www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West Venerating Non-Orthodox Saints

This is a question posed to the Eastern Orthodox members, but open for all.

On the heels of the recent thread about venerating Orthodox saints in the Catholic Church, I want to ask about St. Isaac the Syrian.

He was a Nestorian (7th century Bishop of Nineveh) but is venerated by Eastern Orthodoxy and even has a feast day. Of course his writings on the monastic life are apparently Orthodox "must-reads," though I regret to say I've never read any.

So what is this that it seems the Churches sometimes even officially venerate those as saints who were not officially in communion with them? Any thoughts?

Alexis

Sometimes common sense prevails?

I've parts of his writings, and they are worthy of respect and study.

-- John

And would this not be tantamount to an admission by the Eastern Orthodox Churches that one need not officially be a member of those Churches to be saved?

The Catholic Church has spoken on that issue: non-Catholics can be saved in some mysterious ways known only to God, but they are mystically somehow united to and saved through the Church, which is the only means of salvation.

But AFAIK, the Eastern Orthodox Churches are officially silent on the issue, right? In that case, this seems to lend support to the idea, though never defined or explicitly stated, that non-Eastern Orthodox can be saved.

Alexis

Interesting article

St Issac of Syria [orthodoxwiki.org]

Yes, Secret Squirrel, I found this quote to echo what I was saying earlier:


Alexis

I think it is obsolete now to equate the Assyrian Church of the East with Nestorianism.

At least in the Catholic circle the Assyrian Church of the East understanding of Christology was accepted trough the joint declaration.

Alfonsus,

I wasn't equating anything. My quote is from OrthodoxWiki, where the ACoftheE is equated with Nestorianism, rightly or wrongly. And even OrthodoxWiki wasn't talking about the modern-day ACoftheE, but rather Nestorianism in the 7th century.

Alexis

Logos-Alexis
Orthodoxy makes no judgments about what happens to those outside of Orthodoxy.

Dear Friends,

Alexis raises a fascinating question with respect to hagiography!

If I may be allowed to contribute my two cents' worth.

Since silence gives consent, with everyone's permission . . .

First of all, the Church (the undivided Church of the first millennium) actually forbade Christians to participate in the cultus or veneration of the saints and martyrs of designated sects condemned by it.

The Docetists and the various other heretical groups all had their saints and martyrs, pilgrimages to their shrines and the like. The Church forbade Christians from participating in any veneration, public or private, of such. The main reason is that their views about Christianity were so wild as to be considered non-Christian.

There were, however, other groups that, although excommunicated by the Councils, when they came into communion with the Church, their local saints, under certain conditions, continued to be venerated by them and in some cases their veneration extended throughout the Church universal.

In all cases, the point of heresy was about Christology i.e. the Person of Christ.

The Assyrians, representing the Antiochene School, were accused of Nestorianism or the system named after Nestorius of Constantinople that posited two "prosopa" or persons in Christ, one Human and the other Divine. Thus, Mary could not be said to be the Mother of God or Theotokos but Christotokos or the Mother of Christ.

The Miaphysites followed the Christology and Christological terminology of St Cyril of Alexandria who taught "One Divine Nature of God the Word Incarnate" and to Byzantine and Roman ears, this meant that they believed that Christ's Humanity was somehow subsumed by His Divinity.

Both these traditions had and have their Saints and Martyrs. In the case of St Isaac of Syria, whose cult is strong in the Orthodox Church, at no time has the Orthodox Church considered him to be a "Nestorian." His theology certainly does not reflect Nestorianism whatsoever.

The Church then knew, as we do now, that when monasteries of thousands of monks were led into this or that Christological controversy by the leadership (and one didn't question one's Abbot or Ighumenos) the theological views of the individual monastics were either strongly in favour of the controversy or else neutral. In any event, one could never condemn entire communities of monastics for the sins of their leadership. As long as the individual monastics went quietly about their business, there was no reason to assume they were "formal heretics" or else implicated in the controversy.

This is how, in fact, Eastern Orthodoxy has always seen St Isaac the Syrian. His writings, all of them, are clearly Orthodox - he lived in an area where there were no other Churches other than Miaphysite (formerly referred to as "Monophysite" by the West i.e. Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy). In addition, groups of "Nestorians" came back to Orthodoxy over time and brought with them the veneration of St Isaac the Syrian - no problem to have this integrated with the existing saints of Orthodoxy.

This was true of St Nicetas the Goth, who was ordained a priest by the Arian bishop Ulfilas (who believed that Christ was the "Great God and Saviour" but less than equal to the Father). Fr. Holweck in his Catholic "Dictionary of Saints" says that "through ignorance, Nicetas could have been an Arian" and suggests strongly that the area in which he lived had no other churches other than Arian ones.

Martyrdom for Christ, however, made the Church overlook the defect of the orthodoxy of such and St Basil the Great himself wrote a moving panegyric about a Christian martyr who was, in fact, an Arian martyr (St Sabas). Many Arian saints made it into the calendars of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches (such as St Artemius of Egypt who was martyred for destroying pagan temples - the fact that he was also destroying Catholic churches that fought against Arianism was overlooked by the Church!).

The Christological heresies of the Assyrians and the Miaphysites were serious - but when an Assyrian Christian became Orthodox-Catholic and returned to the Church, the process was so "light and easy" - unlike the process so many members of other heretical and schismatical groups had to undergo. The same was true of the Miaphysites, but over time, the formerly Miaphysite Church of Georgia came into full union with Orthodoxy, as did groups of Armenians (St Paissy Velichkovsky actually lists "Chalcedonian Armenians" among his followers).

And the Miaphysite saints of Georgia (a number of whom were attacked by Orthodox theologians of their day) are all now part of the Orthodox calendar and also of the EC calendar. In other words, the cultus of these saints was examined after the Church of Georgia united with Eastern Orthodoxy and no problems were detected in their continued veneration.

As for holiness, again, as long as a person was not a vocal proponent of a given Christological controversy/heresy, and affirmed, for all intents and purposes, Orthodox teaching - there was no problem.

Even Rome today has a principle whereby when an Eastern church comes into communion with it, only those saints are expunged from their calendar that were "anti-Roman." Although one Catholic theologian once told me that even such saints can remain in the calendar, although they could not be liturgically venerated.

The principle is that the Churches don't question each other's canonizations and the fact of a local cult among the people is the strongest argument for maintaining it. In fact, Rome continues to beatify and canonize saints on the basis of an existence of a perennial cult (this was how the first English Martyrs were beatifed in 1886 - on the basis of the veneration of their pictures painted on the walls of the English College in Rome).

And while newly glorified saints of the Miaphysite or Assyrian tradition aren't "taken over" by Eastern Orthodoxy, with future reunions, this could take place.

This issue was discussed at length during the meetings of the Eastern Orthodox-Oriental Orthodox commission as well.

Alex

Alex,

As usual, an exceedingly informative post. Along those lines, do you know if there were any Orthodox saints that remained on the calendars following the Union of Brest-Litovsk and the Union of Uzhgorod? (Did I spell those right?)

God bless and keep you....

Dear Thomas,

I don't about the Union of Uzhgorod, but that of Brest-Litovsk - all the saints venerated in the Orthodox Church until 1596 remained on the calendar without even a single one being removed.

The six most popular saints at the time were: Sts Vladimir and Olha, Sts Boris and Hlib and Sts Anthony and Theodosius of the Caves in Kyiv - these were all canonized by the Orthodox Church.

Others included: Sts Anthony, John and Eustace of Vilnius; St Nicetas of Pereyaslavl the Stylite, Sts Theodore and John the Martyrs; and many others.

It was only toward the end of the 19th century that the Austro-Hungarian empire, fearing Russia and the "Russification" in the Greek-Catholic Church who ordered the GC Metropolitan of Lviv to remove the "most Orthodox" of Saints and even wonder-working icons from the GC calendar (including the Theotokos of Pochaiv!).

It wasn't until 1904 when Met. Andre Sheptytsky asked Rome to acknowledge all the Saints of the Russian Orthodox Church for veneration by the Russian Byzantine Catholics - which permission was granted.

These included many Orthodox saints glorified since the time of the Brest Union.

There was one Saint, the Venerable Martyr Athanasius of Brest, who was against the Union of Brest - but many GC's continued to venerate him as a national martyr and saint.

To counter this, the Polish Jesuits instituted the feast of St Josaphat on Sept. 16, two days before that of St Athanasius, to cut down the number of GC's attending the pilgrimage to the Shrine of St Athanasius at Brest.

Met. Andrew Sheptytsky ordered the feast of St Josaphat to be returned to November 12/25 where it was formerly. I have a GC prayerbook from 1893 that indeed lists the feast of St Josaphat under Sept. 16th.

Alex

Why is this so significant?

Dear Alexis,

Sorry not to make it clearer.
I think my comment should be taken in a more general way. In some circles, including the Catholic Church, some are used to label the term Nestorian to the Assyrian Church of the East. By saying this they imply the mindset 'they are heretics and has nothing to do with us'.

I think the OrthodoxWiki article provide that example. I also found such writing in some Catholic article. But IMO the main reason why they put it that way was ignorance.

Sorry if my post seemed like I accused you of something.

Becuase it shows that Eastern Orthodoxy seems not to hold that one need be officially a member of the EO Communion to be saved, and can even be venerated as a saint liturgically.

Alexis

Thank you Alex.
Church historian extra-ordinaire!


-ray