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The Mystery of Redemption

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The Mystery of Redemption THE MYSTERY OF REDEMPTION Vladimir Moss © Vladimir Moss, 2007 INTRODUCTION .................................................................................................3 1. THE “JURIDICAL THEORY” .........................................................................8 2. THE MEANING OF “JUSTIFICATION” ...................................................19 3. THE SACRIFICE FOR SIN ............................................................................26 4. THE PRAYER IN THE GARDEN.................................................................38 5. GETHSEMANE OR GOLGOTHA? .............................................................50 6. THE THEORY OF “MORAL MONISM”....................................................57 7. ORIGINAL SIN................................................................................................65 CONCLUSION: LOVE AND JUSTICE ...........................................................76 APPENDIX: A LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP THEOPHAN OF POLTAVA .....87 2 INTRODUCTION Of mercy and judgement shall I sing unto Thee, O Lord. Psalm 100.1. He wiped out our debt, by paying for us a most admirable and precious ransom. We are all made free through the blood of the Son, which pleads for us to the Father. St. John of Damascus, First Word on the Divine Images, 21. The mystery of our redemption by Christ through His Holy Crucifixion and Resurrection is the very heart of the Orthodox Christian Gospel. With the dogma of the Holy Trinity it is the most important of all the dogmas. Therefore any attempt to explain or reinterpret it by a senior hierarch of the Orthodox Church is an event of great importance requiring the closest attention. Two works by Metropolitan Anthony (Khrapovitsky) of Kiev, The Dogma of Redemption and the Catechism, have been a subject of controversy in the Orthodox Church for nearly a century. The controversy consists in the fact that in these works Metropolitan Anthony attacks the Orthodox Christian teaching on redemption as expounded by Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow (+1867), labeling it “scholastic”. The purpose of this little book is to defend Metropolitan Philaret’s teaching as being indeed the traditional teaching of the Orthodox Church by an examination and refutation of Metropolitan Anthony’s thesis, especially as it is reiterated in a document recently written by the Bishops of the “Holy Orthodox Church in North America” (HOCNA), and entitled “Resolution of the Sacred Synod of the True Orthodox Church of Greece concerning The Dogma of Redemption by Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky”.1 One of the earliest critics of Metropolitan Anthony was New Hieromartyr Archbishop Victor of Vyatka. He noted already in 1912 that the “new theology” of Metropolitan Anthony and his pupil, Metropolitan (and future “Patriarch”) Sergius (Stragorodsky) “would shake the Church”. And he saw in Metropolitan Sergius’ disastrous “Declaration” of 1927 a direct result of his teaching on salvation – which teaching was openly praised by Metropolitan Anthony in The Dogma of Redemption.2 Hieromartyr Victor was not the only critic of Metropolitan Anthony’s theory in the Catacomb Church. According to the witness of Hieromartyr Paul Borotinsky, the Petrograd Hieromartyrs Bishop Demetrius of Gdov and Fr. Theodore Andreyev were also critical of it.3 1 http://deltard.org/hocna/defense.htm 2 Hieromartyr Victor, “The New Theologians”, The Church, 1912; reprinted in the series “On the New Heresies”, Moscow: Orthodox Action, № 1 (11), 2000 (in Russian). 3 M.B. Danilushkin (ed.), A History of the Russian Church from the Restoration of the Patriarchate to the Present Day, vol. I, St. Petersburg, 1997, pp. 989-990 (in Russian). 3 Nor was criticism of Metropolitan Anthony’s work confined to the Russian Church. Thus immediately after the publication of The Dogma of Redemption in Serbia in 1926, Protopriest Milosh Parenta wrote in the Serbian Church’s official organ: “The tragedy of Metropolitan Anthony is amazing! A pillar of the faith in soul, a great Orthodox in his heart, a strict fulfiller and preserver of Church discipline to the smallest details. But when he approaches a scientific-theological examination and explanation of the dogmas, then he either insufficiently comprehends them, or he cannot avoid the temptation of, and enthusiasm for, modernism. The explanation of the dogma of redemption offered by the author in this work openly destroys the teaching on this truth faithfully preserved by the Orthodox Church, and with it the Christian Religion itself, because the truth of the redemption together with the truth of Christ’s incarnation is its base and essence. However, it is necessary to recognize that it is very difficult to analyse this work of the author, because in it there are often no definite and clear concepts, although there are many extended speeches which hide the concepts or say nothing, and because in part there are no logical connections in it, nor any strictly scientific exposition, nor systematic unity.”4 Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism, which expressed the same theology as The Dogma of Redemption in a more concise form, was at first accepted by the Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia (ROCOR) in 1926 as a substitute for Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow’s Catechism in schools. The Synod did not call Metropolitan Philaret’s Catechism heretical, simply saying that Metropolitan Anthony’s was “shorter and more convenient for assimilation”. And Metropolitan Anthony himself did not ask for Metropolitan Philaret’s Catechism to be removed from use in favour of his own, writing only (in a report to the Synod dated April 9/22, 1926): “In my foreword to An Attempt at an Orthodox Christian Catechism I wrote: ‘In publishing my work as material, I in no way wished that it should completely overshadow the Catechism of [Metropolitan] Philaret in schools, but I have nothing against the idea that this or that teacher of the Law of God should sometimes, in his interpretation of the dogmas and commandments, use my thoughts and references to Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, thereby filling in the gaps in the textbook catechism with regard to various religious questions, of which very many have arisen in the time since the death of the author’”.5 All this sounds innocent and cautious enough. And yet the fact is, as Metropolitan Anthony made clear on many occasions, the real motive for the writing of his Catechism and Dogma of Redemption was that he considered Metropolitan Philaret’s Catechism “scholastic” and heretical, being identical 4 Parenta, Herald of the Serbian Orthodox Patriarchate, 1926, N II (1/14 June), pp. 168-174 (10-34) (in Serbian). 5 Protocols of the Hierarchical Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, 9/22 April, 1926 (in Russian). 4 with the Roman Catholic teaching on redemption of Anselm and Aquinas. Thus in his letters to the Russian Athonite theologian, Hieromonk Theophan (later Hieroschemamonk Theodosius of Karoulia), a firm opponent of Metropolitan Anthony’s thesis, he expressed fundamental disagreement “with the juridical theory of Anselm and Aquinas, which was completely accepted by P[eter] Moghila and Metropolitan Philaret”6 And again he wrote: “We must not quickly return to Peter Moghila, Philaret and Macarius: they will remain subjects for historians”7 And again: “Apparently you together with your namesake [Archbishop Theophan of Poltava, the main opponent of Metropolitan Anthony’s teaching in ROCOR Synod] have fallen into spiritual deception”. 8 So it is clear that, for Metropolitan Anthony, as for his opponents, this was a fundamental matter of doctrine. Either Metropolitan Philaret’s Catechism was heretical and Metropolitan Anthony’s was Orthodox, or Metropolitan Anthony’s was heretical and Metropolitan Philaret’s was Orthodox. And whoever was wrong was “in spiritual deception”. But the consequences of “victory” for either side would have been unthinkable; it would have meant condemning as a heretic either the greatest Russian hierarch of the 19th century or, in many people’s opinion, the greatest Russian hierarch of the 20th century, and would quite simply have torn the Russian Church Abroad apart at a time when it was fighting for its life against communism, sergianism and sophianism. So it is not surprising that both sides exhibited signs of trying to “cool” the conflict. On the one hand, Metropolitan Anthony’s Catechism did not replace that of Metropolitan Philaret, and the ROCOR Synod under Metropolitan Anastasy refused to review the question again. And on the other, Metropolitan Anthony’s chief opponent, Archbishop Theophan departed to live a hermit’s life in France… But the conflict has resurfaced in the 1990s, both in Russia and in America, particularly in the writings of HOCNA. Now the HOCNA hierarchs refrain from directly calling any of the major players in this controversy a heretic. At the same time, however, they extend the label “scholastic” to all those who espouse what they call “the juridical theory” of redemption, including even such renowned hierarchs as Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov and Bishop Theophan the Recluse. Thus for the sake of defending the complete correctness of Metropolitan Anthony’s Dogma of Redemption, they are prepared to condemn the three most famous and revered hierarchs of the Russian Church in the 19th century as heretics! Where will it stop? How many more “juridical theorists” will be found in the annals of Orthodox Church history and among the ranks of the Orthodox saints? As will be shown here, a consistent witch-hunt will
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