Why Is The True Orthodox Westerner So Feared and Maligned?
Indeed, the 'why?' of the question and title is so central to almost all
the theological problems the Church is confronted with today. But,
doesn't that sound like a lot? Not at all if you understand the history
of it. The Orthodox Church existed in both East, West, North and South
all the way up to the mid 11th century; if you want to push it further,
you can say that people in the far out hinterlands of the West were not
affected by mysteriological sacramental grace question for a few more
decades, but, that's not that important to address right now.
However, what is important is that, despite the fact the West was
beginning to slowly succumb to the temptation of pride, it was still,
formally, part of the Church. Then, like a lightning strike, that
ended; yes, perhaps the tree had begun to experience some rot, I don't
deny that. The immorality of the Popes in the 10th century, was only
'offset' (if that's the right word or way of looking at it) by their
Orthodoxy, and their adherence to the traditional Creed. They're
children, due to ignorance, misunderstanding, and sometimes simple
disobedience and pride, had begun to, or had already changed the Creed,
by inserting 'filioque'. Yet, this had not grown to the proportions of
full-blown heresy yet, but, the groundwork was laid for the schism and
heresy to come. So, yes, as I've deal with partially
here,
there were issues. And when the storm came, so did the lightning, and
the rain, and floods; and the Church that was once built upon the Rock
of the
St. Peter's Confession of Christ to be the Son of the Living God,
the Church which had for so long defended the true Creed, in both
textual purity, and in the faith, the Church that had martyred Orthodox
Popes, and would so often stand up against heretical emperors and
patriarchs and councils, would finally be washed away on earth.
She had stood so long, and so bravely, and had contended against the ancient Serpent, the wicked beast of old. Sts.
Sylvester,
Damasus, and others endured attacks and slander. The threats of emperors could not move them, and they defended the
Blessed and Holy Confessor of the Faith, Athanasius,
even when the whole world turned against him. When emperors and
patriarchs, and synods and conventicles, met, and when condemnation and
slander of the worst kind was uttered against the holy man, Athanasius,
they stood by him. When the army sought after his head, and would make
no bones about slaughtering who they could to find him, the Orthodox
Church of Rome stood by him. When the emperor sent threats and armies,
and exiled popes, the Orthodox Church of Rome would not abandon St.
Athanasius. Why? Because it was for the sake of Jesus Christ that they
supported him; it was for the True Faith, and no emperor with his sword,
or patriarchs and synods with their words and blasphemies, could change
the Truth. The One Who said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life",
had meant such, and the holy Orthodox Roman Church didn't forget the
charge committed to her bishops in their consecration, anymore than St.
Athanasius would forget the Gospel, Scriptures, and Traditions he had
known from childhood.
When the wicked
Emperor Zeno,
and the whole of the East, fell under Monophysitic domination, and they
persecuted the Orthodox, and when the West fell under the sword of the
Visigothic
Arain barbarian kings, and when the Church of North Africa experienced
the worst devestation, when Spain saw the blood of her martyrs spilled
by the sword of the Western Visigothic Arians (for the eastern Arians
were gone, and known only as a small shadow what they were only 200
years before), and the Orthodox in the East persecuted, hounded, or
harrased, the Orthodox Church of Rome, and her Orthodox Popes stood by
the Faith. When they seemed surrounded, and marginalized, and forced
into the worst of positions, they would always rise to defend the One,
Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.
And when heresy came to the world once more, when the
Patriarch Cyrus of Alexandria,
in the 7th century had invented the teaching of monothelitism to
'reconcile' the Monophysites, then it seemed like all would fall.
St. Soprhonius dies, and the heresy takes his See. And then
Honorius of Rome, it's Pope, who had been known as a missionary, who had done so much good, and who had known
St. Gregory the Dialogist, the Great,
he failed to sanctify the Church with the Apostolic Teaching, but,
instead, countenanced, and promoted the heresy of monothelitism and
monoenergism. How the mighty had fallen! All the sees ruled by
heretics; and the world in darkness and disarray. But, it wasn't long
before the resisters, those who resisted for Christ, how had never
renounced the Truth, and who had not communicated with the heretics,
began to rise. Honorius the Heretic died, and the Orthodox of Rome
elected Pope
Severinus, who, refused steadfastly to sign the
Ecthesis of
Sergius of Constantinople. The emperor plundered Rome, and ransacked
the residence of her bishop. A for his short reign of less than a year,
Pope Severinus declared steadfastly that the Lord Jesus Christ was in
Two Natures and Two Wills, and this in an holy synod of Orthodox bishops
of the West. And then the old man, full of years, and kind and generous
to the poor, and who had upheld the Faith of the Church passed to his
reward, yet, hated by the authorities of this world. Then followed
John IV,
who, while declaring Monothelitism an heresy, sought, rather clumsily,
to exculpate Honorius from heresy, for it was too much for the Orthodox
Romans to believe that Honorius could actually have meant what he said.
And thus we see the beginning of a fault; a fault of piety, and one that
would rather believe what was ought rather than what was, but, a fault
nevertheless (I will dwell on this later).
And then came the
Holy Theodore,
commemorated by the Holy Orthodox Church on May 18th, who, while over
an hundred years old, yet still with the vigour of youth, would confront
the emperor and the world with their betrayal of the Gospel. So
enraged was the Monothelite
Patriarch Paul of
Constantinople, that he had holy Altars of the Roman Church destroyed.
Yet, St. Theodore endeavoured and planned the Lateran Synod of 649,
which was to condemn, once again, the heresy of monothelitism, which was
the heresy of compromise, the heresy of placation, and the heresy of
ignoring the truth, for it was the heresy of the world and its courts
party, and historians. But, the blessed man too passed away. And so, we
come at least to that Confessor of the Faith, that stalwart friend of
Orthodoxy and
St. Maximus, the good and
holy Pope St. Martin.
St. Martin defended the truth Faith, and was ever the friend of St. Maximus. Together they held the
Lateran Synod of 649,
and condemned the heresy of monothelitism, depriving of the priesthood
those who taught this wicked teaching. And for this, they would suffer
greatly. St. Maximus would have has tongue pulled out, and St. Martin,
who was so energetic in warning his brother bishops of this heresy, was
arrested by the imperial army. He was dragged through the world,
imprisoned, tortured, and made a public spectacle with indignity after
indignity, and then, haggard and wearied of the wickedness of this life,
he passed from an earthly seat, to an heavenly one. Starved and
abused, slandered and maligned, mocked in the mockery of the supposed
'justice' of Caesar's court, the holy man was tortured, and then
exiled. His torture stopped by the Monothelite Patriarch Paul, yet, St.
Martin would not consent to union with the Church of Constantinople,
for how could he forget the words of Holy Maximus the Confessor, "Though
the whole universe hold communion with the patriarch, so, I will not,
as long as he is in heresy." In his exiled, suffering from his wounds,
he died of starvation and sickness.
Should I continue with the Orthodox Popes who contended against
iconoclasm, both the dogmatic form found in the East, and the
non-dogmatic, but, political and ignorant form promulgated in synods of
ignorant bishops in the West? The whole world comes against Christ, and
the Roman Church stood. But, it was not to be so forever. Pride, that
is the key. Yes, so many Popes had defended the Faith on all sides, and
the lands converted by Roman Church remembered that. Yet, they too
began to feel a false sense of elation. The East had produced heresy
after heresy, and the West had stood against it. Why, the West could
not be produce such teachings, they thought. And thus, just as John IV
had refused to believe the plain words of Honorius, so, would the West
fall into this temptation, but writ large.
And it fell, and it fell mightily, and it changed mightily. The Mass,
the Divine Liturgy of the Holy Fathers Leo, Gelasius, Gregory Dialogist,
Martin, as well as Ambrose, and Sts. Isidore and Leander, and St.
Patrick, and innumerable holy Father of the Church, was to be the first
casualty in this aftermath. First the Great Schism, and then, to
justify itself, the Filioque was dogmatically defined and defended, and
what was in the shadows, and would only arise infrequently, would become
the Dogma of the schismatic, and now heretical Roman Church. The
mighty, again, are fallen indeed. But, if the doctrine of the Trinity
can be altered, what a small thing it is to alter the Liturgy! What a
smaller thing it is to alter the Fasts! And what a small thing it is, to
go along as if it is alright!
The
Liturgy, shorn of her
Offertory verses, deprived of her Tropes, and emaciated with the loss of her prefaces, and the end of the communion as it was, both in the proper arrangement of the chant as it was accorded in the
Liber Antiphonale of St. Gregory,
and in the actual administration of Holy Communion in both kinds. And
those Liturgies that could not be so knowledgeably manipulated (for the
schismatic Romans knew their own 'rite', they could alter that, but,
that of Milan and Spain, they were not so learned it), they were to be
abolished.
Spain's Liturgy and Sacraments are to be subsumed under Roman domination, and no matter how many tests the
Liturgy of Sts. Isidore and Leander is put too, it is not to be used. Milan fights for her life to retain the
use of St. Ambrose.
And, now, like a condescending lord, or an abused pater familias, the
Papist 'grants' such minor privileges here and there. "Yes, O Spaniard,
you may celebrate such Masses, but, only in 7 churches." And, "Yes, O
Milan, you
may keep what we allow your rites."
Indeed, such thanks they ow to that 'Church'. Such 'grants' to be given
in 'thanks' to that which was celebrated by martyrs and saints and holy
fathers whose holiness far outweighed that of
Gregory the VII, or
Innocent the III!
When was such a thing heard of in the world before? When the Uses of
the Holy Fathers was to be 'sanctioned' by the grants and condescension
of men who had but contempt for them! Who now could control such
people, and make them feel as if they were somehow 'special'. And
'special' how? Because they were now allowed to do what they had always
done by right of their holy fathers? How can a right be made a
privilege? By the man who calls himself 'Vicarius Filii Dei', or
'Vicarius Christi', that is, 'Vicar of the Son of God', and 'Vicar of
Christ'. By the same ones who would grant kings and emperors 'rights'
to nations and lands that they never owned, and who would assume to
himself power and titles that only the degenerate empires had fallen
too. Was it not enough for the Faith to be changed? Was it not enough
for the Mass to be altered? Was it not enough for Fasts and Days to be
moved and abolished? Was it not enough? And then for all of this
culminate in a man claiming to be the only personal representative of
Jesus Christ on Earth! Where was the
memory of the following fathers:
"Even the authority of this See [that is, Rome] CANNOT grant or alter
anything against the statutes of the Fathers, for amongst us antiquity
flourishes with unshaken root, to which the statutes of the fathers
enjoin reverence." (Pope St. Zosimus to the Bishops of France)
"The law of every Synod which the consent of the universal Church has
approved, no See ought more fully to execute that the chief See." (Pope
St. Gelasius to the Bishops of Dardania)
"Let the laws rule us, not we the laws." (Pope Celestinus I, to the Bishops of Illyricum)
"Those things are very wicked and very bad, which are shown to be contrary to the most holy Canons." (Pope St. Leo the Great)
"If ye keep not the Canons, and if ye wish to destroy the statutes of
our forefathers, I know not who ye are." (Pope St. Gregory the Great,
the Dialogist)
"We cannot destroy the Ecclesiastical Canons, who are defenders and
keepers of the Canons, not their transgressors." (Pope St. Martin the
Confessor)
"We cannot change the boundaries set before by the Fathers." (Pope Leo IV)
And, soon enough, men such
courage as St. Dunstan would be no where to be found.
But, the
cry is made,
"The Mass is ancient despite all this!" Indeed, but, ancient to what?
Yes, O Modernist, if by Mass you mean the post-schism, late Trentine
codification of it, is ancient in comparison to the work of the Novus
Ordo, Presbyterians, Prayer-Book Anglicans, or Anglican Missilists.
Indeed, but, what comparison is that? You have the Ordinary, but, you
have the propers ripped out. You have the shinning skeleton, who bones
are neat and look healthy, but, you have not the muscle and tissue. Can
such bones live?
So, the Orthodox Westerner, he come along, and he cries and says, "
Come away! Come away and come out of her!
Roman and World 'Orthodox' alike! Do you have a bowl of porridge for a
birthright? Do you have fools gold for the real? Do you prefer the
'prayerbook' and 'missal' of Cranmer, Laud, Dearmer, and others to the
works of Sts. Gregory and St. Oswald? You claim a patrimony! Indeed,
you claim right! But, you patrimony is not the works of heretics, and
modernists, of men who claim the 'Orthodox' faith but betray the memory
of the confessors of Antioch or Russia, or any of the ancient martyrs.
Your patrimony is you real ancient Orthodox Fathers. Your patrimony is
St. Leo, St. Martin, St. Gregory, St. Patrick, St. Isidore, St. Leander,
St. Eulalia, St. Germanus, St. Boniface, St. Theodore, St. Augustine,
St. Oswald, St. Aethelwold, and St. Dunstan. They're work was betrayed,
and now it is mutilated, and presented to you in nice velvet bound
books of half-truths and decadence. And You, O Romans, you who have
endured so much and suffered under such a long yoke, and have succumbed
to the lies and distortions of men alike. Who have rebuked all your
lives the heresy of protestantism, but, now have seen such heresy
overcome you everywhere. Why will ye resist any long? Is the Mother of
God pleased that you should endure any longer away from the Orthodox
Church of your old Fathers and Mothers? Has she not poured out her
prayers before the Throne of Grace like an endless flood of water upon
the mountain side? Ye seek the Old Mass, but, the Old Mass is here; ye
seek the Old Ways, and the Old Ways are here; ye seek the Sacraments,
and the Sacraments are here. seek no longer. And, ye, Orthodox
struggler, whose fathers in spirit are our fathers in spirit, whose
grandfathers and great-grandfathers, did not sit by in the old lands as
the spirit of antichrist (that is, of false doctrine and praxis) sets
stakes and reigns; your old fathers in Greece and Russia, were men of
old, and not willing to so lightly sign over the Faith for the new born
teachings of the Masons, and modernist, and ecumenist; they may have
been a simple folk, but, the Gospel is not often understood by the wise
of this world, but, it is only by the 'foolishness' of us men, that the
truth of the Faith can be perceived in a simplicity of spirit, a truth
that the 'educated' laughed at, and sought to distort, so as to appease
the world. Why do ye assail other men, who remember their old Fathers?
Their old martyrs, who are Orthodox? Why do ye assail the Liturgy of
Saints because it is not exactly as the Liturgy as you know it? Does
Truth end with a year? Do saints in modern times possess no
discernment? Do the prayers of holy men of old, not still come up
before the ears of God? Ye are our brothers, and ye stab us in the back
with hatred! We fight on the parapits, and and ye have nothing good to
say but attacks that remind us of the harsh discords of Eustathian
against Meletian in the Church of Antioch! If ye care not about us,
then be silent about us, and we will not attack you, for that is not our
desire; we seek battle against the enemies of Orthodoxy, men who are
oftentimes unawares, but, ye seek a spirit of domination of control, and
have given yourself, so unawares, to be allies, against your intention
and wills, of the modernist and ecumenist! They hate the Orthodox
Prayers of the Old West! And why? Why? Because they indite them! The
very use of such prayers says to those men, 'Ye are wrong; ye have
erred, and in seeking truth, O poor Ecuemnists, ye have not been given
such, and now we offer this, and will it be rejected!", and it says to
those who are not only ignorant, but, malicious, and dare I say,
malicious and knowledgeable, 'Ye men of wickedness, who put truth for
falsehood, and a false Gospel for a True One, did Christ not Die once
for all men, and ye spit upon his Cross by seeking not to convert by the
Words of Truth, the non-Orthodox, but ye instead seek to mix light and
darkness? Is it hatred, to warn a man in a burning house that building
is almost consumed? Is it hatred to say, all is coming down, and you
have set the fire and let it rage, get out and come into our house, that
edifice cannot be saved, but, come out, and there are many mansions in
Our Father's house.' And so, all ye, all who have not understood, or
have maligned, or have sought only to stir trouble, or those who did
these things, but, had no intention of doing them, resign to the Holy
Father of the West that they were Holy Fathers."
And the Orthodox Westerner cries such, and he is hated. Hated from one
side and the other; maligned and lied about, slandered and untruths told
about. Laughed at, and berated, feared and libeled. But, for what?
Because he brings that unwanted truth, that these lands, these people,
who make up the mass of this country and all western countries and
peoples, are not returning to something that never existed in the blood
of their old father. They are returning to the place that their old and
ancient Orthodox Fathers had. Everyone sees the mistakes of old, and
they know how to not repeat them, but, some wish to not look at this.
They wish to ignore all this, or they wish to attack it; but, whichever
it maybe, the Truth will not be stopped, His Kingdom shall have no end.
The Orthodox Westerner cannot have his cries silenced, he seeks not
domination, abdication, or consolidation of all his brothers into one
uniform 'rite' (or whatever word is current in 'liturgical scholarship);
the Orthodox Westerner says, "All are valuable, and salutary. I favour
all, and all are of the Church that are
FROM the
Church! But, I stand against the heresies of Rome, the heresies of
Protestantism, the heresies of monophysitism, monothelitism,
nestorianism, and the heresies of ecumensim in World 'Orthodox'. Do you
not see, my friend, Rome wishes to say, 'All things western are ours!'
and the World 'Orthodox' seek to say, 'All things eastern are ours.' And
they make this play of fights in the uniates of Rome, but, is it a
fight over doctrinal truth, or over territory? Has Orthodoxy, my friend
been reduced to 'whose' territory this is? And 'whose' rite this is? Do
you not see this trick? Do you not see further that they must destroy
the Western Orthodox use? They must pollute it, and control it, and do
so, so that it never becomes a threat to their ecumenical endeavours and
heresies. For a time it may reside, but, against such a force as is
coming, it will not remain, for the World Orthodox, whatever use or rite
or whatever they do, has no life in itself, like the Arians, and
Iconoclasts of old. Why does the Roman, my friend, either sympathize and
convert to True Orthodoxy, or hate with a passion the Old Orthodox Mass
of the West? Because he sees in it something he cannot have, and he
either want its (and thus converts and fulfills the prayers poured out
by his saintly old Orthodox fathers in heaven), or he fights against it,
or ignores it, since he cannot come to terms with what the Devil has
done to some many of his poor ancestors! Why does the World Orthodox
hate it, or seek to control it? Because it would destroy the very
ground work of modern ecumenism, that is, that the Papists are in
heresy, and thus, they must renounce their errors and return to the ways
of the ancient Orthodox Fathers whom they left long ago. And, why do
some True Orthodox hate it? Because they cannot perceive of the
Orthodox West, which still lives, and lives in heaven and on earth."
And the Orthodox Westerner walks along, and will come along this path as
often as he needs too. He does not care how small or how big he is;
his old Orthodox Fathers did not care. He does not care about how
maligned and ridiculed he is, can he be better than his Father, St.
Martin of Rome? He sees the souls wondering, and he says, "Who is going
to them? Who seeks to show them the path of their old fathers?" And to
those who come from a people that had never had Orthodoxy, he says,
"Who is going to them? Who seeks to show them the path of how to have
old fathers?"
We have two simple options: We have Orthodoxy, which is Life in Jesus
Christ through His Holy Mysteries, or we have Death, which is the abyss
of darkness that the Devil and his demons seeks to drag all men too.
For the Orthodox Westerner he chooses Life.
-Fr. Augustine
