Celibate Bishops

[GOCPriestMark]

According to Orthodox tradition, there is no force - the husband and wife choose to live separate (that is not divorce) in order to fully serve God, as did the husband and wife at the marriage at Canaan.

Please forgive my coming in here, but this portion intrigued me. Are you referring to the couple who were married at Cana where Our Lord performed his first miracle of changing water into wine? If so, you say that there is a tradition that the couple did not live together as husband and wife?
Could you please give a source for that? Thank you.

The groom at this wedding was none other than the Holy Apostle Simon, hence he is known to us as the Zealot. It was for this zeal that he was numbered amongst the Twelve. See the Greek Great Synaxarion and the Prologue from Ochrid for confirmation.

[Myrrh]

According to Orthodox tradition, there is no force - the husband and wife choose to live separate (that is not divorce) in order to fully serve God, as did the husband and wife at the marriage at Canaan.

Please forgive my coming in here, but this portion intrigued me. Are you referring to the couple who were married at Cana where Our Lord performed his first miracle of changing water into wine? If so, you say that there is a tradition that the couple did not live together as husband and wife?
Could you please give a source for that? Thank you.

The groom at this wedding was none other than the Holy Apostle Simon, hence he is known to us as the Zealot. It was for this zeal that he was numbered amongst the Twelve. See the Greek Great Synaxarion and the Prologue from Ochrid for confirmation.

For the Jews marriage was to have children and perpetuate the people of God. Those who did not/could not have children were often thought to have offended God in some way, this was the accusation directed at our Lord's grandfather. Priests were, as they continue to be, part of the community and naturally were married as the line of the priesthood was continued, passed down, through the generations. The Mother of God was of the tribe of Levi through her mother's side, Her father the priest Nathan.

To suggest that the marriage of Canaan wasn't consummated as a normal marriage is an insult to their memory and to the history of the Church and to Christ who blessed the marriage by His presence. If they had wished to devote their lives as celibates to God they would not have married.

This perverse explanation, that they married for no reason except to remain celibate, comes from the perverse idea that the celibate were more spiritual than those who married and had children and comes from a combination of ideas around at the time, but especially the emphasis of the Gnostics who thought that matter, the physical world, was created by an evil God and the spiritually elect were those who could successfully free themselves from this world. This was a huge heresy attacking the early Church, St Irenaeos says somewhere in his writings that the Church's Tradition is that God is good and he learned this from Polycarp who was brought up in the community of St John who taught it.

Orthodox Christianity is orthodox because we understand creation from Genesis I where we are created God's in image and likeness, will free will and male and female and procreation, the sexual act, is seen as good.

There is still no idea among the Jews that procreation is spiritually inferior - this is a denial of God's view and cannot be held by Orthodox Christians.

The canons I posted were written to counteract this attack on the dignity of creation, they call such thinking blasphemous and those persisting in it excommunicated. What is worse, and also dealt with by the canon forbidding it, is to enforce such a view on others which has been done by those who say bishops should be celibates and this is what the canon is doing which demands that bishops leave their wives. The scandal here is not that the bishops were married, but that these people succeeded in enforcing a blasphemous view onto the Church by demanding they leave their wives. And imposing the blasphemous view that we can demand such action by imposing our will on others; we are created with free will in the image and likeness of God, we do not have the right to impose our will on others.

This canon is not Orthodox. Nor any that are based on this heresy.

My favourite argument which I've found again is from St Clement, from a longer article:

Though Jesus treated women as the equals of men, the thrust of his criticism of the Sadducees' position lies elsewhere. The case they presented involves the levirate custom, a means for elevating a widow's low status. To relieve social shame and economic deprivation, a brother was obliged to provide offspring for a
childless, widowed sister-in-law. This surrogate-father system strengthened the possibility of family continuity. The Book of Ruth demonstrates that a woman's dignity in ancient Israel was enhanced by the levirate custom.

In the course of church history, Jesus response to the Sadducees has most often been interpreted as favoring celibacy. From the third-
century church father Cyprian, through Vatican II, the prevailing Roman Catholic interpretation has been that those who preserve their virginal chastity are vanguards of a realm where people will be like sexless, pure angels. Max Thurian, a Protestant monk, has stated: "Celibacy is related to the resurrection of the dead: it is
a sign of eternity, of incorruptibility and of life" Marriage and Celibacy [Allenson, 1959]. p.115).

In one of the earliest comments on Mark 12:25, Clement of Alexandria rejected this interpretation. He recognized that, since the marital state had been blessed by Jesus, his words here should not be read as a denigration of marriage. Clement discerned that Jesus'
criticism was directed not against marriage but against a carnal interpretation of the resurrection. By a reductio ad absurdum,
Clement reasoned that monks who reject marriage because it involves physical intercourse, which is not a part of the everlasting life,
should also abstain from eating or drinking."

http://www.religion-online.org/showarti ... title=1925

..let the bishops who continue to insist that the canon imposing celibacy is Orthodox also cease eating and drinking...

St Mary of Egypt pray for us!

Myrrh

[Myrrh]

No there are 7 ecumenical councils acknowledged by ALL. The other two coucils were synods of Bishops and were not universal because the Church was/is split.

Not so. There's no doubt about it, there were nine Ecumenical Councils. I've just been discussing this so have been immersed in the argument.

The Church has stated that the council of 879 is the 8th Ecumenical Council.

Certainly up until 1848, when the patriarchates who took part in the original 8th mention it as the 8th in their Encyclical in response to Rome's claims. In 1848 there was no dispute about this from the Orthodox Patriarchates which were there at the time, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem mention it casually as a well known fact. It was official in 879 and it continues to be officially the Orthodox 8th Ecumenical Council.

Up until 100 years or so ago EVERYONE knew that this is where the RCC and the Orthodox parted company, the argument at the Schism was about WHICH 8th was Ecumenical, not "was there an 8th?". The Eighth council didn't happen after the split, but before.

Ecumenical Councils are by definition Imperial, of the ecumene of the Roman Empire. They were all called officially by an Emperor/Empress beginning with Constantine who wanted a unified theory of Christianity for his Empire. There can be no more "Ecumenical Councils", there can be Councils which are ecumenical.

"...Nine Roman Ecumenical Councils. These Councils were convened by the Roman Emperor, beginning with Constantine the Great, in coordination with the Roman Patriarchates of Elder Rome, New Rome, Alexandria, Antioch and finally Jerusalem by 451. These Councils are (1) Nicea 325, (2) Constantinople 381, (3) Ephesus 431, (4) Chalcedon 451, (5) Constantinople 553, (6) Constantinople 680, (7) Nicea 786/7, ( Constantinople 879 and (9) Constantinople 1341. We have here Eight Ecumenical Councils which were promulgated as Roman Law by the signature of the Emperor after their minutes had been signed by the Five Roman Patriarchates and their Metropolitans. and bishops. Then we have the Ninth Ecumenical Council of 1341, whose minutes were signed by only Four Roman Patriarchates and countersigned by the Roman Emperor." Romanides

P.S. I've been thinking some more about this:

I think this emphasis on the 7 Councils is also to do with the fact that the iconoclast arguments were still around, and for a few centuries more very strong.

Photios insisted, at the 8th Ecumenical, that the 7th be confirmed as Orthodox, these arguments defending Orthodoxy (including Rome) began to be under this banner - we are the Church of the 7 councils not the 6 - hence the Triumph of Orthodoxy. So "the 7 councils" has nothing to do with being a proof that the 8th didn't happen, it's a different argument.

Myrrh

[spiridon]

St.Spyridon Bishop of Tremitha pray to God for us...

[尼古拉前执事]

Photios insisted, at the 8th Ecumenical, that the 7th be confirmed as Orthodox, these arguments defending Orthodoxy (including Rome) began to be under this banner - we are the Church of the 7 councils not the 6 - hence the Triumph of Orthodoxy. So "the 7 councils" has nothing to do with being a proof that the 8th didn't happen, it's a different argument.

In the Calendar we celebrate Feast Days for each of the 7 Ecumenical Councils, but there is no date for a 8th or 9th Ecumenical Council. Also in the Rudder we have no canons labelled as from the 8th and/or 9th Ecumenical Councils.

[尼古拉前执事]

Myrhh, since you have set yourself up as judge of which Orthodox Canons of the Ecumenical Councils are Orthodox and which are not, let me ask which synod and bishop you are affiliated with.

[Myrrh]

Photios insisted, at the 8th Ecumenical, that the 7th be confirmed as Orthodox, these arguments defending Orthodoxy (including Rome) began to be under this banner - we are the Church of the 7 councils not the 6 - hence the Triumph of Orthodoxy. So "the 7 councils" has nothing to do with being a proof that the 8th didn't happen, it's a different argument.

In the Calendar we celebrate Feast Days for each of the 7 Ecumenical Councils, but there is no date for a 8th or 9th Ecumenical Council. Also in the Rudder we have no canons labelled as from the 8th and/or 9th Ecumenical Councils.

<shrug> what can I say, more fool us perhaps.

St Photios is one of the Three Pillars of Orthodoxy, what for?

Myrrh