Alexander Schmemann

3. The Age Of The Ecumenical Councils (50 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 32

Finally, we must not forget that in speaking of Church and state Byzantine historians usually confuse the relations of the state to the Church with those of the Church to the state. While in practice it is of course very difficult to make a precise distinction between them, it is extremely important to keep it in mind. The distinguishing feature of those ages was that two logics, completely different in origin and inspiration, clashed and were kept in precarious balance; from this came crises, breakdowns, and interruptions. The logic of the Roman theocratic state we have seen. The other was the Church’s attitude toward the state, as at once “this world” — fallen, limited, and destined to be overcome in the final triumph of the kingdom of God — and the world of God’s creation, man’s dwelling, bearing the reflection of heavenly Reason and sanctified by the grace of Christ. These two logics met and clashed, not on an abstract plane but in living reality, with all the complexity and variety of factors operating within it. Moreover, they clashed in the mind of man, splitting it and introducing into it a tension it had not previously known. As the same people now composed both the world and the Church, conflict and tension were moved inward and became a problem of human thought, reason, and conscience.

On no account can all this be reduced to a victory of the state and its acceptance by the Church. Servile bishops leave on the surface of history a larger trace and echo than do Christians who really reveal the profundity of the Church’s judgment of the world and the state, but do it gradually. Yet an attentive eye will perceive the Church’s struggle for its inner freedom, even in the years when the empire outwardly triumphed. The emperor could do much, but not everything; a limitation was imposed on his absolutism from within.

This limitation was Christian truth. The abuse of power by the state was largely linked with the fact that a crystallization of the Church’s experience and doctrine was going on within the Church itself, inevitably combined with divisions, disputes, and conflicts. But those who seemed on one day crushed by state absolutism were glorified on the next as saints, and the empire itself was obliged to revere the heroism of their opposition and their indomitable freedom of spirit. It is enough to mention once more the names Athanasius, Chrysostom, Euphemius, and Macedonius. Whatever the pressures of the state in their time, we are able to study and restore the evolution of Orthodoxy and all the profundity of the faith and experience of the Church — even if we forget these pressures and do not take them into account. Nicaea and Chalcedon were triumphant despite the state, which did everything to erase them from the mind of the Church; they triumphed only by force of the truth immanent in them. When Justinian, just before his death, indulged once more his personal passion for theologizing and attempted to impose, again by state edict, the dogma of the incorruptibility of Christ’s body (a subtle question which divided the Monophysites at the time), the overwhelming majority of the bishops firmly and decisively declared that they preferred exile to acceptance of heresy. He died without taking further measures.

It is true that the problem of limitations on imperial authority within the Church was not raised in the mind of the Church.
It had accepted the embraces of the Christian empire with hope and faith, and was destined to be crushed in them. The dream of a sacred empire was the dream of the Church as well for many long centuries. The grandeur of this concept constantly overshadowed its danger, limitations, and ambiguity in the Christian mind. Yet this was not fear or servility, but faith in the cosmic destiny of the Church and the desire to render unto Christ the kingdom of the world. Therefore the Church never once betrayed or yielded its ultimate truth, for the sake of which it had accepted union with the empire.

 

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Reference address : https://www.ellopos.net/elpenor/schmemann-orthodoxy-3-councils.asp?pg=32