among the orthodox there are two communions.the Orthodox Oriental Maphysites(Egyptian church,Syrian church of antioch,Ethiopian church,Armenian church,Malankara indian church,Eritrean Church)and the Chalcedonian Byzantine Eastern orthodox.the two split in 451 due to the council of Chalcedon.the Oriental church saw this council as nestorian and contrary to previous councils.Here I outline why chalcedon should not be accepted .I consider the eastern orthodox to be fully orthodox and correct in doctrine today,only because they corrected and revised their errors at chalcedon at Constantinople II.Unfortunately they also still cursed our Saints in this council who were martyred for rejecting the Blasphemous council of Chalcedon.for a hndred years the eastern orthodox lost their mark of Truth for some time.the Church is one,holy,apostolic and true.it is for this reason I believe the Oriental orthodox have the fullness of the church above the eastern orthodox even if due to revising their former opinions the eastern orthodox are doctrinally correct Today.
The orthodox Reject the Council of Chalcedon.the Council of Chalcedon was a Council held in the year 451 a the city of chalcedon.Years earlier in 431 there was an ecumenical council wich the chalcedonians accept called Ephesus I.at Ephesus I the Blasphemy of Nestorian Christology was officially condemned by Saint Cyril of Alexandria head of the council.the whole Christian Church accepted the council as guided by the Holy Spirit.However certain prominent nestorians were still promoting their theology.one man,pope leo was actually a supporter of Nestorius and ignorant of Saint Cyril’s writings.it is this man that called the council. According to the Nestorians, Christ essentially exists as two persons sharing one body. His divine and human natures are completely distinct and separate. This idea is not scriptural, however, and goes against the orthodox Christian doctrine of the hypostatic union, which states that Christ is fully God and fully man in one indivisible Person. God the Son, Jesus Christ, took on a human nature yet remained fully God at the same time. Jesus always had been God (John 8:58; 10:30), but at the Incarnation Jesus also became a human being (John 1:14).Furthermore if only the Human nature died on the cross as nestorianism claims,the salvation becomes invalid.No’ man’ can redeem the life of another or give to God a ransom for them–Psalm 49:7 only God could do so,so God must have died on the cross.
Thus Nestorianism was condemned because it contradicts the salvific work of Christ on the Cross.
Nestorianism was not completely stamped out however,three prominent men,theodore of cyrrhus,Theodore of Mopsuestia,and Ibas of Edessa still held to Nestorianism and defended Nestorius.
at the Council of Chalcedon the blasphemy of Ibas was accepted by the council .
He had been deposed at the council of Ephesus in 449 AD for his Nestorianism but was then restored at Chalcedon in 451 AD.
One of the six anathemas of Saint Dioscorus refer to this bishop by name. It is in fact the fourth anathema which says,
Chalcedon is anathematised because it has accepted the communion of the partisans of Nestorius, such as Ibas.
Ibas had said,
“I do not envy Christ becoming God, for in so far as he has become God I have become so, for he is of the same nature as myself.”
This shows that he maintained the views held by Theodore of Mopsuestia, that Christ was a human subject, apart from the divine Word, who became God in some sense. Ibas said:In the beginning was the Word, but Matthew the Evangelist has said – The Book of the Generations of Jesus Christ, the Son of Abraham, the Son of David – is not the former one thing and the latter quite another?”
and he had said in the Church during a homily that the Jews had only crucified a mere man.
One witness, John, a vowed person, testifies most clearly to the essentially Theodorean foundation of Ibas’ teaching in this period just before the Second Council of Ephesus and that of Chalcedon, when he reports,
“I heard Ibas, when expounding in Church, say:- ‘It was one person who died, and another who was in heaven, and that was one person who was without beginning, and that was another perdon who is subject to a beginning; and he was one person who is of the Father, and he was another who is of the Virgin.”
at the council of Chalcedon Bishop Paschasinus and Bishop Lucentius, with Boniface, speak first on behalf of Pope Leo of Rome.
They speak with his authority and say,
“from the reading of his letter we have found him to be Orthodox.”
This is an important judgement. The representative of the Roman Pope, giving a judgement on behalf of Leo, and concerning which Leo never shows any objection, say that they have read Ibas’ letter to Maris the Persian and after having read it they conclude that he is Orthodox.
in the Acts of the council ,Anatolius, archbishop of Constantinople, speaks next and says,
“the reading of all the accompanying material prove the most devout Ibas innocent of the accusations brought against him.”
Then Maximus of Antioch speaks, and he also states clearly that he has heard what has been read, including his letter to Maris, and,
“from what has just been read it has become clear that the most devout Ibas is guiltless of everything charged against him; and from the reading of the transcript of the letter produced by his adversary his writing has been seen to be Orthodox.”
in the Acts of the council At the Council of Chalcedon the Patriarch Maximus of Antioch and the Roman legates declared: “Having read hisletter again, we declare that he is orthodoxCatholic Encyclopaedia, Vol VII, Ibas.
In this letter which was declared Orthodox at Chalcedon he says..
“Cyril has been found to fall into the error of Apollinarius..”
“He has written 12 chapters… how impious such statements are your piety will be already persuaded”
“[At Ephesus] they adopted, confirmed and assented to the 12 Chapters written by Cyril as if they were consonant with, while they are in reality adverse to, the True Faith”
“those who had departed to the Lord, amongst whom is the Blessed Theodore (of Mopsuestia), that preacher of the Truth, that Doctor of the Church”.
“[Cyril] has become abashed, apologising for his folly, and teaching the very opposite to their former doctrine. For no man ventures now to affirm that there is one nature of the Divinity and humanity, but men avow the Temple and Him who dwells in it to be the One Son Jesus Christ”
All of these false and heretical (later described as blasphemous by the Chalcedonians) statements were read out in the letter of Ibas which was then declared Orthodox.
two letters have caused the most tragic breach in all of Christendom. In the Aramaic language, the difference is in one letter, Dolath vs. Beth–the difference between the two is a small line on the bottom and dot in the center. These prepositions while short and subtle, contain within their meanings the difference between truth and fiction. In as far as these refer to the language of Chalcedon, the Oriental Miaphysite Orthodox follow the traditional terminology using the preposition “of,” whereas the Byzantines use the preposition “in.”
The question then comes in how these terms are used in regards to Christology. In the Nicene-Contantinopolian Creed, we see that “Christ was conceived of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary,” thus the foundation is made clear. In terms of Christology the Oriental understanding is that Christ is “One Nature–the Logos Incarnate,” of the full humanity and full divinity. The Byzantine understanding is that Christ is in two natures, full humanity and full divinity.
Just as all of us are of our mother and father and not in our mother and father, so too is the nature of Christ. If Christ is in full humanity and in full divinity, then He is separate in two persons as the Nestorians teach. Imagine your nature in your mother and your father; you are then two different people. If however your nature is of your mother and your father, then you are one person.
This is the linguistic difference which separated the Orientals from the Byzantines.
The Plerophories are a collection of visions, prophecies and dreams which were gathered together by the anti-Chalcedonian communion. As the introduction to the text tells us..
That is to say: testimonies and revelations that God made to the saints, on the subject of the heresy of the two natures and of the prevarication which took place at Chalcedon; They were made by one of the disciples of Peter the Iberian, whose name was the priest John of Beit-Rufin, of Antioch, bishop of Maiouma in Gaza
I. Our father and bishop, the venerable Abba Peter the Iberian, related to us that when he was still at Constantinople, before he renounced the world, when Nestorius was still living and was bishop: As he ended the commemoration of the holy Forty Martyrs in the Church called after Mary, he got up to explain the Scripture before all the people in my presence. He had a clear and feminine voice. He started to blaspheme and to say before me in the middle of his speech: “You will not be glorified, Mary, as if you had given birth to God; for, O excellent one, you have not given birth to God, but to the man, the instrument of God”. As soon as he had said this, he was possessed by a demon, even in the pulpit, so that, together with his face, his right hand was turned upside down; as he twisted and was about to fall some servants and deacons caught him quickly, and carried him and laid him in the sacristy. And since that time the greater part of the inhabitants of the city separated from his communion, and especially the people of the palace, and me also, before all the others, although he loved me much.
II. The father spoke to us on the subject of blessed Pelagius of Edessa, who had kept a perfect life. He was a monk and a prophet; and when he had heard the blasphemies of Ibas, Bishop of Edessa, and that he had repeated them openly, he had much to suffer from his part. Finding himself persecuted, he went into a certain locality of Palestine and stayed there in peace during the time of Juvenal, before the council of Chalcedon, and the corruption of the faith. In this manner grace dwelt in him; He was full of the spirit of prophecy and he deserved to have frequent visions. He went very often to visit Abba Peter who was then living in peace in the Laura of Maiuma of Gaza. These saints had, indeed, a great affection the one for the other. In one of their meetings, as Pelagius walked with our father in the sandy parts of the laura, and while he was having a discussion with him concerning the thoughts and perfections which are in God, he said, seven years before the council, that he had been caught up in ecstasy, and he had seen the corruption which was to take place at Chalcedon on the part of the bishops. He even named the impious emperor Marcian, at the time, and by whose power this corruption would occur, as well as the later events, and he said, “These times will come upon us, me and you also, Abba, and when we are persecuted with all the saints who will not consent to acquiesce to this corruption of the faith, we will die during this persecution”. And finally, this also came to pass.
III. It was of the same Abba Pelagius who was a prophet, that our father told us, when he went with some of the other saints to find this old man. He had yet another vision before the council of Chalcedon, and he began to say while in tears: “Misfortune unto Pulcheria! Misfortune to Pulcheria! Misfortune to Pulcheria”. And when we asked him was great insistence to reveal to us the significance of his words, he said: “Pulcheria, who promised her virginity to God, who drove out Nestorius and who is represented by all the saints in all the countries as holy and a virgin, she who was considered as the head of Orthodoxy, she is on the point of becoming an apostate to her faith and to her virginity, and of maltreating the saints”. This is also what happened. She broke her vows of purity, which she had made to Christ, she married Marcian, and she became the heiress of his empire, of his impiety and of the sorrows which are reserved for him.
IV. The same priest Pelagius, as Pamphilius recounts, deacon of the Church of Jerusalem and his friend, who entered with him once into the holy place of Golgotha, to pray there, while it was still night, – it was indeed his usual practice – as he prayed upright, he had a vision, and, under the weight of sadness and tears, he began to say: “Juvenal! Juvenal! Juvenal!”. When the vision came to an end, the deacon Pamphilius threw himself to his knees and demanded of him what was the object of this vision, and why had he not ceased to cry out: Juvenal! Pelagius responded: “This Juvenal, you will see him, if you still live, carried in triumph by the Romans and the demons, as you see now, this Juvenal, carried in triumph by monks and the clergy”.
V. This Pelagius, seeing in spirit that which would happen, said to our holy father and to the blessed John the Eunuch: “Contemplate the Divine Scriptures, my sons, and when Christ entrusts His churches to you, pray for me”. In this way he predicted the laying on of hands to those who were to receive it; also, the blessed Peter was in astonishment, and he by no means found the words pleasant which had just been said, because he had until then fled from the imposition of hands. Full of anger he spoke to the old man saying: “You do not know what you say, old man”. But Pelagius, preserving his serenity, answered: “I know what I say, and that which is a cause of distress, distresses me also”.
VI. This Pelagius, at the time of the corruption of the faith, constantly offered this prayer: “Lord my God, preserve me until the end from the transgression of the Orthodox faith and from joining the communion of those who oppressed the faith at Chalcedon. Receive my spirit where you will and as you will, even at the hostelry or the inn. Keep me only from becoming a renegade. And this also happened to him in reality, at Ascalon, at the home of a certain Cyril, an orthodox hosteler, who had been driven from Maiuma for the cause of Orthodoxy, and who had retired to Ascalon and ran a hotel. As the blessed Pelagius was hiding with him, he died one night, as he had asked and predicted. When some of the zealous brothers of Maiuma learned of his death, they came at night, carrying his body and buried it in the Laura, at the monastery of the friend of the Messiah, Haroun, the corn merchant.
The same night of the death of Pelagius – as the Orthodox bishops were then persecuted, Bishop Abba Peter had left – he was in Oxyryncos in the Thebaid and, at a distance, he saw in a dream, the blessed Pelagius joyfully approaching him with a smiling face, greeting him and saying, “Father, pray for me and recommend me to God, because I am going to the Lord”. Our father noted in writing the day he had this vision and found later that it was the hour when the great confessor Pelagius had died.
The mother of this man, fasting for a week, conceived him, brought him forth into the world and raised him in holiness. He became a man and reached middle age. When one of the most honourable men of the cirt died, seeing him placed in the ground, he was overwhelmed with sadness and, immediately after the funeral he fled to the monastery because he understood the vanity of this world, and so became a chosen vessel.
Abba Paul, who was a sophist, recounted to us that he had lived with Abba Andrew, an old prophet, who was hard-working and sincere, and who, before the Council of Chalcedon, was one of the great saints of Egypt.
This Abba Andrew, in a vision, saw an immense crowd of bishops who stirred a very fiery furnace into which they threw a beautiful child resplendent like gold, and they closed in on all sides so that one could not see any smoke from the furnace and even the air could not enter into it; and, at the end of three days, he saw the child leaving healthy and safe from the furnace, and he recognized that it was the Lord.
As he had the habit of speaking to him, he said: “Who are these who have done this to you and who have thrown you into the furnace?” He said to him: “The bishops crucified me again and they decided to strip me of my glory.” And He was right: because the Nestorians are sick with the disease of the Jews, when they say that He who was crucified was a man purely and simply, and not God incarnate.
When the old man looked again, he saw in the distance an old man who held himself upright, and who did not approve the other bishops or associate with them, neither when they stirred the furnace, nor when they shut up the child and mocked him. The old man called to the child: “Who is this old man?” And He answered him: “It is Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria who alone did not take part in their intentions”. The old man, taking confidence, ventured to say to the Lord: “Lord, why is it that all the bishops of Alexandria fight until death for the truth?”
And He said: “Since Simon Cyrene carried my cross – and Cyrene is in a part of Egypt – since then I foresaw and predicted that Egypt, to which belongs the town of Cyrene located in Libya, would carry my cross until the end, would remain faithful to me and would mark their zeal for me until death”.
Site Title 