Homily on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod (St. Cleopa of Sihastria)

Homily on the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod

On Preserving the Orthodox Faith

By St. Cleopa of Sihastria

“There are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one!” (1 John 5:7)

Christ is Risen!

Beloved faithful,

Today, on the Seventh Sunday after Holy Pascha, the Orthodox Church celebrates the First Ecumenical Synod of the Christian world, which took place in the year 325 in the city of Nicaea, in order to condemn the heresy—that is, the false and heretical teaching—of Arius. The Synod was organized by Holy Emperor Constantine the Great together with his mother Helen, at the request of the Holy Fathers of that time, for he was the first Christian emperor in the world (306–337).

What is an Ecumenical Synod? It is the gathering of all the great Orthodox hierarchs—bishops, metropolitans, and patriarchs—from the whole world, with the purpose of discussing certain teachings of the Christian faith that had not yet been fully clarified, and establishing them in fixed and unchangeable laws called dogmas. An Ecumenical Synod also judges and condemns all deviations from the faith that are foreign to the teaching of the Holy Gospel and the Holy Fathers, and excludes from the Church—that is, anathematizes—all heretics who tear apart the unity of faith of the Church, symbolized by the seamless tunic of the Lord, woven in one piece, as the Holy Gospel says: “The tunic was without seam, woven from the top throughout” (John 19:23). By the word “synod” we mean assembly or council; by the word “heresy” we mean someone’s personal opinion or teaching about God that stands against the true teaching of the Church of Christ.

Why did the First Ecumenical Synod take place? What compelled the Holy Fathers to gather together and defend the Orthodox faith? The reason was the appearance of a great heretic, namely Arius, who taught Christians a new faith, saying that the Son of God was not of one essence with the Father and that “there was a time when the Son was not.” He called Jesus Christ a “superior creature,” “the first among creatures.” This heretic was a priest from Alexandria in Egypt, very proud and disobedient, though a gifted preacher, who lived in the third and fourth centuries. His heresy spread so rapidly in just a few years that it divided the Church in two and threatened to spread throughout the entire Roman Empire, both East and West.

The Holy Fathers, no longer able to endure the blasphemies of Arius against the Savior and the Most Holy Trinity, sought the help of the right-believing Emperor Constantine the Great, asking him to use his imperial authority to restore peace in the Church of Christ and condemn the blasphemous teaching of Arius and his disciples. Inspired by the Holy Spirit, the great Christian emperor decided to organize the First Ecumenical Synod at Nicaea in the year 325 at the expense of the empire, inviting all the great hierarchs of the Christian Church from East and West. Thus 318 Holy Fathers took part, together with a delegation from Pope Sylvester I of Rome, because until the year 1054 the Christian Church was one and not yet divided into the Orthodox Church of the East and the Roman Catholic Church of the West. Therefore the synods held before the division of the Church are called “ecumenical,” that is, universal, because hierarchs from the Church of Rome also participated in them.

The Synod of Nicaea was opened by the Holy Emperors Constantine and Helen themselves and lasted throughout the summer. During the Synod, at which the heretic Arius and his followers were also present, the Holy Fathers labored greatly to bring the heretics back to Orthodoxy, but they refused to listen. It even happened during the discussions that Saint Nicholas the Hierarch struck Arius across the face, for he could no longer endure his blasphemies. Then Saint Constantine the Great ordered that Saint Nicholas be deprived of his omophorion and Gospel and cast into prison because he had dared to strike someone. But during the night the Savior appeared to him in prison and gave the Gospel back into his hands, while the Mother of God placed the omophorion upon his shoulders. In the morning, when the emperor heard of this, he brought Saint Nicholas back to the Synod, and everyone asked forgiveness of him, seeing his zeal and endurance for the faith.

Likewise Saint Spyridon the Hierarch, wishing to explain to Arius the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity and how the three Persons are of one essence and equal honor, took a baked brick and, making the sign of the holy cross, squeezed it in his hand. Then the fire with which it had been baked rose upward, the water flowed down to the earth, and the clay remained in his hand. The brick was a symbol of the Most Holy Trinity. The fire represented the Father, the clay represented the incarnate Son, and the water represented the Holy Spirit, the Comforter who was sent into the world.

During the Synod the 318 Holy Fathers anathematized the heretic Arius and his blasphemous teachings. The Fathers proclaimed as dogma that the three Persons of the Most Holy Trinity—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit—are of one essence and inseparable. At this Holy Synod the first part of the Creed was also composed, the first seven articles concerning the Father and the Son. The final five articles concerning the Holy Spirit would later be composed at the Second Ecumenical Synod in the year 381. The Creed briefly contains the dogmas of the Orthodox faith and is recited daily in churches and in the homes of Christians as a confession of the true apostolic faith.

Although Arius was exiled south of the Danube, he refused to obey the Church and instead continued trying to spread his blasphemous teaching among Christians. Therefore he was severely punished by God: his bowels burst forth and he died a horrible death, unto eternal condemnation in the gehenna of hell.

Beloved faithful,

Although the heretic Arius, the greatest heretic in the Christian world, together with his heresy, disappeared, throughout the centuries the Church of Christ has continually been struck by new sects and heresies, some more dangerous than others. The greatest division of the Christian Church took place in the year 1054, when the great schism (rupture) occurred between East and West, giving rise to two separate Churches: the Orthodox Church with its center at Constantinople and the Roman Catholic Church with its center at the Vatican (Rome). In turn, the Catholic Church was later struck by two more heresies and schisms. These were the heresy of Luther, the second Arius, and that of Calvin in the sixteenth century, followed almost a century later by the Anglican schism of the seventeenth century.

The first heresy spread almost entirely through the countries of northern Europe, the so-called Protestant countries; and the Anglican religion spread through England, North America, and Australia, forming the Anglican Church.

Do you see how Satan succeeded in tearing the garment of Christ, that is, in dividing and shattering the unity of the Church founded by Him? We all confess “one faith, one Lord, one baptism,” yet because of pride and the founders of heresies, who replaced the Orthodox and apostolic teaching of the faith with new dogmas according to their own minds, as well as because of the sins of all of us, in recent centuries several Christian Churches have appeared—two apostolic ones, the Orthodox and the Catholic, and three without apostolic succession: Protestant, Reformed, and Anglican.

But the religious divisions did not stop there. Beginning especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, new religious groups separated from the body of the apostolic Church appeared in America and western Europe, called “sects.”

Today there are up to a thousand sects and Christian religious groups in the world, some more fanatical and dangerous than others, such as the “Jehovah’s Witnesses” and the “Church of Satan,” with its so-called “Black Mass,” in which the devil is worshiped instead of God. They seek to gain new members from among unstable believers, from those alienated from the discipline of Christ’s Church, from the poor to whom they promise material aid, and especially from young people, whom they can more easily corrupt.

Therefore let us pay close attention to ourselves and to our Orthodox families. The multiplication of sects is an apocalyptic sign foretelling the end of the ages.

The first duty of the children of the Orthodox Church is to know as well as possible Holy Scripture, Holy Tradition, the Catechism, and the principal writings of the Holy Fathers. The second duty, if not the first, is to live with great faith in God and to conduct our family religious life with zeal and reverence, in complete moral purity. The sects demand theory; they attack us with texts from Holy Scripture. Let us answer them not so much with words or Bible quotations as with a humble, pure, and holy moral life. Words cannot replace deeds. Before Christians who are upright, merciful, and devout, they are ashamed and fall silent.

The third great duty that rests upon us is to raise our children in the fear of God, with great care and attention. For if we do not educate them properly or scandalize them by our own lives as parents, we lose our children spiritually—they no longer belong to us, and the sects, passions, drunkenness, immorality, and unbelief can easily deceive them. Once a young person falls, it is very difficult to save him and draw him away from a sect. Children, like their parents, must know from childhood the “Our Father,” the Creed, and Psalm 50, and must learn the principal religious teachings from the Orthodox Catechism. Whoever does not know by heart at least these three prayers cannot receive the Holy Mysteries.

Another great duty of Orthodox Christians is to be people of prayer, for without prayer we can do nothing. Let no one be absent from the Divine Liturgy and the sermon on feast days, except in cases of great necessity. Prayer with faith, fasting, and tears is our life, our spiritual bread, our salvation. Then we must live in love with all people, especially with those in our own families, and according to our ability give alms, which “covers a multitude of sins.”

Another principal duty is for each person to have a good and wise spiritual father to whom he confesses his sins during the four fasting seasons, from whom he seeks counsel in all things, and whom he obeys as Christ Himself. Our Christians should neither attend sectarian gatherings nor receive sectarians into their homes, nor argue with them, if they do not wish to fall into their traps. Whoever does this will never be deceived by the devil, by passions, or by the snares of evil men.

Beloved faithful,

Today is the Sunday of the Holy Fathers of the First Ecumenical Synod, who defended the Orthodox faith, anathematized the heretics, and formulated the Orthodox Creed. Let us remain faithful to the gospel of Christ and to the Orthodox Church, whose children we are. She gave us birth through the bath of Baptism; she raised us and taught us the way of salvation. Let us honor the Orthodox Church that gave us birth. Let us honor all the saints and their icons as “friends of the Lord” who pray for us in heaven. Let us live in love with one another, the only path that can still save the world from destruction. Let us raise our children in the love of God, for upon them our salvation greatly depends, and let us preserve with holiness the Orthodox faith, without which we cannot be saved no matter how many good works we may have.

I conclude with a short story.

A holy elder entered the church at night to pray, and by a divine miracle he saw the altar open, and beside the holy table sat a radiant Child with His garment torn. The elder asked Him, “Child, who are You?” And He answered, “I am Christ, the Savior of the world!” “But who tore Your garment?” asked the hermit. And the Lord answered him, “Arius the heretic tore it,” and then vanished from sight.

Whoever preaches another gospel than the one proclaimed by Christ, the Apostles, and the Church tears the garment of the Lord and stores up eternal condemnation for himself without forgiveness.

Therefore let us fall on our knees and glorify with reverence and right faith the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, the Trinity one in essence and undivided. Amen.

Christ is Risen!

Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.

 

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