The Wonderful Name

Three Letters of Metropolitan Gregory of Boston

2020-12-20T20:53:00.000-05:00

~ First Letter on the Encyclical "Divergent Teachings" ~

~ Second Letter on the Encyclical "Divergent Teachings" ~

~ Third Letter: the Royal Path in the Theology on the Name of God ~

THESES ON NAME-GLORIFICATION

2016-12-16T21:12:00.001-05:00

A Response to Vladimir Moss’s “Seven Theses on Names and Name-Worshipping”

by Thomas S. Deretich

December 1/16, 2016

1. It is a linguistic fact that in Hebraic, Greek, and Christian usage, “name” often means “glory” or “power” and sometimes means “real person.” These are normal, dictionary definitions of “shem” or “ónoma.” It is factually incorrect to assume that “name” simply means a merely-symbolic name (sounds or letters). It is factually incorrect to assume that using “name” to mean “glory” or “power” or “person” is unusual. These usages are common within Christianity.

2. Yes, in the prayer “Blessed be the name of the Lord,” it is “God Himself” Who is being praised. Thus “the name of the Lord” can mean “God Himself.” Thus, “the name of God is God Himself,” does have at least one fully Orthodox interpretation. At the same time, “name” can also mean “glory” or “power.” Saint Cyril of Alexandria (Commentary on John 11.9) teaches us that when Christ speaks of “name” (John 17), He means “glory” or “power” or “energy.” Saint Cyril (11.7) also states that it is the established tradition of Orthodox Christians to use “name” to mean “glory.” Thus, the prayer (“Blessed be the name of the Lord”) can also be interpreted to be praise of “the uncreated glory or power or energy that is God Himself.” There are Orthodox liturgical prayers in which God’s power is specifically worshiped: “Glory to Your power, O Lord”; “Glory to Your power, O Christ”; etc. The prayers of the Church do give divine worship (latreía) to God’s “power” and “name” (meaning God Himself or God’s uncreated power that is God Himself). Saint Clement of Rome teaches clearly that Christians are “those who give divine worship” (latreuóntōn, 1 Clement 45.7) to God’s uncreated “name” (power and energy), which he calls “the author-of-all-creation name” (tò archegónon pásēs ktíseōs ónoma, 1 Clement 59.3). Saint Gregory Palamas (Homily 53, 19‒20) also refers to God’s uncreated “divine name” (divine glory, power, presence). He teaches clearly that “the divine name” (toû theíou onómatos) that dwelled in the Old Testament Holy of Holies, was “the divine name” that is “God alone” (mónōͅ Theôͅ). Worshiping God’s power or energy is worshiping God Himself; and worshipping God Himself is worshipping God’s essence and God’s energy. It is outright heresy to say “we worship the three persons of the Trinity but not the essence or the energy.” Orthodox Christians worship all that is the one God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, essence and energy.

3. It is not a “special use” to use “name” to mean “person.” The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament: Abridged (Kittle, Friedrich, and Bromiley 1985) has the following entry (with the bracketed words in the original): “Ónoma [name, person].” Thus “person” is a standard dictionary definition of “ónoma.” Saint Luke writes that, for the first Christian Pentecost, those who gathered in the Upper Room were a “crowd of names [óchlos onomátōn], about a hundred and twenty, in the same place” (Acts 1:15). In the language of Holy Scripture, “name” can mean “real person.”

4. Yes, the writings of Saint Dionysius the Areopagite use “name” to mean “divine property” or “divine energy.” However, it is a grave error to claim that this is a “special use.” The prophets and saints and liturgical prayers of the people of God of all ages have used “name” to mean “divine glory” or “divine power” or “divine energy” or “divine property.”

5. Yes, “the word ‘Jesus’ is a created name.” However, the created name is based on uncreated divine revelation (energy), the revealed truth that “the Lord saves.” God’s truth, revelation, and energy are God Himself. To quote the Synodicon of Orthodoxy, God’s “essential” energy (or “natural” energy) “flows without separation” from God’s essence. God’s energy is the “movement” (kínēsis) of God’s essence. God’s essence and energy are distinct but never separate. Created names refer not to God’s essence but to the activity (enérgeia, energy) or movement (kínēsis) of God’s essence. That is why the Synodicon refers to God’s energy as “essential” (ousiṓdē) energy. The Synodicon of Orthodoxy teaches: “there is in God both His essence and His essential and natural energy.” We must also confess that God’s uncreated energies (“names”) dwell in the God-given sayings and words of the Holy Scriptures, especially the sacred (created) names for God. To quote Saint Gregory Palamas’s Confession of the Orthodox Faith, confirmed as dogma by the great Council of Constantinople of 1351: “we venerate relatively [proskynoûmen schetikôs] the holy icon of the Son of God …, piously offering up the veneration [proskýnēsin] to the prototype; and the honored wood of the Cross, and all the symbols of his sufferings … the divine temples and places, and the sacred vessels, and the God-given sayings [theoparádota lógia], because of the God Who dwells in [enoikoûnta] them.” The fact that God’s power and energy dwell in the words of the Gospel is a consistent teaching of the Orthodox Church. Many Holy Fathers teach about the divine grace that dwells in created words. Saint Justin the Philosopher and Martyr (Dialogue with Trypho 9) summarizes what Orthodox Christians believe about God’s grace and the (created) words of the Gospel: “we have not believed empty myths, or words without any foundation, but [words] filled with divine spirit, and big with power, and flourishing with grace.” Saint Justin’s phrase that is translated “big with power” (dynámei brýousi) could also be translated “full of power,” “swelling with power,” “abounding with power,” “teeming with power,” “bursting with power,” or “overflowing with power.” This is what the Orthodox Church teaches about God’s presence in created words.

6. Yes, the grace of God “rests” in the name “Jesus.” God Himself “dwells in” the names for God and that is why we give them relative veneration. The name “Jesus” is not just “associated with” with God, but is based on the revealed grace and truth of God that is God Himself — the uncreated grace that is actively present in created words and names.

7. Yes, we give veneration to the created names for God, because they are verbal icons. We venerate the physical Book of the Holy Gospels as we venerate the physical (painted) icons, because they are based on divine revelation and because God’s energy dwells in them. Yes, it would be heresy and idolatry to give divine worship (latreía) to created names consisting of sounds or letters.

8. The Slavic “name-glorifiers” of the Holy Mountain were slandered when they were accused of giving divine worship (latreía) to create names. What these monastics actually confessed is as follows: “As from the very beginning of the dispute, we were unjustly accused of deifying ‘the very’ created name according to its outward appearance and even of ‘equating’ this ‘very’ name ‘with the very essence’ of the One Who Is and of ‘merging’ them. Therefore we feel obliged to declare that we never deified ‘the very name’ and nowhere in our confessions of faith can be found the expression ‘the very Name of God is God.’ But rather, in our confessions of faith starting from 1909, we said it very clearly, that by calling — together with Father John of Kronstadt — the Name of God ‘God Himself,’ we do it in the same sense as did Father John of Kronstadt, believing in the inseparable presence of God in His Name, but never in the sense of deification of the name in its material, outward appearance and separately from God.” The “name-glorifiers” did not teach the heresy that they were accused of teaching, but explicitly rejected it.

9. It is a historical absurdity to equate the monastic name-glorifiers with the syncretistic intellectuals (such as Father Pavel Florenskii and Father Sergii Bulgakov) who defended these monastics. If Florenskii and Bulgakov fell into heresy by confusing the Creator with His creation, one cannot simply assume that Father Antonii Bulatovich also fell into that same heresy. We need to take into account Father Antonii’s letter in which he criticizes Florenskii for making that heretical confusion. We need to be faithful to Saint Tikhon’s opinion that Father Antonii’s writings need to be judged by a competent group of theologians in order to make a final judgment.

10. The letter of Archbishop Sergii Stragorodskii of May 16/29, 1913, condemned the dogma of the Orthodox Church that God’s energies are God. It said falsely that God energies are not God and not even “Divinity” in the normal sense. That, taken literally, is heresy. Because this letter condemned, out of ignorance, a dogma of the Church, the letter must never be given the dignity of an “Orthodox synodal decision.” The letter was a sin; its false theology never had any authority in the Orthodox Church. The letter’s false theology has been rejected by the Church. The Orthodox Church faithfully follows the teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas that God’s energies are God Himself.

11. Orthodox Christians in 2016 should follow the precedent of Saint Tikhon. He did not repeat the anti-Palamite, false theology of Sergii’s letter of May 1913 and the saint reconciled with the name-glorifiers in the last years of his life (1920–1925). He considered them Orthodox and he liturgized with their leader, Archimandrite David Mukhranov, even as David continued to defend, openly and vigorously, what he believed to be the Orthodox teaching of Father Antonii Bulatovich. Saint Tikhon’s 1921 encyclical, which exonerated the name-glorifiers led by Archimandrite David, was in the spirit of the May 1914 decision of the Moscow Synodal Office, signed by Saint Macarius II (Nevskii), Metropolitan of Moscow, and Bishop Anastasii (Gribanovskii) of Serpukhov, the future metropolitan and chief-hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia. That 1914 decision also exonerated the name-glorifiers. Saint Macarius II and Bishop Anastasii and later Saint Tikhon all concluded that the name-glorifiers did not deify sounds or letters and concluded that there was no reason for separation. That was the final decision of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy on the matter. Many martyrs and saints of the Orthodox Church defended the name-glorifiers: Saint Macarius II of Moscow, Saint Tikhon of Moscow, the Holy Tsar Martyr Nicholas and the Tsarina Alexandra, Saint Elizabeth the Grand Duchess, and Saint Mark (Mikhail Novoselov), catacomb Bishop of Sergiev-Posad, the New Sacred Martyr.

12. The Orthodox Church teaches unanimously that: (1) we give divine worship to God’s (uncreated) “name” (with “name” here meaning “God Himself” or the “uncreated glory, power, or energy that is God Himself”); (2) we give relative veneration to the created names for God because God’s grace dwells in them; and (3) we must never give divine worship to created names.

13. It is a violation of Orthodox dogma to confuse Orthodox “name-glorification” with heretical “name-worship” (giving divine worship to created names). To confuse these two different things would be a violation of dogma because the Seventh Ecumenical Council teaches that we must always make a clear distinction between the “latreía” (divine adoration, absolute worship) given to God alone and the “proskýnēsis” (veneration, or worship in the broad sense of “honor”) given to saints, icons, relics, and the Scriptures. It is a violation of Orthodox dogma to confuse Orthodox “imiaslavie” (name-glorification) with heretical “imiabozhie” (name-deification with respect to created names). It is a violation of Orthodox dogma to confuse Orthodox “onomatodoxía” (name-glorification) with heretical “onomatolatreía” (giving divine worship to created names). No one should ever use “name-glorification” interchangeably with “name-worship,” since this violates the teachings of the Seventh Ecumenical Council.

14. It is wrong to claim that “A name does not express a truth. It is just a name. A proposition expresses a truth.” The names for God express truths about God that have been revealed by God: God is almighty, God is holy and righteous, God is love, mercy, grace, and truth. The name “Jesus,” especially, expresses a truth. “Jesus” (in the original Hebrew) means “the Lord saves.” The single word “Jesus” means “the Lord saves.” Thus, the name “Jesus” is both a name and a proposition (a statement of truth). The name “Jesus” is a statement of the truth that “the Lord saves.” Whenever a person is named Joshua or Jesus or any equivalent name, the naming is based on and expresses the eternal truth that “the Lord saves” and the name refers to God’s salvific activity (energy) that is God Himself. The sounds and letters are created, but the Lord’s salvific energy is uncreated. God’s salvific energy is God Himself. As Saint Cyril of Alexandria also points out in his commentary on Christ’s words (John 17), both God’s uncreated “name” and God’s uncreated “truth” are the uncreated “activity” (“energy”) of God’s Divine Nature; thus, in that sense, we must confess that God’s “name” and God’s “truth” are God Himself. The Orthodox Church gives divine worship to God’s energies that are God Himself; Orthodox Christians give veneration to God’s created names through which God’s energies are active.

15. The Holy Orthodox Church in North America (HOCNA) has been the victim of slanderous accusations of “the heresy of name-worship.” HOCNA has in fact condemned, many times, the heresy of giving divine worship (latreía) to created names. Metropolitan Ephraim’s first official statement on the name-glorification controversy came out in June 2012. He stated that if anyone (including Father Antonii Bulatovich) was guilty of deifying letters and sounds, then he was guilty of heresy. This was a succinct repudiation of the heresy of name-worshipping. Since his writings have yet to be fully and objectively examined by a committee of theologians (as Saint Tikhon and the 1918 All-Russia Council wanted), HOCNA has not taken a position on these writings, other than supporting the reconciliation that occurred under Saint Tikhon. Metropolitan Ephraim also pointed out in the summer of 2012 how the May 1913 “synodal” letter repudiated the teaching of Saint Gregory Palamas. The response of those who left HOCNA in September 2012 was to demand that HOCNA endorse the false letter “without reservation” and “without qualification.” Clearly, the 1913 letter was wrong about Saint Gregory Palamas’s teaching. Not only that, the 1913 letter made a superficial, uninformed, and biased inquiry into so holy a subject as the name of God, with conclusions both self-contradictory and opposed to the biblical and patristic teaching on the name of God. Therefore, it would have been a sin against the teachings of the Church to endorse that letter. Logically, we have to conclude that the main reason people gave for leaving HOCNA in September 2012, that HOCNA would not endorse that letter, was an un-Orthodox viewpoint. It was a sin against Orthodox dogma to endorse that letter as those who left HOCNA did endorse it. HOCNA’s writings on name-glorification have faithfully represented the consensus of the Orthodox Church, without adding anything and without subtracting anything.

THE HERESY OF NAME–FIGHTING

2015-11-17T04:31:00.000-05:00

In Defiance of The Synodal Tome of the Holy Council of Constantinople of 1351

“Every Power or Energy [of God] is God Himself.” These are the words of St. Gregory Palamas. [1] This “Power or Energy,” which is God Himself, as the Saint teaches us, is “boundless” and “before creation.” It is uncreated.

In his book, The Guide, [2] St. Anastasius of Sinai has the following paragraph:

Question: Does the appellation “God” refer to [God's] Essence, or His Person, or His Energy, or is it a symbol, or a metaphor?

Answer: It is clear [the designation] “God” refers to [God's] Energy. It does not represent the very Essence of God; for it is impossible to know this, but it represents and reveals His Energy that is able to be contemplated [by us].

This teaching of St Anastasius of Sinai was confirmed and adopted by the Holy Council of Constantinople of 1351 in its Synodal Tome. The same Synodal Tome affirmed that the Grace or Energy of God “is called 'Godhead' by the Saints.” St. Gregory Palamas endorsed this Synodal Tome of the Holy Council of Constantinople of 1351; this Council, in turn, endorsed St. Gregory's Confession of the Orthodox Faith. These are clear-cut Orthodox Christian synodal resolutions, not the confused and contradictory decisions of later, Lutheran-style “synods” in Russia or elsewhere. [4]

In addition, St. Clement of Rome (c. ✠ 100) tells us that “the Name of God is the origin of all creation” (First Letter to the Corinthians: 59: 2-3).

St. Cyril of Alexandria (✠ 444) teaches that Christ's disciples “ought to be kept in the Name of the Father, that is to say, in the Glory and Power of His Godhead” (On the Gospel According to St. John, bk. 11, ch. 9).

St. John Chrysostom (✠ 407), in his explanation of Acts 3:16 (“And His Name, through faith in His Name, made this man strong”), like the Apostles and all our Saints, also recognizes that the Name of God is one and the same as the healing Grace and Energy of God when he writes that “[the Son of God's] Name raised up the lame man, who was like one dead” (Homilies on the Acts of the Apostles 9).

St. John of Kronstadt (✠ 1908) affirms this teaching of the Saints when he tells us that “His Name is [God] Himself” and “The Name of God is God Himself” (My life in Christ, trans. by E. Goulaeff, London, 1897).

Consequently, any later “council” or “synod” — whether it be Russian, or Greek Old Calendarist, or New Calendarist, or whatever — that contradicts these resolutions of the Holy Council of Constantinople of 1351, the Synodicon of Orthodoxy, and the teachings of the Saints is not an Orthodox council or synod, but a false synod, a pseudo-council, not accepted by the Orthodox Church, and those who concur with such false “synods” are themselves guilty of the heresy of Name-fighting — fighting against the Name of God.

Holy Orthodox Metropolis of Boston

1) See the Chapters Against Barlaam and Acindynus, in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy (in The True Vine, issue nos. 27 and 28, pp. 63-68 and 74-77).

2) See PG 89:53.

3) See Creeds and Confessions of Faith in the Christian Tradition, vol. 1, ed. By Jaroslav J. Pelikan and Valerie V. Hotchkiss, New Haven, CT, Yale University Press, 2003.

4) The Russian Synod of 1913, in blatant defiance of the teaching of Saint Anastasius and the Hesychast Council of 1351, claimed that the Energies of God are not and cannot not be called “God”.

Two Replies to Fr. Panagiotes Carras

2015-09-13T23:41:00.003-04:00

No Point in Returning: In Response to "HOCNA's Point of No Return"

By Ephraim, retired Metropolitan of Boston

Guilt by Association: A Brief Reply to Fr. Panagiotes Carras

By Metropolitan Gregory of Boston and Hierodeacon Samuel

Against the Error of Nominalism

2015-05-20T17:04:00.000-04:00

CRITIQUE OF THE 1913 EPISTLE OF THE RUSSIAN SYNOD ON THE NAME OF GOD

By Vladimir Ern (+1918)

"To the Known God"

2015-01-29T03:32:00.000-05:00

HUMAN LANGUAGE AND DIVINE REVELATION:
ON THE THEOLOGICAL NOMINALISM OF METROPOLITAN ANTHONY KHRAPOVITSKY AND FR. JOHN ROMANIDES

Talk Delivered by Hierodeacon Samuel (Nedelsky) at the
Clergy Synaxis of the Holy Orthodox Church in North America

October 3-4, 2014.

On Inner Christianity (Excerpt)

2014-11-01T14:26:00.000-04:00

By Archpriest John Zhuravsky

Fr. John Zhuravsky was born into a priestly family in Latvia in 1867, later graduating from the Riga Theological Seminary. As a young man he met St. John of Kronstadt, whose example he sought to emulate during the entire course of his pastoral ministry, not only in prayer and asceticism, but also in his labors to help the poor and imprisoned. Noted for his gift of clairvoyance, he reposed in the Lord in Riga in 1964.

The Saints of God came to know the innermost Mystery hidden in the Name of God; they came to know by experience the saving effect of this Name on the whole person: on the body, the mind, and the heart. They came to know that the greatness of the Name of the Lord Jesus is loftier than any attainment of reasonable creatures, either earthly or heavenly. They came to know that the Name of the Lord Jesus is above all names: It is the source of joy, the source of Divine life. It is Spirit. It grants life, transforms, refines, and deifies.

The Name of the Lord Jesus Christ contains within itself a special, divine strength. The strength of this Name heals the body of ailments and the soul of passions. The demons tremble before the Name of Jesus, tormented by the fear of the greatness of its Divinity; they flee from it. Therefore the Fathers said: flog the foe with the Name of Jesus, for there is no greater weapon in heaven or on earth (St. John of the Ladder). For the sake of the Name of Jesus, invoked by the one who prays, help from God descends upon him and he is granted remission of his sins. For the sake of the Name of the Lord, our sinful prayers are heard; and for the sake of this Name salvation is granted unto us.

The power of the Name of Jesus frees the mind from the wavering and whirling of empty thoughts, while the will is strengthened in the fulfillment of the Lord’s commandments. The power of this Name enlightens the mind and permits God-pleasing thoughts and feelings, which belong to immaculate human nature, to dwell in the soul. There is no room left in it for alien thoughts and feelings (Bishop Ignatius (Brianchaninov), vol. II, p. 282 [in Russian]).

By the Name of the Lord Jesus, revival is bestowed upon the soul and sin is put to death. Christ the Lord Jesus is Life – and His Name is vivifying and full of Life. “His Name is Life Eternal” (St. Symeon of Thessalonica).

It grants life to those who invoke it with faith, making them partakers of Life Eternal. The Name of the Lord Jesus is holy and sanctifying for those who invoke it: it sanctifies the mouth, the tongue, the heart, and the whole body; it even sanctifies the surrounding air.

God hath given Him a Name above every name, the Apostle writes, “That at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).

The saints of God came to know this innermost Mystery of the Name of God; they came to know it by experience, in a wondrous alteration of their human nature, which is why they call upon us, and invite us, and implore us – who are dark and unenlightened – to prayer in the Name of Jesus. They came to know the Mystery of the Name of the nameable God, revealed to us in His “new Name that was before the world existed” (St. Athanasius of Alexandria). To this Name they constructed churches throughout the whole world and created a harmonious Liturgical rite. They offered up all prayers in His Name and supplications for the sake of His Name. And everyone that belongs to God has been sanctified by the Name of Christ from his birth into this world. Everyone has learned to love this Name more than anything else on earth: to breathe this Name like air, to have it in his mind and on his lips, in his heart and thoughts, and to cry out: “Love this, love it – as one would love an Invocation that is brilliant, luminous, and sweeter than all that is sweet” (St. Meletios).

For He Who bears this Brilliant and Luminous Name is Himself a Brilliant Light that is delectable, sweeter than all things, and worthy of being invoked and chanted to at all times, and not with simple voices, but with venerable ones, that is, voices like unto Him. Thus, the Holy Church chants in its Divinely inspired, stirring, touching, and majestically tender evening hymn: “O Joyous Light of the holy glory… O Jesus Christ…”

Yes, the venerable monks had this love for Christ the Saviour. They came to know by experience that He is worthy of being praised at all times by the righteous. And with what Angelic delight did they call upon His sweet Name! With what divine rapture did they love the radiant Name! And with what faith and love did they call upon Him! With what Angelic delight did they suffer every imaginable torment and martyrdom for this Name! And with what heavenly inspiration did they both speak and write about Him and glorify Him: “Every day will I bless Thee, and I will praise Thy Name for every, yea, for ever and ever” (Psalm 144:2). And they justified it with the words of the Prophet, who said: “And all shall glory in Thee that love Thy Name, for Thou shalt bless the righteous” (Psalm 5:12).

With what resolute detachment from the life of the corporeal flesh, from the earthly lusts of the flesh, did they retreat into the deserts and cliffs, into the forests and wilds for the sake of this Name! They left behind mothers and fathers, wives and children, brides and grooms, wealth, honor, and glory – and rushed to the strait and narrow path, to the path of afflictions and deprivation, for the sake of Him who delighted them with His Sweetest Name.

Their divine love for this Name and their mystical hearing were opened by the Holy Spirit to the mysteries of the heavenly depths, to the mysteries of the hidden life of the “noetic” world, to the world on high, where “All the orders of Angels in Heaven unceasingly glorify Thy most holy Name, O Jesus” (Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus).

They needed “to see and hear the voice of the liturgy of spiritual beings” (as St. Isaac the Syrian said in Homily 47 [70 in English]).

They heard this wondrous, immortal symphony of Heaven; this innumerable multitude of the most pure and sun-like “noetic beings” with their ineffable paradisiacal voices, merged into a single hymn – these harmonious, majestic chants of praise with the most reverent delight and love for this sweetest Name, this Source of Light and Joy, of Life and Heavenly rejoicing. With their illuminated genius, their purified and exquisite hearing, they heard this Divine Symphony of the Angelic world and imparted to us, who are deaf and needy, this paradisaical music of thoughts and feelings in the church services, in the church hymns, and especially in the Akathist to the Sweetest Jesus.

Yes, it would be impossible to define this Name in human language as anything other than Sweetest. This is the definition of an illumined heart. And this work is the inimitable work of a spiritual genius reflecting the Music of Heaven in itself.

We are deaf to all things divine, and therefore do not hear this Symphony. Our hearing perceives only the low, muffled sounds of the earth: the groaning of the earth and the groaning of our hearts, deafened by the poison of sin; our hearts are torn by the anguished cries of Hades that we bear within ourselves. We have not come to know the Mystery of the word vibrating in harmonic combinations of sounds. For us it is a dead sound. Therefore we do not hear the Heavenly Symphony that sounds forth in the Verbal Name of God. And therefore our deafened and sinful souls do not delight and rejoice in the remembrance of the Name of God. But the ancient Prophet knew this mysterious “remembrance,” he heard heavenly music in the sound of the Name of God, and therefore said: “I remembered God and I was gladdened” (Psalm 76:4).

But for us this remembrance is burdensome, boring, dull – it does not give us joy. We do not hear the joy of heaven in it. For us it is infinitely easier and more enjoyable pointlessly to go around in circles in our minds and in our empty thoughts, rather than to repeat this all-joyful Name.

After all, one comes to know the heavenly only here. The beginning of this knowledge starts here. It is here that the soul communes with this music of Heaven – in noetic labor. If it does not commune here, if it does not come to love this Name here, then it will not anywhere else. We will remove ourselves there, into our eternal Hell, and we will already eternally abide in the sounds of other music: the throes of eternal weeping and lamenting, where “there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth,” and the pain of belated, fruitless repentance. Therefore the Fathers implore us to practice here “this Invocation that is brilliant, luminous, and sweeter than all that is sweet,” this Heavenly Music.

Learn to love it here, before it is too late, for our time on earth is not given to us for empty thoughts and a flesh-loving life, but for the acquisition of an existence that is noetic and eternal; for the acquisition during our brief time on earth of the Eternal Heavenly Love: God.

Let us strive towards this “noetic” acquisition, and then we will come to know the joy of the invocation of this Name; and we, even here, will hear the Angelic doxology, joining in a single hymn together with them, having the heavenly joy of chanting the praise of the Wondrous Name of the Wondrous God.

The Russian original of the book is found here: http://www.hesychasm.ru/library/juravski/sod.htm

"We would like to be with the majority, but being with the truth is infinitely more important for us."

2014-06-18T14:41:00.001-04:00

Letter of Metropolitan Rafael of Moscow (TOC-R) to Metropolitan John of New York (American Metropolia)

Your Beatitude, Dear Vladyka!

It was with great joy that I received your brotherly epistle, filled with genuine concern for the correctness of our True-Orthodox Confession of Faith, the glory of the good name of our holy Church, and the preservation of our brotherly unity. I cordially thank you for your warm words and your prayerful wishes addressed to my humility, in which I see a pledge to strengthen our brotherly ties.

Indeed, throughout the entire history of our Church’s existence, its unity has been subjected to all kinds of trials, and we should be making maximum efforts to preserve it. Following the well-known commandment of the Apostle, I am convinced that this unity should not prevent private disagreement if, of course, they do not affect the very foundations of our faith, which are related to our hope of eternal salvation. In and of itself, theological polemics within the Church are not only possible, but even necessary – inasmuch as the Church, wandering on earth, is constantly faced with new challenges and temptations to which one is not immediately able to formulate a clear and acceptable answer for the whole Church.

In our opinion, the theological question raised in your epistle has already received a general ecclesial response, which is an integral part of the Sacred Tradition of our Church. This response, contained in Divine Revelation, has attained the fullness of its theological elucidation in the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas and other Greek and Russian Fathers, including those of relatively recent times. Please permit me, dear Vladyka, to devote the majority of this, my epistle to you, to a consideration of this question.

So as not to distract from the subject matter, I will not “get personal” and indulge in arguments about the merits and demerits of Bishop Gregory (Lourié); I will only note that you, through ignorance, are likely to have gathered information about him that does not come from the most reliable sources.

I grieve, dear Vladyka, that my position regarding the burning dogmatic question of the names of God has caused you anxiety and fear. What should we do? We cannot recognize name-glorifying as a heresy on the basis alone that it was condemned by the ecclesial authorities of Constantinople and Russia. For, first of all, we are far from having crypto-papist ideas about the inerrancy of ecclesial powers. Second, we are taught from Holy Tradition that God’s truth is only revealed through the agreement of the Holy Fathers. Third, from church history we know of many examples when not just patriarchs or synods, but entire councils of hierarchs from all over the world accepted erring and even heretical decisions, which happened to be opposed only by the voices of the Saints. But the truth in those dramatic moments of church history was with the Saints alone, and not with the actual ecclesial power and the majority of hierarchs.

We would like to be with the majority, but being with the truth is infinitely more important for us. Therefore we encourage you, dear Vladyko, to approach the question of name-glorifying with great care, sobriety, and reasoning. Who stood behind the definitions of the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Russian Synod? What did the name-glorifiers actually teach, and what did their opponents teach? Which of the conflicting teachings is in accordance with the teaching of the Holy Fathers, and which is opposed to it? How does name-glorifying correspond to the teaching of the great luminary of the Church, St. Gregory Palamas? We will try to the best of our limited abilities to reply briefly to these questions.

You refer to the ecclesial powers of Constantinople and Russia at the time of the controversy of the Name of God as if they were unconditional doctrinal authorities, whose decisions are not to be discussed. But we are not Latins, dear Vladyka, to count existent ecclesial authorities as infallible Popes. Is this what we are taught about the unconditional acceptance of any decisions of Patriarchs, Synods, or Councils by the Fathers of the Church: Maximus the Confessor, Theodore the Studite, Gregory Palamas, or Mark of Ephesus? If they had all accepted without reasoning and boldness that which the ecclesial authorities in their times had decided, then what would be left of our Orthodoxy?

Who were the bishops and their colleagues who condemned name-glorifying? Let us refrain from the judgment of the anti-name-glorifying definitions in the Church of Constantinople – better to let our Greek True Orthodox brethren do this (but let us remain with one question: Was it not the same theologians of the Chalki school that less than ten years after judging name-glorifying that prepared the heretical Encyclical of the Ecumenical Patriarchate (1920), which was adopted by the hierarchs of the Church of Constantinople and marked the beginning of its fall into the pan-heresy of ecumenism?) However, let us recall who were the authors of the Synodal resolution against name-glorifying in the Russian Church.

Are you aware that the Synod’s Decision of 1913 was written by Sergius (Stargorodsky), the future apostate from Orthodoxy and destroyer of the Russian Church, who had even earlier expressed in his books and articles many openly un-Orthodox judgments, tending to crypto-Nestorianism and Pelagianism in soteriology and the ecumenical heresy in ecclesiology? Was this man’s mind sufficiently pure from vain opinions and enlightened by the grace of the Holy Spirit to such an extent that he could judge infallibly about the greatness of God’s Name? On what did Sergius rely when writing this epistle? On the works of the Holy Fathers? On St. Gregory Palamas? No! On Sergius Troitsky, a semiliterate theologian and, as his later life proved, a man unprincipled in faith: first, as a member of ROCOR, he demonstrated in his articles the non-canonicity of Moscow Patriarchate headed by Sergius (Stragorodsky), denouncing its retreat from the purity of Orthodoxy; later, when in 1945 the Soviet troops were occupying Bulgaria, in which Troitsky was living at the moment, he became a member of the Moscow Patriarchate and began to write about the non-canonicity of ROCOR. Is this the mouth of the true Church? Of the other initiators of the struggle with name-glorifying, I will avoid verbosity by keeping silence. But I will simply note that the arguments used by current fighters with the divine power of the name of God – for example, a certain Vladimir Moss – are nothing more than a slavish repetition of the fabrications of S. N. Troitsky.

But the point is not even who was opposing name-glorifying, but what they were teaching. And they taught that the name of God is only a conventional symbol, a simple combination of sounds and letters, like any other human words – but not the power and grace of God, as we have long ago learned from Holy Scripture and the words of the Holy Fathers.

You, surely out of ignorance, call name-glorifying “the heresy of name-worshipping.” But does not Holy Scripture tell us that the name of Jesus is the name before which every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth and things under the earth(Philippians 2:10)? That it is above every name (Philippians 2:9),whereby we must be saved (Acts 4:12)? Does Holy Scripture really command us to commit idolatry by teaching us to worship created conventional symbols, an empty set of letters and sounds? Could an empty set of sounds really save us? Hardly!

Our Russian saints have long taught that “at God’s Judgement we must give an account for every idle world; all the more frightful will be the account for every word of blasphemy against the foundations of the dogmas of Christian faith. The Teaching of God’s power in the name of Jesus has the full dignity of a foundational dogma, and belongs to the all-holy number and corpus of these dogmas” (St. Ignatius of the Caucasus, “Homily on the Jesus Prayer”). We many times meet in our Saints that the Name of God is “Divine; the force and effect of this name is Divine; they are omnipotent and salvific; they are beyond our understanding, inaccessible to us” (St. Ignatius of the Caucasus). “The saving Name of Jesus was reserved by the pre-eternal counsel of the Holy Trinity for our salvation, and on this day the righteous Joseph brings it forth like a priceless pearl from heaven's treasury, so that it may be used to redeem the whole human race” (St. Dimitry of Rostov, Homily on the Circumcision). That “the name of God is holy in and of itself, as well as glorious and all-glorious, and therefore demands praise from us.” That “the great name of God includes in itself His Divine properties, not communicated by creation (by nature), but belonging to Him alone” (St. Tikhon of Zadonsk, On Inner Christianity). That “His name is He – one God in three Persons, a simple Essence” (St. John of Kronstadt, My Life in Christ).

So whom should we believe: Sts. Dimitry, Tikhon, Ignatius, the Holy Righteous John of Kronstadt and many other Holy God-Pleasers glorified in Russia, who taught that the name of God is a divine power, that it is Spirit, that it is higher than human comprehension, that it is pre-eternal and brought out to us from the heavenly treasures, that contains within itself divine properties, that it is God Himself? Or the apostates Stragorodsky and Troitsky, for whom the name of God is only a conventional symbol and empty sound?

Reading the teachings of the Holy Fathers about the name of God, one unwittingly reaches a state of awe: the name of God is a sacred mystery given us for salvation. Reading the Synodal Epistle: it is the result of ordinary human thought, clothed in words or sounds – what here is sacred and mysterious? Are the Holy Fathers and the Synodal theologians talking about the same thing? What specifically did the Holy Fathers call the names of God? To help us open this question, to open slightly the sacred mystery of the name of God, we are helped by the great Saint of God, Gregory Palamas, and a host of other Byzantine and ancient Greek divinely-wise Holy Fathers.

St. Gregory Palamas, in his priceless works, clearly distinguishes, on the one hand, behind the name of God as the fruit of created human thought, expressed in sounds or the written word (cf.,Against Gregoras 26-28) in the realm of so-called natural revelation, when from the knowledge of sensory creation one makes certain conclusions about the Creator. But, on the other hand, St. Gregory distinguishes the name of God as the uncreated self-revelation of God Himself, as His divine word exceeding our minds – the name “which is higher than every name, and word, and reason” (cf. Homily 60. On Theophany 4); a pre-eternal name, “of which there is nothing more fearful” (cf. Homily 57. On the Sunday of the Fathers 1); a name, with which we do not name Him, but with which He names Himself (cf. On the Divine Energies and their Communion, 16).

One thing is a vague foreknowledge of God through His created, sensual world and, in accordance therewith a foreknowledge of His name, which is possible even for pagans wise in the natural ways of this world. It is quite another thing to have direct knowledge of God, face to face, in the uncreated Light of His self-revelation, when He names Himself with unspeakable names – the knowledge of these names of God is available only by grace to His Saints.

Has not now the shadow of the law passed away, and grace come? Will we really think about the names of God only in the ordinary sense that the pagans allow and know, and deny the sacred mystery of the names of God that God Himself reveals directly to His Saints?

According to the teaching of St. Gregory Palamas, God even in His energies is incomprehensible to the power of the human mind, but we see them only through the power of the Holy Spirit (cf. Against Akindynos 4:19). God is known and named not by the means of human created thought, but by His uncreated energies (cf. ibid., 1:3:6).

Therefore it is a great misconception to think that man gives names to God, just as he gives names to creatures that he knows by the power of his reason as objects of his knowledge, identifying by means of his thought their properties and, in accordance and in accordance with these properties, naming them with verbal names. No! We cannot think of God as an object of our knowledge for our created mind, which could as it were know and define Him. Let us not speak such a blasphemy! It is not human reason, by its creaturely power, that gives Him names, but God Who reveals them through grace to man through his pre-eternal names (cf. Exodus 3:14).

In this sense we can speak of God’s names as divine, uncreated energies. But being received by the purified mind of the Holy Prophets, these name-energies are “clothed” in created human thoughts uttered by created sounds or written in created letters. In this sense, we speak of God’s names as sacred symbols, verbal icons, which are created images of uncreated name-energies.

Unfortunately, certain opponents of name-glorifying reinterpret the grace-filled thought of St. Gregory Palamas and, pulling out of context certain polemical statements in which he mentions the names of God as the fruit of natural knowledge, or of the names of God as verbal symbols, make hasty conclusions that the Saint allegedly did not in any way allow one to speak of the names of God as uncreated energies. For example, these perverse commentators cite these words against the heretic Nicephoras Gregoras: “But Gregoras, thinking that this was said in a temporal sense, placed the divine nature before the divine energies, crazily suggesting that the divine energies were names” (Against Gregoras, 28).

But if these unfortunate commentators bothered to understand the Saint’s thought in context, he would be convinced that the issue here is something else altogether than what they would like to see in these words. The heretic Gregoras was denying the real distinction between the essence and energy in God, and those places on the writings of the Holy Fathers in which this distinction was made, he reinterpreted in the sense that the difference was allegedly simply nominal, that is, that it existed only in our thoughts and language, which expresses these various names, while in reality – in God Himself – there is allegedly one simple substance in which there are supposedly not, and cannot be, any distinctions, because “energy is the same as name,” understanding names in the simple human sense as expressed by words.

Is it really in this sense that the name-glorifiers named God’s names as uncreated energies? Of course not. Using this method of interpretation it is possible even to conclude that Holy Scripture teaches that there is no God. But, as we know, Scripture does not teach this – it is what the fool says in his heart.

As for what St. Gregory Palamas actually taught, and how one needs to interpret his teaching about names that God Himself reveals to us, it is better to listen to witnesses and faithful followers. Thus, the saint’s blessed disciple, David Disypatos clearly says that the names of God, in this exalted sense, are His uncreated energy: “If these names exhibit neither any divine essence, nor one simple single essence, it remains to recognize that, in accordance with the holy theologian, they are by nature intrinsic to God’s nature, as His powers and energies, and are distinctive or identifying characteristics of the Divine nature” (On the Blasphemy of Barlaam and Akindynos, 26).

On the intrinsic uncreated names with which He names Himself, and is not named by us, one of St. Gregory Palamas’ disciples, the great St. Mark of Ephesus, writes clearly: “How can there coincide in one and the same [entity] both non-being and to be everything? After all, there can never be anything between the essence of God and what exists, according to which God is called both an essence and a cause (and not according to the His very essence). What else can it be, except energy, which even if one wants to call it a thought or idea, we do not object – with the exception that (we note), that our Artist (God) is named not by [created] ideas, [but as] having His own name and thought [of His] essence, and the very idea of artistry is known and given from the outside. God, being nameless in [His] essence and by nature and from eternity holding and surpassing in Himself the idea of being, is called according to them and from them” (On Essence and Energy, 16).

Long before St. Gregory Palamas on the names-energies, perhaps not as clearly, but more covertly, taught many, many Holy Fathers. Thus, for example, St. Dionysius the Areopagite in his tract On the Divine Names, called the names of God “divine agathourgiai,” that is, “divine good energies.”

So whom should we believe, dear Vladyka, Holy Scripture, which teaches of the name of God being worthy of veneration, being higher than every name; Sts. Gregory Palamas, Mark of Ephesus, Anastasius of Sinai, and many other Holy Fathers, who witness to God’s pre-eternal names, or to the Protestantizing theologians of the Chalki school, who are unaware of the verbal name-symbol of the Divine self-revelation of the name-energy?

Therefore, in my turn I caution you, Your Eminence, against hasty and ill-considered opinions about the sacred mystery of the names of God and call upon you to study carefully the works of the Holy Fathers on this dogmatic question most important for our salvation.

In conclusion I want to assure you, dear Vladyka, that we do not by any means consider the name of God to be God’s essence, for the essence is absolutely unknowable and unnamable. But, I repeat again, in the sense given above we venerate the name of God as His own uncreated energies, with which He names Himself and reveals these names through His Saints, as we have learned from them: “Question: The Name of God is essential, personal, efficient (energetic), symbolical, or metaphorical? Answer: Clearly it is efficient (energetic), for it does not reveal to us the essence of God (because that is impossible to know), but [the name] ‘God’ reveals to us only the contemplation of His activity” (St. Anastasius the Sinaite, The Guidebook).

We do not deify variable sounds or letters, with which the name of God is expressed in various human languages; we do not deify the created names and symbols (which is what, for example, the Russian philosophers and sophiologists like Florensky, Bulgakov, and other did – a misinterpretation that we do not accept!) Therefore we do not think that the mere utterance of the verbal name of God sanctifies by grace and makes one a partaker of God by necessity or, so to speak, automatically. After all, touching a holy icon does not automatically make one a participant in its grace, and simply eating the Holy Gifts does not automatically make one a partaker of the Body of Christ and does not automatically deify us. But everyone partakes to the measure of his capacity, depending on the free gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I sincerely trust, dear Vladyka, that the doctrine of the veneration of the Name of God – in the sense that it has been put forth above – will not cause you to doubt its exact correspondence with the teachings of the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church. And that means that the controversies connected with this teaching should not cause division in our Holy Church, which would only benefit the enemy of our salvation. I assure you of the most sincere and brotherly feeling of love for you and ask you, for the sake of love in Christ Jesus, to come without fail to our sacred celebration in the St. John the Forerunner Monastery on July 13-14 (New Calendar), so that in personal contact with me and all the Fullness of our Church, which will meet in these days at a Local Council, we can resolve any remaining confusion. May the grace of the Holy Spirit, which has always acted in the Church from the day of Pentecost, guide us into all truth and not allow us to evade the Truth, that is, the Church. I cordially wish you God’s abundant help in your holy service and bodily health. I ask you not to forget me in your holy prayers.

With much love in the Lord,

Your Beatitude’s loyal brother

Metropolitan Rafael

Source: www.portal-credo.ru/site/?act=english&id=555

Russian original: http://ipckatakomb.ru/?s=news&newsgroup=2&nid=1491

THE BOUNDLESS NAME

2014-03-17T22:04:00.001-04:00

By Metropolitan Ephraim of Boston, Bishop Gregory of Brookline and Thomas Deretich (HOCNA)

By the term “Name of God,” Orthodox Christians mean two things: 1) We mean the revealed Truth about God, and, 2) in another sense, we mean also the human, created words by which this revealed Truth is articulated. The eternal, revealed Truth about God exists and will always exist, whether we articulate it in our human language or not. This is what our Saviour intimates to us when in the Gospel of St. John, He tells the Jews:

"But now you seek to kill Me, a Man that has told you the Truth, which I have heard from God." (John 8:40)

No one in his right mind would assert that the Truth which God the Son heard from God the Father was communicated in human words! The communication in the Holy Trinity is entirely ineffable. Yet it is this very Truth, the uncreated and ineffable Truth of God, that our Saviour, when He became man for us, revealed to us in human speech. This is also the very same divine Truth with which the Holy Spirit enlightened the Apostles on the day of Pentecost, in accordance with the promise of our Saviour:

"When He, the Spirit of Truth, is come, He will guide you into all Truth: for He shall not speak of Himself; but whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak." (John 16:13)

Again, the Truth that the Holy Spirit shall speak and guide Christ’s disciples in, is an ineffable and divine Truth, which He received from the Son. Yet this is the same Truth that the Spirit showed to the Apostles and which they preached with human words in all the known world!

These examples illustrate clearly the two aspects of God’s revelation and the distinction that lies between them: the uncreated and eternal Truth of God’s revelation, and created, human concepts and words with which this revelation is articulated in order to become accessible to the human mind. And this is the very same distinction that exists between the uncreated Name of God, that is, the eternal Truth about God, and the created names of God, that is, human words and concepts, which the Church has taught us to use in order to articulate the eternal Truth about God.

It is exclusively in the former sense, that is, in the sense of the uncreated Truth about God, that we say that the Name of God is an Energy of God, because every revelation of God about Himself, every Truth about God, is His Energy. In the latter sense, that is, in terms of human speech, the names of God are both created and temporal, being part of this world, and they are certainly not an Energy of God.

The prominent Russian professor and writer of books on Orthodox theology, Serge Verhovskoy, discusses these two aspects of the Name of God, in his book, "God and Man":

"A particular form of the revelation of God in a word is the revelation of God in the Divine Names. A Name of God, as a human word, is, of course, created. (It is, therefore, possible to use it senselessly or “in vain.” The identification of a Name of God, as a [created] word, with God Himself is a heresy which was condemned by the Russian Holy Synod in the twentieth century.) But God Himself can dwell and act in it.

"The Divine aspect of a Divine Name is, as it were, a Divine “self-definition” or a thought of God about Himself. The presence of a divine principle in the Divine Names follows from the whole attitude of the Old Testament toward Them. The Name of God is Holy, and God sanctifies Himself in His Name (Lev. 22:32). Men can offend the Name of God by their sins (Am. 2:7). God acts for the sake of His Name (Ez. 39:7, 25). The Name of God is one, great, and eternal, as is God Himself (Ps. 9:2, 134:13, Zach. 14:9). God acts through His Name (Ps. 53:1). If there were nothing Divine in the Name of God, how would it be possible for us to bless, praise, and love it, worship and serve it, rejoice in it and be persecuted for it’s sake? Finally it is striking that God reveals His Names (e.g. Ex. 3:13–14, 6:3). It follows that They express the genuine Divine reality.

"God is near to a man in His Names (Ps. 75:1). The presence of God is equivalent to the presence of the Name of God. The Name of God dwells in the whole earth and especially in the Holy Land, in Israel, in Jerusalem, in the temple and in individuals. The Jews loved to give their children names in which there was a Divine Name (Ishmael, John, Joachim, Jesus, etc.)

"There are about one hundred Divine Names in the Old Testament. Each of them has its own meaning. It is possible to include into Them the entire theology of the Old Testament. The Divine Name is “wonderful” (Jg. 13:17–18); it is “remembrance of God” (Ex. 3:15). God reveals His Name in order for men to know Him (Ex. 6:3, 33:19; Jer. 23:6)."

Further on, he writes:

"He is revealed to us in the Divine Names, perfections and actions [i.e. Energies], which reveal something to us not only about the Creator and about Providence, but also about God Himself, … He manifests Himself as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, as Unity, Life, Essence, Goodness, Truth, Beauty, Holiness, Love, and as many other properties [i.e. Graces and Names] which really belong to Him, though it be a manner other than we are capable of imagining."

The well-known Greek hierarch, Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos, agrees and writes:

"The Name of God is the Energy of God. It is known from our Orthodox theology that God has Essence and Energy. Even created things have essence and Energy; the sun, for example is a heavenly body and emits its light, and its fire is something that burns and emits Energy, that is, heat, and light. But God, since He is uncreated, is both uncreated Essence and uncreated Energy; with regard to His Essence, God is without name and beyond names, but with regard to His Energies, He has many Names.

"Whenever God revealed Himself to men, He revealed one of His Energies, like love, peace, righteousness, or love for mankind. In this way He has communion with men. For this reason also I say that the Names of God are His Energies. Whenever, indeed, anyone mentions the Name of God with compunction, humility, repentance, faith, etc., he receives knowledge and experience of the Energy of God."

In His Essence, God is unknowable and cannot be understood or described by any creature. His Essence has no name, nor can any be applied to that ineffable Essence.

But in His Energies, in His Power and Glory, in His Divine Grace and Revelation, God reveals Himself and is made known—to the extent that man is able to comprehend Him. Here is what Metropolitan Philaret of Chernigov, a prominent theologian of the Russian Church in the nineteenth century, says concerning the Name of God:

"The Name of God is the being of God in that aspect in which it can become known.

"What is said about God in proper sense, that is what God is; and what He is by His nature, that is what is said [about Him] in proper sense. The revealed names and characteristics of God are not a product of human thought, so that they [i.e. names and characteristics] should be likened to meaningless words."

Some ancient heresies (e.g. the Eunomians) would not acknowledge the Divinity of Christ, but they did claim to know God’s Essence and therefore attributed man-made labels to that Essence. However, the Eunomians were resolutely condemned by the Holy Fathers and the Holy Councils of the Church.

But, contrary to what some claim today, Eunomianism is not what our Saints, or the Church writers mentioned above, teach. Nobody—absolutely no one—knows God’s Essence, nor can anyone attribute a name to that Essence.

Below, there follow several Scriptural and Patristic texts that confirm the Orthodox Christian teaching on the Name of God:

The ancient Christian document, the Shepherd of Hermas (c. A.D. 150), says, “The Name of the Son of God is great and boundless, and upholds the entire universe.” Orthodox Christians believe that only the Grace of God—that is to say, only God Himself—is “boundless and upholds the entire universe.” So, it is clear that here, the Shepherd of Hermas equates the Grace of God with the boundless Name of the Son of God.

St. Clement of Rome does the same, when he tells us: “It was through [Jesus Christ] that He called us ‘from darkness to light,’ from ignorance to the recognition of His glorious Name, to hope on Thy Name, which is the origin of all creation.” Again, Orthodox Christians believe that only the Grace of God—that is to say, only God Himself—is “the origin of all creation.” It is obvious, therefore, that here, St. Clement of Rome also identifies the “glorious Name” with the Grace of God.

St. Cyril of Alexandria makes exactly the same identification when he instructs us: “[Christ] says that His disciples ought to be kept in the Name of the Father, that is to say, in the Glory and Power of His Godhead.”

Psalm 19:1 also identifies the Name of God with the Power of God:

"The Lord hear thee in the day of affliction;

The Name of the God of Jacob defend thee."

Psalm 101:15 tells us precisely the same thing:

"And the heathen shall fear Thy Name, O Lord,

And all the kings of the earth Thy Glory."

Here, again, we see this identity of “Name” and “Glory.”

Psalm 71:17 says that His Name is “before the sun,” that is, before creation:

His Name shall be blessed unto the ages;

Before the sun doth His Name continue.

The Synodicon of Orthodoxy identifies the Glory of God with God Himself, when it tells us that this Grace, or Energy, or Light, or Glory and Power, or Revelation, “emanates inseparably from God’s Essence,” though it is distinct from that Essence. That is to say, this Divine Energy, this “Glory and Power of His Godhead” is God Himself.

St. Gregory Palamas affirms: “Every Power or Energy [of God] is God Himself.” This “Power or Energy,” which is God Himself, is “boundless” and “before creation.”

In "The Guide," St. Anastasius of Sinai has the following discourse:

"Question: Does the designation “God” refer to the Essence, or the Person, or the Energy, or a symbol, or a metaphor?

"Answer: It is clear that [the designation] “God” refers to the Energy. It does not represent the very Essence of God; for it is impossible to know this, but it represents and reveals His Energy that is able to be contemplated."

The largest Hesychastic Council, the Council of Constantinople of 1351, confirmed this teaching in its long dogmatic decree, called the Synodal Tome, when it affirmed that the Energy of God “is called ‘Godhead’ by the saints.” The Council also approvingly quoted St. Anastasius’ teaching that the name “God” applies to the Energy of God. St. Gregory Palamas signed the Tome of the Council of 1351, and this Council also endorsed his written Confession of the Orthodox Faith.

In his writings, St. Gregory Palamas refers both to the uncreated Name of God (which is the Energy of God and thus God Himself) and to the created words (which are not an Energy of God) in which, however, God Himself dwells. In his Homily 53, on the Entry of the Mother of God into the Holy of Holies, St. Gregory Palamas states that the Holy of Holies was “the place assigned to God alone, which was consecrated as His dwelling, and out of which He gave audience to Moses, Aaron, and those of their successors who were equally worthy.” St. Gregory Palamas also states, one paragraph earlier in the same homily, that the Holy of Holies was “the dwelling-place, as David calls it, of the Holy Name” (Psalm 74:7). The uncreated Glory and Energy of God is called, by the Prophet David, the “Name” of God. The Holy of Holies was the dwelling place of the uncreated “Holy Name” which is the same as “God alone,” according to St. Gregory Palamas. In his "Confession of the Orthodox Faith," St. Gregory Palamas also refers to God dwelling in created words of the Holy Scriptures as He dwells in the saints, the icons, and the Cross: “we venerate the salutary form of the honorable cross, the glorious temples and places and the God-given Scriptures because of the God who dwells in them.” Thus, according to St. Gregory Palamas, God dwells in holy (created) words, but God’s (uncreated) “Name” (Psalm 73:7) is “God alone.”

St. John of Kronstadt agrees with the foregoing Scriptural and Patristic texts: “His Name is [God] Himself” and “The Name of God is God Himself.”

God’s Name, therefore, must properly be understood in two senses: 1) in its Divine and eternal sense, when it is an Energy of God; and 2) in its human and created sense, when it is certainly not an Energy of God.

In conclusion, therefore, we see that, from many sources, old and new, the voice of the Church rings clear on this issue.

To be continued

“THY NAME IS AS MYRRH POURED FORTH”

2014-03-04T09:55:00.000-05:00

Sermon of Bishop Gregory of Brookline (HOCNA) on the Feast of the Circumcision, 2014,

delivered at Holy Nativity Convent, Boston.

(lightly edited)

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

We have come, dear sisters in Christ, to the eighth day after the Nativity according to the flesh of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, and on this eighth day the Saviour Who became man fulfills the covenant that He gave to His servant Abraham, one of four covenants that He gave to human beings.

The first covenant was that given to Noah, the covenant that was confirmed by the rainbow, saying that there would not be a deluge anymore to punish the iniquities of human beings. And our Saviour fulfilled this covenant because not only was there not a deluge, but water itself was transformed from a means of destruction to the means of salvation through Holy Baptism.

The second covenant He gave to His servant, the father of all the faithful, Abraham. The third covenant was given on Mt. Sinai—the law which was proclaimed by Moses.

And the fourth and final covenant was revealed by our Saviour Himself when He became incarnate of the Virgin Mary. And thus were fulfilled the words of the Prophet Jeremias who said that there will be given another law and another circumcision—not the law written on tablets of stone, but a law written in the hearts of men and circumcision not of the foreskin, but circumcision of the heart. This our Saviour fulfilled by His Incarnation, when He gave us a new law, new life, new commandments—the final covenant.

But today our Saviour is Himself submitting to the covenant that He gave to Patriarch Abraham, being circumcised and named that wonderful and blessed name—Jesus.[1]

When Abraham believed in God and fulfilled everything that God had bidden him, our Saviour gave him the covenant saying that “you shall circumcise the foreskin of all your progeny, and in your seed all nations shall be blessed.”[2] And He changed his name from Abram to Abraham. And truly, in his seed, as Paul the Apostle tells us, in his seed (he uses the singular form of the word in Greek [3]), that is, in our Saviour, all the nations are blessed.

A great thing is revealed today. If we read carefully the homily written by St. Dimitry of Rostov concerning this feast, we shall understand the depth of the wisdom of God. Our Saviour was circumcised, fulfilling the law, but also on this feast He reveals to us a great treasure—the great treasure of that Name by which He will be called from here unto eternity. By all the Angels and men, unto eternity, unto the ages of ages, God the Son will be known as Jesus, the sweetest of names, close to the heart of everyone that believes.

And St. Dimitry of Rostov most beautifully explains that until now, until this Name was revealed, it was [kept as myrrh] in a jar. But on this day of Circumcision the jar was opened, and the Name was spread abroad. And in this was fulfilled that which was written in the Song of Songs by the Prophet and King Solomon; for this whole Song of Songs is a dialogue between the bridegroom and the bride. And the Fathers say that the dialogue is really between Christ, the Bridegroom, and His beloved, the Church. And the Church, the bride, tells our Saviour, “Thy Name is as myrrh spread and poured forth. Therefore the virgins love Thee.”[4] Truly His Name is as myrrh, as fragrant myrrh spread abroad in the whole world, and this begins today.

“And therefore the virgins love Him.” Who are the virgins? They are the Saints—everybody who loved His Name and attained salvation through His Name. Today this is fulfilled. For this Name, St. Dimitry of Rostov says, was preordained in the Council of the Holy Trinity. But it was kept as in a jar, as myrrh is kept in a jar. It is there, but the fragrance is not sensed; but today it is opened and poured forth on all creation. And everybody is filled with the fragrance of this Name. This is the Name by which we are saved. This is the Name unto which all in Heaven and on earth and under the earth will bow and bend their knee. This is the Name by which salvation is brought to the world—the Name preserved from eternity, and the Name by which our Saviour will be known. This is a simple truth—a truth that is understood by all Christians.

But, alas, there are those who doubt this simple truth. They cannot understand how a name, which they consider a mere word, can in any way have such great power. How can it be wonderful, glorious, worshipful? A simple truth, but doubted by many—those who are illogical logicians of our time, who doubt the most simple truth of our Faith. What is the answer to this? What is it that they are accusing us of? That which was done by all Christians of all times—to venerate, to love the Name of our Saviour? What are we doing that is so wrong? How can we explain this? How can we make people understand the simple truth that by this Name everyone is saved? That no one is saved except by this Name. And there is no other name given to human beings by which we are saved?

The answer is this: what is a name? In today’s world a name is like a dog tag. It is identification that separates one from the other. That’s it. Is this the Biblical understanding of a name? Is that how the Fathers understood what a name is? Look at the Old Testament, dear sisters. Throughout the Old Testament the name reveals the truth about the named. The relationship between the name and the named is the truth that it tells us. This is the meaning of a name—the truth that it designates. Throughout the Old Testament we see people being named according to the sum of their characteristics. People are named, and the name reveals the truth about them. Throughout the Old Testament the name has a great meaning; it is inextricably linked with that which is named. God gave Adam the power to name, not only human beings, but also the animals. Not arbitrarily, but with the wisdom that God gave him, Adam would see the truth about each creature, and give him the proper name. That is how intricately the name is linked with that which is named.[5]

This is the Biblical understanding of what a name is: it expresses the truth about the object. And our accusers are saying that a name is just a word that exists in our mind. It has no link whatsoever with the truth about the object. Foolish philosophers! Illogical logicians! Have not you read anything from the Scriptures? So, if the name of a creature reveals the truth about the creature, what does the Name of the Creator, the Eternal, the Uncreated, reveal about Him? If the name of a creature reveals the created truth, what does the Name of the Creator reveal? The uncreated truth about the Creator. This is the key to understanding the theology concerning the Name of God. This is the key to open the treasures of this beautiful theology handed down from the Prophets, the Apostles, the Martyrs, the Fathers, even unto this day and unto the end of the world.

“The truth of God abideth forever,”[6] the Prophet says. We should understand what this means. The truth of God is not a deduction; it is not a scientific truth that people came to think about God. It is not something that people sat down and made up about God. The truth, in the Biblical understanding, is the eternal light of God—the eternal knowledge and wisdom of God about Himself, just like the light of God is eternal light. Just like the wisdom of God is eternal wisdom, uncreated wisdom. Just like the power of God is the eternal power of God, so the truth of God, the truth about God, is eternal truth. This is the meaning of the Name of God. This is what we venerate, worship, love in the names of God—the eternal truth about God, which is expressed in created words. The truth was there from generations. “From before the sun doth your Name continue,”[7] the Prophet says. Forever it was there. This is the truth about which our Saviour says,“I came to testify to the truth.”[8] Quite a big thing for our Saviour to testify to, right? The truth of God.

This is the truth about which our Saviour says, “The truth that I heard from the Father is that which I speak to you.”[9] The eternal truth about God. The eternal truth in the names of God. This is the connection between the Name of God and God Himself—the truth that it reveals about God. How simple it is, yet how can people make such simple things so complicated and confusing! Do not we do this every day—worship the eternal through the created?

Let us take another example. Every day at the Liturgy when we come out with the Holy Gospel, we raise it up and say, “Come let us worship and fall down before Christ.” Who are we chanting to? Is it to the Holy Gospel? Why? Because our Saviour Himself is present in the Gospel; because His truth is present in the Gospel. The Gospel is made with signs—words; paper, ink. Those are the created side of the Gospel. But is that all? Is there nothing else to the Gospel but words? What is the inner meaning of the Gospel? It is the eternal truth of the Gospel, that is, our Saviour Himself.

This we do every day and do not think about it. How different is the Name of God from the Gospel? It is not only not different, but it is the same! In that beautiful book that we read (all of us love that book), The Way of the Pilgrim, there is one passage where our beloved pilgrim encounters a man who reads the Gospel constantly. Every day he reads one Gospel. And then he gives an explanation of the relationship between the Prayer of Jesus, the Name of Jesus, and the Gospel. What does he say? How does he explain the relationship? The whole Gospel Truth, he says, is contained in the Name - Jesus!

So what does the Name Jesus mean? What is the truth that it tells us? The eternal, the uncreated truth - God saves! That is the meaning of the Name - Jesus. God saves. He is the Saviour—not a human being, not an angel, but God Himself is the Saviour. That is the meaning of the Name “Jesus”. This meaning, this truth, that God is the Saviour, is something demons dread and cannot approach. Diseases flee, death is destroyed. Because the truth of our Saviour—His truth, His eternal and uncreated truth—shines from this Name. That is why it is salvific for us. That is why it is a flogging and a fire for the demons.

If there is nothing to the Name of God, if it only exists in our minds, as those foolish philosophers have told us on many occasions, what do the demons dread? If it is just part of our mind, if it has no real existence, from what do the diseases flee? Are the demons afraid of our thoughts? If the Name of our Saviour, by which He is known by both angels and humankind, only exists in our mind, that means that if all human beings were to forget the Name Jesus, it would disappear. It has no real existence. What a blasphemy! To imagine our Saviour without His sweetest Name which He reveals to us! By which everybody is saved that is saved. They do not even realize to what depth of blasphemy they have come to. Even if you could not understand the theology, out of dread you would simply be silent. Would not you be afraid to take up a battle against the Name of God? Have you no fear of God? Have you no trembling? That in your foolishness you take up a fight? Against what? Against the Name of God?

From true theology comes true asceticism. And from true asceticism comes true mysticism—that is, union, communion with God. Therefore, the Orthodox theology that we have described is the cornerstone of hesychasm, the true asceticism. If you open the calendar that we just published, there is a beautiful, small introduction by Saint Symeon of Thessalonika, concerning the Jesus Prayer, and he enumerates one after another the great benefits of the Jesus Prayer: salvation of the soul, redemption, remission of sins, new life, and so forth, on and on. And why? Because, he concludes, it contains within itself the saving Name of our Saviour—the only name by which we are saved. This is the strength of the Jesus Prayer. And those who understand it, have true asceticism, that is, hesychasm. And from this true asceticism flows true mysticism, that is, true communion with God.

If we know that saying the Jesus Prayer is a holy activity, from which the uncreated truth about God shines and flows forth, then all we have to do is practice it. And the Name itself does the rest. That is what all the Fathers teach us. Practice the Jesus Prayer. Make your life worthy of it. But concentrate your mind on what you are saying, not imagining anything, not letting loose your mind to imagine things, but letting the Prayer do everything. If you open the book of St. Hesychius of Jerusalem, that most beautiful part of The Philokalia, the Saint explains everything there with such clarity, that not a word more is needed to understand what the Name of God is, what the Jesus prayer is, and how it is salvific. Like the sun, when it is up, shines and radiates its light in all the atmosphere, in the same way the Name of Jesus, when it descends into the heart, enlightens the whole heart. The Name itself does everything. It burns the passions and expels demons, because it is the truth about God contained in a word. All we have to do is practice it with diligence, with dedication, making our life in everything that we can worthy of this practice. This is true hesychasm; this is true understanding of how from true theology comes true asceticism.

But there is also false theology, the one that I described, which considers the Name of God as of no consequence, as nothing, a mere human word. And from it comes false asceticism, and therefore false mysticism. If one does not believe that the Name of God is of any worth, [if one believes] that it is just a human word, what does the Jesus Prayer become? A mental exercise. I am just exercising my brain so I can think about God. Meditation, yoga, not a prayer. That is what the consequences are. From false theology you reach false asceticism. And what is the fruit of false asceticism? The Fathers have a word that we all know—delusion, prelest’. That is the fruit of false theology and false asceticism. For if we do not believe that the Prayer of Jesus contains that great treasure, if we think that it is all in our mind - we do not really come to touch our Saviour in our prayer. We just make circles in our imagination. It is all in our mind, it is all mere words, nothing else but a mental exercise. There is no presence of God. For the Saints said that the memory of God, the repetition of His Name, is the true presence of our Saviour. Without the presence of our Saviour there is no prayer. It is futile. It is a delusion. And because it is futile, and because the soul understands that it is futile, it tries to imagine things of its own, to add spice to the boring life of our imagination. And then there comes prelest’, delusion. Why? Because the soul does not believe in what it is praying.

But our Saviour Himself is present in the Jesus Prayer. There His Name is present in His truth, in His glory, in His power. Let Him do the work. Flee to His Name, and He will deliver you from your enemies.[10] This is the true understanding of prayer. And not the other one. Let us therefore hold strongly, tightly, to this true theology.

This conflict is not new—that true prayer, that the true understanding of the Name of God is contested by those who call themselves Orthodox; not only Orthodox, but they call themselves “confessors of Orthodoxy”. More than two hundred years ago,[11] St. Paisius Velichkovsky had to flee from so-called Orthodox Russia to a foreign land in order to be able to practice the Jesus Prayer. A few decades after him, St. Ignatiy Brianchaninov was wailing and lamenting that he did not see anyone practicing it anymore. Not only that, but he said that the devil has such a hatred for the sweetest Name of our Saviour, that he makes even Christians blaspheme against its power. Does that sound familiar? Truly the Church spoke through St. Ignatius Brianchaninov, saying that the teaching of the divine power of the Name of God is a dogma of the Church. That is what we hold onto. That is the teaching of the Church. And those who blaspheme against the Prayer of Jesus, against the power of the Name, do the same thing that the Pharisees did when they accused our Saviour of casting out demons by Beelzebub.[12] Great is the sin of those who are blaspheming the power, the divine dignity, the divine worth, of the sweetest Name of our Lord Jesus.

Let us hold onto it, dear sisters. It was given to us by Providence, by our Saviour, as a gift, that we should know it and confess it. Our Saviour arranged in a marvelous way to cleanse our Church from people who were not of one mind with us, and He gave us as a treasure to guard even unto the last drop of our blood this true theology, this true understanding, to vindicate the Name of God against those who are blaspheming it. Let us hold onto it. Let us thank God that He gave us this treasure. And let us never forget that no one can be saved except by the Name and through the Name of our sweetest Jesus Christ. Amen.

[1] According to the covenant that God made with Abraham (Genesis 17), Israelites were circumcised and named on the eighth day after birth. With regard to our Saviour, it is written: “And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb” (Luke 2:21).

[2] Genesis 17:18, 22:18

[3] In English the word seed, like the word grass, is a collective, and thus, in English it is less clear that here it refers to one person, i.e., Christ.

[4] Song of Songs 1:3

[5] Adam’s ability to give true names to the animals before the fall showed his share, as the living image of God on earth, in the divine prerogative of naming creatures; for by nature, it is God, the Creator, who has the prerogative to name his creatures. Our Saviour also changes names of some His righteous ones of the Old Testament (so Abram became Abraham and Jacob became Israel), and He continues to give new names to some of His apostles in the New Testament (so Simon became Peter and Saul became Paul). All the baptized also receive a new, exalted and majestic name, that of Christian, in accordance to the promise of our Saviour contained in the Book of Revelation that He will write upon His saints “His new Name.” Rev. 3:12.

[6] Psalm 116:2

[7] Psalm 71:17

[8] John 18:37

[9] Cf. John 8:40

[10] Cf. Proverbs 18:10

[11] In fact, the conflict between genuine, Orthodox and false mysticism goes back many centuries. It can be traced to the persecution that St. Symeon the New Theologian suffered from the worldly-minded church hierarchy of his time; to the defense of the practice of noetic prayer and the hesychast theology that culminated in the Hesychast Councils of the 14th century; and in case of the Russian Church, to the struggle of St. Nilus of Sora and of his followers (the Non-possessors), in the 16th century, to keep and perpetuate the hesychast tradition of monasticism in that land.

[12] St. Ignatiy refered to the anti-hesychasts of his time, who opposed to the practice of Jesus Prayer, claiming that it leads to delusion (!)