by Metropolitan Sergii (Stragorodsky)
Part Two of Four.
If the Orthodox Church receives heterodox clerics in their order because it recognizes their priesthood, how can we reconcile the accepted historical fact of changes in treating these groups by the Church, for example Roman Catholics?
It should not be overlooked that the Church does not treat uncritically ordinations performed within its bosom. There are any number of Orthodox ordinations which are declared to be invalid.
“Concerning Maximus the Cynic . . it is decreed that Maximus never was and is not now a Bishop . . since all which has been done concerning him or by him is declared to be invalid” [E.C. II:4],
even though he was an outstanding Orthodox and received his ordination from proper Orthodox bishops. This includes all those canons which proclaim invalid those Orthodox ordinations performed with substantial deviations from the canons such as without the approval of the Metropolitan [EC I:6], by a bishop from another diocese [AC 14:, 35] and on a strange cleric [E.C.I:16; Sard. 15, Carth. 91, and others].
At the same time the practice established by these canons is found not to be immutable. History regularly shows examples of exceptions from the canons. This because the Church’s canons are not dogmatic definitions in matters of faith, deciding the question once and for all, and they do not act automatically. They are first of all given as a guide for Church courts and consequently, every departure from them assumes a special decision by the court. Specifically when speaking about the invalidity of orders under certain conditions, the canons speak only about the power of the Church court to find these ordinations invalid. This means that in case of need and considering the circumstances of the matter at hand or simply in applying Church economy the court can withhold its chastising sword and leave the ordination in question as valid. Church history knows of events when Orthodox bishops forced by extraordinary conditions or extraordinary malfeasance, held court and passed judgement beyond the boundaries of their territories, deposed bishops and clerics, replacing them with others. These acts were justified in the Church’s consciousness and remained in force (e.g. acts of St. John Chrysostom, and others).
In making similar exceptions to the canons the Church never established precedents by this for the future and does not give anyone the right to justify their violation of the canons based on such precedents. Church economy does not repeal nor even dilute the force of the canon. It has in mind the specific situation and its unique nature and in this way restricts its action. The canon remains in force for all and the Church court can pass judgement on the guilty, unless it finds a need to apply the principle of economy.
This more or less is the basis for relations between the Church and heterodox organizations. The substantial difference is only in that in the sphere of the Church court the dealings are with individual transgressors of Church canons whereas in the other instance the relations are with whole groups of transgressors, more or less organized and united in each case with some kind of a particular deviation. The judgement of one individual representing the group inevitably is based on the judgement of the whole group.
As the sole earthly possessor of the power to bind and loose and the sole treasury of saving grace, Christ’s Church has the opportunity and the right to declare all ordinations outside the Church to be invalid. However, guided by the argument of Church economy, the desire to bring about the salvation of a greater number of people, the Church does not implement its power in all places and at all times. The ordinations in heterodox organizations which retained both the Apostolic teaching and the form of ordination, the Church retains this in force, it in some way recognizes these as valid, because from this it makes proper conclusions: for example it does not repeat baptism or chrismation performed by those clerics. In all this the non-implementation by the Church of its basic right with respect to a particular group of heterodox organizations by no means indicates a refusal of the Church to do so forever. When conditions of Church life change and the leniency towards a given heterodox group no longer provides for the salvation of a greater number of people and even more so results in a direct hinderance to this, the Church returns to its basic right and rescinds the dispensation and again binds what was loosened. This explains the apparent non-systematic and changing relations of the Church towards heterodox organizations.
For example the Old Catholic and the Belakrinitza hierarchies both base their origin on individual ordinations. The Orthodox Church unconditionally rejects the latter hierarchy and declares all of its acts as invalid, and those who enter the Church are received through chrismation. Our Church likewise does not recognize Old Catholic hierarchy. At this time no one knows how they are treated in the Greek East. However the relations of ruling Church circles towards the Old Catholics (at least in the past) has been most sympathetic both from our part and in the East. Particularly, individual consecration was not an unconditional impediment for the recognition of the Old Catholic hierarchy. In justification, reference was made to the acceptance by Western practice of individual consecration (one bishop and two specially empowered abbots).
Perhaps this departure became established because the bishop’s office, in view of the development of Papal authority, does not differ much from that of the presbyter. Be that as it may, but if the Old Catholics truly adopted for themselves the teaching of the ancient undivided Church, and would not resort to dogmatism, analysis and arguments about details of teaching and ritual, and if the leaders would be less imitative of Protestants, it is very possible that Old Catholics would have by now received in communion with the recognition of their hierarchy.
There is a lot in common with the beginnings of Anglicanism and our Renovationists. Here as there the beginning was a rupture from their Patriarch and the legitimate hierarchy united under him (as much as this can be said about Catholic hierarchy). There as here the legitimate diocesan hierarchs declined to participate in the first episcopal consecration. Here as there the first consecration was performed by some kind of incidental bishops, in part vicars, and in part completely retired, their authority being defined it appears, by the fact that the legitimate Church had not in a timely manner placed them under a ban.
The Anglican hierarchy did not receive universal recognition from the Orthodox Church. However if the notorious “rapprochement of the Anglican Church with the Orthodox” would move along a normal ecclesiastical way, if the Anglicans as an organization truly struggled to look for the true Church and valid priesthood, if their quest would not at times be obscured with the thought of first attaining the recognition of their hierarchy (which in its time was so rudely rejected by the Roman pope) and in the event of that to remain with all that which is theirs, then the reunion of the Anglicans with the Orthodox Church could very well have taken place and the question of the hierarchy, most likely, would have been resolved in the positive sense.
On the other hand the Renovationists have been judged by our Church in the full strictness of the canons, although gradually. Declaring that Revisionism is a schism the Holy Patriarch with the bishops gathered in council, could have immediately deposed or at most suspended all disobedient bishops and clerics which would have required that the return of the Revisionists to the Church be by the second rite (through chrismation). But the Patriarch in 1923 exercised his authority only partially with respect to ordinations which in addition to being unauthorized, had other canonical defects.
The Patriarch proclaimed as invalid the episcopal status of married bishops and ordinations performed by them, as well as the ordination to clerical status of digamists or those married to widows, etc. Only in April 2, 1924 was a prohibition placed upon the Renovationist leaders (thus extending to all in communion with them). From that date we do not recognize Revisionist ordinations as valid as well as other sacraments including chrismation even though the old Myro, appropriated from the Church, may have been used. This is because the Holy Myro is not some kind of a self-acting matter which can be applied by anyone and would result in a “sacrament.”
The Church teaches that the sacrament of chrismation is performed by a bishop and is only delegated to the presbyter (meaning one who is not suspended). Chrismation, performed by a deacon or a layman, would not be a sacrament.
Such an inconsistent approach to circumstances seemingly of equal standing can be explained precisely by the consciousness of the Church’s benefit from a practical pastoral point of view. Old Catholics and Anglicans fell away from Rome at the time the latter was in schism. Their departure was substantially out of the schism, although to this time they have not been united with the Church. They should not be criticized for their separation but for taking so long to bring it about. Their separation certainly weakened the Roman schism and in this way partially strengthened the position of the Orthodox Church. It is natural for them to look upon our Church as an ally and to look to it with interest and sympathy, and for our Church to engender the hope that concessions toward them would serve for the salvation of the greater number of people.
On the other hand the Belokrinitza and the Renovationist hierarchy are aiming to strengthen the schism by their antipathy to the Church and to stifle the desire of the faithful to unite with valid priesthood by false imitations of it and in this way to push aside Orthodox hierarchs and to step in their place. The aim of such organizations [bodies] is not to strengthen but to weaken the Body of the Church. This is why the approach to the first two bodies is by way of Church economy whereas in relations with the latter the Church sees no basis for departure from the strictness of the canons, in any case until such time as the position of these two, and others like them, does not change for the better.
Incidentally, do we not violate Apostolic Canon 68 by re-ordaining clerics returning from certain schismatic groups? It is pointed out that the canon prescribes reordination only if the ordination was performed by heretics but in this case we are not dealing with heretics but with schismatics.
However, in the first place the word “heretic” in canonical language has two meanings: the broad (a literal meaning of the word heretic), which defines anyone who is separated from the Church, and the specific, which defines anyone separated from the Church on the basis of belief. In the second place, heretical ordinations are repeated precisely because they are ineffective (“for those who have been . . . ordained by such persons cannot be either of the faithful, or of the clergy”) that is, they give nothing. However any improper ordination can be declared invalid as seen from the above-cited Church rules, including that of the schismatics.
The difference in the process of annulling a valid or an invalid ordination is very much a significant matter. Someone receiving a valid ordination can only be “deposed from office,” that is, he is deprived of what was valid. He not only is deprived of the order which he attained but of the whole clerical status. Thus a bishop deprived of his office cannot remain a presbyter (E.C. IV:29).
A deposed individual cannot be ordained anew. On the other hand an improper ordination is looked upon as ineffective, as if it never took place and he who received it, can remain in his former office which he had at the time of the invalid ordination, provided that as a result of obtaining an irregular ordination he is not subject to deposition from his previous office, according to Apostolic Canon 35. For example, according to researches by Bishop Li’l of Arrive (see c. VII, Alexandria and Egypt; ’17 Cellophane Movement), the Alexandrian presbyter Calif, among others, received an invalid episcopal consecration from Meletuis (Meletian schism during the time of Bishop Alexander, predecessor of St. Athanasius of Alexandria). After the Meletian ordinations were declared invalid,
“Kalif died a presbyter” (according to St. Athanasius)
which would not have been the case if he (Kalif) had been “deposed” from his episcopal office. Having remained a presbyter he undoubtedly preserved, if not the moral, but the formal eligibility to be a candidate for a bishopric. The possibility of this second (in reality the first) consecration cannot be disputed.
Thus in spite of the obviously negative views of heterodox ordinations described above, it is more correct to think that the Church does not repeat heterodox ordinations (when it finds Apostolic succession maintained by the body in question) not because of the value placed on Apostolic forms but because it considers such ordinations as valid. However this does in no way mean that outside the Church there can be valid (blagodatnyie) sacraments: the Church recognizes grace among heterodox only because it finds it “not alien” to the Church
“ek tis ekklesias” (Basil Canon I {see text in Milash II, p.367}),
and only as long they remain as such. Preserving a “certain degree of relations” with them (even though officially eucharistic and prayerful relations have been broken) the Church somehow gives them the opportunity to partake of the crumbs of grace from the plentiful table from which it nourishes its faithful children. Grace outside the Church does not exist and the Church, having the power to “bind and loose” can continue to preserve this “certain degree of relations” with heterodox when it coincides with its own mission (the salvation of people), as well as to discontinue this relationship, that is to break the flow of grace and to turn that organization into a condition without grace, which in effect should be the case with all those outside the Church. On the other hand local Orthodox Churches, separated from each other by distance and acting within its own environment could become estranged from a heterodox organization (e.g. Roman Catholics) on its own, while others remain in its present status. This is the reason for differences in inter-Church practices. But these are temporary occurrences which will last only until there a universal agreement.
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