By Metropolitan Hierotheos of Nafpaktos and Agiou Vlasiou
Usually, heresy is limited to theoretical teaching and one who deviates from the established dogmas of the Church is considered heretical. However, we should see heresy in terms of its inner dimension. For, just as dogmas are an expression of revelation, and the application of dogmas leads to experience, so heresy is a deviation from revelation, but at the same time it destroys the path to theosis. It is as if there were a hospital that cannot heal human beings.
The reversal of the experience of Pentecost occurs because heretics deny the teaching of the deified Fathers of the Church, that is, abandoning the revelatory truth, they rely mainly on their reasoning, their reflection. This means that heretics rely more on philosophy, which is full of thoughts, reflections and fantasies, and do not rely on the revelations of God. Because they rely on philosophical principles, in reality they also deny the teaching that leads to the vision of God. The heretic cannot know God, because he does not know the method of theology. Every science has a theory and this is confirmed by experiment and every verification of the experiment leads to the same theory.
Heresy does not only refer to dogmatic issues, but also to the spiritual life. For example, the separation of the Christian life into theoretical (dogma) and practical (ascetic) is a mistake. Some accept the dogmas and deny the presuppositions of the dogmas.
Source: From the book Ἡ πίστη τῶν ἁγίων (Birth of the Theotokos Monastery, 2025). Translation by John Sanidopoulos.
