Alexander Schmemann

2. The Triumph Of Christianity (27 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 10

After Constantine.

Only after the emperor’s death did the Arian dispute begin to reveal its full significance. Constantine was succeeded by three sons, Constantine II, Constans, and Constantius, among whom the empire was divided. The usual strife of succession destroyed the first two in 340 and 350, respectively, leaving Constantius sole ruler. He was to play a fateful role in the life of the Church. While his father had connected his position as an “outside bishop of the Church” with his conversion and immediate election by Christ, Constantius interpreted his power over the Church as self-evident. The ambiguity of the age of Constantine was beginning to bring forth its first poisoned fruit. Although the late emperor could make mistakes and frequently did, he was a great man with a genuine desire for justice.
Constantius, on the other hand, though partial to Christianity, was a small man and immediately sought the support of a group of shameless flatterers and opportunists who clung to him.

At first, it is true, the Eusebians had to give way. Constantine II demanded that all the exiled bishops be returned to their thrones. Athanasius, who had never recognized his dethronement and had been supported by the Western churches, was met with love by the people of Alexandria. But the Eusebians had a strong weapon against him: he had been deposed by a council of bishops, and only a council could restore him. The overwhelming majority of bishops had absolutely no notion of the ideological dimension underlying the whole struggle against the Alexandrian “pope.” He seemed to them a restless person and had, moreover, been canonically dethroned. In the winter of 337-38 in Antioch, the center of Eusebian intrigues, an epistle was composed to the emperors and to all the bishops of the Catholic Church, accusing him of returning illegally to his throne.

Athanasius replied through a council of sixty-two Egyptian bishops, and appealed as well to the judgment of the whole Church. The epistle of the Egyptian council demonstrated that he was innocent of the absurd accusations raised against him and pointed out the real significance of the whole affair, the desire of his enemies “to abolish the orthodox and do away with the condemnation of the Arians at the true and great council.” Here for the first time we note alarm at the intervention of the emperor in Church affairs. “By what right were the bishops who condemned Athanasius summoned by an order of the Emperor?”

But the Egyptian bishops were late in remembering that external authority had no rights within the Church. What about Nicaea itself? In any case the question was now transferred to its true theological battleground, and the West, hitherto silent through ignorance of Eastern matters, became involved. The Eusebians had to get rid of Athanasius immediately and used all their influence on Constantius. They chose their own bishop of Alexandria, a certain Gregory of Cappadocia, and demanded that the emperor help him take the Church of Alexandria away from the deposed and condemned Athanasius. From this moment there was open alliance between Constantius and the Eusebians. The prefect of Egypt, a friend of Arius, was ordered to give Gregory all possible help. On hearing that Gregory was approaching the city, the people rushed into the churches to defend them from the heretic. Police intervened and outrages developed, with churches being emptied by armed force.
The police sought Athanasius, but he succeeded in hiding. In March 339 Gregory solemnly entered Alexandria, where a persecution of the supporters of Athanasius began. The Eusebians had triumphed once more.

Athanasius, however, was not a man to give in to force. He possessed great energy and absolute faith in the righteousness of his cause, and the ordeals, which the great Alexandrian Father and teacher underwent all his life long apparently added to his strength. A truly epic struggle began between this giant and all the forces combined against him. From a hiding place somewhere near Alexandria, he sent his famous and explosive Encyclical Letter, which was a cry for help. “What has passed among us exceeds all the persecutions in bitterness. . . . The whole church has been raped, the priesthood profaned, and still worse, piety is persecuted by impiety. . . . Let every man help us, as if each were affected out of fear of seeing the Church canons and the faith of the Church held in scorn.”

Shortly after this we find Athanasius in Rome, where other victims of the Eusebian terror were gradually gathering. Until this time the West had taken no part in the post-Nicene dispute; the term homoousion had been accepted without argument or doubt, and only now, belatedly, did they learn from Athanasius and his friends of the difficulties in the East. The situation became as complex as it was tragic when Pope Julius gave his defense of Nicaea and Athanasius such a Roman tinge that the East inevitably united to oppose it.

 

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