions' subtly support the Name-worshippers by insulting the Synods that condemned the heresy. A layperson who knows nothing about a strange doctrine, but has a terrible opinion of the authorities which condemned it, will be easily led to believe the doctrine.

Numerous clergy and many of the Faithful no longer trust the Metropolitan to lead the Church. Many clergymen have asked their Metropolitan to retire, and fifteen monks of the Holy Transfiguration Monastery are leaving. Clergy and laity have indicated they have stopped or will cease commemorating their Metropolitan. The issue is the purity of our Confession of Faith.

Furthermore, questions have been arising about the very foundation of HOCNA, the purpose of its inception and existence, the reasons for Metropolitan Ephraim's insistence for independence, and intercommunion only on his terms. Issues like 'Awake, Sleeper' and 'Name-worshipping' continue to push us away from other Synods, create discord in our own Synod, and Metropolitan Ephraim will not stop. Now, those who are leaving are being branded as rebels and troublemakers for their refusal to compromise on matters of Faith.

Under normal circumstances, according to the Holy Canons, a smaller, local synod can appeal to a greater synod when questions arise concerning doctrine, the tenure of hierarchs, and canonical order. There is no such official arrangement for the Synod of Bishops of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America. This lack of a higher authority makes resolving such disputes very frustrating. To whom can the faithful appeal? My petition to be received into the Synod of Bishops of the Genuine Orthodox Church of Greece is an appeal on behalf of myself, our faithful clergy, and laity, for refuge from false teaching and a witness to our Savior' s Truth.

In the love of our Lord Jesus Christ,

+ Bishop Demetrius



Saturday, September 15, 2012

Smokescreens for Heresy

In this essay, Fr. Maximos of Holy Ascension Monastery in Bearsville, NY, discusses how today's name-worshippers are using the same tactics as heretics of past generations.


Smokescreens

 
A common tactic for heretics to use in order to distract attention from their own heresy is to point out certain abuses among the Orthodox which are related to the controversy at hand. These abuses may be both matters of practice and matters of theological language. By pointing out the deficiencies of the Orthodox, they can claim the moral high ground and make the Orthodox appear as heretical or at least misguided. They use these abuses as an excuse for not accepting the Orthodox teaching on a given subject. By adopting this tactic, they confuse the faithful, making their own heretical doctrines appear more correct than they really are, and thus draw many into perdition.

This tactic in modern parlance is often called introducing a “red herring,” which means bringing up a subject which, while obliquely related to the matter at hand, does not address the main issue. Because a heretical teaching is always false, and hence possesses weaker logic and reasoning than the truth which the Orthodox Church proclaims, it is always in the interests of the heretics to introduce as many red herrings as possible, in order to draw attention away from the weak points in their own argumentation.

The ploy of the red herring - or as one may call it, a smokescreen which disguises evil - is ultimately a form of psychological argumentation and hence is invalid as a form of logic. By playing on the emotions of people, they can keep the debate on an entirely superficial level and avoid confronting their own faulty reasoning.

Recently, a heresy called “name-worshipping” has reared its head. This heresy is so called because its adherents believe that the name of God is God Himself; that is, that His name is a divine energy and hence uncreated. This ridiculous idea was condemned by the Synod of Constantinople in 1913 and again by the Russian Synod the same year. These Synods declared heretical the idea that the name of God is an energy of God or God Himself. This is the central point of the heresy, from which all of their other deviant beliefs follow. The Russian Synod, however, added a few comments of its own on the subject of the divine energies and the divinity, which used a slightly different terminology than the manner of expression used by St. Gregory Palamas (the expositor par excellence on the subject of the divine energies.) The Synod’s terminology was not so much heretical as not as clear and precise as St. Gregory’s exposition; and this was evidently the result of the Russian bishops’ lack of familiarity with the polemical writings of the saint, which had mostly not been translated into Russian at the time. The modern name-worshippers have seized upon this imprecision of terminology and have made it their banner; or rather, their smokescreen, declaring that they cannot accept the Russian council because it opposes the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas. In so doing, they have missed the main point, which is that even if the Russian Synod expressed itself poorly, name-worshipping is still a heresy. The Russian condemnation of name-worshipping is still valid in and of itself, even if the terminology it used in its further explanation of the subject is questionable. Moreover, the heresy was also condemned by the Synod of Constantinople, which used no dubious terminology. Yet the name-worshippers also refuse to recognize this council. Hence, it is clear that their motivation in attacking the language of the Russian Synod is not pious concern over expression, but rather because they simply do not accept the Orthodox teaching on the name of God.

It should be obvious at this point that the name-worshippers’ rejection of Orthodox teaching based on the comments made by the Russian Synod is nothing but a smokescreen which they use to mask their own heresy. In so doing, they are following the well-trodden path of many heretics. Let us examine a few heresies and the smokescreens they threw up in order to hide and excuse their false teachings.

1. The first great heresy to trouble the Church was Arianism. The Arians denied that Christ was God and that the Son is equal to Father. The Orthodox Church condemned Arianism at the First Ecumenical Council. The key word in explaining the Orthodox teaching was “consubstantial” – the Son is consubstantial or of one essence with the Father. The Arians, however, refused to accept this word. They knew that to accept it would entail a rejection of their heresy. But in order to distract people from the real issue, they pointed out that the word “consubstantial” was not found in Scripture and had originally been used in a heretical sense by Paul of Samosata, an earlier heretic who had confused the persons of the Father and the Son. The Arians accused the Orthodox of having the same heretical tendencies because they used the same terminology as an earlier heretic had, even though the Orthodox did not attach a heretical meaning to it.

2. The Arians also refused to join with the Orthodox Church because they pointed out that the Orthodox were in communion with Marcellus of Antioch, a bishop who was fanatically opposed to Arianism to the point of confusing the three persons of the Trinity. Most of the Orthodox did not realize that Marcellus’ own faith was suspect. The Arians threw a smokescreen over their own errors by pointing to the errors of Marcellus. But in fact, they were just avoiding the main point, which was that Arianism itself is heretical, and no number of dubious clergy in the ranks of the Orthodox can change that fact.

3. The Monophysites were a later heresy which fused Christ’s humanity and divinity to the point of obscuring His humanity. The Monophysites refused to accept the Fourth Ecumenical Council because the council accepted as orthodox the Tome of Leo, which they considered to be a Nestorian document. In fact, the Tome was perfectly Orthodox, but was worded vaguely enough that a Nestorian would not have a problem in accepting it. Nestorius himself declared that it was exactly what he had been trying to say all along. Thus, the Monophysites were able to characterize the Orthodox as Nestorians, and confuse many people. They used the Tome as a pretext for schism, and refused to deal with the real issue, which was that Monophysitism itself is a heresy.

4. Another heresy after Monophysitism was Iconoclasm. The Iconoclasts declared that icons were idols and that it was permissible neither to paint them nor especially to venerate them. The Iconoclasts were very quick to point out certain abuses connected with icons; for example, some people considered them living images to the point of using them as godparents at baptism! They used abuses such at this to blow smoke around the issue and to present the Orthodox view as something which inevitably lead to incorrect practices. But no number of abuses connected with icons could change the fact that it is a pious thing to depict and venerate them.

In our days, the name-worshippers are proving themselves worthy followers of their predecessors in heresy. By attempting to shift the focus of the debate onto the expressions of the Russian Synod, they are avoiding the real question: what is their own confession of faith? If they truly are Orthodox Christians, they can demonstrate it quickly and easily by just accepting the condemnations which the Church has published against name-worshipping. Let them proclaim loudly that the name of God is not an uncreated energy of God, but a created symbol given to us by Holy Scripture and the Fathers which expresses the inexpressible insofar as human language is capable. Let them denounce the errors of Bulatovich and the deluded monks of Mount Athos who followed him into heresy. Then we will believe that they are in truth Orthodox Christians and not members of a heretical sect.

   

Saturday, September 8, 2012

Gregory Lourie Deposed for Name Worshipping

In 2005, the Synod of Metropolitan Valentin of Suzdal deposed Gregory Lourie from the priesthood for his refusal to cease from promoting the heresy of name-worshipping.  Lourie maintains the decision was uncanonical.  He did not allow it to deter him from accepting consecration as a bishop in November 2008 from two bishops who had also been deposed by Metropolitan Valentin.  "Bishop" Lourie is now the foremost promoter of name-worshipping, having influence in Russia, Ukraine, Georgia and the United States.  He has glorified the heretic Anthony Bulatovich as a saint.

More about the synod's decision to defrock him here and here.  Background here.

Friday, September 7, 2012

Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky on the Heresy of Name-Worshipping

On the New False Teaching, the Deifying Name, and the "Apology" of Antony Bulatovich


by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky


Metropolitan Anthony

Hieroschemamonk Anthony Bulatovich’s booklet differs significantly from Schemamonk Ilarion’s book, Na Gorakh Kavkaza (In the Mountains of Caucasia), in the defense of which it is written. Schemamonk Ilarion had as his primary intention to praise the "Jesus Prayer"and to convince his contemporary ascetics to practise this monastic activity, which is so often neglected today. This intention is altogether praiseworthy. Everything that has been written by the fathers on the Jesus Prayer is beneficial, as Christians should be reminded. Those monks who would want to lessen the significance of the Jesus Prayer and all other spiritual activities passed down by the fathers are worthy of reproach. Nonetheless, a correct undertaking does not stand in need of incorrect means, and the patristic tradition of the Jesus Prayer has sufficient sound reasons in its favour so that one need not resort to superstitious arguments. Unfortunately the Elder Ilarion did not avoid this and he added his own sophistries to the many patristic and salvific reflections on the benefit and meaning of the Jesus Prayer. He took it into his mind to argue that the name of Jesus is God Himself.

 As evidence for such a notion he cites the words of Father John of Kronstadt [1] on the close connection between the name and the person to which it refers, be this the name of God, angels, holy saints, or even simply any person. From these words [of Fr.John], however, only one conclusion can follow: that the name of Jesus is as close to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ as is every other of His names, and as the name of each person is to that person. No one would assert that, if I were to callupon the name of my absent friend, that my friend himself will be here with me [because his name is present]. If, however, he hears my summons, then he will either come or not come to me, but both he and I will understand that he himself is other, that his pronounced name is other. However in Schemamonk Ilarion’s book, contrary to Father John of Kronstadt — whom both he and Antony Bulatovich cite erroneously — Divine dignity is attributed, of all the Lord’s names, only to the name Jesus. In Bulatovich’s book, however, it is attributed to the names of God in general, and not only to specific names of God. In his desire to defend Ilarion’s superstitious teaching, Bulatovich went so far as to completely change it, because in all the excerpts from Father Ilarion one can not find a single one which would indicate the primacy of the name of Jesus over the other appellations of our Lord.

One asks why it was necessary for Schemamonk Ilarion to spread his superstition. The answer to this is discomforting. His teaching is connected with a profound disparagement of all rules of prayer apart from the Jesus Prayer. He asserts that those perfected in it do not stand in need of the reading of the Psalter, Matins, Vespers, and other books of prayer, and cites as evidence this saying of Saints Kallistos and Ignatios. [Their words] however, have precisely the opposite meaning. Here one needs to add the caveat that in Ilarion’s book, and even more so in Bulatovich’s book, nearly all the Biblical and patristic sayings are cited with misconstrued interpretations and frequently even misconstrued expositions. Thus, the saying of Ignatios and Kallistos reads: "while practising the Jesus Prayer, never neglect your rule." The author of the book thinks that in Slavonic, as in Russian, a double negative strengthens the negation and understand this saying like this: "those who practise the Jesus Prayer may neglect their rule."  Let him open the Ochtoechos and read the third resurrectional exaspostilarion: "for Christ is risen, may no one not believe."If these words were thus construed in a Russian phrase, then they would read as: "may no one believe in the resurrection of Christ,"but in Slavonic, as in Greek, a double negation is an affirmation, and the words of the Ochtoechos preclude disbelief in Christ’s resurrection, and call all to believe in it. In the same way the words of Ignatios and Kallistos forbid one to replace or abbreviate the normal monastic rule for the sake of the Jesus Prayer, and these words must be translated into Russian as follows: "those practising the Jesus Prayer should not neglect the monastic rule." [2 ]

God forbid that they neglect it, we would add, because such a monk would inevitably fall into spiritual deception (plani; prelest). The latter is a particular danger for Ilarion’s followers, inasmuch as this Elder explains that only in the first steps of this prayerful activity does the ascetic repeat the Jesus Prayer orally and fully. Later, having become perfected in it, he himself becomes greater than all petition andonly glorifies Jesus by pronouncing His name: "Jesus Christ,"or even simply "Jesus." Ascending even higher in the spiritual life, he does not even have need to pronounce this word, but guards it in his heart, as a constant property of the heart.

In such a case, what does a contemporary monk practise? He does not go to church, he does not read the church services, psalms, and prayers. He simply bears in his heart the name of Jesus. Does he not risk simply forgetting all his monasticism and, remaining in idleness and negligence, justifying his worldliness in that he bears in his heart the name of Jesus? [3]  Or that he reached such a level that a fall is impossible? It is wrong to think this way! Saint Macarius the Great witnesses "that some fathers reached such a level of perfection that they performed miracles, but later, having become negligent, fell."  A fall is also possible for great pillars of asceticism. If, however, they are in obedience to the monastic rule, then the cause of the fall is easily revealedas negligence or weariness in prayer, or in irritation at accepting holy obediences. But if the as-cetic already considers prayer and obedience not to be necessary for him, then he is a law unto himself and every temptation that seems good to him he considers to be divinely-inspired. Following Schemamonk Ilarion, he is convinced, that along with the name of Jesus the Hypostatic God is present. Could God mistakenly tolerate something negative in His chosen vessel? Of course not, and therefore everything thatseems lawful to him becomes lawful for him. [4] This is also the conclusion of the doctrine of the Khlysts. "Trust the spirit,"they say, and the spirit abides in the hearts of these spiritual Christians, as they consider themselves to be because of the lifeof fasting and chastity which characterises them at the beginning of their enthusiasm. Later, they are seduced by the thought that everything that comes from their heart comes from the Holy Spirit. They then begin, during their rites, to pay attention to that which their soul desires to "il-luminate"them. If their soul is filled with the desire for fornication, then they must believe that it is the Holy Spirit that has inspired this unclean desire. Then, abhorring the undefiled marital bed, during their rituals they first give themselves up to frenzied [sexual] mingling, and later do the same thing without ritual. Therefore, it was not without reason that we at Russkiy Inok [5] cautioned the readers of Ilarion’s book that it, labouring under the delusion of the ascetic’s superstitious fabrications, leads one to the precipice of Khlystism. [6] We know from Elders of elevated spiritual life that Ilarion himself, against the prohibition of the superior of Novo-Afonsky [New Athos Monastery], abandoned the holy monastery and obedience and made himself a desert-dweller on his own.

Unfortunately our time is a time of marked strengthening of Khlystism in both the Russian people and Russian society. Complete faithlessness has come full cycle. It has become terrifying for people to live outside of communion with heaven, but to come close to it by the narrow path, through the path of Christ seems, to the corrupt and the sinful, to be beyond their strength . Therefore they fabricate for themselves others paths for growing near to the divinity: sectarianism, magnetism, neo-Buddhism, but particularly Khlystism, which is, unfortunately, a Russian phenomenon that is not new. Khlysts, under the name of Johnites, chrikovites, koloskovism, stefanism, innokentyites, have filled both capitals [7] and Ukraine, east and west, both the trans-Volga and Siberia. [8] They have penetrated many monasteries: the Nikov Hermitage, the Pskov, Suzdal, Poldolsk and Olonets monasteries, and others.

Not long ago many people of little faith in society at least respected the moral teachings of Christianity, but were dubious of the teaching about miracles. Today, however, the opposite is the case. Those same people who have little faith in the reality of miracles are ready to accept every fabricated miracle of swindlers and tricksters, provided that it weakens the significance of the commandments of God about prayer, obedience, and self restraint. [9] They greedily fall upon everything that departs from the strict teaching of the Church, accepting all that promises growing close to the divinity without Orthodox Christian piety and without being adorned with morality. This is why so many have seized upon Ilarion’s teaching: one from blind zeal and stubbornness, another from laziness, delighted by the idea they will soon reach such a level of perfection that they will not have to stand through church services or read any prayers or the Holy Scripture, but will only "bear in their heart the name of Jesus."

Schemamonk Ilarion

The dishonesty of Ilarion and his followers, and especially that of Antony Bulatovich, is exposed by the fact that, not being satisfied with establishing their own doctrine, they attack those who disagree with them, intimidating them and their audience and readers with their proclamations, accusing them of denying the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, of refuting the Jesus Prayer and all spiritual activity, of extolling their scholarly learnedness in place of spiritual experience, and so forth. [10]

To this we answer that we recognize the Divinity of Jesus Christ, highly esteem the Jesus Prayer, and do not pride ourselves in our learnedness, but place it lower than spiritual experience. We do not, however, see spiritual experience in Schemamonk Ilarion’s book, rather we see self-deceiving dreams, and we find spiritual experience even less in Bulatovich’s book, but find their only logomachy and scholasticism, but without hard logic, without knowledge of the Holy Scripture and without an understanding of the Greek language that he cites.

Ilarion’s book, which we read in October 1912, has the advantage over Bulatovich’s book and his printed proclamations in that it contains fewer conscious lies and conscious distortions of texts of Holy Scripture and the holy fathers, and less intimidation of all those who disagree with the authorby accusing them of godlessness and heresy. Not long before the publication of his book Ilarion himself doubted the correctness of his thoughts that the name of Jesus is God Him-self. He wrote to an Athonite spiritual father about this in a letter in whichhe recognized that he had not found this teaching either in Holy Scripture or in the fathers. He asked the spiritual father for his critique of this new teaching (cf., Russki Inok 1912,no 15, pp. 62-63). The Elder answered him disapprovingly. [11] But alas, the very thought that he had created a new dogma enticed the deluded schema-monk: he fell into what is often called the "Elders’deception." [12] We have great respect for monastic elders and experienced desert hesychasts and have always striven to put monk-students under their guidance. Having at various times served in three academies, we brought monks who were studying together with elders of the monasteries of Valaam, Optina, Sedmiozersky, and this bringing together of the academy with elders has become firmly established, glory to God, to this day. Nevertheless, it is impossible to remain silent about that deliber-ate temptation or deception which Elders undergo who are negligent about perfection. Everyone has particular temptations: young people are tempted by fornication, old people by profit-seeking, bishops by pride and vainglory, and Elders are tempted to invent their own rules [ustavy] to immortalize their memory in a monastery. [13] Therefore, in one monastery a certain prayer will be added to the rule in memory of an elder, and in another they will take off their klobuks at the priest’s first exclamation at the Liturgy, and in a third they will make a full prostration at the exclamation "holy things are for the holy,"and so on. In so doing they were concerned about their own glory, about their memory, and thought themselves similar to the ancient Liturgists who established the order of Divine Services. In this they are already in complete deception. [14]

However, like Macedonius, Eutechius, and Nestorius, those who like the Elder Ilarion, strive to immortalize their memory by thinking up new dogmas, [15] will create a memory for themselves that will not be effaced until the Lord’s second coming, but this memory will be joined not with blessings, but with perdition.

And behold the bitter fruits of such fame. The best Athonite monasteries have become places of fights, maiming, rebellion against the abbot, and uprisings against the Church. The name "Russian" has become synonymous with heresy on Mount Athos, and now a complete expulsion of our compatriots is possible. Everyone that was unruly, obstinate, ambitious and mercenary has jumped at this new thoughtless dogma and without even much thought about it, they have been glad for the opportunity to "reject authority, and revile the glorious ones"(Jude1:8), seizing for themselves the position of superior and pilfering the monastery treasury. All of this took place at St.Andrew’s Skete and to some degree in the Monastery of St. Panteleimon on Athos. If Schemamonk Ilarion had not thought up new dogmas but had only collected patristic thoughts about the Jesus Prayer and admonished readers to save themselves under the direction of the holy fathers, then his book would not have been circulated so widely and his name would not have been repeated by so many mouths. In fact, he is far behind the notable heretics of old, for although their dogmas were false the were at least comprehensible. Ilarion and Bulatovich have put forward notions that resemble the ravings of mad men, as the Ecumenical Patriarch and the patriarchal synod rightly declared.

Indeed, can one, without renouncing Christianity or reason, repeat their absurd affirmation that, as it were, the name of Jesus is God? We recognize that the name of Jesus is holy, bestowed by God and proclaimed by an Angel, a name given to the God-Man at His incarnation, but to confuse the name with God Himself -is this not the height of madness? What is God? God is Spirit, eternal, all-good, omniscient, omnipresent,and so forth, one in essence, but three in Hypostases. Does this mean that the name of Jesus is neither a word, nor a name, but a spirit omnipresent, good, and three in hypostases? Who, apart from one deprived of reason, would repeat such an absurdity? Or do they say that this name is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity and the God-Man Himself? In that case let them recognize another absurdity thatthis name is co-eternal with the Father, born of Him before the ages, incarnate, crucified, and resurrected. Has there ever been a heresy that has led to such insane conclusions?

Meanwhile Father Antony Bulatovich boldly announces that this teaching is contained in both the New and the Old Testaments, that it is in our divine services, and in the writings of the fathers. He does not himself believe what he writes, but only desires to have the means for rebellion in the Athonite monasteries. This writer forgot that Ilarion himself recognizes the novelty of this teaching, and has entered the furthest labyrinth of superstition, judging his teacher to be incorrect in that he [Bulatovich] recognizes the name Jesus as equal in honour with all the other names of the Lord, whereas Ilarion ascribes supernatural power only to the name "Jesus."

But for all that, this imitator of the new false teaching has spread it much more skilfully than had the originator, for many have surpassed him in cunning and insolence and ability to attract and intimidate simpleminded Russian monks. Therefore he, above all else, invented a name for his accusers [imiabortsem —"name opposers"]. He made noise everywhere in newspapers and in his proclamations, which were sent to all the monasteries, that the only people not in agreement with him are heretics, whom he gave the illiterate nickname "imebortsem."  He did not even know that the name expressed in this word should be taken from the genitive case, as for instance "imenoslovnoe"and not "imeslovnoe." Bulatovich’s extreme ignorance is demonstrated on every page of his book, whenever he is forced to have dealings with grammar, philosophy, or theology. However, Antony Bulatovich knows that Russian monks are little accustomed to investigate teachings of faith and will consider as heretics those to whom that name has been attached, especially if this is done boldly and under the appearance of zeal for the faith. [For this reason,] before undertaking to give an account of his thought he first dedicates many pages to reviling those who will not agree with him and accuses the opponents of his new heresy of teachings that are entirely foreign to them. He asserts that, for example, that Archbishop Antony and the monk Khrisanthos spoke against mental prayer (p. 3). [He asserts] that they "deny as essential in the prayer of the mind-in-the-heart, the confining of the mind in the word calling upon the name of the Lord"(p.9, does this mean that they recognize the prayer itself?). He applies [to them] the prophecy of Malachi: "may your blessings be cursed"(p. 20), and the retribution, that befell the Jews that blasphemed the name of the Lord (p. 146) and so forth. The credulous reader, the unlettered monk, is already prepared to believe that the writer (i.e., Bulatovich) is indeed a defender of the holy faith from godless blasphemers who deny the Divinity of Jesus Christ.

However, no matter how absurd any sort of heresy might be, if it has the appearance of increasing the greatness of God, many people will be ready to accept it. That is why the country which more than any other had zeal for piety and asceticism, Egypt, was completely attracted to the heresy of Eutychius and to this day remains in the knots of his false doctrine, in the knots of Monophysitism. Every Christian values faith in Jesus Christ as God equal to the Father and the Holy Spirit. Eutychius himself desiring, as it were, to honour Christ even more, began to teach that His Divine essence swallowed up in Him his human essence and that He is now only God, and those who denied this he called Nestorians, Arians, godless, and other names. It is no wonder that this heresy drew in the anchorites and people of Egypt and Ethiopia and that to this day they despise the Orthodox as having diminished the honour of the Son of God. The Latins have managed to seduce the western nations with a similar imaginary piety, having fabricated in recent times a false doctrine about the Immaculate Conception of the Most Holy Theotokos from Joachim and Anna, and they castigate those who do not agree with this impiety, i.e., the Orthodox, as "enemies of the Theotokos." It is no surprise that many former Ukrainian theologians, accustomed to reading Latin books, accepted this teaching as if it were a glorification of the Most Holy Virgin. Even some of the Russian Old Believers living in Austria introduced this false doctrine into their books, and now Muscovite schismatics defend it in missionary conversations. All heresy spreads with the same success when it appears to elevate our various points of faith more than is indicated in church doctrine, while at the same time practising an impudent battle against the defenders of the latter, applying to them names of former heretics and ascribing to them various godless opinions which they never shared. [16] However, the dishonest devices of the writings of Antony Bulatovich are not limited to this: they distinguish themselves in the way that, citing on every page of his book words of Holy Scripture or the holyfathers and, being unable to produce a single citation that actually supports his absurd heresy, he cites the fathers only partially, omitting what does not please him, and after every text he writes in parentheses "listen to this, this is what is being said here"and then offers a fraudulent interpretation that is entirely foreign to the thought of the sacred words. The ill-informed reader is prepared to think that the author is continuing to cite the Patristic or Biblical words. Sometimes he prints Patristic citations is such a way that they are confused with his own commentary, [17] and it is impossible to distinguish, for instance, where the words of St.Athanasius the Great end (p. 107) and where the words of Antony Bulatovich begin. For instance, St Athanasius writes that several people, chosen by God, were called "christ"that is, "anointed,"apart from the Lord Jesus Christ, but that they were not The Christ but were only prefigurations of Him. Fr.Bulatovich adds from his own part that there are people named Jesus who were not "true Jesuses,"but adds this in such a way that the reader thinks that they are the words of St. Athanasius, inasmuch as he does not include ending quotation marks in his commentary, but simply writes "p.374"(in the alleged works of St. Athanasius).

If it were clear to the reader that these words are not those of St.Athanasius, but of Antony Bulatovich, then he would understand the falsity of this interpretation. The word "anointed" (christ), attributed to David and other chosen ones is not a proper name but rather an indication of a calling (a rank, as it were), which God gave to kings and prophets. The name of Jesus, however, is a proper name, and no other name or title indicated Jesus the Son of Sirach, Jesus the Son of Jozadek, or Jesus in the New Testament, and there are several named Jesus (Joshua) on Athos.

Truth does not stand in need of such impermissible devices or forgeries of the words of the holy fathers, but Antony Bulatovich needed such falsification in order that, by such a deception, he could escape the vexing demonstration of his denouncers.

It we desired to put forward every example of the author’s entirely arbitrary interpretations that contradict the sense of Revelation, then one would need to rewrite his entire book, for there are several on every page. Pick up this book and look over the more characteristic forgeries of the thought of sacred words: they are on pages 7, 9, 10, 20, 23, 29, 31, 38, 53, 85, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97, 101, 109, 127, 128, 129, 131, 132, 136, 139, 141, 149, 150, 154, 155, 156, 159, 166, 169, 172, 173, 175, 176, 178, 180, 181, and 183. Many of the indicated pages have two or three false interpretations, and this book has only 189 pages. Sometimes our author finds his thoughts about the names of God in citations from Holy Scripture, where this word is not at all present. See pages 6 and 7, 11, 20 27, 33, 143.

The author does, however, at one point admit that this doctrine is entirely foreign to Divine Revelation. Filling the pages of his book with borrowed interpretations of the Old Testament and sensing the complete lack of correspondence of this with the word of God, he makes a proviso: "but perhaps someone will object to us: you are creating a doctrines (and this objection would be entirely justified!), for where in the holy fathers is it said that the Son of God is the Name of God? It has already been said, we have already cited abovethe words of the Prophet Isaiah, who called the Son of God by the name of God (Is 30:27). Let us seek [says Bulatovich] to demonstrate even more clearly that under the name ‘Word of God’is assumed the Name of God."The author further cites several passages from the fathers in which the Son of God, as in the beginning of the first Gospel reading, is named the Word, but nowhere and never is He called the "name of God."The words of the Prophet Isaiah, entirely misrepresented here by Bulatovich, read as follows: "Behold the name of the Lord comes from afar, burning with his anger, and in thick rising smoke; His lips are full of indignation, and His tongue is like a devouring fire,"and further. Here the wrath of God against the enemies of Israel is being spoken of, and the name of God isused in the same sense as the "glory of God,"that is, simply in place of the word "God."The Old Testament prophets rarely dared to speak directly about revelations of God, and instead of this dreadful word employed descriptive expressions like "the name of God, the glory of God, the Lamb of God"; this is known to everyone, even to the youngest seminarian, but Bulatovich, having filled his book with all such expressions, which one can very easily pick out from the alphabetical Biblical dictionary (published by "Stranik"), acts with them in the same way that the ancient half-pagan Gnostics acted with the words of the Bible "ages, ages of ages, in all ages."The word has no special significance whatsoever apart from an indication of the eternity of God’s being and Christ’s kingdom; however, the Gnostics attributed to the word "age"—in Greek, aeon—a certain divine significance. These compiled an entire history and hierarchy of these aeons, dividing them into evil and good, and recognizing the Son of God as the main aeon. They created whole fables about these, in which consisted their absurd faith in place of the faith defined in our Symbol. And what of it? They based each of their fabrications on words of the prophets or apostles in which they used the word "age,"in Greek aeon, so that to argue with these vain men was not very easy.

Antony Bulatovich employs a similar approach in order to turn an entirely applied meaning of "name" into God. His subterfuges are so far-fetched and artificial that it is impossible to trust their honesty. He himself, it goes without saying, does not believe his own verbal tricks and he even contradicts himself, as we have seen, recognizing that the reader might reproach him for fabricating new dogmas foreign to the Bible and the fathers.

Just how far from the truth his references to St.Gregory of Thessaloniki [Palamas] are can be seen from the explanation of another respondent, who demonstrates that Bulatovich distorted the Orthodox doctrine of Palamas, inasmuch as his first anathema is directed against those who recognize the energy of God not as divine but as God Himself, that is, who identify it [the energy] with the essence of God. Why has Fr. Bulatovich done all this? Why has he brought so many sins and divisions into the Athonite brotherhood? Why did he dishonour and expel the Abbot of the St. Andrew Skete, Fr. Ieronim? Or did he not know the 121st rule of the Nomocanon, which says of a monk who dishonours the Abbot, even justifiably: "may he be cursed, for he is separated from the Holy Trinity and has gone to the place of Judas"? Alas, one is forced to accept the thought that Fr. Bulatovich’s intended purpose was precisely dissension and expulsion while compiling his erroneous books, full of clear distortions of sacred words and known to be full of false interpretations of them.

However, in order to verify his possibly more honest conviction, let us pose the question as follows: perhaps Bulatovich has been so carried away by that which he has received from Sche-ma-monk Ilarion and by his own reworked idea that for its sake he decided to garble passages from the Bible and fathers.

His doctrine consists of the following positions. In God not only His Essence is divine, but His energy as well; the energy is every word of God and every action; the name of God is also His energy (energy means will or power); it follows, according to Bulatovich’s words, that the name of God and every word of God is not only divine, but is God Himself. This is allegedly theteaching of St.Gregory of Thessaloniki. In actual fact the teaching of Saint Gregory condemns those who speak in this manner, as did the Barlaamites,* opponents of St.Gregory, who requires that one call the energy of God not God, but rather divine and to refer to it, not as God but as "divine"or "Divineness" (theotis, and not thos. This excerpt is distorted by Fr.Bulatovich on p.106).

Let us return now to Bulatovich’s very doctrine: to what is he leading his blind followers? He says on page 5 that theword of God on Mt Tabor, that is, calling Jesus the "Beloved Son,"and the rest, is also God Himself, as a verbal action of God; in like manner every God-revealed truth, addressed to people by the Holy Spirit is God, for they are the verbal action of the Divinity. Our author repeats this absurdity more than once: see pages 22, 23, 26, 101, and 106, where it is openly said that every word of God "is God immutable, existing and living,"and even cites St.Symeon the New Theologian onp.107, where nothing ofthe sort is said. Fr. Bulatovich even more frequently repeats a passage from St.Tikhon of Zadonsk, as usual completely distorting its thought. Here are the words of St.Tikhon: "the great name of God includes within itself His Divine attributes, incommunicable to any creature, but to Himself alone, such as: consubstantiality,eternity, omnipotence, goodness, wisdom, omnipresence, omniscience, righteousness, holiness, truth, spiritual essence, etc." Then our author, in his dishonest habit, cries out: "listen to what the holy God-pleaser says, that the Name of God is spiritual essence, and not an abstract idea."The God-pleaser says nothing of the sort, just as he does not say that the name of God is allegedly itself omnipresent, omniscient, etc.: he says that the word "God" includes in itself the thought of all the attributes of God, of His righteousness, His spirituality, etc., but is not at all righteousness itself, or spirituality itself. Our author simply distorted the thought of the patristic sayings, changing the accusative case of the word: spiritual essence to the nominative. St.Tikhon here enumerates all the attributes of God taken from the Catechism (Spirit, eternal, all-righteous, omniscient, omnipresent, etc) And he affirms that when we mention the name of God, we should express a pious faith in the Divine attributes, which are revealed in the holy Gospel and other books of revelation. Therefore, Fr.Bulatovich several times falsely accuses St.Tikhon entirely erroneously, as if he considered the name of God to be a spiritual essence. Let us return, however to the question of what is the fundamental thoughtlessness or the fundamental falsity of Fr.Bulatovich? In that the energy of the Divinity or the will of the Divinity is not that which the Lorddid or the words that He pronounced. The energy and will of the Divinity have divineness (although without being God), but the works of the Divine energy and of the Divine will are not the same as the energy of God: Divine activity may be called God’s energy, but God’s words and God’s creation—these are works of Divine activity, of Divine energy, and not energy itself. It is this that Fr.Bulatovich, overlooked in his ignorance, or which he, in his cunning desired to over-look. If every word spoken by Godand every one of His actions is God Himself, then it follows that everything seen by and tangible to us is God, and that is, pagan pantheism (and not "pante-istism,"as Father Bulatovich expresses it in his ignorance, repeating the misprint in Russki Inok). Fr.Bulatovich affirms this absurdity without any shame he says that every word spoken on Mt Tabor is God. It follows that the word "hear" is God and the word "whom"is God. The Saviour denounced contemporary moralistic Jews, saying to them "serpents, generation of vipers." Does it follow that serpents and vipers are God? According to Bulatovich, this is certainly the case, doubly so, inasmuch as the serpent, and the hedgehog, and the rabbit are created by God, and are the activity of the Divinity and does it not follow that these animals are also God? Hindu pantheists, incidentally, teach this, and worship as gods crocodiles and apes and cats. Could it be that Fr.Bulatovich desire to draw Athonite monks to such insanity? What led him to this point: ignorance or cunning? He has no small share of ignorance. What sort of thoughtlessness does he commit, for instance, in stating, "The Lord revealed Himself with the namesake of His name on the cross"? Who is not the namesake of his own name? This is like saying "wooden wood"or "oily oil." One could say that the Lord revealed Himself as identical with the content of His name, as "Saviour" (although this occurred not only in the hour of crucifixion, but in all the days of His earthly life. But to say "the namesake of the name"is to speak without any sense. Further, on p.10, the author applies the Trisagion to the Person of Jesus Christ; but the Armenians were expelled for this, and the holy Church teaches us to apply this hymn to the Most-Holy Trinity. Simply put, Fr.Bulatovich is very poorly versed in both theology and grammar. Even if he were totally illiterate, however, it would seem impossible for him to affirm and thrust upon the fathers such absurdity, as he has, asserting that every word and action of God is God Himself.

Sometimes Fr.Bulatovich himself looks on his absurd invention and tries to correct it, but he is unable to accomplish this. On p.41 he says "However, these divine attributes—consubstantiality, eternity, spiritual essence, etc.—we do not ascribe to the letter, with which we express Divine truth, but only to the very word of truth."What then? For a word itself consists of letters and sounds. "Therefore,"Fr.Bulatovich continues, "when we speak about the name of God, having in mind the essence of the Name itself, by which we name God, then we say that the Name of God is God Himself; but when we have in mind the letters and sounds by which we orally ex-press the truth about God and the Name of God, then we say that God participates in His Name"(cf.pp.78, 79, 88, and alsop.101). What does the author wish to express in this incomprehensible phrase? Does he wish to say something or simply to confuse, to obscure the thought of his credulous teacher, so that he, reading these lines, would say:"Well, glory to God, here we are deifying neither sounds nor letters, but something else that I cannot understand."Indeed no one can understand, we would add, because it is impossible to understand such nonsense. Logic distinguishes the essence of a thing from its phenomenon (although this, too, is rather vague), and a natural scientist would tell yout hat sounds are something audible, but that their essence is a vibration of the air and its impact on our eardrums; lightening is a visible phenomenon, but its essence is the release of electrical energy or power.

But what is the difference between a name and the idea or essence of a name? Any educated person would offer the response that the idea of a name is its thought (for instance, the name "Andrew"contains within itself the idea of manliness, and the name "Agapia,"the idea of love), and the essence of the name is understood to be that person to whom it is assigned. But Fr. Bulatovich does not wish even to hear such answers. He is indignant with those who "dare to equate the divinity of the name of God with the simple idea of God and who see in the name of God nothing but sounds"(p.152).

Perhaps, in the end, Fr.Bulatovich equates the wonder-working power of the name of God with the devout feeling of the person at prayer, for whom the Lord who is invoked, settles in his heart? No, he alleges that the name of God maintains its wonder-working power even when pro-nounced unconsciously. See, for instance, p.89 of his book: "Even if you call upon the name of the Lord Jesus unconsciously, you will nonetheless have Him [present] in His name with all His divine attributes."What does it mean to say that one will have Him? We try to understand our new philosopher, but he again repeats: "although you call upon Him as a man, nonetheless you will have in the name of Jesus all of God." [or the whole fullness of God]

In other passages, equal to this in their absurdity, Fr.Bulatovich ascribes wonder-working power to the name of Jesus alone, as a sound, even without theprayerful entreaty of the one pronouncing it; distorting, as is his custom, the words of Christ. Fr.Bulatovich puts the following promise in Christ’s mouth: "When, after the resurrection from the dead, I send to you the Com-forter, then you will no longercall upon Me, that is, you will not be in need of My intercession, but it will be enough for you to ask in My Name, in order to receive that which you desire from the Father. As such, He here demonstrates the power of His Name, inasmuch as one will neither see nor ask of Him Himself, but will only name His name. It will do such deeds"(p.44.). The Lord did not teach the Apostles and never spoke such things. He said "I will see you again"and "In that day you will ask nothing of me"[Jn16:22–23]. Fr.Bulatovich boldly asserts "to question"[voprosite] (in Slavonic) is here in place of "to ask" [poprosite], but in so doing he tricks the simpleminded reader, for the Lord continued the discourse with the following words: "Truly, truly I say to you, if any one ask anything of the Father, He will give it to you in my name. Hitherto you have asked nothing in My name; ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full" (Jn16:23–24).

May one think that Fr.Bulatovich is mistaken through ignorance, or is one forced to the conclusion that he is an ignorant deceiver? For the moment, it is left to the reader to decide. Bulatovich simply mocks the reader: announcing that it is not the sounds and words themselves that have divine power, but only its idea. It follows from Bulatovich’s falsified saying of the Lord (cf.p.46) that even an unconscious and prayerless pronunciation of His name is wonder-working. But our author, in other places in his book, either forgets about his fabrication of a magical significance of the name of God, or thinks that the reader has forgotten about it. After the introduction of some patristic sayings, it is clear that we must call upon the name of God with a prayer united in faith and zeal.

He cites the words of Chrysostom as follows: "We have a spiritual exorcism: the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and the power of the cross... If many have pronounced this exorcism with-out however receiving healing, then this was because of their lack of faith, and not from the powerlessness of the pronounced name."This thought is continued in the author’s exposition of the further words of St.John Chrysostom on the remainder of p.60 of his book; the same thoughts are found on pp. 64 and 66 in excerpts from Sts. Diadokhos, John of the Ladder and Gregory of Sinai, the Elder Paisy Velichkovsky (p.77), and Fr.John of Kronstadt (p. 81). All these excerpts witness that the Jesus Prayer and every calling upon His name is salvific only under the condition of devout faith, unceasing prayer, humble-mindedness, and fasting. Under the influence of these correct thoughts, Fr.Bulatovich himself utters the following onp. 69: "without heartfelt feeling the practice of the Jesus Prayer and of lifeless prayer may be called sinful."

This correct wisdom, however, is not long remembered by the author in the continuation of his book. In any case, it does not seem occur to him, for as we have already seen, in the same place, (on pp. 14 and 15,) he attempts to demonstrate that the name of God pronounced without faith shows wonder-working power. On p.19, after some cited words of Kallistos, he quotes the words of Scripture: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For man believes with hisheart and so is justified, and he confesses with his lips and so is saved"(Rom10:9–10); here again we see the necessity of heartfelt faith when calling upon the name of the Lord. However, in the third chapter the author forgets all this and indignantlysays that "the imebortsy [name deniers]  [18] deny the evident truth in the Holy Scripture that miracles were performed by the divine power of the name of God and dare to assert that it was not by the power of thedivine name [alone] that these miracle were performed, but by God Himself, and that the name of the Lord served only to call upon God as an intermediary power"(42). He especially likes to cite the healing of the lame man in the third chapter of Acts and, in particular, the words of the Apostle: "His name has made this man strong whom you see and know"(cf.,esp.p.7); but, in continuing his false and heretical method, does not complete the passage, which reads further, "and the faith which is through Him has given the man this perfect health and in the presence of you all" (verse16).

One sees how hard it is for Fr.Bulatovich to part from the world-view of the Khlysts, according to whom words, acting magically in distinction from faith and virtue, lead us to the Divinity. In actual fact, if the name of Christ, called upon independently of faith and piety, could work miracles, then that about which we read in Acts would never have occurred: "And God did extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul so that cloths or belts were carried away from his body to the sick, and diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. Then some of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, ‘I adjure you by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.’ Seven sons of a Jewish high priest named Sceva were doing this. But the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?’ And the man in whom the evil spirit was leaped on them, mastered all of them, and overpowered them, so that they fled out of that house naked and wounded" (19:11–16).

You see, the apostles’ items, touched with faith, although without calling upon the name of God, served for healing, but the unworthy calling upon the name of the Lord did not achieve any benefit. Our author asserts, entirely wrongly, that the Lord and the Apostles performed miracles only by [19] the name of God. It is true that frequently both the Lord said only:"I command you, I tell you", (without any name), and the Apostles said: in the name ofthe Lord Jesus Christ I say to you",etc. But the Lord also frequently performed miracles in silence (walking on the water, the healing of the woman with an issue of blood, the healing of Malchus’ear, the miraculous catch of the fish, and many others), so too did the holy Apostles perform healings and miracles without always pronouncing the Lord’s name. Sometimes they did so in silence or pronouncing other words. Such were the exposing of Ananias and Sapphira, the healing of Saul, where the name of Jesus Christ was not used by Ananias (9:17), and similarly, the healing of Aneas by Peter. This contradicts the absurd affirmation of Fr.Bulatovich on p.42, which we have cited above. Similarly the resurrection of Tabitha, the healing of Elymas’blindness by Paul (13:11), and the giving of the gift of the Holy Spirit through the laying on of hands upon the newly-baptized Ephesians (19:6). Paul’s immunity to the viper is another example. None of these events are compatible with Fr. Bulatovich’s superstitious doctrine about the magical significance of the name of God and that all words and acts of God are God. This last false teaching relates him with the Buddhists, and Hindus and the previous ones with Kabbalists, While contradicting the words of Divine Scripturewith every step, he strengthens his superstition with the teaching of Kabbalism which, not being able to deny the miracles of Christ and not wishing to accept faith in Him as God, ascribe His miraculous power to the magical action of the name of God, claiming that He stole it from somewhere. Our author dedicates pages 99 and 100 of his book to a description of such Kabbalistic superstitions.

We will not specifically examine the most absurd of all the absurd chapters of Fr. Bulatovich’s book, the one in which he attempts to interpret all our divine services and the entire Psalter as expressions of faith that the name of God is God. There is not one single such saying in our services, or in the Psalter, or in St. Athanasius’commentary on it. Of course our divine services, as with all words of prayer, are a constant calling upon God, and this naturally makes frequent use of His name. However it should be noted that in the Lord’s Prayer as it was given to us by the Lord, unmasks Bulatovich for there is no naming of God as "God", or "Lord", or any of the other Hebrew names of God, so beloved by our new philosopher. Suffice it to say that the majority of our hymns, prayers, and exclamations are formed from passages from the Psalms and [Old Testament] prophetic hymns, and therefore one can sometimes find in them expressions specifically from the Hebrew scripture: "the name of God"and "the name of the Lord"in place simply of "God"or "Lord." The reader versed in the Psalter who looks through the excerpts from the divine services in Bulatovich’s book will be assured that nearly all, or even all, the cited excerpts from our divine services are borrowed from the sacred books of the Hebrew Scripture or Old Testament.

Let us ask, in the conclusion of our analysis of Bulatovich’s book: Is there in the fathers even a single expression that supports this book’s teaching that the name of God is allegedly God Himself? Not a single one. In order to render its author silent, let us examine those few passages that might appear tobe such to the unwary reader.

On p.35 the words of the Blessed Theophylact are cited, in which he explains the equality of the apostolic expression "to baptize in the name of Jesus Christ"with Christ’s commandment to "baptize them in the nameof the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."The Blessed Theophylact writes: "The Holy Church conceives of the indivisible Holy Trinity; thus following the unity of the three Persons in essence, those baptized in the name of Christ are baptized in the Trinity, inasmuch as the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are indivisible in essence. If the name Father (in St. Theophylact, "of the Father") were not God, and the name of the Son were not God, and if the name of the Holy Spirit were not God, then it would follow that to baptize in the name of the name of Jesus Christ, would be to baptise only in the Son. But he, Peter, says: in the name of Jesus Christ, knowing that the name Jesus (not "Jesus,"but "of Jesus") is God, equal to the Name of the Father and the Nameof the Holy Spirit."This passage from St. Theophylact is meant as an explanation: the name of Jesus Christ signifies the Son of God, consubstantial with the Father and the Spirit, and therefore it would be the same to baptize in the name of either the Holy Trinity or [to baptise] in the name of Jesus Christ. This is not at all what Fr.Bulatovich is doing in reworking the words of this holy Father.

I would add from myself that, the Apostle Peter baptized these people, as well as all the others, in accord with Christ’s commandment expressed in these words: "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,"but in this discourse he did not explain these words to them, as they would not have been able to comprehend the fulness of their meaning.

The second passage upon which Antony Bulatovich so falsely puts hope belongs to St.Gregory the Sinaite: "Prayer is the preaching of the Apostles, immediate faith, active love, knowledge of God, the joy of Jesus, and what more may one say? Prayer is God, acting all in all, for which Father and Son and Holy Spirit are one activity, all acting in Christ Jesus."

This is a poetic expression in which the word "is" takes the place of saying "is ranked,""is nourished,""attains,"etc. A similar turn is found throughout ecclesiastical poetry: "Jesus, all-miraculous, amazement of angels; Jesus, all-glorified, strength of kings; Jesus, all-pure, chastity of virgins."Does it follow that one can say that the chastity of the righteous is not a condition of the soul, strengthened by grace, but is itself God—Jesus? Likewise, would not one say that the strength of a pious king is a condition of his reign strengthened by Christ’s power, but it is not Christ Himself? Is not this passage on prayer exactly the same? Prayer is one of the subjects of apostolic teaching and the fruit of the sincere adoption by the believing heart of a Christian, By prayer one attains immediate, that is, living, faith and active love and the knowledge of God, This is both the fruit of the source of knowledge for those being perfected; our prayer isthe joy of Jesus Christ, and our joy for Jesus Christ. Warm, grace-filled prayer gives us God, acting in us, not only in the Holy Spirit, who, according to the Apostle, teaches what one should pray for (Rom8:26), not of the Holy Spirit alone, but the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity in full, for the actions of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit are one action. There is no deification of prayer here and no support for the newly-minted superstition, for here it is not said that prayer is God, but rather that God is acting in us, "giving prayer to the one who is praying,"as it is said in the scriptural song of St.Hannah, which is sung in our canons (1Kings 2:9).

The lies that Bulatovich has contrived are those swept away like cobwebs. He has served the glorious name of Jesus in his evil-pursuit as corruptly as have the Jesuits who have given His name in the wickedness of their extraneous earthly ends.

If we were to attempt to expose every one of Bulatovich’s absurd thoughts which contradict the teachings of faith and healthy thought, there would be no end to this examination. One question remains: what led him to such a mental quagmire: a passion for false thought combined with obstinacy,or extraneous vainglorious ends? As much as one would like to give an affirmative response [i.e. to find some excuse for] the first part of the question and a negative one to the second, it is very difficult to do so. His judgments are too absurd and uneducated to believe in the sincerity of his errors. If we add to this his furious agitation, his incitement of the brothers of several monasteries, his crude disobedience to the great authority of that holy and spiritual man, the late Ecumenical Patriarch, Joachim III, then an even more sorrowful answer suggests itself. For he spread the rumour among the simple and childishly credulous Athonites that the Great Patriarch was allegedly bribed, that his letter was spurious, not signed by him.

In the present time the newly-elected Patriarch Germanos and the entire Holy Synod of the Great Church have unanimously affirmed the condemnation of Bulatovich’s book with its new teaching as well as Schemamonk Ilarion, and excommunicated all those who hold this teaching. They have pointedly agreed with that which the late Patriarch Joachim III of blessed memory had already done. May God grant that reason and conscience awake in the founders and followers of this new superstition and that they will show repentance for their errors and for causing stormy scandals and monastic rebellion in the monasteries of Holy Athos. They could [through repentance] demonstrate that they were not evil deceivers who "walk in the way of Cain, and abandon themselves for the sake of gain to Balaam’s error, and perish in Korah’s rebellion"(Jude1:11), but rather repentant sons of the Heavenly Father, Who is ready to say ofthem: "this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found"(Lk15:24).

Notes
 
1 Now Saint John of Kronstadt.

2 Hesychasts and anchorites are supposed to have a blessing and prayer rule from their Elder. Thus, even if the hesychast practises only the Jesus Prayer, he is still doing so as a prayer rule that he has received. Even so, many hesychasts do fall into delusion.

3 Some such monastics have been deluded by Satan who appears to them in a form that they think is Jesus. Satan then leads them into insanity, from which they can recover only with the prayers of the brotherhood, and then only after a long time. See for example, the Life of Isaaky of the Kiev Caves, in the Kiev Caves Paterikon (Synaxis Press, 1980).

4 [Ed.Note]: In fact, the Taborites sect of John of Leyden (1509-1506) accepted such an idea and formed a sect which became so corrupt and degenerate that the government in Germany had to send police and soldiers to stop the sex-ual and larcenous crimes of the community.
 
5 [Ed. Note]: Metropolitan Antony was director of the Journal.

6 [Ed. Note]: The famous Gregory Rasputin belonged to this sect. He was not a tonsured monk, and there is no evidence that he had ever been Orthodox.

7 [Ed. Note]: i.e., both Moscow and St. Petersburg.

8 [Ed. Note]: We suspect that Vladika Antony had in mind Rasputin, who was a Siberian Klyst, and not an Orthodox Christian.

9 [Ed.Note]: Vladika could as well be speaking about North America in our own era. The great miracle of the Holy Communion is ignored, but tens of thousands run after the likes of Benny Hinn, Popov and the neurotic babbling of Pen-tecostalism.

10 [Ed. Note]: It is, perhaps, unfortunate that Vladika Antony did not clearly state the obvious; that Ilarion was dancing with Augustine of Hippo on the precipice of Euonomiannism. Augustine also intimates quite strongly that personal experience of the divine is superior to and different from the collective knowledge and experience of the Church. In asserting that the mind can directly contemplate the prototypical ideas and eternal truths that are in the mind of God, he is certainly asserting that the human mind can apprehend and contemplate the Essence of God. While Ilarion and Antony Bulatovich were not nearly so sophisticated and eloquent as Augustine, they fell into the same heresy that Augustine has taught. Vladika Antony most certainly was not opposed to hesychasm, but was justly cautious of the delusions that many hesychast fell into, neo-Messalianism among them.
 
11 The Elder was Skhi-Archimandrite Kirik, the confessor at St. Panteleimon's Monastery. He was a leader in the struggle against the heresy of the "name worshipper" (Imiaslavia). Patriarch Varnava of Serbia later brought Elder Kirik to Serbia in the 1930s, as the confessor for all the Serbian clergy.

12 That is, either the desire to memorialize oneself, the delusion that one is a learned Elder when it is not so, or the delu-sion that actual Elders sometimes fall into, which often leads them into other sins because they begin to think that they are above sin.

13 [Ed. Note]: Just as some parish priest who are in the same state of delusion issue their own versions of the Ortho-dox Prayer book with prayer not recognized by the Church, and even prayers written by those whom the Church deems to be heretical.

14 [Ed. Note]: Much like the priests and hierarchs in our own 20th-21st centuries who introduce, sometime with force, kneeling in church at certain times during Sunday Liturgies or at other times, where the Church either forbids even prostrations or has not prescribed them. To make the delusion even greater, they do not introduce proper prostration, but Anglican/Episcopalian style kneeling, some even having pop out kneelers installed on the back of the pews. The prelest did not stop with the Revolution.


15 [Ed. Note]: Perhaps like those who wish to turn the Aerial Toll House myth into a dogma.

16  He is referring to the corrupt practice of exaggerating points of faith beyond what is stated clearly in the doctrine of the Church. This same thing happened in North America with regard to the metaphor of "toll houses." Certain writers sought to elevate it to the level of a dogma of the faith and give pictures of what happens to the soul after death, which far exceed what has been revealed by God to the Church.

17 All of these things were done and are done by the advocates of "aerial toll houses" in our own era.
 
18 [Ed. Note]: Lit. those who fight or struggle against the name.

19 [Ed. Note]: It would have been proper to say "in" the name of God, not "by" the name.



Original Russian text translated and published in Vladika: The Life of Blessed Antony Khrapovitsky, Metropolitan of Kiev, by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo, Synaxis Press, Dewdney, British Columbia, Canada, 2009.

The Fine Line

The following letter was written by a then-hierodeacon of Holy Transfiguration Monastery (now living at Holy Ascension Monastery) and is posted with his permission.


Dear ----,

Please accept my apologies for this jumble of thoughts I am here trying as simply as possible to make several points that seem to me to lie at the heart of the issue.

My background reading concerning this controversy, as I have mentioned to you, is:

From Recent Sources:

Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky’s "On the New False Teaching..."

The Decision of the Russian Synod….” Published in Greek 1913 by the Ecumenical Patriarchate, English Translation

The Address of the Confessors of the Name of God, 1918

A paper of quotes from Archimandrite Isaac’s book, which inspired the Name Worshippers, with editorial comments on the quotes

A paper entitled “On the New Martyr Michael Novosolov, ‘Confessor of the Name of God’"

Archimandrite Justin Popovitch on Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky.

Resolution of the Sacred Synod Concerning the Dogma of Redemption…. By Metropolitan Makarios of Toronto

A paper issued 7/26/12 the contents of which relate various documents and events concerning this controversy and concludes with the 5th Chapter of the Anathemas written by St. Gregory Palamas against Barlaam and Acyndinus, from the Synodicon


From Early Sources:

St. Dionysius the Areopagite On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology – C. E. Rolt

On the Spirit, The Hexameron – St. Basil the Great, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol.8

On the Third and Fourth Councils, St. Cyril of Alexandria

On the Cosmic Mystery of Christ – St. Maximus the Confessor

Exposition of the Orthodox Faith – St. John of Damascus, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 9.


Please understand, as should be self evident, that I have read some of these materials in the past and now recently have found various passages, which seem to me to be applicable to this present topic.  I cannot now write a dissertation that would include quotes and references, since my only aim here now is to outline some conclusions I have reached, which I reached through these sources.

I decided to write this brief outline of conclusions on the basis of a conversation I had with Fr. N., after a Monday morning Liturgy at the Convent a couple of weeks ago.  He began the conversation which circled around to some comments he made concerning how it is that the Name of God is God.  Once he had said this I interjected a comment something to the effect, “You know, Fr. N., we have to be very careful of a fine line here”.  He asked, “What fine line?”  I said, “Well, for example, concerning icons; very great Grace comes through the holy icons, but they are not God”.  He replied, “Yes, well…. About deification”.  What followed was a dissertation at some length on deification, on how the Energies of God are God, which after a while degenerated into judgments against Metropolitan Anthony Krapovitsky, St. Joseph Volokolomsk, and others closer to us.  [He said ] they were only for the external styles of Worship and prayer and did not either understand nor did they want prayer ropes and prayer of the heart, and this is the reason they were against the Name Worshippers.  Here he quoted some things from Bulatovich’s book against Metropolitan Anthony and other comments.  I was not able to complete my thought with him, i.e. moving along from icons to the Name of Jesus.  I was going to say, “And so also the Name of God, which is an icon in word instead of picture, conveying sanctifying and deifying Grace, to those who are open to it – yet as a created object it, in and of itself, is not and can not become uncreated God”.

What, then, is this fine line?  It seems to me it is the line St. Cyril of Alexandria drew for the Fourth Council, in a sense dividing between that which cannot be divided, dividing between that which is inseparably bound together, even as St. Basil says in his dissertation on the Holy Spirit, that just as The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are bound together so inextricably that there is no space between them, yet their Persons are not “con-fused”, meaning their Persons are distinct, each one, not blended together, but inextricably bound together.  Can one dare to add a thought, perhaps from 1 John 4, God is love, and love is that which binds together, making inseparable those who offer and receive it.  But, of course we are way over our heads here since as St. Dionysios and St. Maximus the Confessor say in no uncertain terms, any thought we might have about God, any name we might use for God is totally inadequate since God is totally beyond all thought and description, and can only be experienced as He gives Himself to us in His love for us.

This fine line, then is that which runs between Christ’s two Natures, as St. Cyril has shown us.  Eutyches, Dioscoros, and the Monophysites erred to the right.  They crossed the conservative line, they did what St. Basil showed must not be done because it is not true – since the Persons of the Holy Trinity are not intermingled (meaning not con-fused), neither can the two natures of Christ be intermingled, loosing their precious separate identities.  I think it was St. Athanasius who said in his On the Incarnation, “That which Christ did not take on, He did not save”, meaning His Manhood totally created and physical, in “…all things like us sin excepted”, said St. Paul.  The Nature of Christ’s Godhead is not human in and of itself, neither is the Nature of Christ’s Manhood God in and of itself.  Yet the two, intrinsically bound together, unconfused, are the God-Man Jesus Christ our Saviour.

What then of His Name that is above every name in heaven, on earth and under the earth?  In conjunction with His Name, St. Paul said, “Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: Who being in the form of God thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men, and being found in fashion as a man he humbled himself (i.e. emptied himself), and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross”.  He became wholly and totally Man as well as His Name, which bears the eternal and uncreated Grace of His Godhead, but bears it without becoming it.  His Name is physical, created, not uncreated God.  To say so is to con-fuse the two Natures. This is monophysitism.

I have heard it said, His Name is God because God has given it therefore it is uncreated.  What?  The Holy Spirit conceived in the Virgin’s womb Him Who is the Son of God but now taking on His created Human Nature – the two are inseparably bound together yet one is uncreated and the other is created.  That which is created is not uncreated, yet creation has all come from God just as The Human Nature of Christ has come from God but that does not make it uncreated, and neither does it make His Name uncreated, just because it came from God.

Here, I would like to interject what might seem at first to be a digression, yet I do not mean it to be.  In a saying by St. John of Kronstadt concerning names, he says “The Name of the Lord is the Lord Himself … the name of the Mother of God is the Mother of God, the angel is the angel, the name of a saint is the saint”.  He explains, “…let the closeness of your word to your heart be a pledge and a testimony of the closeness to your heart of the Lord Himself, the Mother of God, the angel or the saint”.  This explanation seems to me to be completely in line with the line identified by St. Cyril between the uncreated Godhead of the Son and His created Nature as Man, i.e. His human Nature is deified by it’s unity with his Godhead, but it is not con-fused with it, it is still a created human Nature, created by God, by the will of the Father, the operation of the Holy Spirit, and the acceptance of the Son So, our names, whether of our Saviour, the Theotokos, an angel a saint or ourselves are intrinsically bound to us, manifesting our natures, yet in and of themselves, they are a word of designation and not totally we ourselves, we are infinitely beyond them for also they are but a word of designation. So both things are true each in its own context, our name is us because it is intrinsically bound to us and all that we are, yet at the same time our name remains a word and does not become totally us in essence, but also remains a designation, an icon, of us and all that we are. This I believe is St. John’s meaning here.

What more of the fine line? St. Cyril was and is right maintaining un-confusion of the two natures, for, horribly enough as a thought, if Christ as Man is not just deified by His relationship to His divinity, but the Human Nature is somehow subsumed into the Divine nature, then even His sewage becomes God, uncreated God, and how more blasphemous and ridiculous can one get than this stupid thought. To say, then, that His Name is uncreated God is to cross this line of con-fusion, with disastrous results theologically, and in dis-harmony with the thinking of all the greatest Fathers of old.

So far we have not dealt with the question of God’s uncreated energies. Geronta has said that “the energies of God, despite their being uncreated, are God in the sense that they bear God to us but are NOT His Essence, which can not be known by any of creation, but only by God. When I asked him what the energies of God are, he said that God’s Energies are his Grace. But as we have seen above, His Grace, i.e. His Energies are one thing, and the means He uses to convey His grace can take the form of created things, such as the bread and wine that become the Body and Blood of our Saviour. By association and deification by the Holy Spirit, and the will of the Father, the bread and wine become truly the Body and Blood of Christ – the God – Man, absolutely, even as we experience it, but the physical nature of the bread and wine also remain their true created and physical nature, despite the fact that they are bound together un-confusedly with the two natures of Christ, having become His most Pure Body and Most Precious Blood. Thus the fine line remains, thanks to St. Cyril and the Fourth Council, which is that the bread and wine become God by deification and association, but not by nature. The same is true of the Name of God.

Do the Name Worshippers really mean that the created physical name of God given us by God becomes uncreated God by nature?  If so, they have crossed St. Cyril’s fine line of discernment, having forgotten that it is a physical icon in a word, yet at the same time designating and intrinsically bound to our uncreated God, bearing to us the eternal weight of His Divine and uncreated Energies, the Grace of His unfathomable and inestimable Divine Love for us and His whole creation.

Please forgive me, the sinner. This is the best I can do at the moment. Perhaps when I see you I will have a few more thoughts.

With all my love in Christ our Saviour.
Fr. B.

P.S. Polytheism: Once things can “become” an Energy of God, then things are part of God. Monophysitism yields to this.

Thursday, September 6, 2012

How the Record Was Distorted

Here is an illustration of how the record concerning name-worshipping (also known as imyaslavie or imiaslavie), was distorted by political opponents of the Orthodox Church in Russia.  First, we give the account of Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky).  He was sent to Mt. Athos by Tsar Nicholas II in 1913 to quell the rebellion of the name-worshippers (imyaslavtsy), the monks in the Russian monasteries on the Holy Mountain who had fallen prey to the heresy of name-worshipping.  Then we give an account of the same event from the radical press.

Account of Archbishop Nikon
Denouncing the false teaching, I appealed to their common sense, pointing out that their teacher Bulatovich considers any word of God to be God, but indeed in the word of God, in the Holy Scriptures, many words are words of men; for example, the words of the fool, "There is no God." Holy Scripture mentions the creatures of God, for instance, worms: what then? Is this all God? Likewise, all the names of God as words only designate God, refer to him, but by themselves still are not God: the name "Jesus" is not God, the name "Christ" is not God. At these words … were heard shouts: "Heretic! He teaches that Christ isn't God! There is no God!” I continued my speech, but as the leaders of the rebellion continued to make a lot of noise, then S.V. Troitksy turned to those who were standing near and said, “Vladyka says only that the name Christ is not God, but Christ Himself is our true God. … They shouted at me, “Heretic! Crocodile from the sea! Seven-headed snake! Wolf in sheep's cloth­ing!" In conclusion I managed to say: “Be honest! Hear me out: you can read all the places that we have quoted from the Holy Fathers in your library: come, we will show them to you there!< Whoever knows Greek, we’ll find them in the Greek original." After this, I left the church through the altar.
From the report of Archbishop Nikon (Rozhdestvensky) to the Holy Synod, summer 1913. Archbishop Nikon graduated from seminary first in his class, but preferring a monastic life to an ecclesiastical career, he declined further study. He became a monk first at New Jerusalem Monastery, then at St. Sergius Lavra. His spiritual father in both places was the abbot,Archimandrite Leonid Kavelin, beloved disciple of the Optina Elder Macarius. As a young monk, with the blessing of St. Innocent, Metropolitan of Moscow, he began publishing a series of leaflets on the Orthodox faith. Over a period of 25 years, more than 100 million of them were distributed. Fr. Nikon came to public attention in 1885, when his book, The Life and Struggles of St. Sergius, Abbot of Radonezh, was published. He was raised to the rank of archimandrite. In March of 1904, he was consecrated to the episcopate and soon afterward was appointed rector of the Danilov Monastery in Moscow. During the workers’ strikes in Moscow in 1905, he delivered a sermon against the strikes. It was read aloud in the all the churches of the capital, and on the next day the workers began to return to work. In 1913, Tsar Nicholas himself asked Archbishop Nikon to go to Mt. Athos to stop the rebellion of the imyaslavtsy.

Account from the Radical Press
“You,” said the archbishop, shaking his staff, “consider every name to be God. So I tell you that any name of God is not God. The name of a worm is only ‘worm’, and you, for heaven’s sake, say, ‘even a worm is God.’ The Son is less than the Father Jesus Himself said that ‘the Father is greater than I. You say that Christ is God.” Professor Troitsky interrupted Nikon: “Vladyka, Christ is God! And in the dismissal it is said, ‘Christ our true God.’” But Vladyka Nikon, pounding on the floor with his staff, shouted, “Don’t anyone dare to contradict me! England and France believe as I am saying.” The outraged monks are not given a chance to contradict him. To the comment that if the name God is not God, then the words of the Psalter, “Praise the name of the Lord, praise (Him) all ye servants of the Lord” should be pronounced “Praise the Lord God,” Vladyka in the heat of the moment answered, “Yes, that’s how it should be!” – “Then all the books need to be rewritten,” a monk commented.. “And we will rewrite them with time! We will rewrite all the books!” Vladyka announced. Need it be said, that after these words the church was ovewhelmed with a storm of outrage, and the archbishop had to hide in the altar.
Article from Russkoye Slovo (Russian Word), the newspaper of publishing mogul I.D. Sytin, who was an open critic of the imperial government and the Russian Orthodox Church and who printed radical anti-government propaganda and anti-Church propaganda, including his friend Lev Tolstoy’s attacks against the Church. Tsar Nicholas’s government regarded his printing shop as a “wasp’s nest.” After the Revolution, Sytin acted as an advisor to the Bolshevik government and in return received a hefty pension.