Created Names and Uncreated God

Reply to Mr. Tom Deretich, no.1

Mr. Deretich repeats his arguments that HOCNA is not preaching the heresy of Name Worshipping, which arguments circle about the accusations without giving a sound, dogmatic answer, while making a complete hash of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which only Name Worshippers would be so ignorant of Orthodoxy to believe. He also does not explain the physical proof of HOCNA's distorting their translations to reflect Name Worshipper's doctrine's. Anthony Bulatovich was also proven to have done the same to patristic and biblical texts.

The Name Worshippers / Glorifiers claim: “All the Fathers say that the Name of God is an Energy of God". But they never give the quotation or reference, because no Father has ever said that "the Name of God is an Energy of God".

Nowhere in any of the Old or New Testament Scriptures, nowhere in the Prophets and Apostles, nowhere in any of the Fathers and Great Theologians of the Church is there any expression or doctrine of the existence of an uncreated name. God has no name; indeed He is unnamable for He cannot be limited or comprehended and is ineffable. He alone is uncreated. A name is an intellectual process obviously created in the material mind of man by bioelectrical energy and expressed either in writing or sound in the air. It has no other existence: it is the creation of a creation.

Names have been understood, described, and explained as being of a created nature by all the saints and great Fathers, especially by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, the Three Hierarchs, Ss. Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus and Gregory Palamas. God does not need words to communicate with man.

The doctrine of uncreated names is found in Platonic, Gnostic, Cabalistic, Talmudic and Magic teachings, but has not only never been accepted or taught by the Church of God, it has been anathematized many times.

Another claim of theirs is that they alone really know and understand St. Gregory Palamas. In fact, they do not understand him, but also do not know his writings. If they quoted him, they would see that he overturns their doctrines, because he follows the Fathers of the Church.

St. Gregory Palamas concludes, along with St. Dionysius the Areopagite and St. Maximus the Confessor, whom he quotes, that God's Energies are uncreated. St. Gregory proves this in his many works, with quotations from the Scriptures and the Fathers. He calls them "God's inherent and essential energies, which are uncreated". [St. Gregory, 150 Chapters in the Philokalia #92] How can a created name be an Energy of God?

The divine omnipresence is also an Energy of God. He sustains the creation, He is everywhere in it, yet not bound or limited by it, or identified with it. Creation and the uncreated divinity can never be confused. Ibid, #104]

[ St. Gregory, quoting St. Dionysius: "'The creative procession and energy whereby God creates individual essences' [Divine Names, 5:1] loosely and inexactly named from all things since it contains all things in itself." No name is an energy. [Ibid, #105]

"Grace, here distinguished from the Divine Nature, is not created, for no one would suppose a created thing to be the Nature of God". Isn't a name created? Here St. Gregory Palamas is commenting on a quote from St. John Chrysostom. [Ibid, #108].

St. Gregory the Theologian says, "He is 'Christ' the anointed on account of the Divinity; for it is the Divinity that anoints His human nature". [Theological Oration, 4, 21]

St. Gregory Palamas says, "Creation is the single work of the Trinity, no hypostasis has His own particular effect. The Divine Energy is one and the same for all Three: One God: They do not possess an individual power or will or individual energy. There is one impersonal power". [St. Gregory, 150 Chapters in the Philokalia #112] If the energy is personal or has a name, we introduce a fourth person into the Trinity. Since this newly named person must exist from eternity, as they do, and since it has a name, it has its own existence. What of the many Divine Names, as the Holy Fathers call them? Do we then have many gods as do the idolators? If this name has its own existence, it is equal to the Trinity, contrary to what Mr. Deretich declares.

"Divinity is also an appellation of the Divine Energy, according to the theologians", says St. Gregory Palamas. Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky and the 1913 Russian Synod based their position on this quotation. Yet, Anthony Bulatovich's followers declared this statement to be heretical.

If the name Jesus is uncreated, as the Name Worshippers say, then this name existed before creation. It is then a creation which God did not will to create, nor did create. God did not say, "I will create My Name, and it will make the world".

If the existence of the Name is before all eternity in God’s foreknowledge, as the new Name Worshippers claim, then since He foreknew all things, all creation existed before eternity and before being created. The foreknowledge of God differs from His Will and His creative Energies. If He did not will this creation, then God is a creator in spite of Himself, unwillingly. In such a case creation is Divine since it is before all eternity, although unwilled, then there is no difference between created and uncreated, "for only God is uncreated". This is clearly pantheism.

St. Dionysius the Areopagite declares, "…in Scripture, all the names appropriate to God are praised regarding the whole, entire, full, and complete Divinity, rather than any part of it. They all refer indivisibly, absolutely, unreservedly, and totally to God in His entirety…Indeed, as I pointed out in my Theological Representations, anyone denying that such terminology refers to God in all that He is may be said to have blasphemed. He is profanely daring to sunder absolute unity". [Divine Names, 2:1] The words, "all the names appropriate to God are praised regarding the whole, entire, full, and complete Divinity" and "they all refer…to God", and "such terminology refers to God", proves that the Fathers do not consider the Divine Names to be the Divine Energies, but human labels and names and terms for the Ineffable.

Name Worshippers / Glorifiers do not follow the doctrines of the Holy Fathers, and reject their doctrines and explications. Their “sainted” founder, Anthony Bulatovich declared that any one who did not accept his doctrines was a heretic, and outside the Orthodox Church. I am glad that I would be considered a heretic by them.

HOCNA, the Name-Worshipping Heresy and the Synod of Archbishop Makarios of Athens

Sister Churches in More Ways Than One

by Fr. Panagiotes Carras

In 1995, a rebellious faction of six bishops formed within the synod of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece, under Archbishop Chrysostomos and separated itself over what they claimed to be canonical infractions. These false charges were brought forth in order to avoid the impending trial of Metropolitan Euthymios (Orphanos) of Thessaloniki, who had been charged with moral infractions. The other charge had to do with the election of the notorious Bishop Vikentios (Malamatenios) of Avlona (fornerly of Astoria, N. Y.) as Metropolitan of Piraeus.

 

The six Hierarchs who left were Ephthimios, of Thessaloniki, Kallinikos of Lamia, Stefanos of Chios, Ioustinos of Evripos, Vikentios of Avlona and Paisios of America. The group was headed by Metropolitan Kallinikos of Lamia and was commonly known as the Lamian Synod.

 

The six hierarchs were defrocked on July 12/25, 1995 because of their schism from the Holy Synod. Euthimios of Thessaloniki was found guilty of immoral acts on 13/26 July, 1995 and was ordered to be confined to the Monastery of St. Iakovos, the Brother of the Lord and not to receive Holy Communion for 15 years.

 

By early 1996, the movement had fragmented into three groups. The first group, Stefanos of Chios and Ioustinos of Evripos, repented their schismatic actions and were reconciled with the Holy Synod of Archbishop Chrysostomos. The second group, Paisios of America and Vikentios of Avlona, renounced the Faith and submitted to the Ecumenical Patiarchate. Later they became fugitives from American justice. The third group was made up of Euthimios, of Thessaloniki, and Kallinikos of Lamia.

 

Iin 1996, Kallinikos of Lamia and Euthymios of Thessaloniki proceeded to ordain five titular bishops in an attempt to create a new synod. In 2004, this synod finally decided to elect a primate, and elected Makarios (Kavakides) of Athens. A good deal of their membership was then lost, as many realized what really motivated the schism and returned to the Holy Synod of the Genuine Orthodox Christians of Greece.

 

In 2007 the Lamian Synod ordained Archimandrite Nectarios (Yashunsky) from St. Petersburg as Bishop of Olympus. He served as the administrator of two parishes in Russia. When these two parishes collapsed Bishop Nektarios returned to Greece. Bishop Nektarios, as an Archimandrite, introduced the Lamians to the Name-Worshipping Heresy. His article in defence of Name-Worshipping in Greek, A Brief Explanation of Onomatodoxy, can be found on HOCNA's web site that is dedicated to the heresy of Name-Worship. The other Greek article in defense of this heresy, The Name of God as A Sign Spoken Against appears to be written by Archbishop Makarios. Neither of these two articles appear on any of the Lamian sites and at least two Lamian hierarchs and many of their clergy and laity are opposed to the teachings of these heretics. Nectarios Yashunsky's article can also be found on Gregory Lourie's site which also includes an icon of the heretic, Anthony Bulatovich, founder of the Name-Worshippers.

 

Archbishop Makarios has also deviated from the Faith by allying himself with the renovationist, New-Calendar Archimandrite, Fr. Nektarios Moulatsiotis. Moulatsiotis became world famous in 2002 when he founded the Freemonks. This was a rock band named Paparokades. By 2005 the monks abandoned Moulatsiotis and monasticism.

Moulatsiotis' dedication to the struggle against Digital Identity Cards then became focused on organizing demonstrations against Digital Identity Cards. He was joined by Archbishop Makarios in this endeavour. At one of Moulatsiotis' demonstrations, Archbishop Makarios proclaimed, "Let us be united in one fist, New-Calendarists and Old-Calendarists...today we will not ask if you are with the new or old calendar but rather if you are with Christ."  Archbishop Makarios also joined Moulatsiotis in rallies sponsored by the political group ELKIS.

 

Many of Archbishop Makarios' unilateral activities [in relation to HOCNA] are not approved of by the other hierarchs, clergy and lay people of the Lamian Synod. The so-called STATEMENT OF EUCHARISTIC COMMUNION has been hidden from those in Greece. Clergy and people in Greece realize that the term Eucharistic Communion is another way of saying Eucharistic Hospitality. This heresy was expounded by HOCNA when they justified giving Holy Communion to the Name-Worshipper, Gregory Lourie. This heresy was expressed with the words: desire to foster the oneness that must exist among all Orthodox Christians in the Holy Body and Blood of our Saviour.

 

HOCNA and the Lamians are truly sister churches in more ways than one.

On the Economist articles

Several weeks ago, a British news magazine, The Economist, published two articles sympathetic to name-worshipping, and soon afterward, the links were being triumphantly circulated by members of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America.

Since the articles were not signed, it is hard to know what background the author has in Orthodox theology and history, and what makes him or her qualified to render an opinion on the thorny issue of name-worshipping.

Still, one can imagine that if Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston published an article about world economics in the True Vine, not many people would take him seriously.  So why should Orthodox Christians pay serious attention to an article about a theological dispute written by a secular writer and published in a secular publication?

They shouldn't.

Instead, they should be asking their friends in HOCNA some questions.

How did the anonymous author come to be writing about name-worshipping?  Could he or she be connected to HOCNA's Bishop Gregory of Brookline, who went to university in England?

Why is it that the only living people named in the article are supporters of name-worshipping?  Why did the author not seek out critics of name-worshipping and present a balanced picture of the Orthodox view of the situation?  After all, only two so-called Orthodox groups in the world recognize name-worshipping as a legitimate teaching: HOCNA and the Russian and Ukrainian group affiliated with the so-called Bishops Gregory Lourie and Job Konovaliuk.  The rest of the Orthodox world regards these tiny groups as heretical sects.

The main article, "In the name of the Name," published Dec. 22, 2012, is written from a secular perspective.  Take this line from the fourth paragraph: "But it is Athos's history, as well as its spiritual importance, that attracts visitors: these calm waters have seen some strange disturbances."  In other words, tourists are cruising the waters off of Mt. Athos not because the mountain has been a spiritual center for many hundreds of years, but because they are intrigued by name-worshipping and other controversies that have plagued the Holy Mountain.  Really?!!

The author goes on to describe the Russian presence on Mt. Athos in the early twentieth century: "What the Russians lacked in political power, they made up for in numbers and spiritual passion, exemplified by Ilarion's book. ...In a tender, cautious tone, the book argues that just as 'in God's name, God himself is present,' the name of Jesus Christ, when recited prayerfully, radiates sanctity; it is more, infinitely more, than a set of letters."  This is a series of arguments, not facts.  Argument one, that the Russians monastics on Athos were full of spiritual passion.  This assertion is just thrown out authoritatively, with no supporting evidence.  Two, that Fr. Ilarion's book, "In the Mountains of the Caucausus," exemplified this passion.  Again, no supporting evidence.  Three, that the book (which the author gives the impression of having read cover to cover) is tender and cautious, a sympathetic description to be sure.  One might be forgiven for suspecting it came straight from a champion of name-worshipping, such as Bishop Gregory of Brookline.

The author characterizes Fr. Ilarion as having hit on a fundamental dilemma of monotheism: are words, images or phenomena pertaining to God an aspect of the Creator or a part of creation.  Here again the author seems to draw his argument from a champion of name-worshipping.   The author describes how the Russian community on Mt. Athos was polarized by Fr. Ilarion's book, and how its supporters felt victimized by its critics.  The author is not interested, however, in how the monks who opposed name-worshipping felt about the heretical movement that was taking hold of their monastery.

The chief proponent of name-worshipping, Fr. Anthony Bulatovich, is presented in a similarly one-sided manner.  The author relates that Bulatovich sat down to write a critique of name-worshipping and felt possessed by an emptiness, coldness and darkness.  Bulatovich interpreted this as God's grace withdrawing from him because he opposed the truth of the name-worshipping, so he wrote a treatise defending it instead.  Anyone with any knowledge of Orthodox teaching would question Bulatovich's conclusion.  Emptiness, coldness and darkness suggest the presence of demons.  Why not raise the more spiritually plausible argument that Bulatovich was led astray by these demons and his reliance on his own intellect, and fell into heresy?

Likewise, when the author asserts, "Bulatovich could still use his fists as well as his pen," and describes how Bulatovich led the forceful eviction of the anti-name-worshipping abbot from St. Andrew's Skete, he seems blind to the absolute contradiction between Bulatovich's behavior and his monastic vows.

And when he asserts, "Whatever the merits of theology by water-cannon, the literature of the glorifiers often reads better than the propaganda of their foes, who caricature the glorifiers' views to make them sound like crude pagans," he not only gives the impression that he has read all the literature on both sides, but writes off the entire opposition of the Russian and Greek Orthodox Churches as propaganda without so much as a supporting quote.  What kind of journalism is this?

In winding up his sympathy piece, the author refers to the nun Kassia as a learned nun in St. Petersburg attached to a dissident wing of the Orthodox Church. Mother Kassia is one of Lourie's closest disciples, and the "dissident wing" is his sect, isolated in the Orthodox world except for its friendship with HOCNA.  The author also refers to Metropolitan Hilarion of the Moscow Patriarchate, who argues that the name-worshipping question was never resolved by the Russian Orthodox Church.  Funny, he also mentions that Hilarion was trained at Oxford.  A strange place for an Orthodox theologian to learn about his faith, but certainly a place whose name carries weight among secular readers.

The author concludes that in all faiths, there is a tension between visionaries and prophets on the one hand (read: like Fr. Ilarion and Bulatovich) and hierarchs and administrators on the other hand (read: Metropolitan Anthony and the Russian synod), and that mysticism is a power-to-the-people movement that authorities naturally resist in order to retain their own power.  It's a cynical view.  From an Orthodox perspective, the opposite is likely to be true: having recognized name-worshipping as alien to Orthodox teaching, the leaders of the Russian Orthodox Church did their best to stamp out the heresy because they were answerable to God for the wellbeing of their flock.

The second article, "How the name-glorifier's influence rippled through intellectual history," is a short sidebar to the first.  It recounts how two scholars consider that the Russian mathematician Nikolai Luzin and his friend Fr. Pavel Florensky were able to make intellectual breakthroughs in the study of infinity precisely because of their name-worshipping views.  The author - again, unnamed -- notes that Luzin, who was tried for treason under the Soviets but escaped execution, was rehabilitated posthumously by the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2012.  He concludes, "Perhaps the monks who inspired him will have a similar vindication."  Is this journalism?  Or wishful thinking?

Chronology: Document 8

Metropolitan Ephraim’s emailed file, “Excursus”

From: Holy Nativity Convent
Date: September 3, 2012 11:41:00 AM EDT
To: us HNC
Subject: From Metropolitan Ephraim

Excursus.pdf   LetterMetNNENG.pdf
Respected Fathers,

Evlogeite! Metropolitan Ephraim has asked that we send these letters to you all...

THE PAPER TITLED “EXCURSUS”:

A Historical Note

It has been stated many times that the Name-glorifiers have been condemned twice, in 1913 and in 1919. What is not being mentioned, however, is that these decisions have been contested and overruled five times.

1. In April 1914, eight months after the condemnation of the Name-glorifiers by the Holy Synod [1], this decision was overturned by Holy Tsar Nicholas II:

From the letter of Holy Tsar-Martyr Nicholas to the Overseer of the Holy Synod,

Pascha, 15 of April 1914

 

“On this Feast of Feasts, when the hearts of the faithful strive with love to God and to neighbour, my soul is grieved about the Athonite monastics, who have been deprived of the joy of communing the Holy Mysteries and of the consolation of attending the Church [services]. Let us forget the quarrel: it is not for us to judge about the Greatest of Holies – the Name of God, and by doing so to incur the wrath of the Lord on the Motherland; the trial must be cancelled, all monastics must be settled in different monasteries, they must receive back [following the example of metropolitan Flavian] their monastic habit and they should be allowed to celebrate.”
 

2. Soon after, the Synod itself changed the required “renunciation of the error” by the Name-glorifiers, by a simple veneration of the Cross and the Gospel in order to be reestablished into the Communion of the Church.

3. The Synod also commissioned the Moscow Synodal Office to make a detailed investigation of the whole matter. The latter, after a thorough investigation of the beliefs of the accused, made the following finding:

“They (the Athonite monastics) explain, that “by calling the Name of God and the Name of Jesus - God and God Himself, they do not venerate the Name of God as His Essence, nor do they venerate the Name of God separately from God Himself, as some kind of different deity, nor do they deify the very letters and sounds or accidental thoughts about God’. This state-ment concerning the veneration of the Name of God was included in his “Confession of Faith in God and in the Name of God” on behalf of himself and of hieromonk Barachias and monk Mannasses, by hieromonk Anthony (Bulatovich)”

And that:

“In this (statement) there is enough information to conclude that, there is no reason for them (monastics) to be severed from the Orthodox Church because of the teaching concerning the Names of God.”
 

And concluded:

“The Moscow Synodal Office resolved … to stop the ecclesiastical trial against them.”
 

This document was signed by Metropolitan Macarius Nevsky, a person revered for his sanctity even in his lifetime, as well as by Bishop Anastasy of Serpukhov, the future Metropolitan of ROCOR.

4. Acting upon these findings, the Holy Synod stopped the ecclesiastical trial against these fathers. They were allowed to participate in the Mysteries and those of priestly rank were allowed to serve. Many of them served as chaplains in WWI. The Synod, however, handed to these fathers a tampered version of the document, which did not include the last paragraph, wherein they were still called heretics and where the chief signatory of the document, Archbishop Sergius of Finland (the future false-patriarch Sergius), had added a comment “with no permission to receive Holy Mysteries” (!). This fact was kept from the fathers for over four years. The Synod had simply lied.

After the convocation of the All-Russian Church Council in 1917, there were high hopes, that the controversy would be would be conclusively resolved there. A special Commission was appointed to make a thorough theological inquiry into the Orthodox veneration of the Name of God. However, the Council had to stop its proceedings due to the turmoil of the Russian Civil War, and the issue was, yet again, left unresolved.

5. In 1919, the Synod, disregarding the findings of the Moscow Synodal Office of May 1914 and its own endorsement of the latter’s conclusions, went back to its original position of August 1913, and again condemned the Name-glorifiers. This condemnation, however, was reversed in February 1921 by the Encyclical of Patriarch Tikhon. The very same year, as a sign of reconciliation, St. Tikhon liturgized on several occasions with Archimandrite David (Mukhranov), the leading Name-glorifier and the former abbot of St. Andrew’s Skete on Mount Athos.

After the infamous Declaration of Metropolitan Sergius, the Name-glorifiers became one of the founders and active members of the Catacomb Church of Russia, especially in Petrograd, where, under New Hiero-Martyr Mark of Sergeev-Posad (Novoselov), they made up the backbone of the Josephite Catacomb Church.


1    One must understand that the “Holy Synod” in the Russian Empire was instituted by Peter the Great, and was a body of 11 bishops hand-picked by the Tsar and overseen by a procurator, who was a lay person, and in some cases, not even an Orthodox Christian, but a Lutheran. Thus, the Synod in the Russian Empire was not a Council of Bishops, but rather something akin to the Department of Religious Affairs of the State. A proper Council of Bishops had not been convened in the Russian Empire for over 200 years.

Dear Anastasia, On Your Letter from Fr. Mark

Dear Anastasia,

Since Fr. Mark’s letter to you has been used to defend the Holy Orthodox Church in North America against charges of heresy, I think it is fair to point out that he is mistaken.

Fr. Mark answered you sincerely, but his answer has a flaw which he himself does not recognize. All of his evidence and reasoning is an echo of what his bishops have said publicly. Clearly, he trusts his bishops and believes that they must have the correct answer. This is where he is mistaken. He received disinformation from his bishops, and he is naively passing that disinformation along to you.

The three bishops of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America wrote in their recent statement, “Divergent Teachings” that Orthodox Christians believe “God’s Name is not His Essence, but rather is the revealed truth about Himself, that is, His Uncreated Energy, His Uncreated Grace, His Providence, His Glory.”

In fact, this is not what Orthodox Christians believe. Remember, as Orthodox Christians we believe what the Church has taught always and everywhere.  Common sense alone should tell you that if this were a universally held belief about the Name of God, articulated by St. Gregory Palamas, it would not have languished misunderstood and forgotten until the early 1900s, when a couple of renegade Russian monks rediscovered it and brought it to the attention of the Orthodox Christian world through insurrections in the Russian monasteries on Mt. Athos.  Right?  Now let's look at the disinformation.

Fr. Mark writes:

In my first letter to you, I hoped to illustrate that there is an abundance of passages from the Scriptures and the Fathers that talk about the glory and power of the Name of God. It is interesting to me that so many ignore this and, instead, zero-in on the decisions of a local "synod" in Russia. Why? Why do they ignore the Holy Scriptures which speak of God's Name? Why do they ignore the many instances in the Liturgy and services of the Church which encourage us to glorify God's Name? Why is the Russian "synod" of 1913 so important?

Part of the problem in debunking the name-worshipping doctrine is that its promoters do not clearly define what they mean by the “Name of God” and do not take into account that the Holy Scriptures use this phrase differently.

Very often in the Psalms, for instance, “the Name of God” refers to God Himself, and not to any particular name for Him. By analogy, think of a chase scene in a western movie, when the sheriff shouts, “Stop in the name of the law!” Who would imagine that the sheriff is referring to a particular name, or even to the word “law?” No, his words actually mean, “Stop because the law (in the person of me) orders you to do so.” Likewise, when we read, “Praise the name of the Lord, for exalted is the name of Him alone,” isn’t it clear that it is actually not a name that is praised, but the Lord Himself?

Orthodox Christians believe that God’s name is holy, because He Who is named by the name is supremely holy. According to St Basil the Great, “The name of God is said to be holy, not because it contains in it any special virtue, but because in whatsoever way we contemplate God, we see Him pure and Holy.” (On Psalm 32) Icons of our Saviour are also considered to be holy, not because the wood and paint are intrinsically holy, but because He Who is depicted is holy. As Fr. Barsanuphius has pointed out, the Name of God is an icon in a word.

Orthodox Christians do not believe that God’s name is God Himself, either in His Essence or in His Energies. Name-worshippers do.  The reason the decisions of the Russian Synod of 1913 are so important, along with the decisions of the Sacred Community of Mt. Athos, and of Patriarchs Joachim and Germanus of Constantinople, is because they were the official statements of the Orthodox Church condemning the heresy of name-worshipping.

 Fr. Mark writes further:

St Anthony Khrapovitsky said of these Russian "synods" in 1912: Our Church [in Russia] is governed by a layman, or, to say it officially, by a collegial institution never seen by the Church of Christ before... The [Russian] Church is deprived of its lawful head and is given over for enslavement to lay officials, which hide behind an assembly of six or seven hierarchs who are changed every half a year, and two presbyters. Who is not aware that such an institution is uncanonical? That it was not approved at its very inception by two Patriarchs; and even if it had been approved by all four, this would only show the unlawful deed of the Patriarchs and not the canonicity of [Russian] synodal rule, because no Patriarch can establish and authorize an institution which is unknown to Holy Orthodoxy and which was invented only to bring weakness and decay..."

(Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky, Voice of the Church, Jan 1912).

Metropolitan Anthony, of blessed memory (he has not been glorified as a saint), rightly complained that Tsar Peter “the Great” was wrong to replace the patriarchal system of church governance with a synodal one, in which the synod was appointed and supervised by government officials. However, while this quote is intended to suggest that Metropolitan Anthony did not support the work of the Russian synod, the opposite is true. Metropolitan Anthony not only accepted the work of the synod, but participated in the synod for five years.  He was an active member at the time he wrote the above-quoted article and when he participated in the condemnation of the name-worshipping heresy. Like all the saints, tsars, bishops, monastics, clergy and laity of the Russian Church for the 200 years the synodal system was in force, Metropolitan Anthony abided by its decisions and considered them binding on the Church in Russia.

Fr. Mark continues,

The decisions of the 1913 synod condemning Name-worship was reversed several times in the ensuing years. The synod itself back-peddled its own decision soon after by only requiring the "heretics" to venerate the Cross and Holy Gospel rather than renounce their "error."

This is factually incorrect.

It is useful here to note that the recent revival of name-worshipping began with Gregory Lourie, who was at the time a priest in the synod of the late Metropolitan Valentin of Suzdal.  The controversy over name-worshipping in HOCNA was touched off after Lourie was communed at Holy Transfiguration Monastery last fall, and then-Hieromonk Gregory vigorously defended both Lourie and name-worshipping.  The arguments put forth by the HOCNA bishops now are arguments which Lourie used to defend name-worshipping to the bishops of the Suzdal synod.  (They did not buy his arguments and defrocked him. He later was consecrated a bishop by other renegades.)

Vladimir Moss, who was Lourie's chief opponent at the time, has written an extensive review of name-worshipping.  In an appendix, he writes:

On October 5/18, 2002 Hieromonk Gregory (Lourié) supposedly expressed “repentance” for his name-worshipping views before the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church. In fact, however, Lourié’s “repentance” read more like a self-justification than a statement of repentance. He expressed “regret”, not about his belief in the Bulatovich’s heresy, but only about the fact that his public statements on the subject had “become a reason for discord within our Church” – in other words, that he had been indiscreet in his public proclamation of the heresy. There was no mention of Bulatovich, no condemnation of any specific heresy, and no admittance that he had ever confessed any heresy at any time. Instead he actually denied that he confessed heresy: “I hold to the teaching of the Holy Fathers and confess no heresy about the names of God, which would have been condemned by previous Fathers and Councils”. He could say this with sincerity (and cunning) because he considers that the teaching of Bulatovich is “the teaching of the Holy Fathers” and is in fact not a heresy. Moreover, no large Council has yet condemned Bulatovich’s teaching, only several Synodal decisions of both the Russian and the Greek Churches. So in saying that no Council has condemned the teaching, he is not lying according to the letter of the law. But there is a direct lie in is his assertion that no previous Fathers ever condemned that teaching. For several Fathers did, including Patriarch Tikhon, Hieromartyr Vladimir of Kiev, Hieromartyr Agathangel of Yaroslavl, Hieromartyr Basil of Priluki, St. Barsanuphius of Optina, etc. And he lies again when he says: “I also hold to the resolutions of the All-Russian Local Council of 1917-1918, which were confirmed by two resolutions of the Synod of our Church, in accordance with which the decision on the essence of the question of name-worshipping belongs exclusively within the competence of a Local Council of the Church of Russia”. For there were in fact no resolutions of the 1917-18 Council on name-worshipping, as Lourié (who has gone on record as calling the 1917-18 Council “a tragic-comic story, which exerted a minimal, or negative rather than positive, influence on the following life of the Church…”!) well knows.

A few weeks later, ... Fr. Gregory wrote a further “report”, dated November 11, 2002, in which he states that he “submits to Church authority and rejects the errors listed by the holy patriarch Tikhon” in a Nativity Epistle written on February 19, 1921.

...Let us examine what the patriarch supposedly said in this previously completely unknown Nativity epistle: “In these high days, when the Church is celebrating the Nativity of the God-Man, Who brought the peace and goodwill of God the Father to earth, I consider it appropriate to remind you in brief of the Athonite imyaslavtsi (name-glorifiers) and give you certain instructions on how to treat these monks. It can be seen, that the Holy Synod in its definition of April 22-25 1914, number 3479, was indulgent to the spiritual mood and to the way of thinking of the Athonite monks, who have a poor knowledge of theology as expounded in books and of the forms of paper work, and allowed them, instead of the previously required signing by the imyabozhniki (name-worshippers) of a denial of their false teaching, to substitute for this a written testimony (a promise on oath) of their Orthodox faith, with the kissing of the Holy Cross and the Gospel. They promised exactly to follow the Orthodox Church and obey the God-established hierarchy, believing exactly as the Holy Church teaches, neither adding anything from themselves, nor taking anything away. In particular in regard to the glorification of the name of God, they promised not to consider His name the essence of God, nor to separate it from God, not to venerate it as a separate Deity, nor to worship the letters and sounds and occasional thoughts about God. The Holy Synod decided to admit into Church those who believed in this way and declared their willingness to obey the Church authorities, and to allow their priests to serve. But, in rendering its indulgence, the Holy Synod did not change its former opinion of the very error contained in the writings of Anthony Bulatovich and his followers, whom the Synod decided to pass over for the consideration of the All-Russian Holy Council, upon which depends the resolution of the whole issue in essence”.

Now the teaching of Bulatovich can be summarized in two propositions: that the names of God are energies of God, and that the name of Jesus is Jesus Himself. Neither of these teachings is in the list of errors listed by the patriarch. “To consider His name the essence of God” was not one of Bulatovich’s teachings (although it may have been that of some of his more ignorant followers). For, as St. Gregory Palamas teaches, the essence of God is not to be identified with the energies of God. “To venerate it as a separate Deity” is, again, not one of Bulatovich’s teachings. “To worship the letters and sounds” is, again, not one of Bulatovich’s teachings. “To worship… occasional thoughts about God” is one of Bulatovich’s teachings, and the only one, therefore, which Lourie may be said to have renounced (although it is doubtful, judging from his dialogue with Vladimir Moss on the subject, that he would accept such a phrase as representing Bulatovich’s real view). In any case, the most important point is that the two propositions that summarise Bulatovich’s main views are not in this list, nor can they be reinterpreted to come within this list.

So why was the patriarch’s characterization of Bulatovich’s errors inaccurate? In order to answer this question, we need to investigate a little further. Let us begin by posing the question: In what other document of the time can we find this same list?

The answer is: in the judgement issued by the Moscow Diocesan Court with regard to the name-worshippers on May 8, 1914: “… The Synodal Office has found that in the confessions of faith in God and in the Name of God coming from the named monks, in the words, ‘I repeat that in naming the Name of God and the Name of Jesus as God and God Himself, I reject both the veneration of the Name of God as His Essence, and the veneration of the Name of God separately from God Himself as some kind of special Divinity, as well as any deification of the very letters and sounds and any chance thoughts about God’ – there is contained information allowing us to conclude that in them there is no basis for leaving the Orthodox Church for the sake of the teaching on the Names of God.’ (decree № 1443)”. The coincidence of wording is striking. It is obvious that the list of errors referred to by the patriarch in the document quoted by Lourié is in fact the list drawn up, not by the Holy Synod in its Resolution № 3479 of April 22-25, 1914, which does not contain a list of errors[130], but by the Moscow Diocesan Court on May 8, 1914.

However, it is essential to realise that the decision of the Moscow Diocesan Court of May 8, 1914 was overturned by the Holy Synod in its decree № 4136 of May 10-24, 1914, which set aside decree № 1443 of the Moscow Synodal Office, and confirmed the sentences against the name-worshippers. This confirmation of the sentences against the name-worshippers was again confirmed by decree № 2670 of March 10, 1916. And yet again by Patriarch Tikhon and his Synod on October 8/21, 1918. And yet again by the Nativity Epistle of 1921.

Lourié tries to get round this by claiming that there was yet another decree of the Holy Synod that was supposedly passed in 1921, just before the patriarch’s Nativity epistle, and which supposedly formed the basis for the patriarch’s Nativity epistle. “Unfortunately,” Lourié writes, “the true text of the decree of 1921 on removing all the bans from those name-worshippers who remained alive has not reached us”. Unfortunate indeed! And devastatingly destructive for his whole case. For since this mysterious decree “has not reached us”, I think we are fully entitled to conclude that it does not exist. After all, if it did exist, why should the patriarch not refer to it?

So you see, Anastasia, that the Russian Synod was in fact consistent in its treatment of the name-worshippers: it issued decrees against them in 1913, 1914 and 1916.  I hope you also see that Lourie and his disciples among the HOCNA bishops use the four points from Patriarch Tikhon's Nativity epistle and the decision of the Moscow Synodal Office as red herrings to make it seem as though the Russian Church authorities sympathized with the name-worshippers and opposed the synod.

Regarding the Russian Synod, Fr. Mark concludes:

So, we come, now, to what I wrote to you in my last email. By the definition of the 1913 "synod", a Name-worshiper is someone who deifies the letters and sounds of God's name; believes that God's Name is His Essence; and that the name is a separate deity. The Athonite monks did not believe this. These heretical ideas were attributed to them by the synod of 1913. When investigations were actually done and the monks allowed to speak for themselves, they were found to the fully Orthodox. A final decision of the subject of Name-worship was expected at a pan-Russian synod which never occurred due to the revolution. 

This paragraph is full of errors and misconceptions.  First, the Russian Synod was not of 1913, its investigation and condemnation of name-worshipping were issued that year.  The Athonite monks were not found to be fully Orthodox.  Anthony Bulatovich, the chief proponent of name-worshipping, died a violent death outside the Church.  The pan-Russian council did occur, but did not take up the issue of name-worshipping.

The definition that Fr. Mark attributes to the Russian synod is in fact taken from the one the HOCNA bishops use to define a name-worshipper, including deifying letters and sounds, identifying God's Name with His Essence, or considering God's Name to be a separate deity.  These were beliefs which the Moscow Synodal office found the name-worshippers did not hold and which Patriarch Tikhon listed as points for them to specifically renounce in returning to communion with the Orthodox Church.  But they never constituted a definition of name-worshipping for anyone until the HOCNA hierarchs determined to use them in that way.  In essence, in their statement "Divergent Teachings," the HOCNA bishops have redefined name-worshipping to make it seem as though they have condemned it, when in fact they have also redefined Orthodox belief to include tenets of name-worshipping. It's propaganda, pure and simple.

Fr. Mark then writes,

So, we can all condemn Name worshipers, because they do not exist (as I said, there may be someone, somewhere, but who knows?). St Philaret can condemn them as have our holy Hierarchs.

By the definition of the HOCNA hierarchs, indeed there may be no name-worshippers in the world.  But by the traditional definition -- one who believes the name of God is God Himself -- the HOCNA bishops have made clear, in stating that the Name of God is an Energy of God and therefore God Himself, that they are name-worshippers.  They are joined in their heretical beliefs by Lourie and his followers, and by "Bishop" Job, our former priest in the Ukraine who was consecrated a bishop by Lourie last summer, and his followers.

The HOCNA bishops wrote in "Divergent Teachings:"

All should understand that, by these pronouncements, we hierarchs are not Nameworshippers as defined in this statement, and that we believe, confess and espouse the Orthodox Christian belief, also defined in this statement.

Again, remembering that Orthodoxy is what the Church has taught always and everywhere, the fact that the HOCNA bishops needed to write their own definition of Orthodox belief should make you deeply suspicious.  The fact that their definition of Orthodoxy includes the traditional definition of name-worshipping should be conclusive proof that they have fallen into error, and sadly have drawn Fr. Mark into error as well.

Fr. Mark concludes,

Anastasia, the Name of God is a holy mystery. We cannot understand it. It is a Divine Energy which is a revelation of God (Like Grace). To say that the God's Energies are not divine is to fall under the anathemas of the Synodicon of Orthodoxy and it runs contrary to Holy Tradition.

This is not the teaching of the Orthodox Church, it is the teaching of the name-worshipping heretics of the early twentieth century and of their modern followers, Lourie and the HOCNA bishops.

Hear St. Gregory of Nyssa: ...[N]ames were invented to denote the Supreme Being, not for His sake, but for our own.” (Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book)  And again, “We, following the suggestions of Scriptures, have learned that the nature [of God] is un-nameable and unspeakable, and we say that every term, either invented by the custom of men, or handed down to us by the Scriptures, is indeed explanatory of our conceptions of the Divine Nature, but does not include the significance of that Nature itself.” (To Ablabius)

Hear St. Gregory the Theologian: “The divinity is un-nameable." (Fourth Theological Oration)

Hear St. Isaac the Syrian: “There was a time when God had no name, and there will be a time when he will have no name.” (Unpublished Chapters on Knowledge)

The Holy Fathers of the Church have spoken, and their teaching is not the teaching of the HOCNA bishops.  God's Name is not His Energy.

As a tree can be known by its fruit, so too can the heresy be detected by its effect.  In the early twentieth century, the name-worshippers brought violence to Mt. Athos.  Now, a century later, the revival of name-worshipping has brought devastation to HOCNA.  Our former spiritual community has been divided.  Holy Transfiguration Monastery has been divided.  Parishes are being torn apart.  As clergy and laity who recognize this heresy depart, the circle of HOCNA has grown even smaller and tighter.  In embracing their own definition of Orthodoxy and rejecting all those who accept the decrees on name-worshipping, the HOCNA bishops also have more surely than ever isolated themselves from other old calendar true Orthodox Christians. 

Anastasia, our beloved HOCNA has ceased to be a true Orthodox Church and has devolved into a heretical sect.  May our Lord enlighten and save you and Fr. Mark.

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.

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.