Anglican and Orthodox discuss Nicaea 2: Was the Seventh Ecumenical Council right?
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- Опубликовано: 24 ноя 2022
- Fr. Patrick Ramsey discusses with Andrew about the veneration of icons. Andrew (Anglican) has written an online article on the subject based on Fr. Richard Price's (Roman Catholic) translation and commentary of the Second Council of Nicaea (787) and wanted to go through the article with Fr. Patrick (Orthodox). The discussion circulated around the historical practice of venerating icons and its legitimacy.
It is not always easy to understand a tradition just by reading its texts, often we need to meet and discuss so that potential misunderstandings and even caricatures can be resolved. Due to the many thoughtful questions that Andrew brought to the table, and responses by Fr. Patrick, this discussion will be helpful, I hope, for everyone interested in this subject, no matter what the reason for this interest may be.
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Father Patrick Ramsey has degrees both in science and theology. He is a distance Tutor for the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies, in Cambridge, UK, and has a Ph.D. in Orthodox Christian Ecclesiology.
Former Anglican from England
I found my mid Anglican upbringing made the move to the church easier as some of the old memory’s and structure remember though the knowledge and practice had gone
As an orthodox I know that we see burning of insence as a type of sacrifice. We even say this about prayer. But when the discussion comes to prayer to saints or icons, we forget we ever said that or a sacrifice to an icon or a Saint is all of a sudden not idolatry. There are many ancient practices that we keep as orthodox that we have butchered. Like priesthood. The apostles talk about a good godly man whose wife is also godly. But for centuries people make their sons become priests because its a rich profession. So what are doing nowadays or what was done through the ages is no indication of what is correct. Remember how during the lifetime of the apostles, Jesus Christ gives us 7 letters to the 7 churches at the time? And only 1 of the 7 is actually doing things 100% right?
The heart of the issue here is that iconology and the iconographic veneration defined at the Council of Nicaea (787) is at the end of a long process of theological development. The Rev. Dr. Richard Price has said that with regard to the historical absence of icon veneration by the Apostles and early Christians, the iconoclasts were correct. However, they will still theological incorrect. Our Anglican friend here wishes Nicaea 787 to be seen as a development which is not to be universally enforced. The West, I think, has always kept a balance in this regard. We accept the legitimacy of icon veneration, but it being a moral requirement for salvation is denied. I think where contemporary Eastern Orthodox lack precision is in thinking that the apostles and early Christians actually produced icons to venerate. Most of scholarship is unanimous on this - that did not happen. The evidence all suggests quite the opposite. But that doesn't mean it is an illegitimate development.
Contact me if you want to discuss Nicaea II on your RUclips channel. The Protestant case is quite strong, I think.
Is there any orthodox scholar who agrees with Dr Price?
This is a concession to the Protestant position.
If iconography was wrong, the FIRST thing Christ would have done upon Resurrecting would have been to rip up His Shroud.
What??? How is that even the same? How is that even an icon?
They didn't want Moses' body turned into an idol. Jude 1:9
But even Michael, one of the mightiest of the angels, did not dare accuse the devil of blasphemy, but simply said, “The Lord rebuke you!” (This took place when Michael was arguing with the devil about Moses’ body.)
And the pole that the bronze serpent was on, the people turned it into an idol and God was not happy. So it's not God's responsibility to take away every object on earth because man might turn it into an idol. It's our responsibility to not worship idols.
This will be interesting (have not listened yet). I'm most curious as to which stream of Anglicanism the guy represents. The stream I come from has no qualms with iconography.
Low Church Anglicanism.
In Anglican Christianity, low church refers to those who give little emphasis to ritual. The term is most often used in a liturgical sense, denoting a Protestant emphasis, whereas "high church" denotes an emphasis on ritual, often Anglo-Catholic.
Sorry I got it backwards previously.
The Anglican guy raises some very racional points
Not too mention it seems odd to be alright with the veneration of the cross and bible but suddenly have a problem with venerating icons when you think about it
It seems odder to me that the 2nd commandment in the Septuagint says to NOT give proskynesis (ου προσκυνήσεις) to man-made images, but the Orthodox instead say that it is NECESSARY to do so. It also seems odd that the Orthodox say we should burn incense to images, but when the Israelites burnt incense to the bronze snake, which God commanded be made, that was seen as idolatry and the righteous king Hezekiah destroyed it on that account. Lastly, I find it odd that when the New Testament says someone προσκυνεί an angel or apostle, that angel or apostle IMMEDIATELY tells them to get up and that he is a mere servant like him, yet we're supposed to do so for an IMAGE of that person? Odd, odd indeed.
@@Caralaza
The cross is a man made image, do you have a problem with venerating that?
Are you still under the old law BTW? I hope not, I hope you don't feel the need for following the old law.
Also did not Solomon create images in his temple? Since you still want to be under the old law it seems, would you have stoned him if you had lived in his day?
Would you have stoned Christ as being a human depiction of God himself? That was the very reason of the Jews for seeking to do so with Christ.
Ergo weren't under that covenant as it would have implied Christ would need to be stoned to death & the jews actions being right for trying to do so.
@@Caralaza
So Daniel was venerated by Nebuchadnezzar in chapter 2 verse 46 (προσεκύνησεν in LXX)
Do you have a problem with that?
How about the jews prostration before the saints in Rev 3:9?
@@Caralaza
Also are you implying that when we venerate the cross we are worshipping it?
Are you implying when we venerate images we worship them?
@@ThruTheUnknown I don't bow down to a man-made cross if that's what you're asking lol. Nice non-sequitor.
Am I under the old law? Um, no? It is worrysome that you would say that when I mentioned the 2nd commandment! Are you implying that it is okay then to give proskynesis and latria to an idol, since ACCORDING TO YOU that was a part of the old law, which we are not under? It seems you think idolatry is praised by God now for some reason. No, I know the reason, tradition. Nothing more.
I never spoke about the existance of images lol. Non-sequitorrrrrrrs. Orthodox seem to love them. The existance of images were commanded by God, but you know what was SPECIFICALLY prohibited by God? Giving PROSKYNESIS to them! Ου προσκυνήεις αυτούς, do you deny that God commanded that?
Would I have stoned Christ for being a dipiction of God? Um, no. Christ IS God! Do you profess Arianism by claiming Christ was a dipiction (i.e. a product) of the almighty?
So can I give an icon a fist bump or would that be considered sacrilegious? 😂
In the history of the human race there have been three principal falls: that of Adam, that of Judas, and that of the pope.
The principal characteristic of falling into sin is always the same: wanting to be good for one's own sake; wanting to be perfect for one's own sake; wanting to be God for one's own sake. In this manner, however, man unconsciously equates himself to the devil, because the devil also wanted to become God for his own sake, to put himself in the place of God. And in this self-elevation he instantly became devil, completely separated from God, and always in opposition to Him.
Therefore, the essence of sin, of every sin , consists of this arrogant self-aggrandizement. This is the very essence of the devil himself, of Satan. It is nothing other than one's wanting to remain within one's own being, wanting nothing within one's self other than oneself. The entire devil is found here: in the desire to exclude God, in the desire to always be by himself, to always belong only to himself, to be entirely within himself and always for himself, to be forever hermetically sealed in opposition to God and everything that belongs to God.
And what is this? It is egotism and self-love embraced in all eternity, that is to say: it is hell. For that is essentially what the humanist is - entirely within himself, by himself, for himself, always spitefully closed in opposition to God. Here lies every humanism, every hominism. The culmination of such satanically oriented humanism is the desire to become good for the sake of evil, to become God for the sake of the devil. It proceeds from the promise of the devil to our forefathers in Paradise-that with his help, "they would become as gods" (Gen. 3: 5). Man was created with theanthropic potential by God who loves mankind, so that he might voluntarily direct himself, through God, toward becoming God-man, based on the divinity of his nature. Man, however, with his free will sought sinlessness through sin, sought God through the devil. And assuredly, following this road he would have become identical with the devil had not God interceded in His immeasurable love of mankind and in His great mercy.
By becoming man, that is to say God-man, he redirected man toward the God-man. He introduced him to the Church which is his body, to the reward of theosis through the holy mysteries and the blessed virtues. And in this manner he gave man the strength to become "a perfect man, in the measure of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13), to achieve, that is, the Divine destiny, to voluntarily become God-man by grace.
The fall of the pope is a consequence of the desire to substitute man for the God-man...In the kingdom of humanism the place of the God-man had been usurped by the Vicarius Christi, and the God-man has thus been exiled to Heaven. This surely results in a peculiar deincarnation of Christ the God-man, does it not?
Through the dogma of infallibility the pope usurped for himself, that is for man, the entire jurisdiction and all the prerogatives which belong only to the Lord God-man. He effectively proclaimed himself as the Church, the papal church, and he has become in her the be-all and end-all, the self-proclaimed ruler of everything. In this way the dogma of the infallibility of the pope has been elevated to the central dogma of the papacy. And the pope cannot deny this in any way as long as he remains pope of a humanistic papacy.
In Western Europe, Christianity has been gradually metamorphosed, to humanism. Over a long period of time and with perseverance, the Divine-Human [God-man] has steadily been diminishing. He has been changed, He has been narrowed down and finally reduced to a mere man: to the “infallible” man in Rome and the equally "infallible" men in London and Berlin.
This is how Papism came into being, by stripping Christ of everything, just as Protestantism similarly did, by asking little of Christ, and quite often, nothing at all.
Both in Papism and in Protestantism, man has replaced the Divine-Human Christ, both as the highest value and the highest criterion.
Painstaking and deplorable changes to the Divine-Human's work and teachings have been accomplished. Papism has steadily and persistently been striving to substitute the Divine Man with a mortal man, until finally, in its dogma defining the infallibility of (a mere mortal) the pope, the Divine-Human Christ was once and for all substituted by an ephemeral, "infallible" man; because thanks to this dogma, the pope was decisively and clearly pronounced as being something superior - not only to all men, but even to the holy Apostles, the holy Fathers, and the holy Ecumenical Councils. With this kind of deviation from the Divine-Human Christ, from the ecumenical Church which is the Divine-Human’s organism, Papism outdid even Luther, the founder of Protestantism.
Therefore, the first radical protest that was voiced in the name of humanism but against the Divine-Human Christ and his Divine-Human organism-the Church-should be sought in Papism, not in Lutheranism. Papism is in fact the first and the oldest form of Protestantism.
We do the same thing with icons and worship of saints. Send Christ to heaven so we can be here alone with our icons and our "connections" in heaven.
People tend to forget some very important things in these debates. That even if the theology was OK. The councils made the prayer to saints and worship of icons compulsory. Whichever way we go we keep coming back to worshiping the creation instead of the Creator. And now you are told that you aren't saved and you are not part of the church unless you worship saints and icons...
The Apostolicity of the Church
The holy apostles were the first god-men by grace. Like the Apostle Paul each of them, by his integral life, could have said of himself: "I live, yet not I, but Christ live in me" (Gal. 2:20). Each of them is a Christ repeated; or, to be more exact, a continuation of Christ. Everything in them is theanthropic because everything was received from the God-man. Apostolicity is nothing other than the God-manhood of the Lord Christ, freely assimilated through the holy struggles of the holy virtues: faith, love, hope, prayer, fasting, etc. This means that everything that is of man lives in them freely through the God-man, thinks through the God-man, feels through the God-man, acts through the God-man and wills through the God-man. For them, the historical God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ, is the supreme value and the supreme criterion. Everything in them is of the God-man, for the sake of the God-man, and in the God-man. And it is always and everywhere thus. That for them is immortality in the time and space of this world. Thereby are they even on this earth partakers of the theanthropic eternity of Christ.
This theanthropic apostolicity is integrally continued in the earthly successors of the Christ-bearing apostles: in the holy fathers. Among them, in essence, there is no difference: the same God-man Christ lives, acts, enlivens and makes them all eternal in equal measure, He Who is the same yesterday, and today, and forever (Heb. 13:8). Through the holy fathers, the holy apostles live on with all their theanthropic riches, theanthropic worlds, theanthropic holy things, theanthropic mysteries, and theanthropic virtues. The holy fathers in fact are continuously apostolizing, whether as distinct godlike personalities, or as bishops of the local churches, or as members of the holy ecumenical and holy local councils. For all of them there is but one Truth, one Transcendent Truth: the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ. Behold, the holy ecumenical councils, from the first to the last, confess, defend, believe, announce, and vigilantly preserve but a single supreme value: the God-man, the Lord Jesus Christ.
The principal Tradition, the transcendent Tradition, of the Orthodox Church is the living God-man Christ, entire in the theanthropic Body of the Church of which He is the immortal, eternal Head. This is not merely the message, but the transcendent message of the holy apostles and the holy fathers. They know Christ crucified, Christ resurrected, Christ ascended. They all, by their integral lives and teachings, with a single soul and a single voice, confess that Christ the God-man is wholly in His Church, as in His Body. Each of the holy fathers could rightly repeat with St. Maximus the Confessor: "In no wise am I expounding my own opinion, but that which I have been taught by the fathers, without changing aught in their teaching."
And from the immortal proclamation of St. John of Damascus there resounds the universal confession of all the holy fathers who were glorified by God: "Whatever has been transmitted to us through the Law, and the prophets, and the apostles, and the evangelists, we receive and know and esteem highly, and beyond that we ask nothing more… Let us be fully satisfied with it, and rest therein, removing not the ancient landmarks (Prov. 22:28), nor violating the divine Tradition." And then, the touching, fatherly admonition of the holy Damascene, directed to all Orthodox Christians: "Wherefore, brethren, let us plant ourselves upon the rock of faith and the Tradition of the Church, removing not the landmarks set by our holy fathers, nor giving room to those who are anxious to introduce novelties and to undermine the structure of God's holy ecumenical and apostolic Church. For if everyone were allowed a free hand, little by little the entire Body of the Church would be destroyed."
The holy Tradition is wholly of the God-man, wholly of the holy apostles, wholly of the holy fathers, wholly of the Church, in the Church, and by the Church. The holy fathers are nothing other than the "guardians of the apostolic tradition. " All of them, like the holy apostles themselves, are but "witnesses" of a single and unique Truth: the transcendent Truth of Christ, the God-man. They preach and confess it without rest, they, the "golden mouths of the Word." The God-man, the Lord Christ is one, unique, and indivisible. So also is the Church unique and indivisible, for she is the incarnation of the Theanthropos Christ, continuing through the ages and through all eternity. Being such by her nature and in her earthly history, the Church may not be divided. It is only possible to fall away from her. That unity and uniqueness of the Church is theanthropic from the very beginning and through all the ages and all eternity.
Apostolic succession, the apostolic heritage, is theanthropic from first to last. What is it that the holy apostles are transmitting to their successors as their heritage? The Lord Christ, the God-man Himself, with all the imperishable riches of His wondrous theanthropic Personality, Christ-the Head of the Church, her sole Head. If it does not transmit that, apostolic succession ceases to be apostolic, and the apostolic Tradition is lost, for there is no longer an apostolic hierarchy and an apostolic Church.
The holy Tradition is the Gospel of the Lord Christ, and the Lord Christ Himself, Whom the Holy Spirit instills in each and every believing soul, in the entire Church. Whatever is Christ's, by the power of the Holy Spirit becomes ours, human; but only within the body of the Church. The Holy Spirit-the soul of the Church, incorporates each believer, as a tiny cell, into the body of the Church and makes him a "co-heir" of the God-man (Eph. 3:6). In reality the Holy Spirit makes every believer into a God-man by grace. For what is life in the Church? Nothing other than the transfiguration of each believer into a God-man by grace through his personal, evangelical virtues; it is his growth in Christ, the putting on of Christ by growing in the Church and being a member of the Church. A Christian's life is a ceaseless, Christ-centered theophany: the Holy Spirit, through the holy mysteries and the holy virtues, transmits Christ the Savior to each believer, renders him a living tradition, a living life: "Christ who is our life" (Col. 3:4). Everything Christ's thereby becomes ours, ours for all eternity: His truth, His righteousness, His love, His life, and His entire divine Hypostasis.
Holy Tradition? It is the Lord Jesus Christ, the God-man Himself, with all the riches of his divine Hypostasis and, through Him and for His sake, those of the Holy Trinity. That is most fully given and articulated in the Holy Eucharist, wherein, for our sake and for our salvation, the Savior's entire theanthropic economy of salvation is performed and repeated. Therein wholly resides the God-man with all His wondrous and miraculous gifts; He is there, and in the Church's life of prayer and liturgy. Through all this, the Savior's philanthropic proclamation ceaselessly resounds: "And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world" (Mt. 28 20): He is with the apostles and, through the apostles, with all the faithful, world without end. This is the whole of the holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church of the apostles: life in Christ = life in the Holy Trinity; growth in Christ = growth in the Trinity (cf. Mt. 28: 19-20).
Of extraordinary importance is the following: in Christ's Orthodox Church, the Holy Tradition, ever living and life-giving, comprises: the holy liturgy, all the divine services, all the holy mysteries, all the holy virtues, the totality of eternal truth and eternal righteousness, all love, all eternal life, the whole of the God-man, the Lord Christ, the entire Holy Trinity, and the entire theanthropic life of the Church in its theanthropic fullness, with the All-holy Theotokos and all the saints.
The personality of the Lord Christ the God-man, transfigured within the Church, immersed in the prayerful, liturgical, and boundless sea of grace, wholly contained in the Eucharist, and wholly in the Church-this is holy Tradition. This authentic good news is confessed by the holy fathers and the holy ecumenical councils. By prayer and piety holy Tradition is preserved from all human demonism and devilish humanism, and in it is preserved the entire Lord Christ, He Who is the eternal Tradition of the Church. "Great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh" (I Tim. 3 16): He was manifest as a man, as a God-man, as the Church, and by His philanthropic act of salvation and deification of humanity He magnified and exalted man above the holy cherubim and the most holy seraphim.
We are not higher than the Cherubim. The bible does not state that. It only says we will judge angels. And you let me know which un fallen agel is guilty so that they may be judged? The holiest of humans and not all of us will judge the fallen angels. Surely. To be like Christ or made in the image of God, is not to become God Himself. Your father the devil keeps trying to convince you to want to become God. Do any of you believe that to be Christ like or to be part of the bride of Christ is literally to become Christ? Who in heaven, on earth or under the earth can say they are anywhere near Whom Christ is??? You idolaters and creation worshipers. Professing that you are wise you have become fools. How dare you equate yourselves with Jesus Christ? We will be indeed His brothers. But don't you dare say you will be Him!
The only one above the Cherubim is God. And the bible talks about He who sits above the Cherubim. Are you now moving God aside and climbing on top of them?
Jesus Christ came and spoke to Avraam. Ate, had His feet washed. And already then making carvings and pictures of God or anything in heaven or below was idolatry. Are we forgetting that Jesus Christ was there from the beginning and all throughout the Old Testament?