Sermon on Sunday of the Holy Fathers, Met. Moses GOC-K

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Maria
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Sermon on Sunday of the Holy Fathers, Met. Moses GOC-K

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In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

In today’s Gospel we hear our Savior say unto His disciples:

“Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a lamp, and put it under a bushel, but on the lampstand; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in the Heavens.” (Matt 5:14-16)

On this Sunday, according to the various typicons of the Church, some celebrate the memory of the Holy Fathers of the Fourth Ecumenical Council, some the Holy Fathers from the first 6 Ecumenical Councils and others the Holy Fathers of all of the 7 Ecumenical Councils. These men did indeed let their light shine throughout the world for all time by defending the Church against the multiform heresies that attacked the Church.

I wish today to speak about the Fourth Ecumenical Council held in 451 at the city of Chalcedon, which was gathered together to examine a new heretical teaching of Monophysitism. The word “mono” means “one” and the word “physis” means “nature.” The Monophysites taught that that the human nature of Christ was absorbed by the Divine nature. The two most well known proponents of this heresy were, Dioscorus, the Patriarch of Alexandria and Eutyches, an Archimandrite from Constantinople. Eutyches liked to use the fraudulent metaphor that, as a drop of honey is absorbed by water, so the human nature of Christ was absorbed by His Divine Nature. The Holy Fathers observed that these men proclaimed a “christ” who, according to their doctrine, had a nature that was different from both God the Father and from us.

The Holy Fathers condemned this teaching, explaining that Jesus Christ is true God and true Man. The Council of Chalcedon explained the union of the Divine and Human natures in Christ our Savior in the following words:

Following the Holy Fathers we teach with one voice that the Son [of God] and our Lord Jesus Christ is to be confessed as one and the same [Person], that He is perfect in Godhead and perfect in manhood, very God and very man, of a reasonable soul and [human] body consisting, consubstantial with the Father as touching his Godhead, and consubstantial with us as touching his manhood; made in all things like unto us, sin only excepted; begotten of his Father before the ages according to his Godhead; but in these last days for us men and for our salvation born [into the world] of the Virgin Mary, the [Theotokos] according to his manhood. This one and the same Jesus Christ, the only- begotten Son [of God] must be confessed to be in two natures, unconfusedly, immutably, indivisibly, inseparably [united], and that without the distinction of natures being taken away by such union, but rather the peculiar property of each nature being preserved and being united in one Person and subsistence, not separated or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son and only- begotten, God the Word, our Lord Jesus Christ, as the Prophets of old time have spoken concerning him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ hath taught us, and as the Creed of the Fathers hath delivered to us.

Saint Photios the Great commented on this Council in his Letter to Boris-Michael, the ruler of Bulgaria:

“Christ is one, His hypostasis is one, but his natures are two, divine and human. –unconfusedly and indivisibly conceived. Such was the clear declaration of the most holy prelates, who issued their decision unhesitatingly for proclamation to the ends of the earth. It was clear that when the crippled had their legs straightened, when the blind had their eyes cured, when the dead were snatched from the gates of hades and were restored to life, and other miracles, which it would not be easy to recount, were performed and made known, the majesty of His Divine nature was being revealed. But when he endured blows and pains, hunger and thirst, and other similar experiences, the character of His human nature was clarified. Some of His actions befitted God and some befitted man, but Christ Himself, our true God performed and completed them; in so doing He clearly and irrefutably disclosed that His hypostasis is one and simple, but His natures are two and divergent in an unconfused unity.”

There is a beautiful hymn that expresses this same theology in the Plagal of Second Tone Dogmatic Theotokion for “Lord I Have Cried” in the Vespers on Saturday night:

Who would not call thee blest, O all-holy Virgin? Who would not praise thine untravailing giving of birth? For the Only-begotten Son, Who shone forth from the Father timelessly, hath come forth from thee, the pure one, having become ineffably incarnate, being God by nature and becoming man by nature for our sake; not that He was divided into two persons, but that He is known in two unmingled natures. Him do thou beseech, O august and all-blessed one, to have mercy on our souls.

We should all glorify God and praise and reverence the Holy Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council for the miracle of this beautiful confession of faith every time we hear this hymn.

I have mentioned the miracle of the confession of faith, but there was also another miracle that took place to establish this confession of faith at the Fourth Ecumenical Council. Because there were many representatives from both the Orthodox and the Monophysite parties, the meetings were very contentious and no common agreement could be reached. It was at that time the holy Patriarch Anatolios suggested that both the Orthodox and the Monophysite parties write out their tomes and submit their confession of faith to the Holy Spirit by the hand of the Holy Martyr Eupheima, whose relics were close by. The tomes were written and placed upon the bosom of Saint Euphemia and the Emperor Marcian placed his seal upon closed tomb. After three days of fasting and prayer the tomb was opened and Saint Euphemia held the tome of the Orthodox in her right hand and the tome of the heretics was found beneath her feet. In some accounts it is written that, when the Patriarch drew near, Saint Euphemia, as though alive, handed the scroll to him.

Thus many of those who were unsure were strengthened and the heresy was decisively condemned at the council and Orthodoxy triumphed. It must be remembered that, at that time, the Orthodox who rejected Monophysitism were falsely accused of being of like mind with the heretic Nestorius, creating confusion in the minds of some.

One might ask, what does the confession of faith at the 4th Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon have to do with your day-to-day life? –The answer is that an intelligent acceptance of this doctrine should change all things! Our God put on our human nature and became the New Adam, recreating our nature. What He assumed, He saved. Our Lord calls all men to participate in this salvation through being born again in Holy Baptism and communing His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist. For those who respond to this call, our temporary life here on earth should become Divine-Human. Our life within the Church, the Body of Christ, should be elevated to a Divine-Human existence. Family life in this context is a life of remembrance of God and an awareness of our ultimate purpose in eternity. Our life should be a life of self-examination and repentance, that is, a return to God. We are saved by God’s grace, but it takes an effort of our will to strive to commune with Him.

All men die, but Christians who commune with Christ, in their thoughts and in their actions and by their participation in the Eucharist, do not die like other men. If we wish to participate in the victory over death and resurrection of Christ, we cannot live like other men.

The Apostle James taught us that “friendship with the world is enmity with God.” (James 4:4) In the context of that Epistle, “friendship with the world” is a life of the passions and lusts. In contemporary society there is a whole world of ideas and behaviors that separate a man from God. We Christians are in the world, but not of the world. We are of Christ, the God-Man. You have heard these things before, but I say them again and again so that you will repeat them to your children again and again so that they will not be mesmerized by the lies of popular culture and that instead they are trained and encouraged to participate in the life of the God-Man.

May you and your families participate in mystery of the Divine-Human life in this age and in the age to come, by the grace and love for man of our Lord and God and Savior, Jesus Christ, to Whom is all glory, honor and worship, with His Unoriginate Father and His All Holy and Life Creating Spirit. Amen.

Courtesy of Father Panagiotes Carras

Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me a sinner.

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