15 May 1576 A.D. Summary of Orthodox Patriarch Jeremias II's letter of 15 May 1576, in which he compares each article of the Augsburg confession to Orthodox Christian beliefs
15
May 1576 A.D. Summary
of Orthodox Patriarch Jeremias II's letter of 15 May 1576, in which he compares
each article of the Augsburg confession to Orthodox Christian beliefs
Jeremias concurred with the eighth and ninth articles in the Confession. The former says that Sacraments do not lose their validity even when administered by evil priests. The latter recommends infant baptism, so that the child may be at once qualified to receive grace.
Endnotes
Runciman,
Stephen. “Luther Had His Chance.” The
Great Church in Captivity. New York:
Cambridge University Press, 1968.
Webonline. N.d. http://orthodoxinfo.com/inquirers/tca_luther.aspx. Accessed 25 June 2014.
Luther Had His Chance
It
was inevitable that, sooner or later, the Protestant Churches, protesting
against Roman autocracy, should seek to find out about a Church which had made
such a protest from the earliest times.
Martin
Luther's chief interest in the Eastern Question lay in the belief, which he
shared with many of his evangelical contemporaries, and with many of the Greeks
themselves before the fall of Constantinople, that the end of the world was
near and that the Grand Turk was Antichrist: though he had an alternative
candidate in the person of the Pope.
Luther
himself was a reactionary in temperament, disliking the spirit of the
Renaissance. But his leading disciples were children of the Renaissance. The
most distinguished of them, Philip Melanchthon, had been professor of Greek at
Wittenberg and was deeply interested in Hellenism. His interest extended to the
contemporary Greeks; and he thought that it would be valuable to establish a
friendly understanding with the Greek Church.1
The
difficulty was to find out how to make contact with the Greeks. The only
European powers in diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire were Catholic:
Venice, France, and the Habsburg dominions. It was, he thought, through Venice,
with its colony of Greek scholars, its Greek possessions and its lack of
religious intolerance that an approach could best be made, particularly if a
Greek scholar could be found there who was in touch with the East and had not
joined the Roman faith ...
But
rather more than a year earlier he had received at Wittenberg an elderly cleric
from Montenegro called Demetrius, who came with an introduction from James
Basilicus. Nothing is known of Demetrius' early history. He was already an old
man when he met James in Moldavia in 1558. Demetrius made an excellent
impression in Lutheran circles. Melanchthon liked him; and Nicholas Hemmingius
wrote in a letter that he was an old man of exemplary piety and admirable
morals, whose claim to be a deacon was undoubtedly genuine, though the
Lutherans could not check up on this; he was certainly full of erudition about
his Church. Here was a heaven-sent agent for achieving the desired contact with
Constantinople. In order that the Orthodox might be properly informed about the
Reformed religion, the Confession of Augsburg, which summarized Lutheran
belief, was hastily but ably translated into Greek by a learned Hellenist, Paul
Dolscius of Plauen, and a copy was given to Demetrius to deliver to the
Patriarch together with a personal letter from Melanchthon, which barely
touched upon doctrine but suggested that the Lutheran and Greek Churches had
much in common.2
Demetrius
left on his journey late in 1559. Melanchthon died before an answer could have
easily been returned, but his fellow-divines waited for many more months for
news from Constantinople. At last they decided that Demetrius could not have
delivered the letter. In fact he arrived at Constantinople at the end of 1559
and was received by the Patriarch, but the documents that he brought
embarrassed Joasaph and the Holy Synod. A brief glance at the Confession of
Augsburg showed that much of its doctrine was frankly heretical, but it would
be undesirable to spoil relations with a potential friend. The Patriarch and
his advisers took refuge in the favorite device of oriental diplomacy. They
behaved as if they had never received the communication, which they carefully
mislaid.3 Demetrius waited for two or three months for a reply to carry back to
Wittenberg. When none was forthcoming he did not venture to return to Germany.
He moved to Transylvania, where he spent three years trying to introduce
Lutheranism into its villages, encouraged by James Basilicus. After James' fall
he carried on his propaganda in the Slav dominions of the Habsburg Emperor. The
date of his death is unknown.4
The
subsequent events in Moldavia must have confirmed Joasaph in his suspicion of
the Lutherans. Some fifteen years later the atmosphere improved. The Habsburg
Emperors employed a number of Lutheran officials. In about 1570 an Imperial
Ambassador arrived at Constantinople who was a Protestant, David von Ungnad;
and he brought with him as chaplain an eminent Lutheran scholar, Stephen Gerlach,
who was in close touch with the Lutheran universities in Germany. Gerlach soon
made friends with the learned Protonotary of the Great Church, Theodore
Zygomalas, who introduced him to the Patriarch Jeremias II, then in his first
term of office. In return he put Zygomalas into touch with the leading
professor of Greek in Germany, Martin Kraus, or Crusius, of Tübingen, a man
interested not only in Classical Greek but also in the Greek world of his time.
Through Zygomalas, Crucius entered into correspondence with the Patriarch
Jeremias, whom he greatly admired.5
When
such friendships were established it was natural for the Lutherans to press
again for closer ecclesiastical relations with the Greeks. In 1574 Ungnad was
prompted by Gerlach to write to Germany to ask for fresh copies of the
Confession of Augsburg. In reply six copies were sent out by Crusius and Jacob
Andreae, Chancellor of the University of Tübingen. One was to be given to the
Patriarch, one to Zygomalas, one to Metrophanes, Metropolitan of Berrhoea, one
to the scholar Gabriel Severus, and one to the rich layman, Michael
Cantacuzenus, who had promised to have it translated into vernacular Greek. A
copy translated into Georgian was dispatched a little later, for transmission
to the Orthodox Church of Georgia in the Caucasus. To the Patriarch's copy the
Lutheran divines added a letter, in which they said that, though because of the
distance between their countries there was some difference in their ceremonies,
the Patriarch would acknowledge that they had introduced no innovation into the
principal things necessary for salvation; and that they embraced and preserved,
as far as their understanding went, the faith that had been taught to them by
the Apostles, the Prophets and the Holy Fathers, and was inspired by the Holy
Spirit, the Seven Councils and the Holy Scriptures.6
What
the Georgians thought of the Confession of Augsburg, if their copy ever reached
them, is unrecorded. To the Greeks it was as embarrassing as it had been
fifteen years previously. Cantacuzenus did nothing about its translation into
the vernacular. But Jeremias could not ignore the Confession as Joasaph had
done. Von Ungnad and Gerlach were close at hand, pressing for an answer. After
a little hesitation Jeremias wrote a polite letter of thanks to Tubingnen,
promising to send a statement on doctrinal points a little later. These
delaying tactics were in vain; Gerlach continued to ask for his views. At last,
after consulting with the Holy Synod, the Patriarch, with the help of Zygomalas
and his father, John, composed a full answer to the various points in the
Confession. The letter was dated 15 May 1576.
The
Confession of Augsburg contains twenty-one articles. Jeremias replied to each
in turn, stating wherein he agreed or disagreed with the doctrines contained in
them. His comments are valuable, as they add up to a compendium of Orthodox
theology at this date.
The
first article states the Nicene Creed to be the basis of the true faith. The
Patriarch naturally concurred, but pointed out that the Creed should be
accepted in its correct form, omitting the Dual Procession of the Holy Ghost,
an addition which, as he explains at length, was canonically illegal and
doctrinally unsound.
In
the original Confession the second article proclaims original sin, the third is
a summary of the Apostles' Creed and the fourth declares that man is justified
by faith alone. In the Greek version the second and third articles change
place; which is more logical. The Patriarch's second chapter therefore deals with
the Creed. While approving of the Germans' summary he adds for their benefit
twelve amplifying articles which, he says, contain the traditional doctrine of
the Church. Three concern the Trinity, six the Incarnation, the Crucifixion and
the Redemption, and three the life hereafter. He gives further glosses to these
and appends a list of the seven cardinal virtues-he actually gives eight-and
the seven deadly sins.
On
original sin, the Patriarch takes the opportunity of pointing out that baptism
should be by triple immersion and not by aspersion, and should be followed by
chrismation. The baptismal practice of the Latins is, he says, incorrect.
In
his fourth chapter, on justification by faith alone, the Patriarch points out,
quoting Basil, that grace will not be given to those who do not live virtuous
lives. He amplifies his views in his fifth and sixth chapters. In the
Confession, the fifth article says that faith must be fed with the help of the
Holy Scriptures and the Sacraments, and the sixth that faith must bear fruit in
good works, though it repeats that good works alone will not bring salvation.
Jeremias takes for granted the doctrine given in the fifth article, and uses
the chapter to continue his previous argument. The Sermon on the Mount lists
virtues that will bring salvation without any reference to faith. Faith without
works is not true faith. In the sixth article he warns the Germans not to
presume on grace nor despair of it. He makes it clear that he disapproves of
anything that might suggest predestined election.
The
seventh article of the Confession declares that the Church is one and eternal,
and the sign of its unity is that the Gospel shall be rightly taught and the
Sacraments rightly administered. So long as this is fulfilled, differences in
ritual and ceremonial do not impair its unity. Jeremias agrees; but he goes on
to talk about the Sacraments. Suspecting that the Lutherans held baptism and
the Eucharist to be the only Sacraments, he insists that there are at least
seven Sacraments.Jeremias concurred with the eighth and ninth articles in the Confession. The former says that Sacraments do not lose their validity even when administered by evil priests. The latter recommends infant baptism, so that the child may be at once qualified to receive grace.
The
tenth article was more controversial. It says that the body and blood of Christ
are truly present at the Lord's Supper and are distributed to those who
participate in it; and those who teach otherwise are condemned. So far the
Patriarch could agree. But he may have learned that the original German version
of the Confession added the words "in the form of the bread and the
wine," words omitted in the Latin and Greek versions. He asks for further
details, saying: "for we have heard of certain things about your views, of
which it is impossible for us to approve." The doctrine of the Holy
Church, he maintains, is that at the Lord's Supper the bread is changed into
the very body of Christ and the wine into His very blood. He adds that the bread
must be leavened, not unleavened. He points out that Christ did not say
"This is bread," or even "This is the figure of my body,"
but "This is My body." It would indeed be blasphemy to say that the
Lord gave to His disciples the flesh that He bore to eat or the blood in His
veins to drink, or that He descends physically from heaven when the mysteries
are celebrated. It is, he says, by the grace and invocation of the Holy Spirit,
which operates and consummates the change, and by our sacred prayers and by the
Lord's own words that the bread and wine are transformed and transmuted into
the very flesh and blood of Christ.
Jeremias
is here making three points. In two of them he considered that the Lutherans
were following the errors of the Latins. The Greeks, faithful to the traditions
of the early Church, had long disapproved of the Latin use of unleavened bread,
which seemed to them to mar the symbolism of the Sacrament; for the leaven
symbolizes the new dispensation. Then Jeremias touches delicately on the Epiklesis,
the invocation of the Holy Ghost which to the Greeks completed the change in
the elements. They could not condone the Latin omission of the Epiklesis. On
the actual question of the change in the elements Jeremias is cautious. He
avoids the word which is the exact Greek translation of
"transubstantiation." The words that he uses do not necessarily imply
material change. He does not explain the exact nature of the change, leaving
it, rather, as a divine mystery. But the Lutheran view that though Christ's body
and blood were present at the Sacrament there was no change in the elements
seemed to him inadequate.
The
eleventh article of the Confession advocates the use of private confession,
though it is not absolutely necessary; nor can one enumerate all one's petty
sins. The Patriarch agrees but thinks that more should be said about the value
of confession as spiritual medicine and as leading to true acts of penitence.
It must be remembered that to him the act of penitence ranked as a sacrament.
The
twelfth article teaches that sinners who have lapsed from grace can receive it
again if they repent. It disavows both the Anabaptist view that the saved can
never fall from grace and the Novatian view that the lapsed can never recover
it. The Patriarch concurs but adds that repentance must be shown by works.
The
thirteenth article declares the Sacraments to be proofs of God's love for men
and should be used to stimulate and confirm faith. This seems a little crude to
Jeremias, who stresses the need for the Liturgy as providing the necessary
framework for the Sacraments, the whole divine drama which gives them their
spiritual value.
To
the fourteenth, which states that only ordained priests should preach or
administer the Sacraments, the Patriarch agrees, so long as the ordination has
been correctly performed and the hierarchy canonically organized. He clearly
doubted whether this was the case with the Lutheran Church.
The
fifteenth article pleased him less. It approves of such rites and festivals as
are conducive to giving peace and order to the Church but denies that any of
them are necessary for salvation or provide the means for acquiring grace. To
the Greek Church, with its full calendar of feasts and fasts, such teaching was
distressing. The Patriarch, quoting at length from the early Fathers,
emphasizes that these holy days and the ceremonies attached to them are lasting
reminders of the life of Christ on earth and of the witness of the saints. To
deny them any spiritual value is narrow-minded and wrong.
He
concurs with the sixteenth article, which says that it is not contrary to the
Gospel to obey civil magistrates or to engage in warfare if they should order
it. He adds that one should remember, all the same, that obedience to the laws
of God and to His ministers is a higher duty, and that no true Christian seeks
for worldly power.
He
concurs also with the seventeenth article, which foretells the coming of Christ
to judge the world and to reward the faithful with eternal life and punish the
wicked with eternal torment. He seems to have been unperturbed by the implied
denial of the doctrine of Purgatory.
The
eighteenth article deals with free will. The Lutherans maintained that, while a
man may by the exercise of free will lead a good life, it will avail him
nothing unless God gives him grace. This is too close to the doctrine of
complete predestination for the Patriarch, who points out, with long quotations
from John Chrysostom, that only those freely willing to be saved can be saved.
Good deeds conform with the grace of God, but that grace is withdrawn
concurrently with an evil deed.
The
nineteenth article, declaring that God is not the cause of evil in this world,
is perfectly acceptable. The twentieth returns to the problem of faith and
works, repeating that, though good works are necessary and indispensable, and
it is a libel to say that the Lutherans ignore them, yet they cannot purchase
the remission of sins without faith and its accompanying grace. The Patriarch
agrees about the dual need for faith and works; but why, he asks, if the
Lutherans really value good works, do they censure feasts and fasts,
brotherhoods and monasteries? Are these not good deeds done in honor of God and
in obedience to His commands? Is a fast not an act of self-discipline? Is not a
monastic fraternity an expression of fellowship? Above all, is not the taking
of monastic vows an attempt to carry out Christ's demand that we should rid
ourselves of our worldly entanglements?
The
Patriarch was especially shocked by the twenty-first and last article, which
says that, while congregations should be told of the lives of the saints as
examples to be followed, it is contrary to the Scriptures to invoke the saints
as mediators before God. Jeremias, after citing the special powers given by
Christ to the disciples, answers that true worship should indeed be given to
God alone, but that the saints, and above all, the Mother of God, who by their
holiness have been raised to heaven, may lawfully and helpfully be invoked. We
can ask the Mother of God, owing to her special relationship, to intercede for
us and the archangels and angels to pray for us; and all the saints may be
asked for their mediation. It is a sign of humility that we sinners should be
shy of making a direct approach to God and should seek the intervention of
mortal men and women who have earned salvation.
Jeremias
ended his letter with a supplementary chapter, stressing five points. First, he
insists again that leavened bread should be used at the Eucharist. Secondly,
while he approves of the marriage of secular clergy, the regular clergy should
take vows of celibacy and should keep to them. Thirdly, he emphasized once more
the importance of the Liturgy. Fourthly, he repeats that the remission of sin
cannot be attained except through confession and the act of penitence, to which
he attaches sacramental importance. Finally, and at great length, he gives
arguments in support of the institution of monasteries and the taking of
monastic vows. Many mortals, he admits, are unfitted to bind themselves to a
life of asceticism; and if they lead good lives according to their abilities,
they too can reach salvation. But it is, he thinks, a better thing to be ready
to forswear the world and to devote one's life to the disciplined service of
God; and for this end monasticism provides the proper means.
His
final paragraph is written in a mixture of humility and condescension.
"And so, most learned Germans," he writes, "most beloved sons in
Christ of Our Mediocrity, as you desire with wisdom and after great counsel and
with your whole minds to join yourselves with us to what is the most holy
Church of Christ, we, speaking like parents who love their children, gladly
receive your charity and humanity into the bosom of our Mediocrity, if you are
willing to follow with us the apostolic and synodical traditions and to subject
yourselves to them. Then at last truly and sincerely one house will be built
with us ... and so out of two Churches God's benevolence will make as it were
one, and together we shall live until we are transferred to the heavenly
fatherland."7
His
reply reached Germany in the summer of 1576. The German divines detected in it
a certain lack of enthusiasm. Crusius arranged a meeting with the theologian
Lucius Osiander; and together they composed an answer in which the points to
which the Patriarch seemed to object were elucidated and justified. They
confined themselves to doctrines mentioned in the Confession of Augsburg and
therefore did not touch on matters such as leavened bread, the Liturgy or even
monasticism. They attempted to show that their view on justification by faith
was not really so very different from the Patriarch's; and they repeated at
some length the Lutheran view that, though Christ's flesh and blood were
present at the Lord's Supper, there was no material change in the elements.
They made it clear that they believed in only two Sacraments and that they
could not admit the propriety of invoking the saints.
Their
letter was written in June 1577, but it probably only reached Constantinople in
the course of the following year. Once again Jeremias tried to avoid sending an
answer, but Gerlach was still in Constantinople, pressing for one. Gerlach left
to return to Germany in the spring of 1579. In May, Jeremias sent off at last a
further statement of his views. His tone was now a little less conciliatory. He
pointed out clearly and at greater length the doctrines which the Orthodox
Church could not accept. It could not admit the Dual Procession of the Holy
Ghost. In spite of what the Lutherans claimed, their views on free will and on
justification by faith were not Orthodox and were in the Patriarch's opinion
too crude. While admitting that the Sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist
ranked above the others, the Patriarch insisted that there were sacraments. He
repeated that it was correct to invoke the saints and added that respect should
be paid to holy images and relics.
A
committee of Lutheran divines, including Crusius, Andreae, Osiander and
Gerlach, met at Wurttemberg to compose a further reply, which was dispatched in
June 1580. Its tone was very conciliatory. When not yielding on any points, it
tried to suggest that the doctrinal differences between the Churches on
justification by faith, on free will and on the change in the elements at the
Lord's Supper were only matters of terminology, and that other differences
could perhaps be treated as differences in ritual and usage.
The
Germans had to wait for an answer. Jeremias had been deposed in November 1579,
and did not return to office till September 1580. Some months elapsed before he
could settle down to compose an answer. It was eventually sent in the summer of
1581. He briefly recapitulated the points of disagreement, then begged for the
correspondence to cease. "Go your own way," he wrote, "and do
not send us further letters on doctrine but only letters written for the sake
of friendship." In spite of this, the Lutheran committee sent one more
letter, almost identical with their last. The Patriarch did not reply to it.
Endnotes
1.
For Melanchthon's attitude towards the Greeks see E. Benz, Die
Ostkirche im Lichte der Protestantischen Geschichtsschreibung, pp. 17-20.
2.
Benz, Wittenberg und Byzanz, pp. 94ff., giving the text of
Melanchthon's letter.
3.
Ibid. pp. 71-2: J. N. Karmiris, _______________, p. 36.
4.
Benz, Wittenberg und Byzanz, pp. 73ff.
5.
For Ungnad and Gerlach see E. Benz, Die Ostkirche im Licht der
Protestantischen Geschichtsschreibung, pp. 24-9. Gerlach's very
discursive Tagebuch was not published until after his death; but Crusius in his
Turco-Graecia frequently cites Gerlach as the sources of information. Jeremias
II spoke no Western European language. When Phillippe Du Fresne visited him in
1573, Theodore Zygomalas and his father were present to act as interpreters. P.
du Fresne Canaye, Voyage du Levant (ed. M. H. Hauser). pp. 106-8.
6.
Benz, Wittenberg und Byzanz, pp. 94ff.
7.
It was this letter which gives Jeremias II's fullest statement on doctrine
together with the Lutheran arguments that he was answering, that the Jesuit
Sokolowski published in 1582, thus obliging the Lutherans to publish the whole
correspondence.
An Excerpt from Stephen Runciman's The
Great Church in Captivity (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1968). This article was originally reprinted
in Volume 3 of The Christian Activist (now defunct).
Comments
Post a Comment