Library › Synod of Jerusalem › Confession of Dositheus and the Acts of the Synod (1672)

Confession of Dositheus and the Acts of the Synod (1672)

Synod of Jerusalem, tr. Robertson, 1899

A Shield of Orthodoxy

A Shield of Orthodoxy, or an Apology and Refutation addressed to those who calumniatingly aver that the Eastern Church thinketh heretically concerning God and Divine things, as they themselves, the Calvinists to wit, do wrongly think; composed by the Local Synod holden in Jerusalem, under Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem.

To all Orthodox Bishops everywhere, whether on land or on sea, our brethren and fellow-ministers in the Holy Spirit; and in fine to all pious and Orthodox Christians, our beloved children, health in the Lord.

That there is a time to speak, and a time to keep silence,¹ the wise Ecclesiastic admonisheth us, whereby he sheweth that there is a time for everything; as if he had said: ‘When there is no necessity [to speak], keep silence; but when the time requireth, speak.’ For there is no necessity for one to speak who is not interrogated; but to be interrogated about some useful and necessary matter, and although able [to do so], to refrain from answering, would be the height of wickedness. But if the question be about God or divine things, how would he not incur guilt, who, though he knew [how to reply], chose to keep silence? And we, therefore, as far as in us lieth, have learned how to make use of both these, to wit, keeping silence, and speaking, in accordance with what is said: ‘He shall order² his words with judgment,’³ and especially to keep silence, as God commandeth, ‘For, be silent,’ saith He, ‘and hear, O Israel,’⁴ for we are commanded not only to speak, but also to listen to those that say what is profitable; and again, to speak, as He commandeth, and openeth our mouth, and giveth us utterance. For we learn how it is said in many places unto Ezekiel: ‘Son of man, speak unto the house of Israel.’⁵ And in another place again it is said unto him: ‘In that day thy mouth shall be opened, and thou shalt speak, and shalt be dumb no longer.’⁶ And unto Moses, who, when sent unto Pharoah, would have shrank away, on account of the impediment in his speech, and his want of eloquence, ‘Go,’ said He, ‘and I will open thy mouth, and make thee to understand what thou must speak.’⁷ We also, piously following these and such like examples of Scripture, know the time to be silent, when no one disturbeth us, and urgeth us to speak; but on the other hand, when interrogated, or the time requireth, we are bound to lift up our voice. For when we are asked for a reason for faith,⁸ or certain things to be believed, we consider it terrible to shrink [from replying]. But if we are charged with impiety,⁹ or some other heresy, by heterodox men, who have no other object in view than supporting their own opinion by calumniating others; then assuming the more fervent zeal of Elias,¹⁰ we are roused to reply; and suffering what Jeremias did, we give utterance to the same [thoughts] as he: ‘I am pained in my belly, and the organs of my heart; my soul is in great commotion, my heart is torn; I will not keep silence, for my soul hath heard the sound of the trumpet, and the cry of the war.’¹¹ For more sounding than the terrible trumpet, and louder than the cruel war, there are now reaching us from France (how we would we had not heard them!) rumblings. For the Calvinists that are there found, gratuitously indulging in wickedness, say that our Apostolic and Holy Church, the Eastern to wit, thinketh concerning God and divine things as they themselves do wrongly think. And not only by their words, but also by their writings, do these heretics, as appeareth from a certain Claud, a minister¹² of the Calvinists at Charenton, endeavour to malign us; and this it is that chiefly prompteth us to enter upon the present undertaking, they neither knowing what they say, nor whereof they confidently affirm;¹³ nor do they even respect men, before whom they dare thus to lie.

These things being so, since we are come together by the grace of Christ on the occasion of the dedication of the most divine temple of the Nativity in Bethlehem, according to the flesh, of Christ our Saviour and God; which the Lord hath been pleased should be rebuilt in these most terrible times of persecution, and should be elegantly adorned by the genuine children of the Catholic Church from all parts of the earth; there being found with us pilgrim-worshippers even from the ends of the earth, Priests, Clerics, and other Christians, we have thought it right to state briefly what the doctrine of our nursing-mother¹⁴ the Apostolic Church is as to those matters wherein she is maligned; so that through us our faith that was delivered by the Lord, and preached by the Apostles, and preserved by the holy Fathers, may be manifest in all the world;¹⁵ and the lie of our adversaries being detected—although it hath already been detected as being obviously a mere bugbear, even by many that have been before us—the truth, as it were, shining more brightly than the sun, may be known. And if we seem to use tautology, and to be many times treating of the same matter, this is only done to help the reader of the present treatise to a more perfect understanding of what is said.

It is to be noted, therefore, that the leaders of these heretics, well knowing the doctrine of the Eastern Church, declare that she maintaineth¹⁶ the same as they themselves do in what concerneth God and divine things; but of set purpose do they malign us, chiefly to deceive the more simple. For being severed, or rather rent away from the Westerns, and consequently being absolutely rejected by the whole Catholic Church, and convicted, they are manifestly heretics, and the chiefest¹⁷ of heretics. For not only have they become, from motives of self-love, propounders of new and silly dogmas (if it is allowable to call what are really only fables dogmas); but are entirely external to the Church, as having no kind of communion whatever with the Catholic Church, as hath been said. And as fearing lest those who have unhappily listened to them might perhaps be converted, they have thought how they might give utterance to this most transparent lie, that what they hold concerning the faith that the Eastern Church holdeth— God in His marvellous providence permitting this, and shewing that he who is not adorned with the Church’s name, cannot even be called a Christian, much less be a Christian; and teaching them that they should, therefore, join the Catholic Church, though they have not understood this. And this [they do], not as maintaining that our [teaching] is altogether true. For if that were so, they would not in other matters have maligned us, but would have agreed [with us] in all things; nor would they have desired to have become our teachers, who but yesterday and the day before, raging, meditated vain things;¹⁸ but would have been willing to learn of us, and to obey us, who hold what the Apostles preached, and what the Catholic Church hath held, and doth hold, and will in fact ever hold, until, that is, our Lord come, with God Himself our Saviour for her guide. But because we are at a distance from them, and in a way unable to acquaint all the Calvinists with the trick their leaders play upon them, it hath served their purpose, which was merely to deceive the more simple, to boast that whatever they, the Calvinists, have chosen to innovate, that the Eastern Church holdeth, and conversely. But, as it is impossible in this matter for light and darkness, or Christ and Beliar, to be together,¹⁹ so it is impossible for our adversaries, so long as they follow Calvin the heresiarch, as a leader, to be at one with the Eastern Church in what concerneth faith.

And that these fine gentlemen know the Orthodox doctrine of the Eastern Church (though they pretend not to know), is evident. Firstly, from the Holy Scriptures themselves (a knowledge of which they make a special boast), and from the holy theologians of the Catholic Church. For they know very well—these maligners not only of men but of God Himself know,—that if indeed God be just, and if indeed the father of us all, as He Himself hath told us in many places; and that His commandments were given to men as something necessary unto salvation; and that the choice of what is good and the refusal of what is evil is taught by the Scriptures; and that to every one will be given according as he hath wrought;²⁰ and that God is not the author of evils, nor a respecter of persons, so as to love one, and hate another without cause; but desireth and willeth the salvation of all,—that the thesis of free-will is certain, and to be held of necessity, according as the Catholic Church maintaineth; and absolutely to be banished from the sacred precincts of the faith is the nonsense about destiny derived from Greek²¹ myth; which, as a pernicious outrage, the wickedness of Calvin hath imposed upon mankind, opposing every virtue of a life that is according to Christ (for which Christ became man), and introducing depravity and lawlessness, and that most superstitious and false notion, that faith forsooth simply and alone saveth man, and that works are of no avail whatever, which the Scriptures most plainly admonish him to do who would be saved, since faith without works is dead.²²

And [they know] whether it behoveth to be persuaded by Paul, and to obey the Œcumenical Synods, and to hear how the historians, each for his own time, tell what hath happened in the Church from the beginning; and not to oppose those teachers who lived nearest to the Apostles, and were men full of the Spirit, and who wrote after them, though concisely indeed; but all these things are shewn by those divine Fathers, and, in fine, most plainly by divine Scripture in many places (from all which is gathered the mystery of piety); and that it behoveth to believe that the Mysteries [Sacraments] of the Catholic Church are seven, through which we are sanctified and united to Christ, and receive the perfect earnest²³ of the life to come, being diligent in good works for which we were created,²⁴ by adoring²⁵ the holy Eikons, by using the Saints as mediators,²⁶ and by honouring them as friends²⁷ of God; and, in fine, by keeping in all respects unshaken the traditions which the Catholic Church holdeth from the very time of the Apostles, whether by word [of mouth], or by Scripture,²⁸ which it is absolutely impossible can be deceived, as being endowed with the Holy Spirit for her teacher. These maligners, we say plainly, know well the Scriptures, and the Fathers, and those that followed them, and our Orthodox faith. For what the Eastern Church holdeth is nothing else than the divine word believed aright,²⁹ and explained piously³⁰ by the holy Fathers, and the traditions derived by word [of mouth] from the Apostles, and preserved by the Fathers until our time. But cleaving to that assurance, which is characteristic of heretics, they continue obdurate and will not be corrected. But we, that time may not fail us while quoting Scripture and the old Fathers, will deal with the matter in hand by the light of current events.

For fifty years after the madness of Luther, Martin Crusius of Tübingen in Germany, with other sophists, adherents of the novelties of Luther (for the notions of Luther and of Calvin are really very much alike, though they seem to differ in some particulars), sent the leading features³¹ of their heresy to him that was then at the helm of the ship of the Apostolic Church at Constantinople, that they might know, as they said, whether they agreed with the doctrine of the Eastern Church. And that venerable man wrote unto them and against them three treatises or pragmatic answers, theologically and Orthodoxly rebuking all their heresy, and teaching them all the Orthodox mind which the Eastern Church hath held from the beginning; but none gave heed, bidding adieu to Orthodoxy.³² And the book was published in Greek and Latin at Wirtemberg³³ in Germany, in the year of our salvation 1584.

And before this the Lord Jeremias, John the Priest, surnamed Nathaniel, Œconomus of Constantinople, in a treatise which he published concerning the explanation of the Liturgy, and after this the Lord Jeremias, Gabriel Serverius, of Peloponnesus, Metropolitan of the brethren at Venice, in the book which he composed concerning the seven sacred Mysteries of the Catholic Church, have lucidly set forth the doctrine of the Eastern Church.

And not only these, but many others also have quite recently written concerning these questions, whom we shall enumerate at the proper time. And only some six or seven years ago at the most there was published a book intituled The Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church, which the Most Holy Metropolitan, Peter of Kieff, compiled; and which was revised³⁴ and corrected, where revision and correction were needed, at the instance of the Synod of Jassy, by the Protosyncellus and Preacher of the Great Church at Constantinople, Meletius Syrigus, from Crete. And this the Eastern Church hath entirely received, and doth receive; and the same was published, without omission, or addition, and in entire agreement with the prototype, by the most worthy, most illustrious, and wise prince, the Lord Panagiota, the Great Interpreter of the Eastern and Western Empire,³⁵ and a most zealous adherent of Orthodoxy.³⁶

If, therefore, our adversaries know all these things, and most books are printed amongst them, and, notwithstanding, revile us, it is manifest that they do so not from ignorance of our faith, but from impertinence; and in order to deceive the more simple they endeavour to fasten upon us notions which we do not entertain.

And it is rightly said by certain that truth is simple, and which forsooth is true, but falsehood ever-shifting.³⁷ Consequently, these fine gentlemen, perceiving that this falsehood of their contriving rested upon no stable foundation, have had recourse to another most pernicious and absolutely untenable argument. For, as a cloak, that they may not be refuted by all Christians whatsoever in Europe, and convicted by those in the East as plainly having recourse to lies, they bring forward Cyril Lucar of Crete, who was Patriarch of Constantinople forty years ago, as possibly having published a Confession in eighteen chapters and four questions, as if forsooth on behalf of the Eastern Church, which sheweth that the Eastern Church holdeth similar notions to what they hold; but this utterly vain reasoning of theirs is also easily disposed of, and altogether untenable, for it will be shewn with God’s guidance:—

Firstly. That the Eastern Church never regarded Cyril as being such an one as our adversaries allege, or ever admitted the chapters to be his composition.

Secondly. That though we were to suppose the work to have been his, yet he would have published it altogether covertly, and without the cognisance of any of the Easterns, much less of the Catholic Church.

Thirdly. That the Confession of Cyril is not the Confession of the Eastern Church.

Fourthly. That one of two things must be: either it would have been impossible for the Easterns to have been cognisant of this Confession, or if cognisant, to have been Christians.

Fifthly. That the Easterns so abhor these chapters, that though Cyril had repudiated them many times with an oath, and had taught in the Church the contraries to the chapters, yet only because he had not written against them, they in two full Synods subjected him to anathema and excommunication.

And sixthly. There shall be a brief thesis as to how the Eastern Church holdeth concerning what is set forth in the chapters.

Previous · Contents · Next