AboutAlex Anatole Expertise I can answer questions about Eastern Orthodox Church history, theology, liturgics, iconography, and Eastern Orthodoxy`s relationship to other Christian and non-Christian religions.
Experience I have been an Eastern Orthodox christian since 1953, and since the age of 20 have devoted myself to Orthodox studies and aplogetics.
Organizations St Seraphim Orthodox Cathedral, Diocese of the South, Orthodox Church in America.
Publications The Dawn (Diocesan newspaper)
The Dallas Morning News (guest columnist, religion section)
Expert: Alex Anatole Date: 7/19/2008 Subject: Communion
Question QUESTION: I read your answer regarding who may receive communion in the Orthodox church. My question is did Jesus mention what "Christian" religion we had to believe in to partake of his body and blood? Or does Orthodoxy an exclusive club for "members only"? I feel that if any baptized Christian desires the body and blood of Jesus, who is to deny them that precious feast? I would be in real fear of God for denying someone Christ.
ANSWER: Sarah,
You say, "I feel that if any baptized Christian desires the body and blood of Jesus, who is to deny them that precious feast?"
I'm sure that in you mind that is a perfectly clear statement. But it leaves me a bit confused, so please help me out.
What constitutes "baptism"? Sprinkling? Single immersion? Triple immersion? In the name of Jesus? In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit? Done by a Priest? Does infant baptism count? Done my a layman? Done by a Christian? Done my a non-Christian? Some of the above? All of the above?
What constitutes a "Christian"? Can one deny the eternal deity of Christ and be a Christian? The Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses do. Are they Christians? I was baptized as an infant, and will never be baptized again. Am I a Christian?
You speak of "that precious feast" as being the body and blood of Christ. Is one who believes that the Gifts are mere symbols a Christian?
Christ did not establish a religion. He most certainly did not establish a multitude of religions with conflicting and mutually exclusive doctrines.
What He did do was to establish His one holy universal and apostolic Church. He entrusted the Church to His Apostles. He sent the Holy Spirit to indwell His Church. He promised that the Holy Spirit would lead His Church into all truth and preserve His Church from destruction.
He also warned that there would be wolves and tares. There would be those who would attempt to tear the Church apart and those who would counterfeit the Church.
But no matter how many times the Church is counterfeited, there is and can be only one Body of Christ. Christ cannot be divided. There will never be more than one Church.
The Mystery (Sacrament) of Communion is the ultimate act of unity within the Church. In receiving Communion in the Orthodox Church we declare that this truly is Christ's Church. We declare that our Bishop truly is a successor of the Apostles by both the laying on of hands and by the preaching of the true Gospel, whole and unaltered as Christ proclaimed it to His Apostles. We declare that we are united in spirit with the entire Church, her theologians, her Saints, her Martyrs, her monastics and laity, her councils, her theology, her liturgy, and her entire Holy Spirit led life across time and space.
This is why St Paul warns us to not partake of the Gifts if we do not discern Christ in them, lest we be harmed by receiving unworthily.
We are not an exclusive club. We are the inclusive Body of Christ. And we welcome those who come seeking true Communion with Christ.
But we do not share the Gifts with those who deny that Communion by practicing strange doctrines which contradict the Holy Tradition of the Church. We do not share the Gifts with those who deny the Deity of Christ, who deny the Trinity, who deny the reality of the Mysteries, who deny the Ecumenical Councils, the Communion of the Saints, the Charisma of the ordained Clergy, or any other part of the Holy Spirit guided Tradition.
To receive Communion one must be in communion.
To share the ultimate Mystery of union with those who choose to remain separated is a sham and a sacrilege.
You say, "I would be in real fear of God for denying someone Christ."
I fear to cheapen and desecrate the Holy Gifts by sharing them with those who deny the Church Christ founded and for which He died and rose again. And that is why on several occasions, when I have seen non-Orthodox visitors step into the Communion line, I have taken them by the elbow and escorted them out of the line.
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Thank you so much for answering my question. It sounds as though the Orthodox church is passing judgement on anyone else who practices Christianity that is not an Orthodox Christian. The Catholics and Methodists recite the Nicene Creed (word for word). Are you then saying they don't believe those words as Orthodox Christians do? How can a Christian church not want to share with other Christians. Jesus said take this in remembrance of me. Anyone can remember Jesus. It's what is in their hearts. How can anyone tell them their heart is wrong? We should all be brothers and sister in Christ. We believe in the same God and Savior. It sounds as though the Orthodox Church is a cult.
Thanks
Answer Sarah,
It seems your true colors are emerging!
You say, "The Catholics and Methodists recite the Nicene Creed (word for word."
No, they don't.
Have you ever heard of the "Filioque?" If so, do you know it's history and impact?
The Nicean Creed (actually the Nicean-Constantinopolitan Creed,) still used by the Orthodox, reads in part, ...
"I believe... in the Holy Spirit... Who Proceedeth from the Father...."
The Third Council of Toledo, Spain, in 589, in an effort to combat an outbreak of the Arian heresy, added the words "and the Son" ("Filioque" in Latin.)
The version used by Roman Catholics (and any Protestants who continue the practice of reciting the Creed) now reads. ...
"I believe... in the Holy Spirit... Who Proceedeth from the Father AND THE SON...."
The Orthodox East objected that this damaged the doctrine of the Trinity. Rome went their own way. To understand why this change was so important, we need to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in the Church.
According to Scripture, the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us. The Holy Spirit teaches us to pray, and gives utterance to the groanings of our heart when we can find no words. The Holy Spirit preserves the Church and guides the Church into all truth. Do these sound like tasks for a Person? or for an impersonal "Force" of some sort?
The next question before us, therefore, is this: How does the "Filioque" undermine our faith in the Holy Spirit as a Person? To answer it, I need to lay a bit of historical and theological foundation.
As stated before, a council meeting in Toledo, Spain, in 589 added the "Filioque" to the Nicene Creed to combat an outbreak of Arianism. Arius taught that Christ was NOT God, but was instead a created being of a very high order. Therefore, Arians did not believe that the Son is of the same Nature as the Father.
(I assume you understand the distinction between "Nature" and "Person?" Just in case, let's clarify the distinction Orthodoxy makes between Nature and Person.
Know what a brick is? Sure. A brick is a rectangular solid of hard-fired clay just small enough to be comfortably manipulated with one hand. Good enough?
Now, imagine a wall of 10,000 bricks.
A) Each brick is absolutely a brick. Each obviously has the Nature of "brickness." Each can be accurately described as "a rectangular solid of hard-fired clay just small enough to be comfortably manipulated with one hand." And no brick in that wall is any more or less a brick by that definition than any other.
B) But if you examine each brick closely, you will see that no two bricks are EXACTLY identical. Each has it's own unique markings, it's own spots and inclusions.
Each "brick person" expresses the one "brick nature" both COMPLETELY and UNIQUELY!
What is true of "brick nature" is absolutely true of each "brick person."
But that which uniquely distinguishes a particular "brick person" is true of that one brick and of no other.
Does that help clear the fog?)
To remind people that the Father and the Son do indeed have the same Nature, the Bishops in Toledo decided to point out that the Father and Son share a Natural Attribute.
Perhaps a noble motive, but here they made a crucial error. The "Natural Attribute" they decided to emphasize was origination of the Holy Spirit.
Basing their reasoning on St Augustine's speculations about the Trinity, they reasoned that the Son must also be a source of the Holy Spirit.
Believing they had "proven" that the Father and Son share a Natural Attribute, each being the source of the Holy Spirit, and therefore having "proven" that the Father and the Son have the same Nature, and must therefore both be God, they went home.
Can you spot the problem they created?
If something is indeed a Natural Attribute of God, and therefore is true of both the Father and the Son, must it not be true of the Holy Spirit as well?
If the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, and from the Son, and if the Holy Spirit is also God... does that mean that the Holy Spirit also proceeds from Himself?
Remember that for the "Filioque" to be an effective defense of the Son's Deity, is MUST refer to the Son as a co-Source of the Holy Spirit. No other interpretation of "Proceed" accomplishes that purpose.
Ponder on this: Just as what is true of "brick-nature" is true of all "brick-persons," so what is true of the one Divine Nature is true of all three Divine Persons. What is a Natural Attribute of the Father MUST also be a Natural Attribute of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Otherwise we would have more than one Divine Nature - and more than one God!
Hang on, because here is where the argument turns into a rollercoaster ride!
To recap briefly:
A) The Toledo council tried to defeat Arianism by showing that the Father and Son have the same Nature.
B) The Natural Atribute of the Father they chose to emphasize in the Son as well is the Procession (origin) of the Holy Spirit.
Given the above, and the distinction between Natural and Personal attributes, we now tackle the crucial question:
IS THE HOLY SPIRIT ALSO GOD?
If the Holy Spirit is God, and has the same Divine Nature as the Father and Son, then, according to the reasoning of the Toledo council, the Holy Spirit must also proceed from Himself!
Next question: If the origination of the Holy Spirit is a NATURAL Attribute of the Father, is the same true of the begetting of the Son?
The Toledo reasoning does nothing to exclude such a conclusion!
Are we therefore free to assume that the Holy Spirit also begets the Son, and that the Son begets Himself?
This leads to some very strange and twisted conclusions.
The church of Rome eventually saw the confusion they had created, but rather than renounce the "Filioque," they "adapted" to it. Now, what kind of adaptation could be possible?
1) They could have chosen to preserve the one Divine Nature at the cost of blurring the distinction among the Divine Persons. That would have resulted in the muddled conclusions above, in which the Holy Spirit proceeds not only from the Father but from the Son and from Himself as well, and in which the Father ceases to be the Father, since the Holy Spirit is also a "Father" and the Son also becomes His own "Father."
This being too crazy to even consider, we have...
2) They could have chosen to preserve the distinction of the Divine Persons at the cost of dividing the one Divine Nature into three. Under this plan,..
a) the Father would be the Source of two Divine Persons, Son & HS,
b) the Son would be the Source of one Divine Person, the HS,
c) the Holy Spirit would be the Source of no Divine Person.
That would leave us with three Divine Persons, each with His own Divine Nature. Three Gods.
This also being too crazy to consider, they compromised...
3) They "de-Personalized" the Holy Spirit. They began talking about Him, not as a Person, but as a "force" generated between the Father and the Son. As any Roman Catholic nun can explain, the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the love they generate between them is the Holy Spirit.
It sounds so nice. It even sounds superficially logical.
Of course it reduces the Trinity to a "Duet."
As noted earlier, the PERSON of the Holy Spirit has been given some work to do - work which cannot be done by an impersonal "force."
This left the Church of Rome with a critical power vacuum. Who would protect the Church and guide her into all truth?
An "infallable" Pope perhaps?
And who would interceed for us, and pray with us, and give utterance to the wordless groanings of our heart? And who would reveal Christ to us?
A perversion of Mary, raised almost to a position of Deity, perhaps?
The growing lack of faith in the Holy Spirit as a Person, capabable of performing His assigned tasks as mentioned in Scripture, led to "replacement strategies" in the Roman Catholic church. These are seen in the escalating claims to power and authority by the Popes of Rome, and by the growing cult of Mary (and the rest of the Saints as well.)
This growing authoritarianism coupled with a disintegrating theology led to abuses which finally caused Rome to split away from the communion of Christian Churches (now called "Orthodoxy") around 1000 AD (1054 is the date usually cited.)
Five hundred years later, Rome's efforts at ruling the Western Christian world gave rise to the Protestant Reformation.
Knowing that Rome was in error, but being largely cut off from contact with the Orthodox communion, the Reformers threw off Rome's yoke, but kept the "Filioque!"
Those Protestant churches which still recite the Nicene Creed still include the Filioque. And even those that do not show a serious lack of faith in the Holy Spirit as a Person (which is evident in their theology and liturgical practice.)
Having deposed the "infallable" Pope, Protestantism has simply refilled his empty throne with an "inerrent" book - the Bible. Rather than a selective canon of inspired writings produced by the Church, the Protestants hold the Scriptures to be an exclusive canon of inspired writings which are the foundation of the Church.
Moreover, by developing the doctrine that each "individual" believer is able to correctly interpret Scripture, Protestantism has in effect made every man his own infallable pope.
Given the above, the multiplicity of Protestant denominations, each claiming Biblical authority, and each preaching a different gospel, is not unexpected.
And that is how the Christian West has made an idol out of the Holy and Inspired Scriptures.
And that is the heresy of which Rome needs to repent.
