Ecumenical Council Research Articles

Dicit Augustinus: Model Sermons as Episcopal Formation in St. Augustine's Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–124

The bishop's primary task is teaching. Because of a lack of availability, erudition, or engagement, the Church has often suffered from a shortage of suitably equipped and pastorally present bishops. Provincial, regional, and ecumenical councils of the patristic and medieval eras sought to address this need. The fifth-century North African Church turned to St. Augustine as their resident expert on exegesis and episcopacy. Augustine formed future bishops as monks in his monastery and his co-bishops through model sermons they requested at council. The Tractates on the Gospel of John 55–124 were dictated for this purpose. Because Augustine's immediate audience was bishops (current and future), he meditated on aspects of the episcopacy: the spiritual risks of preaching, the discernment and discipline demanded in mystagogy and excommunication, and participation in Christ's blood and His Spirit, enabling growth in martyrial virtue and the performance of “greater works” for the glory of God.

THE HOLY EMPRESS PULCHERIA IN LIGHT OF RECENT RESEARCH

As an image of virginity and a model of Augusta, Empress Pulcheria of Byzantium played a remarkable role in the Christological controversies of the 4th and 5 th centuries, being a witness to the rejection of Nestorianism at the Third Ecumenical Council (Ephesus, 431), and equally of Eutichianism (Monophysitism) at the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451) where she also participated. According to modern research, her feminine profile is complex, although the Church has kept a pious memory of her, dedicating two days of homage in the Synaxarion to her, on February 17, along with her husband, Emperor Marcian, and on September 10.

Pilgrimage toward a Common Vision of the Church

AbstractIn 2013, the World Council of Churches (WCC) published its second convergence statement, The Church: Towards a Common Vision (TCTCV), and invited churches, ecumenical councils and groups, and others to respond officially with their assessment of the extent to which convergence had been reached in many areas. After offering an outline of the process in the WCC and its Commission on Faith and Order that led to this statement, this article discusses the process of evaluating the responses to the document and the main issues that were raised in the responses. The article notes the uneven nature of the responses in that no responses were received from Latin America or Africa and very few responses came from Pentecostal, evangelical, charismatic, or independent churches and movements. The article concludes by affirming the need for changes in the methodology of Faith and Order to more readily and clearly hear those churches and peoples who have long and often been marginalized.

V.S. Solovyov and Russian Catholics: Similarities and Differences in the Understanding of Church Unity and Infallibility

This article considers Russian Catholicism as a system of views characterized by the need for an independent Church authority, the special role of the Catholic Church in the history of Europe, and the importance of the unity of Churches around the Pope. Given all this, the article analyzes the criteria by which V.S. Solovyov could be included within the representatives of Russian Catholicism, albeit his confessional affiliation to the Catholic Church still remains controversial. The main part of this text is devoted to V.S. Solovyov’s relationship with the key issues of Russian Catholicism, i.e. the understanding of church unity, authority, and infallibility; the hierarchy’s and laity’s participation in the preservation of doctrinal truths; and finally the truth criteria for the decisions taken by the Ecumenical Councils. While these questions have been already raised in the writings of the main ideologist of philocatholicism, P.Y. Chaadayev, this article also demonstrates the way in which they occupy a crucial place in the heritage of the Russian Catholicism’s representatives from the last half of the 19th century: i.e. I.S. Gagarin and E.G. Volkonskaya. As a conclusion of this analysis, V.S. Solovyov’s views – which he expressed in his 1880s works – on the Church authority and on the special powers of Roman pontifices seem to partially converge with those of the conservative Russian Catholics. However, it is still possible to recognize a number of discrepancies between the two positions. These discrepancies would subsequently lead Solovyov to distance himself from Catholic apologetics to pursue a different approach in the understanding of Church infallibility. In this regard, an examination of Solovyov’s triads will be the key to identify the transformation, within his ecclesiological ideas, of the functions of secular and church authorities as well as of the need for an additional link between Christ and the believers.

C. S. Lewis for Catholics

C. S. Lewis for Catholics David P. Deavel The reputation of Clive Staples Lewis, known as C. S. Lewis to his readers and Jack to his friends, has been a strange one. The quintessentially English writer, born in the north of Ireland, was in certain ways a rather parochial figure who only ventured out of the ambit of England and Ireland on the occasions of a childhood holiday in France, time on the western front in World War I, and a late-life trip to Greece for his honeymoon with a divorced, ex-communist writer who had essentially forced her way into his life and heart. Yet he has found international success, particularly in America. Given that he always called himself an ordinary lay member of the Anglican Church, his strongest following has always been among Evangelical Protestants in America. But second to the reputation among Evangelicals would have to be his reputation among Catholics (and Eastern Orthodox), many of whom consider him to be a writer who tapped into the central truths of Catholic faith and brought them to life not only in his many essays, but also his imaginative stories. Fr. Peter Milward, a Jesuit who studied with Lewis in the 1950s at Oxford, recalled that during his Jesuit formation an instructor was using Lewis’s Screwtape Letters for spiritual training. Don Giovanni [End Page 5] Calabria, an Italian priest who is now St. Giovanni, kept up an admiring correspondence in Latin for many years with Lewis (those letters, along with translations by Lewis’s former student Martin Moynihan, have been published several times). At a conference in the 1990s Fr. Joseph Fessio, the Jesuit founder of Ignatius Press, proposed that a joint ecumenical statement be drawn up for all the historic Christian faiths that would require subscription to Holy Scripture, the Apostles’ Creed, the first six ecumenical councils, and the writings of C. S. Lewis. The proposal was somewhat tongue in cheek, but it was warmly cheered.1 The admiration goes higher up the Catholic hierarchical chain. Walter Hooper, a young Anglican priest and erst-while academic who became Lewis’s secretary at the end of Lewis’s life and spent the rest of his life editing Lewis’s uncollected writings and writing about the man himself, recounted a meeting with St. John Paul II in which he presented some volumes of Lewis to the pontiff. John Paul, who had read much of Lewis’s writing, said to Hooper, “C.S. Lewis knew what his apostolate was, and he did it!”2 Benedict XVI himself cited Lewis’s Four Loves positively in his encyclical Deus Caritas Est (God is Love) as he built up the case for the possibility of lower human loves leading to and becoming incorporated in agape, that specific form of love to which the New Testament calls Christians. Indeed, not only has Lewis been admired by Catholics, but he has been a source of many a conversion to Catholicism. I certainly count him as an indispensable step on the way from my own childhood Evangelical Calvinism. My sixth-grade English teacher, Carol Somsel, required us to read books independently and then show that we had read them, either through taking a computerized test (for a number of books considered classics or standard children’s fare) or through giving her the book and then letting her interview us as to whether we had read and comprehended. That year I plowed through the Narnia tales. They whetted my taste for Lewis. I wanted to know about him and to be like him—to smoke a pipe and wear tweed. Though the assignment was the reading of fiction, in Mrs. Somsel’s [End Page 6] great wisdom she allowed me nonfiction related to Lewis, including: an encyclopedia of the Narnia books; Clyde Kilby’s illustrated C. S. Lewis: Images of his World, with its lush black-and-white photographs of Oxford, Lewis’s beloved Irish landscapes, influential figures like George MacDonald and G. K. Chesterton, and the Inklings themselves (J. R. R. Tolkien, Charles Williams, and Owen Barfield); and even Lewis’s philosophical and theological tomes Mere Christianity and God in the Dock. Given that...

Textkritik im Dienste der Wahrheitsfindung? Das VI. Ökumenische Konzil (680/81) und seine Fälschungsnachweise

Abstract This article investigates the plausibility of the proof presented at the Sixth Ecumenical Council (680/81) to show that the Logos of Patriarch Menas (536-552) and the two letters of Pope Vigilius (537-555) were forgeries. These texts were among the most important testimonia of the so-called Monotheletes, and prove the assertion of one operation and one will in Christ long before the controversy of the seventh century. Through an analysis of the conciliar acts and other texts it is shown that the argumentation of the council was not only incoherent and self-contradictory but actually scandalous, since the evidence presented by an authentic papyrus roll of the Acts of the Fifth Council, with its clear proof of the authenticity of the Vigilius letters, was ignored. In an adoption and further development of the frequently overlooked treatment of this matter in the 1971 edition of the Acts of the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) (ACO, ser. I, 4/1) the following is demonstrated: the discovery of the longer first edition of the Acts, containing the Vigilius letters, in the original papyrus rolls of the Acts of the Fifth Council led, from the beginning of the so-called monenergist-monothelete controversy, to the (re‐)introduction of the disputed texts into the shorter second edition contained in codices. It is indisputable that these texts are authentic.

Social Sin and the Sinless Savior: Delineating Supra‐Personal Sin in Continuity with Conciliar Christology

AbstractThis article addresses the seeming incongruity between supra‐personal accounts of sin and conciliar Christology. Supra‐personal accounts of sin, in their variegated forms, propose that sin is not merely reducible to the human will, but is enmeshed within the societal or social structures that all human beings inhabit. Such accounts become potentially problematic when considered in conjunction with the Christology of the ecumenical councils—especially the affirmation of Christ’s sinlessness. Specifically, if sin is not localized to the individual person and their will, how can we affirm that Christ genuinely participates in a warped society and sinful social structures while remaining sinless? This article articulates the fundamentals of social accounts of sin, defends the requisite sinlessness of Christ from the councils, and establishes guiding principles for properly navigating the relationship between Christology and structural sin. Ultimately it argues that an affirmation of Christ’s sinlessness ought to orient and delineate a Christian understanding of supra‐personal sin.

МАГИЯТА И НЕЙНИТЕ ЛИЦА (61. КАНОН НА ТРУЛСКИЯ СЪБОР В СЛАВЯНСКИ ПРЕВОДИ) / MAGIC AND ITS FACES (THE 61ST CANON OF TRULLO IN SLAVIC TRANSLATIONS)

The article aims to analyze some representatives of the lexical-semantic group performers of magical practices according to the 61st canon of the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Trullo, 691–692, based on three translations: the 12th century Efrem kramchaya, Ilovichka kramchaya from 1262, and the 14th century Slavic translation of Matthew Blastares’Syntagma. It is established that: nomina agentis predominate, together with nomina actoris and rarely names of bearers of properties (nomina attributiva); untranslated Greek words are rare; structural calques and descriptive collocations occur. Of particular interest are the ways of presenting Greek realia, which translators liken to familiar phenomena in their semantic adaptation. The text of the 61st canon of Trullo according to an unpublished Moldavian copy of the Syntagma in the 16th century MS № 4104 from the University Library of Cluj-Napoka is published as an appendix. Keywords: medieval magic, Council in Trullo, historical lexicology

Deification through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation by Khaled Anatolios

Reviewed by: Deification through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation by Khaled Anatolios Daniel Galadza Khaled Anatolios. Deification through the Cross: An Eastern Christian Theology of Salvation. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2020. 464 pp. The Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed explains that the Incarnation was “for our salvation.” What the essence of this salvation is, and how it comes about, is the focus of Father Khaled Anatolios’s Deification through the Cross, which examines the implications of Christian doctrine regarding the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ for academic theology and for Christian life. The centrality of salvation to theological discourse should be apparent, but in his introduction Anatolios shows how certain theologians have overemphasized or avoided one or another prominent aspect of the Gospel in their construction of soteriological “models” (i.e., ransom, atonement, [End Page 150] penal substitution, satisfaction, etc.), often without elaborating upon any experiential access to salvation (23). Instead of adding yet another model to the “cafeteria buffet,” Anatolios proposes deification as the content and goal of salvation, made possible by the Son of God becoming a human being who suffers the Passion, dies on the cross, and rises from the dead, granting victory over death and freedom from disordered passions; this inspires repentance and rejection of sin in light of the joyous news of Christ’s already accomplished salvation, leading to human deification, which consists of the glorification of God. The thread running through the whole book is the “dramatic synthesis of the dialectic of sorrow over sins and the celebration of divine glory” (81), which Anatolios calls “doxological contrition.” The soteriology of doxological contrition is constructed in the first part of the book on the basis of liturgical experience, Scripture (with a critique of the historical-critical method), and conciliar Trinitarian and Christological statements from the seven ecumenical councils, before building a systematic theology of doxological contrition in the second part, which examines sin and reintegration into the life of the Trinity. His main thesis is that “Christ’s salvific work includes a representative and vicarious repentance on our behalf that has as its points of departure and destination the communion with divine glory” (141). The starting point for his theology of salvation is the Byzantine Liturgy. Anatolios begins with an analysis of what the prayers (more precisely hymns) from Great Lent, Holy Week, Pascha, and Pentecost say about repentance and salvation, using the lens of a “worshipper-response” approach. Doxological contrition expressed in first-person voice hymns, sung by the “ideal worshipper” (68), conveys the paradoxical experience and “dialectical simultaneity of lost and found glory” (84), so that “the Byzantine liturgy does not prescribe doxology along with contrition; it leads one into a contrition that is doxological through and through” (92), joyfully intertwining the salvific efficacy of Christ’s death and Resurrection in its soteriology of exchange. The lens of “doxological contrition” through which Anatolios views the liturgical hymns offers a constructive development and perhaps unintentional synthesis of recent studies in liturgy not referenced in this book—for example, the “penitential self” in Derek Krueger’s Liturgical Subjects: Christian Ritual, Biblical Narrative, and the Formation of the Self in Byzantium (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014), and the human person’s “doxological vocation” in Brian A. Butcher’s Liturgical Theology after Schme-mann: An Orthodox Reading of Paul Ricoeur (Fordham University Press, 2018). This book’s rich presentation of doxo-logical contrition offers the reader immense satisfaction but nevertheless leaves avenues of investigation open in the realm of liturgy and contemporary Eastern Orthodox theology. Anatolios points to discoveries of explicit correlations in a variety of patristic authors between contrition, doxology, and Christ’s salvific work that become obvious once the reader knows to look for them (222–23), but he sets aside the task of unpacking these discoveries for a future book. The correspondence between the content of Byzantine hymns and soteriological themes throughout the book are instructive; an examination of the liturgical and biblical sources in part 1 using, for example, the recently published thesis of Hieromonk Macarius (Gerard Bonnet) of Simonopetra, in Mystagogie du Grand Carême: Essai de théologie du temps liturgique (Monastère de Simonos Pétra, 2018...

"ПЕРШИЙ НЕ ТІЛЬКИ ЗА ЧЕСТЮ": АНАЛІЗ ЕКЛЕЗІОЛОГІЧНОГО НОВОВВЕДЕННЯ ЙОГО ВСЕСВЯТОСТІ ПАТРІАРХА ВАРФОЛОМІЯІ

Based on the statements of Patriarch Bartholomew І, stated in an interview with the New York newspaper National Preacher, an analysis of his ecclesiological innovation is offered. We are talking about a radical revision of the problem of primacy at the level of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The principle that he declared "first not only in honor" should be taken as evidence of unconditional adherence to the provisions of universalist ecclesiology. On the other hand, his previous statements of agreement with the provisions of Eucharistic ecclesiology should be questioned. The article shows the discrepancy between the principle "the first not only in honor" with certain canons of the Ecumenical Councils. The implementation of this ecclesiological innovation led to a number of irreversible consequences that led to a crisis in relations between some autocephalous Churches. Evidence of this should be recognized: 1) verdict of the Holy Synod of the Moscow Patriarchate (December 2013), which expresses distrust of those ecclesiological innovations that undermine the principle of conciliarism (sobornost); 2) the decision of the Council of Bishops of the Patriarchate of Constantinople (September 2018) to grant autocephaly to a certain Church without coordination with the opinions of the primates of other local Churches; 3) the fact of granting the Tomos to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (January 2019). Two perspectives are proposed for the further introduction of the principle "the first is not only in honor" in theological discourses. We are talking about the path of "church modernization" or about the resumption of the policy of "Eastern papism" by the Ecumenical Patriarch. Hope is expressed for further efforts by Orthodox theologians in upholding the ecclesiological principle of "primacy in honor, but not in power".

Welche Kongregation überwachte die Aktivitäten der apostolischen Visitatoren im 16. Jahrhundert?

The ecclesiastical fathers, who had gathered for the ecumenical council of Trent, provided bishops with precise disciplinary norms to regulate their relations with the Holy See, as well as the activities within their own dioceses. New congregations to control the application of reform decrees within the Curia and the local dioceses were established during the 1570s and 1580s. From the very beginning of the 1570s one of the most powerful and most active was the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Regulars, charged with the control of religious institutions on the Italian peninsula (including the Papal State), through the institution of the apostolic visitation. Carried out by the apostolic visitator appointed by the Congregation, with the faculties accorded by the Pontiff himself, the inspective work was not limited exclusively to the doctrinal field. Along with the control and the defence of orthodoxy within the diocese, issues concerning the organisation of religious life of Catholic clergy and lay persons were also subjected to investigation. The visitator’s authority and duties included inspections of churches, monasteries, abbeys, priories and ecclesiastical property regardless of their exemptions or privileges. The control was extended to the institutions of controversial jurisdiction like chapters and hospitals, pawnshops, confraternities, scholae, and pious places. This wide sector’s autonomy was vigorously defended by the civil society. By examining archival documentation copied in Registra Episcoporum, Positiones and Visita Apostolica kept in the Vatican Apostolic Archives, the paper reconstructs the early history of the Congregation for Bishops and Regulars and highlights the relations that its secretary and the prefect had with the apostolic visitators sent to Dubrovnik, Dalmatia and Istria – Giovanni Francesco Sormani, Agostino Valier, Cesare de Nores. Activities of Pietro Cedulini and Boniface Darkolica, who were sent to visit Christian communities in Constantinople and southern Hungary, are herewith also analysed.

L’image de Santa Maria citra Montes à Saint-Nizier de Lyon : le rôle de la composition de l’espace ecclésial dans l’organisation d’un culte

According to a bull of Innocent IV, present in Lyons for the Ecumenical Council of Lyons, the image of «Our Lady on this side of the Alps» was brought to Lugdunum by Saint Pothin, the first bishop of the city. What kind of image? There is still a late statue, hidden during the religious wars, then found near the crypt in the 19th century, and a keystone (during the 15thcentury) probably representing this image. Minutes of the visit of the 14th-15th century clearly describe the organisation of the space of the shrine whose archaeology has shown that it had not been modified since the High Middle Ages: crypt at the crossroads, altar on the crypt (in the Paleo-Christian way), the main altar, the tombs of the bishops of the sixth century and, at the bottom of the apse, the image of the Virgin. This image was both an object of worship and the object of a pilgrimage of healing. After the destruction of the religious wars, the statue was moved to the south arm of the transept and became the cult image of the Brotherhood of Our Lady of Grace. The upheaval of the spatial organisation is heavy with meaning: loss of relationship with the history of the early Church of Lyon and refocusing on the life of the brotherhoods, but with a primacy given to the image which is not enclosed in an autonomous chapel, but remains directly related to the sanctuary space

FEDIR DANYLOVYCH OF OSTROH: RUS’ DUKE, DESCENDANT OF THE ROMANOVYCHI DYNASTY AND HUSSIAN HETMAN IN THE CZECH

The article considers the participation of duke Fedir Danylovych of Ostroh in the vortex of the Hussite Wars. It is noted that this issue remains poorly studied and debatable, and there is no clear answer as to whether Fedir Danylovych was mentioned in the sources of the time as «Friedrich von Ostrog». It is taken into account that such an important stage of the duke, as his participation in the events of the Hussite Wars, is often underestimated and denied. However, assumptions were made and arguments were given that it was Fedir Danylovych who had every reason to fight on the side of the Hussites. The hypothesis was supported that the knight and politician, who was Fedir Danylovych, could indeed take part in the Hussite Wars, later managed to support Svidrigiello, and only after 1437, after his 70th birthday, accept the monk. Based on the analysis of the previous political activity of duke Fedir Ostrohsky, it is noted that on the eve of the events in the Czech, the duke most likely participated in the Rus’ delegation to the XVI Ecumenical Council of Konstanz in 1414-1418th relied precisely on the dynastic tradition of sovereign statehood, the bearer of which he was as a descendant of Monomahovychi-Romanovychi. It is taken into account that the Czech economic, cultural, and political contacts with Rus’ began long before the Hussite Wars. Examples of such Rus’-Czech relations are given, and what parallels and bases they had for a new round of communication. The course of Fedir Danylovych's participation in the campaigns and battles of the Hussite times in the Czech and Slovakia is described. Attention is drawn to the debatable aspect of the prince's possible allied relations with the Hungarian King Sigismund I of Luxembourg, the main opponent of the Hussites. It has been suggested that such relations may have been due to a meeting of the parties to the Bratislava conflict in April 1429 and an international congress of rulers in Lutsk in 1429, at which Sigismund could decide on the coronation of Vytautas and the establishment of the Kingdom of Lithuania. It is stated that such an eventful course could be of interest to the Ostroh duke, who sought to expand and strengthen his ancestral heritage. The assumption that Fedir Danylovych served only the Polish King Władysław II Jagiełło all his life was rejected. It is concluded that one of the main reasons for duke Fedir Danylovych's participation in the Hussite Wars was that he was looking for ways to restore his own rights to hereditary possessions. It was emphasized that as a man of war, it was natural for duke Ostroh to fight alongside the Hussites almost to the end of his life.

The De haeresibus et synodis of Germanos I of Constantinople as a Source on Early Byzantine Heresies? Prospects of a Critical Edition

A new, critical edition of the 8th-century treatise De haeresibus et synodis (CPG 8020) by Patriarch Germanus I of Constantinople is in progress; it will provide new insights, especially into the large extent of sources that were copied or paraphrased. The article takes a close look at three chapters that could be considered as sources for different Christian heresies (Manichaeism, Montanism and Christological dissenters) in 8th-century Byzantium and some of the first new text- and sourcecritical findings. The accounts on Manichaeism and Montanism are based on older, lost sources and can therefore not be consulted as historical sources on these heresies in the Early Byzantine age. The account of the Ecumenical Councils involved in the Christological controversies attributes faith formulas to Councils that did not actually issue them and thus must be dismissed as a historical source on the course of these controversies as well. Nevertheless all three chapters, like the rest of the treatise, testify to the views of an Early Byzantine theologian on heresies and Church Councils and to how he reached his views. This scope for further study is deduced from the character of the text itself and thus especially appropriate.

Процедура возвышения константинопольской кафедры на IV Вселенском соборе в Халкидоне

Introduction. Despite multiple references to the proposed topic in the scholarly literature, it still seems relevant to identify and consistently describe the entire set of measures taken at the Council of Chalcedon in order to raise the status of the see of Constantinople. Methods. The work is based on the application of the historicalcritical method of analysing source data of the original text, compiled in Greek and Latin. Analysis. The article consistently describes and analyses the church-political steps and actions taken during the conciliar meetings, which paved the way for the elevation (“addition to honour”) of the see of Constantinople, which took place during the 17th conciliar act. These measures included the corroboration of the status of the Council of Constantinople in 381 as the Second Ecumenical Council, the use of the ecclesiastical and political actions of the see of Constantinople in the previous period as court of appeal and “superprovincial” instance as precedents, as well as a demonstration of the equal status of the Archbishop of Constantinople in relation to his Roman counterpart. The result was the adoption of the so-called 28th canon and its approval by the officials presiding at the council, and then by the emperor Marcian himself. Results. The author concludes that the actions taken by the officials, who were presiding at the council, and the representatives of the Church of Constantinople during the council were planned and consistently aimed at establishing the equal honour of the see of Constantinople in relation to the see of Rome and its second place in regard to the latter. He also points to certain similarities in the process of elevation of both sees.

The Impact of Constantinopolitan Liturgy on the Mosaic Pavements in The Christian Basilicas in Thrace During the Second Half of 5th C.

The present article deals with changes that occurred in the arrangement of the mosaic floor decorations of two important basilicas located in the capitals of two provinces in Thrace – the Episcopal basilica at Philippopolis and the basilica at Herakleia, which are both dated to the second half of the 5th c. The study reveals that in these cases the changes were not a purely decorative issue with the introduction of a new trend in mosaic decoration. Instead, these were innovations that reflected the new importance of the areas marked by mosaic decoration, such as the ‘entrance’ in the atrium or narthex and the side aisles and their middle portions. It seems they were part of the introduction of the Constantinopolitan liturgy that emerged after the reassignment of Thrace to the jurisdiction of the Constantinopolitan church pursuant to canon 28 of the Fourth Ecumenical council at Chalcedon in 451. In order to avoid any misunderstandings, the new sites were marked by specific and clear Christians images. Dating to the second half of the 5th c., the Thracian examples are among the earliest so far attested and reveal the evolution of the Constantinopolitan liturgy before its completion, which is eventually attested in the monuments of the 6th c. in the capital and elsewhere.

Trinity disruption

This article does not have in mind to persuade its readers in a specific direction. What it has in mind is to make the reader think, and in this way, to rethink the ontology of the Trinity, as a Christian in a post-Christian, fourth revolution era. To significantly reason about the Trinity is a challenge, having the potential to easily be labelled as a heretic or part of a sect. However, to just accept all the ‘facts’ about the Trinity in the Bible, which are, in fact, interpretations by the Ecumenical Councils and Church Fathers of the early church era, is not in line with the 21st-century environment. In this article, we discuss the Trinity in light of the Bible, as well as the Councils and early Church Fathers, and (once again) conclude that the Trinity can best be explained in light of God’s omnipresence. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: This article covers different disciplines like theology, philosophy and history, as well as different disciplines within theology, namely church history, systematic theology and practical theology. This is a follow-up of an article written in 2019 and focuses on the Trinity from another angle. We hope that this will be the beginning of a discussion group on the different ways in which the Trinity can be interpreted.

True Harmony Between Liturgy and Popular Piety: Expressing The Thomasian Faith in The Sabuaga Festival

True Harmony Between Liturgy and Popular Piety: Expressing The Thomasian Faith in The Sabuaga Festival

Patriarch Tarasios: An exponent of Byzantine church diplomacy in relation to Rome and the bishop of Constantinople

On September 24, 787, the works of the VII Ecumenical Synod were opened in the ‘Saint Sophia’ Church in Nicaea, after the first attempt, on August 7, 786, had failed. Although the nominal presidency was held by the legates of Pope Adrian I, the effective presidency was exercised by Patriarch Tarasios of Constantinople. A skilful church diplomat, with experience, gained as an imperial secretary and a remarkable theologian whose authority was imposed even during his election as a patriarch amongst the laity, Tarasios meticulously and clairvoyantly prepared for the deployment of the Nicene synod. This is noticeable from the agreement made with the papal legates regarding the reading of the letters of Pope Adrian I whose content directly concerned the persona of the patriarch, agreeing to omit those compromising paragraphs, from the procedure of re-welcoming in the communion of the church of some former iconoclastic bishops, by correctly managing the resistance of the monks to whom he gave satisfaction regarding the patristic and traditional argumentation of the cult of the holy icons and by rejecting point-by-point the dogmatic decision of the iconoclastic synod of Hieria (754), a rejection of which the patriarch Tarasie is in all probability the author. Satisfied with the success of the synod, whose craftsman he indeed was, Patriarch Tarasios was able to communicate to both Pope Adrian I and the emperors and clergy of Constantinople that the unity of the Church residing in Christ had been restored and that the place in the church and due honour of the holy icons had been restored through the synodal decision of 302 participants. The success of the Seventh Ecumenical Council is unequivocally because of the tactful and competent preparation and management of Patriarch Tarasios.Contribution: The perspective we promote on the events highlighted in the study, could contribute to unblocking the theological dialogue between Orthodox and Catholics on the issue of papal primacy, the study thus promotes HTS as an important forum for mediating interfaith dialogue.

Clergy Participation in Elections, Political Parties and Government from the Perspective of Secular and Church Law

This article presents a comparative analysis of solving the issue of Orthodox clergy's participation in elections, political parties and public bodies previously and in modern times from the standpoint of secular and church law. At different stages of history, there were both times when the clergy took active part in the legislative bodies of our country and abstained from it. The relevance of this question is conditioned by the following fact: while the Church is unified and its establishments are inviolable, there are historically many states of many types, and the relations between them should always be adjusted specifically to each case. There is no general theoretical formula that would suit them all. The clergy participated in political parties, elections and the State Duma before the revolution, but the results of this participation were very mixed. In the post-Soviet years, after the constitutional crisis of October 1993, the Church made the only right decision. At an expanded session on October 8, 1993, the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church adopted a resolution that instructed clergy to refrain from participating in the elections to the Federal Assembly as candidates for deputy, and to abstain from membership in political parties under the penalty of prosecution. As for the Church law, the canons of the Orthodox Church do not permit clergymen to hold secular positions of authority. This is confirmed by the Apostolic Rules and decrees of the Ecumenical Councils. Adopted in 2000 by the Jubilee Council of Bishops, “The Fundamentals of the Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church” reflected the official position of the Moscow Patriarchate in its relations with the state and secular society . The Fundamentals formulate a concept of the state-church relations, the key concept of which is “the cooperation between state and church”. However, by prohibiting the clergy to participate in government bodies, the Church emphasizes its another resource: the participation of Orthodox laymen in the activities of government bodies and parties. The contemporary challenges include an enormous increase in the influence of the Internet, mass media, the ethical problems of modern technology, the lack of an Orthodox component in educational programs — they are only a few problems and challenges to the dialogue between church and state.