What is Wrong With Cyprianism?

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Noah,

You said:

If I were a ROAC bishop and secretly held heretical beliefs, thus losing the grace of God

The Church teaches very clearly that what is important and subject to consideration in the Church is not one's private opinion, but his confession of faith. That which a bishop secretly believes is of no matter to the Church. What is of significance is that which he preaches publicly, with "bared head". This is why the canons dictate that only when a heretical bishop preaches his heresy publicly are we to break off communion with him. When he keeps his heresy to himself, when he does not teach his heresy, and refrains from communicating with heretics openly, the Church considers him to be Orthodox.

[Noah]

This foolishness has forced the legalists into a mindset wherein various Traditionalist faithful will one day get mailings from another synod telling them that because of an error on the part of one of their heirarchs, they have all been expelled from the church and need to repent

Noah! What is wrong with what you said might happen? Do you not know that it is not only the originators of heresies that are condemned, but those who follow the heresies?

Fine point, I take back my quote

[Noah]

Ecumenism needs to be formally condemned in an Ecumenical Council.

Indeed it does. But it never will be if things continue going the way they are. Satan has created enough apathy among us Orthodox Christians that we just don't feel the sting of ecumenism. Ecumenism has become the heresy of heresies that only "extremists" and "fringe elements" care about. It was fine for the early fathers to write invectives and the like against heretics, but nowadays any harsh words are automatically labeled "extreme," and anyone who uses such words are automatically considered to be "fringe" or "uncanonical" or "sectarian".

This is astounding! Has there ever been another time in Church history like this one? A great number of people consider ecumensim to be the greatest heresy that has sprung up, and yet many of those same people fight as aggressively as they can against takings steps to eliminate it. Everyone just wants to sit around waiting for an ecumenical council.

I agree with your response. But again, what would that Ecumenical Council be? If the ROAC ecclesiology were to be used, then the ROAC synod WOULD be the Ecumenical Council. Doesnt this seem just a bit absurd?

Another point before I take a break for a while, it seems to me that one can classify the Orthodox who condemn ecumenism as heresy into two ecclesiological camps, one Cyprianite, the other not. On the Cyrpainite side the synods are united, and the non-Cyprianite side there is no unity. The Cyprianite side seeks to, and does attempt to influence and work with World Orthodoxy to alert them to their heresy, for the non-Cyprianites the rest of the world doesnt seem to matter as they are all graceless and spiritually dead anyway. Third, the entity that most of us were converted into is the body that the Cyprianites are a member of. Now, when you were converted from the last religion that you were a part of, what did you convert into, and was it a result of God's grace through that body?

Should I look at my own past, and clump together in the same boat as "foreign religions" my Methodist upbringing and my time in the OCA? Or should I (as I am prone to do) look at my leavning Methodism for the OCA as leaving a "foreign religion" for the Truth of Orthodoxy, and only then after being blessed to recieve God's mercy to see the light of Orthodoxy see that even in this there was a problem and the solution to this problem involved moving to a synod that addressed this problem? I am a very poor articulator of my concerns, I know, but do you understand what my problem with non-Cyprianism is? I feel that it forces me to look at what I believe to be an act of grace on my life as something that was not.

Finally, if it is a heresy to believe that heretics are of the church, then does it not follow that it would be heresy to say that baptized non-heretics are not of the church? My reference here is to the attitude of each of the non-Cyprian synods towards each other as being 'graceless', or essentially lacking in some way important enough to prevent inter-communion. Good trees bear good fruit, right?

And in terms of a heretic being automatically excommunicated with his own acceptace of heresy, then it follows that a heretics ordinations are invalid, and if there have ever been secret or ignorant heresiarchs in the church, then who can ever know who is really 'of the church'. Forgive me if I am being obsinate here, and pray for me if you know that I persist in heresy that I might recieve God's mercy and enlightenment. But I cannot accept the implications I have stated above. It is all too complex. The Truth is so simple and easy to see (except for those blinded by sin, like myself). I need to take a break for a few weeks and focus more on my prayer life. To be totally honest, I will be JUST recieving an Orthodox baptism this Saturday at a ROCOR monastery (as switching to a non-ecumenist synod as been a VERY long and VERY painful experience for my fiance and I that we almost didnt make it through) and the following Sunday I will be married. :mrgreen: (Both of which I firmly believe will be valid Orthodox Mysteries, and I ask for your prayers whether you agree or not)

I will give more than a couple re-readings of this post as some have put some time into your responses and the points are not always self-evident or elementary. Talk to you in a few weeks!

Noah

[Noah]

The Church teaches very clearly that what is important and subject to consideration in the Church is not one's private opinion, but his confession of faith.... That which a bishop secretly believes is of no matter to the Church. When he keeps his heresy to himself... the Church considers him to be Orthodox.

You have got to be kidding me.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

No kidding.

[Mor Ephrem]

So if a bishop secretly (in his heart) rejects the teaching that Mary is the Theotokos, but doesn't reject it in public, but instead gives lip service to the Orthodox teaching, even if this is only for selfish reasons (e.g., keeping his office, since the outward manifestation of his true beliefs would get him kicked out), he is still Orthodox? Does this mean that Heaven's ability to cut off heretics from the Church of Christ even before synodically ratified (something affirmed above) here on earth stop at the mind of the individual in question? This sounds like sheer madness; as if simply by keeping quiet about his heresy and giving formal reverence to the official teaching (something hypocrites are perfectly able to do), a person can remain Orthodox, while the guy too stupid to shut up is cut off from Christ's Body completely.

[OrthodoxyOrDeath]

Mor Ephrem,

The Church is not a private and merely individual matter. The priesthood and the episcopacy are not individual and private matters, but Mysteries given by the Church and in the Church. God will judge private matters privately, but a person cannot be a priest or hierarch of the Church when he denies the Church which gave him his priesthood, and officially and openly becomes its enemy.

Those who publicly denied Christ in order to avoid punishment at the hands of pagan rulers have always been considered by the Church as estranged from her, even though it was known by all that, within their hearts, they had never denied Christ or His Church.
Likewise, the Church has always considered Orthodox those who were later even proven to have privately held heretical beliefs, but because nobody ever corrected them and shown them the truth, they have always been considered Orthodox.

Even the canons only allow to depart a heretical bishop when he preaches his heresy with “bared head”, meaning publicly.

Expanding on this notion, those people who say in their private conversations that they disagree with Bartholomew or the internets own “Bishop” Tikhon and his kind, but yet have communion with him by being in the JP or some other pseudo-orthodox group, prove nothing else but that they lack sobriety and straightforwardness. How is it possible that their private opinions carry more weight and be considered proof of their Orthodoxy when they display and act with such two-facedness? In their studies, have these learned individuals ever chanced to come across what Saint Basil the Great had to say about such hierarchs? “As for all those who pretend to confess the sound Orthodox Faith, but are in communion with those who hold a different opinion, if they are forewarned and still remain stubborn, you must not only not be in communion with them, but you must not even call them brethren.” Truly, “the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak”.

Look around you and see how quietly people behave; how calmly they go to be baptized and married in the large churches, and with what compunction they apply the chrism of those most unorthodox syncretists. Look at what a great multitude they are, and how prominent: priests, bishops, scientists, rulers, Scribes, Pharisees, Professors, and Teachers of the Law; people of position and recognition who write big and important books. Can it be that they all know nothing and that only the “intolerant” “old-calendarists” understand what is happening?