Hieromonk Enoch wrote:Philaret,
You said:
" but a false teaching that REFUSES to be corrected. In other words, there are no accidental heretics."But is this always the case? For example, as far as I understand, Theodore of Mopsuestia died in the 'peace of the Church'; but, his heretical writings and person were condemned by the 5th Ecumenical Council? And that was over an hundred years after his death.
In Christ,
Fr. Enoch
That is actually the point, that unless a heresy has been SYNODICALLY condemned as such, we don't leave hierarchs. Remember the wording of the 15th canon of the first-second council, it say if a bishop is preaching an ALREADY condemned heresy we are justified to leave his communion. Nobody condemned Theodores teaching at the time when he taught it, and many made excuses for him and he was friends with many saints. Now if the Church LATER wants to synodically review a teaching, it can do that, and if it chooses to anathematize a person after their death, It can do that too, but such post mitten Anathematization is symbolic and not actual. If Theodore died in peace and repentance having received the mysteries, then he is in paradise. His anathematization would merely be a way to demonstrate that people who think like him are to be excluded from the midst of the church.