Eutyches and the Oriental Orthodox tradition

The Oriental Orthodox communion has been regularly and routinely accused of following the teaching of Eutyches, the controversial archimandrite of Constantinople. Historical sources, such as the Catholic Encyclopaedia, conflate the teaching of Eutyches with monophysitism, and then insist that all those who speak of one nature may be indifferently called Eutychians or Monophysites . Of course, this understanding would mean that St Cyril of Alexandria must also be called a Eutychian since he speaks of the ‘one nature of God the Word incarnate’. Nor is this a new tendency, since the early opponents of St Cyril also accused him of confusing the Divinity and humanity in Christ , and from the beginning of the post-Chalcedonian period those who refused to say that Christ was ‘in two natures’ were accused of being the followers of Eutyches.

Introduction to Christology

Why worry about doctrine?

Growing up in an Evangelical Protestant home, and playing an active role in my local Evangelical Church, I often heard people complaining that we needed a lot more love and a lot less doctrine! I knew what they meant. They were rejecting narrow and intellectual faith in words and concepts rather than in Christ Himself. But even as an Evangelical I disagreed, because I understood that if we don’t know what we believe, and why, then we may well end up believing all manner of things about God, about the Christian life, about our very salvation, many of which may not be true at all.

Liturgical Worship and Orthodoxy 5

The Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus is a very interesting little work. Let me remind you that it dates from about 217 AD and records the practices which could be traced back at least to the end of the Apostolic Age. There are prayers in this manual for the consecration and ordination of three categories of ministry that I want to focus on in this short post. They are Bishops, Priests and Deacons. There are also instructions about other categories, but for now we will consider just these three and in this post especially turn to the first.

Liturgical Worship and Orthodoxy 4

I was celebrating the Liturgy this morning and came to a passage which reminded me of something I had been reading in the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus from about 217 AD. It was the words…

Priest : Lift up your hearts!
People : We lift them up unto the Lord.
Priest : Let us give thanks unto the Lord!
People : It is meet and right so to do.

When I had some time later today I found my copy of the Apostolic Tradition, written almost 1800 years before the liturgy being offered today and found that Hippolytus instructs the bishop celebrating the liturgy in his own times to pray…

Liturgical Worship and Orthodoxy 3

Before turning to some of the other Christian references to the nature of the worship of the early Church it might be useful to place the documents that will be considered into a time frame. There are so many materials produced in a very short time scale and these reasonably allow us to conclude that what is being described is indicative of the practice of the Apostolic Church and the communities immediately following this period.

I have in front of me a work called the Apostolic Tradition. It is another of the early manuals, like the Didache of the first century, written to describe the organisation of the Church, and to allow leaders of local Churches to maintain a consistent way of life. It was written by Hippolytus, a leader of the Church in Rome during a time when there was some controversy. His aim was to ensure that the congregations under his pastoral care preserved the most conservative and ancient of practices. He was determined to reject anything that was a novelty and to conserve all those things which originated in the Apostolic Age and Tradition.

Liturgical Worship and Orthodoxy 2

We noted in Post 1 that until the most recent times all mainstream Christian worship was liturgical to a great extent. It followed a predetermined order and structure, often with well-established content that congregations would have been used to participating in. Of course the majority Anglican tradition remained manifestly liturgical. So too did the Catholic tradition. But the Methodists also had a liturgical culture, based on the Anglican Book of Common Prayer which Wesley, as an Anglican, had always used. Even Baptists and Presbyterians had and have a liturgy, a structure, to their services and publish service books today to be used in their congregations.

Liturgical Worship and Orthodoxy 1

I was at a liturgical service some years ago. It began with the president or leader of the service offering a prayer, and after his prayer was completed the congregation responded with their agreement in the word, Amen. A hymn was sung by the congregation and then another man with some responsibility in the congregation came to the front and read some notices from a text. Further short prayers for the needs of the congregation and of the world were offered in a litany of short prayers with the congregation responding each time with the word, Amen. A second hymn was sung by the congregation and then the leader read from the scriptures. There was another hymn which the congregation joined in with and then another man with responsibility in the congregation spoke about the scriptures for some time. When he had concluded the congregation sang another hymn and the leader of the service closed the liturgical meeting with a prayer of blessing.