Сигиллион

Константинопольского собора 1583г. Против календарной реформы латинян – миф или реальность?
(англ. язык)

доклад

Митрополита Киприана Оропосского,

 председателя

Священного Синода противостоящих

 

A Study by Bishop Cyprian of Oreoi

Acting President

of the Holy Synod in Resistance

 Часть 2

 

 D. A Fruitless Conflict

E. Appendix

D. A Fruitless Conflict

 

1. In the wake of the calendar innovation in 1924—the first step towards implementing the plan for rapprochement between divided Christians, in con- formity with the ecumenist 1920 Encyclical of the Patriarchate of Constan- tinople the so-called Sigillion of 1583 has proved to be a “rock of offense” between ecumenists and anti-ecumenists, between innovators and anti-innovationists, who expend their energies in a fruitless conflict, thereby willy-nilly shifting attention to an almost insignificant issue.

2. The putative Sigillion of 1583 essentially has nothing to offer to the sacred cause of resistance against the ecclesiological heresy of ecumenism. In- deed, even if it were genuine, it would not take effect automatically and in- stantaneously, expelling the innovators from the Church forthwith, since an anathema, in order to take effect, requires a special Synodal judgment on the basis of Orthodox Church order.[1]

One way or another, Orthodox resistance and walling-off do not depend on the contrived Sigillion of 1583, nor even on the Synodal decisions of the sixteenth century, for, although these deserve our  respect and give us guidance, they do not pertain directly to the contemporary form of the calendar question: in 1924, the innovation of Pope Gregory XIII was partially implemented, while the Orthodox Paschalion remained intact.

4. This partial acceptance of the Gregorian Calendar demands a new and specific assessment of the issue by a Pan-Orthodox Synod, as the Confessor-ierarch Metropolitan Chrysostomos of Phlorina (†1955) very astutely maintained. He very severely condemned the view that, supposedly, “it is unnecessary and superfluous to convene a Pan–Orthodox Synod or a major local Synod for the authoritative and definitive condemnation of the calendar innovation...since the Pan–Orthodox Synods of 1583, 1587, and 1593 condemned the Gregorian Calendar”; the innovation of 1924, which applied “the Gregorian Calendar only to the fixed Feasts and not to Pascha, which was the main reason why the Gregorian Calendar was condemned as conflicting with the Seventh  Apostolic Canon, is an issue that appears for the first time in the history of the Orthodox Church. Consequently, the convocation of a Pan–Orthodox Synod is not only not superfluous...but is actually required for the canonical and authoritative adjudication of this issue.”[2]21

 

† Bishop Cyprian of Oreoi,                                  Phyle, Attica

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Acting President                                                  May 13, 2011

 (Old Style)

Holy Martyr Glykeria

 

* The present condensed piece, in order to focus attention primarily on the issue of the Sigillion, does not include a full bibliography on the subject.

 

 

 

E. Appendix (the Sigillion and Tomos compared)

 

1. The contrived [essentially forged—Trans.] Sigillion*

 

Sigillion of the Patriarchal formulation of an Encyclical to Orthodox Chris- tians throughout the world not to accept the modernistic Paschalion or calendar of the innovative Menologion, but to abide by what was well for-mu- lated once and for all by the three hundred and eighteen (318) Holy God- bearing Fathers of the Holy First Œcumenical Synod, under pain of sanction and anathema.

To all the genuine Christian children of the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Eastern Church of Christ  in  Târgovite and throughout the world: Grace, peace, and mercy from God Almighty.

No small tempest overtook that ancient Ark, when, violently buffeted by waves, it was borne upon the waters, and had not the Lord God remembered Noah and seen fit to still the water, there would have been no hope of sal- vation for it at all. Thus also with regard to the New Ark of our Church, since misbelievers have launched an implacable war against us, we have decided to leave behind the present Tomos against them, so that by means of what is written  herein you may be able to defend your Orthodoxy more securely against such men. However, lest our composition be burdensome to simpler people, we have decided to frame the issue in the vernacular, wording it as follows:

 

In the vernacular

 

From old Rome there have come certain persons who learned there to think as the Latins do. What is bad about this is how, from being born and bred Romans [Pωµαῖοι, i.e., Greeks] of Roumele, they not only have changed their faith, but even wage war upon the Orthodox and true dogmas of the Eastern Church which Christ, the Divine Apostles, and the Holy Synods of the Holy Fathers have handed down to us. Hence, cutting off these persons as rot- ten members, we decree:

(1) Whoever does not confess with heart and mouth that he is a child of the Eastern Church baptized in  the Orthodox manner, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone, essentially and hypostatically, as Christ says in the Gospel, but temporally from the Father and the Son, let such a person be outside our Church and let him be anathematized.

(2) Whoever does not confess that at the Mystery of Holy Communion the

laity, too, must partake of both kinds, of the Precious Body and Blood, but instead says that it is sufficient to partake only of the Body, only of the Flesh, because therein is also the Blood, when as a matter of fact Christ said and administered each separately, and they who fail to observe these matters, let such persons be anathematized.

(3) Whoever says that our Lord Jesus Christ at the Mystical Supper had unleavened bread (made without yeast), as did the Hebrews, and not leavened bread, that is, bread raised with yeast, let him depart far away from us and let him be anathema, as one holding Jewish views and as bringing the doctrines of Apollinarios and of the Armenians into our Church, on which account let him be doubly anathema.

(4) Whoever says that our Christ and God, when He comes to judge, will not come to judge souls together with bodies, but instead will come to sentence only bodies, let him be anathema.

(5) Whoever says that the souls of Christians who have repented while in the world but have failed to perform their penitential rule of prayer [ϰανόνα], go to the purgatorial fire when they die, where there is flame and punishment, and are purified, which is a pagan Greek myth, and those who, like Origen, think that Hell is not everlasting, and thereby afford an occasion of license to commit sin, let him and all such persons be anathema.

(6) Whoever says that the Pope is the head of the Church, and not Christ, and that he has authority to admit persons to Paradise by his letters [of in-

dulgence] and can forgive as many sins as a person may commit who pays money to receive indulgences (certificates of forgiveness) from him, let such a person be anathema.

(7) Whoever does not follow the customs of the Church, as the Seven Holy Œcumenical Synods have  decreed, and Holy Pascha, and the Menologion, which they rightly made it a law that we should follow, and wishes to follow the newly invented Paschalion and the New Menologion of the atheist astro- nomers of the Pope, and opposes all of these things and wishes to overthrow and destroy the dogmas and customs  of the Church that have been handed down by our Fathers, let him be anathema and let him be put out  of the Church of Christ and out of the assembly of the faithful.

(8) As for you pious and Orthodox Christians, remain faithful in what you

have been taught and have been born and brought up in, and when the time calls for it and the need arises, let your very blood be shed in order to safe- guard the Faith handed down by our Fathers and your confession; and beware

of such persons as the aforementioned, in order that our Lord Jesus Christ may help you, and at the same time may the prayer of us, your humble servants, be with all of you. Amen.

In the year of the God-Man 1583, in the Twelfth Indiction, November 20. Jeremiah of Constantinople

+Sylvester of Alexandria

+Sophronios of Jerusalem

+And the rest of the Hierarchs present at the Synod

 

* Evstratiades, Ἡ πϱαγµατιϰὴ ἀλήθεια, pp. 119-22.

 

2.     The Tomos of Cyril Loukaris, Patriarch of Alexandria, in Târgovite, Mol- davia, 1616*

Томос ирилла Лукариса, патриарха Александрийского, данный в Тарвогите, Молдавии 1616г.

 

Cyril, by the mercy of God

Pope and Patriarch of the great city of Alexandria

and Judge of the inhabited earth

 

To all the Orthodox Christians in Târgovite, both those listed among the clergy and those belonging to the laity, genuine children of the Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Eastern Church of Christ, who rightly abhor and reject, for the sake of Evangelical truth, every empty utterance and addition of both the heretics and the Latins who insidiously wage war against our Orthodox Faith: peace, and mercy from God Almighty and our Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior.

No small tempest overtook that ancient Ark, when, violently buffeted and tossed by waves, it was borne upon the waters, with the floodgates sending down furious showers of rain by Divine permission and, as it were, menacing those in the Ark, and there was no hope for those enclosed therein of finding deliverance, had not God remembered Noah the steersman and seen fit to still the water. These things, I believe, were a foreshadowing of the woes that even now beset the New Ark, that is, our Church. We do not expect these woes to desist, unless God should lay to rest and subdue these evil torrents, which destroy simpler souls. For, envying the profound peace of the Church in this city, they have launched an implacable war against us and have  continued to disturb the tranquility that exists here. Being minded, therefore, to leave be- hind the present Tomos against them, so that it might be a panoply for all of you and so that by means of what is written herein you may be able to defend your Orthodoxy more securely against such men, we deemed it meet, lest our composition be burdensome to simpler people, to put the entire issue before you in the vernacular, wording it as follows:

From old Rome there have come certain persons who learned there to think as the Latins do. What is bad about this is how, from being born and bred Romans [Pωµαῖοι, i.e., Greeks] of Roumele—whose parents, I can aver, have never even seen a Westerner—and by going to Rome, they not only have changed their faith, but even wage war upon the true and Orthodox dogmas of the Eastern Church which Christ, the Divine and sacred Disciples of the Savior, and the Synods of the Holy Fathers have handed down to us. There- fore, since we are going to depart from here, we enjoin you, of your charity, to stand firm in your piety and in your Orthodoxy. And as for such Latinizers and corrupters of your consciences, let them not have so much as a hearing from you, but reject them as heretics and enemies of your salvation, whenever they speak to you against these  things that we write here below. No, you should think in their manner.

First, whoever does not confess with heart and mouth, and indeed, whoever calls himself a Roman [Pωµαῖος, i.e., a Greek] and a child of the Eastern Church, and is baptized in the Greek Christian manner, as we are, and then does not confess that the All-Holy Spirit proceeds  from  the Father alone, essentially and hypostatically, and that He proceeds from the Father and the Son temporally: whoever  does not confess thus, but says that the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son, let him be outside our Church, let him not have any communion with us, and let him be anathema.

Secondly, whoever does not confess that at the Mystery of Communion the laity, too, must partake of the precious and immaculate Body and Blood, but instead says that they should commune only of the immaculate Body and not of the Blood as well, let him be outside the Church and let him be anathema. And in addition to this, whoever says that it is sufficient to partake only of the Flesh, because therein is also the Blood, whereas Christ said and administered each separately, and fails to observe these matters, let such persons be anathema.

Thirdly, whoever says that our Lord Jesus Christ at the Mystical Supper had unleavened bread, like the Jews, and not leavened bread, that is, bread raised by yeast, let him depart far away from us and let him be anathema, as one holding Jewish views and as bringing the doctrines of Apollinarios and of the Armenians into our Church, on which account let him be doubly anathema.

Fourthly, whoever says that our Lord Jesus Christ, when He comes to judge, will not come for the sake of souls, but will come to sentence bodies, let him be anathema. Fifthly, whoever says that the souls of Christians who have repented while in this world but have failed to perform their enitential rule of prayer [ϰανό- να], when they are parted from their bodies, go to the purgatorial fire, where there is flame, torment, and punishment, which is a pagan Greek myth, let him be anathema, since they give Christians license to sin. Sixthly, whoever says that the Pope of Rome is the head of the Church, and not Christ, let him be anathema.

Whoever opposes these precepts in order to overthrow and destroy them, let him be anathema.

As for you, my Christians, I beseech you, for the Lord’s sake and for the sake of what is profitable for your souls, to beware of these wolves, whoever they may be, and to read this Tomos frequently in Church, so that you may be familiar with the points on which such men are going to  war against you.

Throughout their lives they have not learned anything other than to oppose us Orthodox Christians, in  order  that destruction and ill-treatment might be inflicted on our nation by Latins. Let us not listen to them, but let us stand firm as far away as possible. Beseech God that you not enter into temptation on account of the Faith. However, when there is great need, it is a sweet thing for a man to shed his blood for the sake of piety. But in so great a matter, God will not allow it, so that your enemies may prove wholly insignificant and, by the Grace of Christ, ignorant and blind. Yet, guard yourselves and beware of such men. May our Lord Jesus Christ help you, bless you, and grant you a peaceful state, and at the same time may the prayer of your humble servant be with all of you. Amen.

 

* Dositheos, Tόµος Ἀγάπης, pp. 552-554.