ON THE NAME OF GOD Against
the Name-worshipping Heresy of Fr. A. Bulatovich and Fr. G. Lourié
Vladimir Moss
© Vladimir Moss
CONTENTS
Historical Introduction…………………………..4
1. Names and Knowledge………………………12
2. The Nameable and the Unnameable……….19
3. Names, Energies and Hypostases…………..29
4. The Name of Jesus……………………………37
5. Name-worshipping and Eunomianism……42
6. Name-worshipping and Pantheism………...62
7. Name-worshipping and the Sacraments…..74
8. Name-worshipping and Icons………………88
9. Name-worshipping and the Jesus
Prayer...106
APPENDIX: THE DECREES ON
NAME-WORSHIPPING………………………………..141
“And holy is His name”. The name of God is
said to be holy, not because it contains in its syllables any special virtue,
but because in whatsoever way we contemplate God, we see Him pure and holy.
St.
Basil the Great, On Psalm 32.
There was a time
when God had no name, and there will be a time when he will have no name.
St. Isaac the
Syrian, Unpublished Chapters on Knowledge, III,1, syr e7, Bodleian.
So far nobody has
found any name completely worthy of God; nor is this very ‘Word’ used strictly
and essentially of Him, it only shows that the Son was born from the Father
without passion.
Blessed
Theophylact of Bulgaria, Commentary on John, 1.2.
HISTORICAL
INTRODUCTION
At the Name of Jesus every knee will bow.
Philippians 2.10.
Remember, the power is not in the word, not
in the name, but in Christ Himself, Who is named.
St. Barsanuphius of Optina.[1]
At the beginning of the 20th century there arose the
heresy of name-worshipping (called imyaslavie by its proponents and imyabozhie
by its opponents), which consists in the belief that the Name of God is not
only holy and filled with the grace of God, but is holy in and of itself,
being God Himself. It arose among Russian monks on Mount Athos, with the
publication, in 1907, by Schema-monk Hilarion, of a book on the Jesus prayer
entitled On the Mountains of the Caucasus. This book was at first
well-received and passed the spiritual censor; but later its claim that the
name of God is God elicited criticism. Soon monastic opinion in Russia
was polarised between those who, like the monks of the Kiev Caves Lavra,
approved of the book and its name-worshipping thesis, and those, like the monks
of the Pochaev Lavra and the Optina Desert, who rejected it. The heresy was
condemned by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1912 (Charter No. 8522 of Patriarch
Joachim III to Mount Athos, dated September 12) and 1913 (Charter No. 758 of
Patriarch German V to Mount Athos, dated February 15), and by the Russian Holy
Synod in 1913 (Epistle of May 18, and Decree of August 27, No. 7644).
However,
as Vladimir Gubanov writes, “the illiterate G.E. Rasputin interceded for the
heretical name-worshippers and even tried to incite the empress to attack the
fighters against the heresy of name-worshipping.”[2] In 1914
the leading heretics, including Hieroschemamonk Anthony (Bulatovich), author of
An Apology of Faith in the Name of God and the Name of Jesus (1913),
were justified by the Moscow Diocesan Court, which declared: “… The Synodal
Office has found that in the confessions of faith in God and in the Name of
God coming from the named monks, in the words, ‘I repeat that in naming the
Name of God and the Name of Jesus as God and God Himself, I reject both the
veneration of the Name of God as His Essence, and the veneration of the Name of
God separately from God Himself as some kind of special Divinity, as well as
any deification of the very letters and sounds and any chance thoughts about
God’ – there is contained information allowing us to conclude that in them
there is no basis for leaving the Orthodox Church for the sake of the teaching
on the Names of God.’ (decree ¹ 1443 of May 8, 1914)”.
Of course, this decree did not constitute
a “justification” of the name-worshippers’ teaching, especially in view of the
fact that on the same day the Office, led by Metropolitan Macarius,
affirmed that name-worshipping – “the new false-teachings on the names of
God proclaimed by Schema-Monk Hilarion and Anthony Bulatovich” – was a
heresy (decree ¹ 1442 of May 8, 1914). Moreover, in rejecting “any deification
of the very letters
and sounds and any chance thoughts about God”, Bulatovich was obliged also to
renounce his words in the Apology: “Every mental representation of a
named property of God is the Name of God [and
therefore, according to the name-worshippers, God Himself]”, “the contemplation
of the His name is God Himself”, “the conscious naming of God is God Himself”,
“Every idea about God is God Himself”, “we call the very idea of God – God”.
But did he in fact repent?
Unfortunately, the repentance of
the name-worshippers turned out to be fictional. Bulatovich did not repent, but
concealed his heresy behind ambiguous words and phrases. Thus on May 18, 1914,
in a letter to Metropolitan Macarius, Bulatovich thanked him for his
“justification”, and nobly deigned to declare that he was now ready to return
into communion with the Orthodox Church (!). And he added: “Concerning the Name
of God and the Name of Jesus Christ, we, in accordance with the teaching of the
Holy Fathers, confessed and confess the Divinity and the Divine Power of the
Name of the Lord, but we do not raise this teaching to the level of a dogma,
for it has not yet been formulated and dogmatised in council, but we expect
that at the forthcoming Council it will be formulated and dogmatised. Therefore
we, in accordance with the teaching of the Holy Fathers, in the words of the
ever-memorable Father John of Kronstadt said and say that the Name of God is
God Himself, and the Name of the Lord Jesus is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself,
understanding this not in the sense of a deification of the created name, but
understanding it spiritually, in the sense of the inseparability of the
God-revealed Truth, Which is the Action of the Divinity.”
These words of Bulatovich show that he was not sincere in his signature below the confession of faith in God and in the Name of God, but deceived Metropolitan
Macarius (who was probably under pressure from the Over-Procurator Sabler,
who was in turn under pressure from the fervent name-worshippers Gregory
Rasputin). “Mixing truth with unrighteousness” (Rom. 1.18), Bulatovich
mixed Orthodoxy with heresy.
Thus Orthodoxy recognises that there is a “Divine Power” in the name of Jesus,
but does not recognise that it is “Divinity”. Again, Orthodoxy recognises that in prayer the name of God is indeed inseparable from God, but it does not confuse the two, as does Bulatovich. For while a shadow is inseparable from the body that casts it, this is
not to say that the shadow is the body. Finally, Bulatovich’s “dogma” is still not “formulated
and dogmatised in council” – because it is not a dogma, but heresy!
The Most Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church
accepted that Bulatovich and his fellows had not really repented, so they set
aside decree ¹ 1442 of the Moscow Synodal Office, and confirmed
the sentences against the name-worshippers (decree ¹ 4136 of May 10-24,
1914), which confirmation was again confirmed by decree ¹ 2670
of March 10, 1916. “In this decree of the Most Holy Synod,” wrote the future
Hieromartyr Basil (Zelentsov), Bishop of Priluki, “we find a confirmation of
the basic rule that the name-worshippers must be received into ecclesiastical
communion and admitted to the sacraments of the Church only on the unfailing
condition that they reject the false teaching of name-worshipping and witness
to their faithfulness to the dogmas and teaching of the Church and to their
obedience to Church authority”
Finally,
on October 8/21, 1918, in the most recent decision on this question Patriarch
Tikhon and the Most Holy Synod declared: “The Most Holy
Synod does not change its former judgement on the error itself [of
name-worshipping]… and has in no way changed its general rule, according to
which the name-worshippers, as having been condemned by the Church authorities,
can be received into Church communion… only after they have renounced
name-worshipping and have declared their submission to the Holy Church… The
petition of Hieroschemamonk Anthony to allow him to serve is to be recognised
as not worthy of being satisfied so long as he continues to disobey Church authority
and spread his musings which have been condemned by the Church hierarchy to the
harm of the Church”.
After this decision, the leading name-worshipper, Anthony Bulatovich,
broke communion for the second time with the Russian Church and was shortly
afterwards killed by robbers.
In spite of all these condemnations, the name-worshipping movement did
not die out; it survived in the Caucasus and South Russian region (where the
Tsar had transported the rebellious monks); and the sophianists Florensky and
Bulgakov also confessed (a different variant of) name-worshipping in the
inter-war period. In modern times the heresy has enjoyed a revival in
intellectualist circles in Russia, especially in the works of Hieromonk Gregory
(Lourié) of St. Petersburg, who supports the heretical views of
Bulatovich, considers Bulatovich himself to be a saint, and those who oppose
his ideas, including several hieromartyrs of the Russian Church to be “enemies
of the Name”!
This article represents a critique of the name-worshipping heresy in the
context of an attempt to delineate the Orthodox teaching on the name of God.
1. Names and Knowledge
The act of naming is the very first recorded act of the first-created
man in Genesis. Thus we read that “out of the ground the Lord God formed
every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and brought them unto Adam
to see what he would call them; and whatsoever Adam called every living
creature, that was the name thereof” (2.19). St. Ephraim the Syrian writes:
“The words ‘He brought them to Adam’ show the wisdom of Adam… It is not
impossible for a man to discover a few names and keep them in his memory. But
it surpasses the power of human nature, and is difficult for him, to discover
in a single hour thousands of names and not to give the last of those named the
names of the first… This is the work of God, and if it was done by man, it was
given him by God.”[3]
For, as St. Ambrose of Milan writes, “God granted to you the power of being
able to discern by the application of sober logic the species of each and every
in order that you may be induced to form a judgement on all of them. God called
them all to your attention, so that you might realise that your mind is
superior to all of them.”[4]
What was this language that Adam used in naming the animals, and where
did it come from? Metropolitan Philaret of Moscow writes: “The original
language existed before the creation of the woman, and, like the gift of
tongues in the Apostles, did not require much time or effort for its
composition and formation. Man received this together with his existence;
perhaps he perfected his knowledge through converse with the Creator by means
of sensory sounds, and added to it from himself but with inspiration from God,
Who had predetermined man for social living.
“St. Chrysostom explain the intention to survey and name the animals
when he says that ‘God did this in order to show us the great wisdom of Adam…
and as a sign of his dominion.’[5] In order
to present the giving of names as an act of wisdom, we must suppose that Adam
previously had a knowledge of the general properties and laws of existing
things, and in applying to this general knowledge that which he discovered by
experiment or the closest observation in the particular species of creatures,
he gave them names which depicted their nature. Such names have been preserved
to this day mainly in the Hebrew language.”[6]
The second act recorded of Adam is also an act of naming. We read: “The
Lord brought upon the man a deep sleep; and when he awoke He took one of his
ribs and covered up the place with flesh. And the Lord God built out of the rib
that had been taken from the man a woman, and the man said: ‘This is now bone
of my bone and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was
taken out of Man’” (2.23). On which St. Ephraim comments: “Just as on this day
all the animals received from Adam their names according to their kinds, so
also the bone, made into a woman, he called not by her proper name, Eve, but by
the name of woman, the name belonging to the whole kind.”[7] In other
words, the naming of Eve was not simply denotative, but connotative; the name
was not just a pointer, but the expression of knowledge.
What was this knowledge? That Eve had been created from him.
And this knowledge was expressed in the name; for the Hebrew word isha
(woman) is clearly derived from ish (man).[8] It was
also revealed to him, as the following verses show, that from the union of man
and woman would come the whole human race. So this God-inspired knowledge was
not only of the present, but also of the future; it was prophetic.
This knowledge and these names were clearly man’s; for God
“brought them unto Adam to see what he [Adam] would call them”. At the
same time, the inspiration of this knowledge was no less clearly God’s,
insofar as it “surpassed the power of human nature”, in St. Ephraim’s words.
Thus the act of the correct naming, classification and knowledge of created
nature is a work of Divine-human synergy.
At this point an interesting question arises: Why, having been granted
to know and name the creatures that were below and equal to him, was not Adam
granted to know and name Him Who was higher than himself, his Creator?
Of course, the fact that Adam is not described as naming God in Paradise
does not necessarily mean that no such naming took place. And, as we shall see,
there are good grounds for believing that Adam did in fact know the name of
God. Nevertheless, the omission of any reference to Adam’s naming of God in the
sacred narrative is significant. Its significance lies in the fact that whereas
the rational knowledge, naming and classification of creatures is possible for
man, albeit only with the help of God, such knowledge is impossible in relation
to the Creator, God Himself, Whose being infinitely transcends all human
knowledge.
This is not to say that no knowledge of God is possible. Adam in
a real sense knew God in Paradise; he was still without sin and conversed with
Him openly; and if he had remained in obedience to Him, he would have ascended
to a still higher knowledge, the knowledge that comes through ñontemplation of
Him. Such knowledge through ñontemplation, according to St. Gregory the
Theologian, was in fact the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and
evil. Only it was forbidden to Adam at this stage in his spiritual development.
For “ñontemplation… is only safe for those who have reached maturity of habit
to enter upon, but… is not good for those who are still somewhat simple and
greedy; just as neither is solid food good for those who are yet tender and
have need of milk.”[9]
Ñontemplation, or the knowledge of good and evil, can safely be given
only to those who have already reached spiritual maturity, that is, who have
exercised their free will to choose good and reject evil in a steadfast,
constant manner. The reward for such steadfastness in the practice of the good
is the ñontemplation of Goodness Itself and the ability to discern and trample
on all the snares of the evil one. However, those who attempt to see God
without having passed this test fall into spiritual deception and the pseudo-knowledge
of God. Since their real motivation is not to know God for His own sake but
to “be as gods” for their own sake – in other words, not love, but self-love, -
they receive the due reward of their evil works, which is enslavement to the
evil one. The archetypal evil works in this connection are the practice of magic,
which seeks to manipulate the “names of God” (as the magicians suppose) in
order to control and manipulate God for their own antitheist ends, and heresies,
which give a false, blasphemous understanding of God.
The tree of knowledge was God’s instrument in testing man: if he was
obedient to God, then the fruit of the tree would be ever-increasing knowledge
of God and enjoyment of the Good through ñontemplation.
If, on the other hand, he was disobedient, then the tree would be for the
knowledge and experience of evil. Thus, depending on the fulfilment or
non-fulfilment by man of the commandment, the tree was indeed the tree of the
knowledge of both good and evil.
Man disobeyed the commandment, and so the tree, which, when partaken of
at the right time, would have been for the knowledge of good in the true
knowledge of God in ñontemplation, became for the knowledge of evil in
spiritual deception, sin and death.
However, some glimmers of the true knowledge of God and creation
remained. We see this in the second name that Adam gave to his wife after the
fall – “Eve”, meaning “life”, “because she was the mother of all living”
(3.20). We might at first see here a certain inappropriateness in the name,
since it would have been more accurate to call her “death”, as being the mother
of all mortals. But, as Metropolitan Philaret points out, there is a prophetic
meaning in it: “the woman is called life by reason of the promise given by God
concerning her seed, ‘she was the mother of all living’ as mother of the second
Adam, who is ‘a life-giving Spirit’ (I Cor. 15.45)”. [10]
Conclusion: 1. The first act of the
first-created man was the naming of the animals. He thereby demonstrated his knowledge of their nature. The act
of naming with correct names and classifications, and the knowledge of created
natures is a combined activity of God and man.
2. The Nameable and the Unnameable
During the time of Enos, the
grandson of Adam, we read (in the Hebrew text) that “men began to call on the
name of the Lord God” (4.26). On which Metropolitan Philaret
comments: “In the time of Enos, with the multiplication of the pious [Sethite]
race, public and open Divine services were established, which had been formerly
carried out by each family and private person without the agreement of others”.[11] And we
read in the hymnography of the Church: “The wondrous Enos trusted in the Spirit
and with divine wisdom began to call upon the God and Master of all with mouth,
tongue and heart.”[12]
This interpretation is supported by
Archimandrite Theophan (later Archbishop of Poltava) in his fundamental work on
the Old Testament name of God, The Tetragram[13],
and by Fr. Seraphim
Rose.[14] It
opens up the fascinating hypothesis that the name of God in question,
“Jehovah”, was not revealed for the first time to Moses on Mount Horeb, but was
known to the people of God much earlier – certainly in the time of Enos, and possibly
even earlier, in Paradise. This thesis is defended in detail by Archimandrite
Theophan, who concludes that since “Jehovah” was “the name of the living God
Who reveals His life in revelation”, it was «very probably contemporaneous to
the existence of revelation and,
consequently, has existed from the very beginning of human history. It probably
arose, in our opinion, as early as the lives of the first people in Paradise.
Here, as we know, man gave names to the animals and, of course, to all the
objects of the visible world. It cannot be that the Being with Whom he was most
of all in communion with, should remain without a name for him. And out of the
possible Divine names that are known to us from revelation, the name ‘He Who
is’ was as suitable as could be for this purpose. As being higher than every
existence and human thought, and as excelling all in goodness, the Creator of
the world created man according to His image and thereby instilled into the
very bases of the spiritual nature of man the thought and knowledge of His own
eternity. Through this He made him, according to the expression of St.
Athanasius the Great, a contemplator and knower of Him Who is, so that man, in
converse with God, lived a blessed and immortal life. From this contemplation
of God by the radiant mind of the first-created man, undimmed by sinful
impurity, there arose the present name. But even after the fall, when the union
of man with God was broken and the mental contemplation of God ceased, this
name continued to retain for man its complete signficance, although it changed
in its religio-historical content in conformity with the course of the whole of
soteriological revelation in general. It is self-evident that when to the name
‘He Who is’ is ascribed such profound antiquity, it is not the name’s external
wrapping in sounds that we have in mind, whose antiquity, of course, cannot
extend beyond the antiquity of the language that created it, but the very idea
of the living God, which found its incarnation in the tetragram at a definite
historical moment. From such a point of view, the idea of God as ‘He Who is’ is
bound in the very closest way with the whole of the Old Testament revelation
and reflects in itself all the destinies of this revelation…”[15]
“And Moses said to God: Behold, I shall go to the sons of Israel and
shall say to them: ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you’. And they will
say to me: ‘What is His name?’ What shall I say to them? God said to Moses: ‘I
am the Existing One’ And He said: ‘Say this to the sons of Israel: “The
Existing One has sent me to you”’ And against God said to Moses: say this to
the sons of Israel: the Lord, the God of our fathers, of Abraham, the God of
Isaac and the God of Jacob has sent me to you. This is My name for ever, a memorial
of Me from generation to generation” (Exodus 3.13-15).
Moses was concerned that the sons of Israel would not believe
that he had been sent by the true God. So the Lord gives him the “password”, as
it were: the name of God as it had been revealed to Adam, and used in Divine
services since the time of Enos. The Israelites did not need to worry: it was
truly Jehovah Who had sent him, the same God Who had appeared to Abraham and
Isaac and Jacob, the God of their fathers.
But God did more than identify Himself by means of a commonly accepted
name: at this critical point in the history of mankind and of His chosen
people, He revealed to them something of the inner meaning of the name, its
true significance. Philo of Alexandria summed up this significance in the form
of two lessons: “First tell them that I am He Who is, that they may learn the
difference between what is and what is not, and also the further lesson that no
name at all can properly be used of Me, to Whom alone existence belongs.”[16]
St. Gregory of Nyssa expands this first lesson as follows: “None of
those things which are apprehended by sense perception and contemplated by the
understanding really subsists, but the transcendent essence and cause of the
universe, on which everything depends, alone subsists. For even if the
understanding looks upon any other existing things, reason observes in
absolutely none of them the self-sufficiency by which they could exist without
participating in true Being. On the other hand, that which is always the same,
neither increasing nor diminishing, immutable to all change whether to better
or to worse (for it is far removed from the inferior and it has no superior),
standing in need of nothing else, alone desirable, participated in by all but
not lessened by their participation – this is truly real Being. And the
apprehension of it is the knowledge of truth.”[17]
So God is true Being, absolute personhood, transcendent from, and
independent of, all other beings and persons. This conception of God is sharply
distinct from the pagan conception in which, as Archbishop Theophan writes,
“the divinity either merges pantheistically with the world and, deprived of
conscious rational self-determination, develops according to the laws of cosmic
necessity, or if it is represented personally, then the very person is seen
anthropomorphically and anthropopassionately, with all the traits of human
limitedness and sinfulness”.[18]
But – and this is the second lesson to be drawn from the
definition of the name – such a Being cannot be named. For to name
something - if such a name is more than simply a label, if it not only denotes
but also connotes something, - means to define it in relation to, or in
terms of, something else: X is Y. But this is impossible for God the absolutely
transcendent One. God can be defined only in terms of Himself: X is X. Hence
the formula, which is here best translated from the Hebrew: “I am Who I am”
(‘ehyeh šer ‘ehyeh), of which the word “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” is a contraction.[19] In
other words, what we have is a tautology which, like all tautologies,
tells us precisely nothing about the object named. And yet the very
emptiness and negativeness of this definition tells us something very important
about God: that He cannot be known through naming, definition, conceptual
reasoning. For He is simply existence, life, and life can only be lived,
not conceptualised. That is why it was the tree of life that was placed at the
centre of the garden, and why access to it was barred to Adam and Eve after
they had tasted of the tree of knowledge. For those who think they can know God
by naming, by conceptual reasoning can never know Him as He is in Himself, that
is, as ineffable and indescribable life. Thus the world of abstract
essences revealed by logic and reasoning is incommensurable with the world of
concrete existences. And God is “the Existing One” par excellence, before and
above all other existences. And if He is also essence (for, as St. John of
Damascus writes, “He is called both Existence and Essence”[20]), that
essence cannot be known by us. Thus He is not something. He simply is.
Before leaving the subject of the tetragram, let us consider the
question: what is the difference in meaning between the name of God as
“Jehovah” or “Yahweh” and the other major name of God in the Old Testament,
“Elohim”?
These two names alternate frequently in the early books of the Bible,
but in the later books “Jehovah” comes to predominate. Modern critics have
tended to see in this difference evidence of multiple authorship of the early
books. However, Archimandrite Theophan provides a much more illuminating
explanation, and one much more in accord with the spirit of faith. He shows in
detail, from the study of many passages of Scripture, that “Elohim” expresses
the idea of the cosmic, transcendent “God of nature”, providing for and
sustaining all things that exist, including all men; while “Jehovah” expresses
the idea of “the God of Revelation” (the meaning of the name was explained in a
special revelation to Moses) and “the God of grace”, which is given, not to all
men, but only to His chosen people, with a view to their salvation
(hence the revelation of the name took place just before the Exodus, when God saved
His people from slavery to the Egyptians). Thus “in the light of an
integrated Biblical world-view, the Divine names Jahveh and Elohim signify two
special spheres of the Divine rule of the world – regnum gratiae and regnum
naturae. Historically, insofar as the knowledge of God in His capacity as
Master of nature is accessible to every man who has not lost a living feeling
for God, it undoubtedly characterises the knowledge of God already of the very
first part of the patriarchal period. While the knowledge of God in His
capacity as the God of grace, according to the clear witness of Exodus
6.3, began to be assimilated into the religious consciousness of Old Testament
man only with the coming of the Sinai period, and in particular with the exodus
of the Hebrews from Egypt”[21]
If, in the beginning, there was no distinction between nature
and grace, and so no distinction between the meanings of “Elohim” and
“Jehovah”, insofar as the kingdom of nature was identical with the kingdom of
grace, after the fall and the disjunction between nature and grace the
distinction became important. And with each succeeding covenant between God and
His chosen people – first with Noah, then with Abraham, then with Moses – it
also became sharper. But if the connotations of the two names were different, their
denotation always remained the same: the God of nature was the same God as the
God of grace.
However, towards the end of the Old Testament period, as Archimandrite
Theophan explains, the distinction became corrupted by a nationalistic
consciousness among the Jews, who tended to see Jehovah as the God exclusively
of the Jews in a strictly ethnic sense. Hence there arose, among the later
prophets, the increasing use of the term “Jehovah Sabaoth”, “Lord of hosts”, as
if to emphasise: Jehovah is indeed the God of the chosen people of Israel, but
He is also the God of the heavenly hosts, of the whole of nature under the
heavens, and hence also of the whole of mankind, both Jews and Gentiles.
And so, as Archbishop Theophan writes, “in the first pages of the Bible
the tetragram has the widest significance, meaning the God of Revelation
generally in distinction from His purely cosmic providence over the rest of the
world. Then it is narrowed to a strictly theocratic name. And, finally, it is
again broadened to include traits of universality and super-universality.”[22]
Thus the stage was set for the coming to earth of Jehovah Himself, Who
would indeed be salvation for the Jews, but also for the Gentiles, a truly
universal Saviour…
Conclusion: 2. According to His Essence, God
cannot be named, He is unknowable. For He simply is. Therefore His Essence can
be named or defined only by means of a tautology – “I am Who I am” or “I am the
Existing One”.
3. Names, Energies and Hypostases.
And yet, while God is unnameable in His
essence, He is described in terms of other beings in the Holy
Scriptures. Why? St. John of Damascus explains: “The Deity being
incomprehensible is also assuredly nameless. Therefore since we know not His
essence, let us not seek for a name for His essence. For names are explanations
of actual things. But God, Who is good and brought us out of nothing into being
that we might share in His goodness, and Who gave us the faculty of knowledge,
not only did not impart to us His essence, but did not even grant us the
knowledge of His essence. For it is impossible for nature to understand fully
the super-natural. Moreover, if knowledge is of things that are, how can there
be knowledge of the super-essential? Through His unspeakable goodness, then, it
pleased Him to be called by names that we could understand, that we might not
be altogether cut off from the knowledge of Him but should have some notion of
Him, however vague. Inasmuch, then, as He is incomprehensible, He is also
unnameable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of all and contains in Himself the
reasons and causes of all that is, He receives names drawn from all that is,
even from opposites: for example, He is called light and darkness, water and
fire: in order that we may know that these are not of His essence but that He
is super-essential and unnameable: but inasmuch as He is the cause of all, He
receives names from all His effects”. [23]
“And so,” writes St. Basil the Great, “the God-inspired Scriptures of
necessity use many names and expressions for the particular and, moreover,
enigmatic (i.e. unclear) portrayal of the glory of God”.[24]
Again, St. Gregory the Theologian writes: “The Divinity is unnameable.
When we represent God by borrowing certain traits from that which surrounds
God, we compose a certain unclear and weak idea gathered in parts from this and
that. And the best theologian among us is not he who has discovered everything,
but he whose idea is broader, and who has formed in himself a fuller likeness
or shadow of the truth.”[25]
“We,” writes St. Gregory of Nyssa, “following the suggestions of
Scripture, have learned that that nature (of God) is unnameable and
unspeakable, and we say that every term either invented by the custom of men,
or handed down to us by the Scriptures, is indeed explanatory of our
conceptions of the Divine Nature, but does not include the significance of that
Nature itself”.[26]
Seeking greater clarity, we may ask: if God is unnameable, do the names
we give Him describe anything at all about Him? And if they tell us nothing
about His essence, what, precisely, are they describing? And if they are not
describing His essence, is it not the case that they are not describing God at
all?
The answers to these questions are to be found in the distinction
between the essence and the energies of God, which was most fully expounded by
St. Gregory Palamas in the fourteenth century, but is to be found clearly
expressed already in St. Basil the Great: “While we affirm that we know God in
His Energies, we scarcely promise that He may be approached in His very
Essence. For although His Energies descend to us, His Essence remains
inaccessible.”[27] The Energies of God “descend to us”, that is, they are God coming
out of Himself, as it were, and descending to the realm of created nature.
We may compare the Energies of God to the rays of the sun, and His
Essence – to the sun itself. Thus God as He is in Himself, in His Essence, is
unknowable and unnameable, but God as He comes out of Himself and reveals
Himself to us, in His Energies, is both knowable and nameable.
This distinction is of critical importance in the name-worshipping
controversy; for the name-worshippers attempt to proceed from the fact that the
Energies of God are nameable to the much more dubious proposition that the
names of God are the Energies of God and therefore God. Their main
support in this argument is the authority of St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who
in his The Divine Names does indeed call the Energies of God the Names
of God.
However, as we have seen, the holy fathers much more frequently
described the names of God as the “inventions of men”, in St. Gregory of
Nyssa’s words, which refer to (or are explanations of, in St.
John of Damascus’ words) the Energies of God, but are not to be identified with
them. For how can an invention of men be identified with the Uncreated God? The
truth is that the Uncreated God is not identified with His names, but portrayed
by His names, each name portraying one Energy.
This is particularly clearly expressed by St. Basil’s friend, St.
Amphilochius of Iconium: “What did Christ not suffer to be called for our sake?
We cannot enumerate [all of] His names, but I will attempt to state [some of]
them, beloved: Door, Way, Sheep, Shepherd, Worm, Stone, Pearl, Flower, Angel,
Man, God, Light, Fountain, and Sun of Righteousness. Though He has many names,
Christ is one, and though He has many names, the Son is one, not being subject
to change or alteration, for His Divinity is immutable; but He accommodates
Himself to each thing according to His energies, assigning a particular name to
each energy. Now let us see, beloved, whether we can portray an energy by each
of these names.”[28]
St. Gregory of Nyssa likewise writes: “The miracles seen in everything
provide the matter for the theological names by which we call God wise,
powerful, good, holy, blessed, as well as saviour and other such names. All of
these names indicate some quality of God’s myrrh which we may say has been
gathered from all nature and kept there as in a perfume bottle.”[29]
Even St. Dionysius uses the word “name” in this conventional, “human”
usage, as we can see in the following passage: “He is many-named, because this
is how they represent Him speaking: ‘I am He Who is, I am Life, Light, God,
Truth’. And when the wise in God praise God Himself, Creator of all, by many
names gathered from created things, such as Good, Beautiful, Wise,
Beloved…”[30]
And again: “This is the nature of prayer: it raises man from earth to heaven,
and, surpassing every celestial name, eminence, and dignity, it present
him to God Who is above all things”.[31]
Later theologians also use the word “name” in the conventional usage.
Thus St. Maximus the Confessor writes in his commentary on St. Dionysius: “Note
that the name ‘God’ does not show the essence, or what God is, but a certain
good deed in relation to us, and that we create names for God from the
gifts of God of which we are participants”.[32] And St.
Gregory Palamas, the theologian par excellence of the Energies of God, also
makes it clear that the naming of God is a human activity: “God exists
completely in each of the worshipful Energies, according to each of which we
name Him”.[33] And
again: “The names apply to the energies (twn de energeiwn esti ta onomata)… That which
surpasses every name is not identical to that which is named (tauto de tw onomazomenw to uperwnumon ouk estin); the essence and
the energy of God are not identical.”[34]
So we may conclude that the unnameable Essence, the nameable Energies
and the Names themselves are not identical. The Holy Fathers understood the
Names of God as referring to His Energies (in most cases), but not as being
those Energies, but rather as being the creations of men.
Why “in most cases” only? Because in some
cases the name of God refers, not to His Energies, but to one or more of the
Divine Persons or Hypostases. Among these Personal names
of God we must include both “Yahweh” and “Elohim”. And, as we shall see in more
detail later, the all-important name “Jesus”.
As for the word “God”, it sometimes refers to His Energies, sometimes
even, by a certain “economy”, to His unnameable Essence, and very often, of
course, to One or Other of the Hypostases of the Holy Trinity. Thus the name “God” in “God so loved the
world that He gave His only Son” (John 3.16) refers exclusively to the
Father. And in “God became man” – exclusively to the Son.
The names of God cannot refer simultaneously to the Energies and the Hypostases
of God. For, on the one hand, all the Energies of God belong to all three of
the Hypostases and do not each have their own Hypostasis; for, as St. Gregory
Palamas writes: “It [the Energy of God] is enhypostasised’, not because it
possesses its own hypostasis, but to the degree that the Spirit sends it into
the hypostasis of another…”[35]. And on
the other hand, some of the actions of individual Persons of the Trinity – for
example, the Incarnation of the Son, or the Descent of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost
– can be ascribed only to one of those Persons.
Conclusion: 3. Although God is unnameable in His Essence, He is nameable in His Energies, which are God’s actions, or, in
the words of one of the Holy Fathers, “the movements of the Essence”. The names of God sometimes refer
to His Uncreated Energies, and sometimes to His Divine Hypostases.
4. The Name of Jesus
At a certain specific historical time and in a certain specific
geographical place, the Creator of the universe, He Who is, the same God Who
spoke to Adam in the garden, and to Moses in the burning bush, and to the
judges and kings and prophets of Israel, became man. And on becoming man, He
acquired a new name, “Jesus”. For “at the end of eight days, when He was
circumcised, He was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was
conceived in the womb” (Luke 2.21, 1.31).
Some have asserted that “Jesus” became the name of the humanity of Jesus
Christ. But this is a mistake that smacks of Nestorianism. “Jesus” is the name,
not of the humanity of Christ, but of His complex, Divino-human Hypostasis
- according to His human nature.
For, as St. John of Damascus writes: “By the word ‘Christ’ we understand
the name of the Hypostasis, not in the sense of one kind only, but as
signifying the existence of two natures”, in that after the Incarnation “the
natures are united in the Hypostasis, they have one compound Hypostasis” (mian upostasin sunqeton).[36]
Now the name “Jesus”, unlike “Elohim” and “Jehovah”, is not exclusively
a Divine name; it is not exclusively the name of God the Son in
accordance with His human nature. Before being given to God, the name “Jesus”
was also applied to Jesus (Joshua) the son of Nave (Nun), among others. The
fact that Jesus the son of Nave and Jesus the Son of God have the same name is
not accidental. “Jesus” means “Saviour”, and both were the saviours of their
people, albeit in different ways and with very different degrees of profundity
and appropriateness. Jesus the son of Nave was the saviour of his people, the
Israelites, in the sense that he conquered their enemies and made a way for
them into the Promised Land, which was at that time called Canaan. Jesus the
Son of God was and is the Saviour of His people in an infinitely more profound
sense: He conquered our enemy, the devil, and made a way for us into the
Promised Land, the Kingdom of heaven.
Before the Incarnation of the Son of God, “Jesus” was an ordinary name
in the sense that it was an ordinary human invention applied to ordinary human
beings. Several different people could have, and did have, the same name
“Jesus”, and these people were, of course, able to exchange this name for
another. Thus “Jesus” was no different in principle from other ordinary human
names such as Peter and Paul.
St. Gregory of Nyssa emphasises the human origins of these names when he
writes that the Apostle Peter could change his name and become Cephas without
ceasing to be Peter, and that “Peter and Paul received their names from people,
whence it follows that in their case it was possible to change their names…
What, of the things that exist, did not receive its name from men?”[37]
However, after the Incarnation the grace of God has come to rest on the name of Jesus, and “Jesus” will
remain glorious and worthy of veneration as the name of the Son of God to the
ages of ages.
As Bishop Ignatius Brianchaninov writes: “O what a gift! It is
the earnest of unending, infinite good things! It proceeded from the lips of
the uncircumscribed God, Who clothed Himself in circumscribed humanity, and
called Himself by a human name. A name which externally is circumscribed, but
which depicts in itself an uncircumscribed Object, God, which borrows from Him
an uncircumscribed, Divine dignity, Divine properties and power.” [38]
Again, Archbishop Theophan of Poltava
writes: “The
Divinity rests in the Name of God”.[39]
As the Most Holy Synod put it in their Epistle on name-worshipping of
May 18, 1913: “The name of God is holy, and worthy of veneration, and desired,
because it serves for us as a verbal sign of the supremely desired and most
holy Being – God, the Source of all good things. This name is divine, because
it is revealed to us by God, it speaks to us about God, and raises our mind to
God.”.[40]
Now let us pass to a more detailed examination of the arguments of the
leading name-worshippers.
5. Name-worshipping and Eunomianism
Names are paradoxical, in that they seem to hover between extreme
insignificance, even nothingness, on the one hand, and great power, almost
equal to that of their bearers, on the other. In Goethe’s Faust Mephistopheles says: “Happiness, heart, love, God – I have
no name for it – feeling is all; names are but sound and smoke dimming the glow
of heaven”.
This romantic view is clearly wrong:
names, like icons can
reveal the glow of heaven, rather than dim it. Here the comparison with icons
is useful (and will be discussed in more detail in a later section). Icons, in
the words of St. Stephen the Younger, are “doors to heaven”, doors that open
the way to heaven, rather than closing it; and the same can be said of the
names of God and His saints. As Archbishop Nicon pointed out in his report to
the Russian Most Holy Synod on name-worshipping, even if names are no more than
shadows of their bearers, it remains a fact that shadows, like the shadow of
the Apostle Peter, work miracles[41]
The question is: Is a
shadow part of the body that casts it? Not according to the ordinary use of
language. Nor, according to the same ordinary use of language, are names
identical with, or part of, the people or things who bear them.
Nor is this just a
truth of the “common-sense” use of language. For the common-sense usage is
confirmed by the Holy Fathers. We have seen this already in the words of St.
Gregory of Nyssa in his debate with the heretic Eunomius, who insisted on the
identification of names and their objects: “One thing is the object which is subject by
its nature to, the name which signifies the object”.[42]
It is sometimes argued that this may be true of ordinary
objects and persons, but it is not true of God insofar as God is eternal and
unchanging, and everything about Him, including His names, is eternal and
unchanging and inseparable from Him. However, St. Gregory of Nyssa, in the work
quoted from above, was speaking precisely about the Divine names.
In any case, it is necessary to point out
that the name-worshippers generally do not make this distinction between
Divine names and ordinary names, but rather insist on the universal identification
of names and the things they name. Thus Fr. Hilarion wrote: “Can anything be without a name?
The name expresses the very essence of the object and is inseparable from it”[43] And
again: “The name
expressing the essence of an object cannot be removed from the object without
the object losing its significance. We can also see this in simple things, for
example, a glass. Do you see how the name lies in the very essence of an object
and is merged into one with it, and it is impossible to separate it without the
concept of the object changing? [Thus] if you separate the name of Jesus from
Him, the concept we have of Him and which we unite with this name of His will
also be changed.”[44]
The absurdity of the idea that
a glass ceases to be a glass when it is called by another name would appear to
be self-evident. And yet it has been defended by the leading contemporary
name-worshipper, Hieromonk Gregory (Lourié), who in a semi-official
dialogue with the present writer declares: “If you take away the name “glass” from a glass, it truly ceases to be a glass, but turns into a cylindrical (or some other form of) glass (or
made out of some other material) vessel, which is usually used as a container
for liquid or some wet substance. You can no longer speak of it as a “glass”. The
same applies to any other named objects – in the absence of a name their
definition disappears and we are forced to describe them as a combination of
other objects, dividing their hypostatic integrity in accordance with various
properties of various natures (for example, we have to speak of a glass as a
combination of “glassness”, “cylindricity”, “use for liquids” and, so to speak,
“vesselness”). In this way the simple nature of the glass is as it were
annihilated, and any existent glass is turned into a complex hypostasis of the
above-named properties.”[45]
But it is of the essence of language that different words and names can
refer to one and the same object. And yet an object in no way changes in
essence or is “annihilated” if its name changes.
Fr. Gregory continues: “Not one nature is contemplated in itself (as the
Fathers, and above all St. John of Damascus teach), but is contemplated in
hypostases (moreover, the holy father indicates hypostases precisely through
the name, see for example, Dialectics, ch. 44: “the nature of people is
not contemplated in its own hypostasis, but in Peter, in Paul and in other
human hypostases), either in one’s own – as humanity in the human hypostasis of
Peter, or in another’s – as humanity in the incarnate hypostasis of the Son of
God. But in both the one and the other case to the hypostasis in which the
nature is contemplated there belongs a definite name, which indicates precisely
this hypothesis, “this glass” (that is precisely this glass, which we have in
mind), “Peter” (that is, the Peter in question). If it is possible to pose the
purely abstract question: what is to be done with an unnamed hypostasis
(although there are no unnamed hypostases), then in respect of people such
theoretical speculation is impossible, insofar as the existence of human
hypostases without names turns out to be simply impossible.”[46]
However, Fr. Gregory merely asserts, without attempting to prove, that
it is “simply impossible” for a person not to have a name. In the absence of
such a proof we have the right to remain unconvinced. The theoretical
possibility seems self-evident.
Fr. Gregory continues: “It is characteristic that the changes in name
that take place in baptism and monastic tonsure are perceived in an
ecclesiastical sense as a new birth, that is, as the appearance of a new
hypostasis. Besides, it is precisely the acquisition of the new name that is
the indicator, as it were, of the appearance of this new hypostasis”.[47]
This shows to what dangerous distortions of true doctrine in other
spheres the name-worshipping heresy can lead. What happens in baptism? Human
nature is cleansed and reborn through water and the Holy Spirit. We call this a
new birth, but this does not mean that at baptism a new hypostasis is created.
It means that the human nature of one and the same person is renewed.
The change in name undoubtedly signifies a renewal of nature. But not a change
of person or hypostasis.»[48]
Fr.
Gregory continues: “This makes it still more understandable why the Person of
the Lord cannot be linked by us with any other name than the name “Jesus”. Even
to think of such a change or remove this name is blasphemous and impossible. It
would signify the abolition of the whole of Christianity, the whole existence
of the Church and Her teaching and sacraments. This fact is still more
powerfully emphasised by the fact that this name was pronounced by the
Archangel at the same time as the conception of the Lord, and, still earlier
than the Nativity and already from the time of the conception, constituted an
inalienable property of His Theanthropic Hypostasis”.[49]
Of course,
there is no denying – and we have openly asserted it above - that the name of
the Son of God is “Jesus” now and to the ages of ages; and anyone who, knowing
this truth, would seek to deny it would be lying and even blaspheming. And yet,
as we have also pointed out above, the name “Jesus” can be, and has been
applied, to other people than the Son of God. Moreover, there was a time,
before the Incarnation of Christ, when the same Divine Person Whom we now call
“Jesus” was not called Jesus. And yet the saints of the Old Testament knew Him
and worshipped Him and prayed to Him – under another name, the name of
“Jehovah” or “Yahweh”. Indeed, one of the major differences between the
Orthodox and the Jehovah’s Witnesses lies in the fact that we, unlike those
heretics, confess that the Jehovah whom the saints of the Old Testament
worshipped and prayed to is the same Jesus Whom we now see clothed in
human flesh and with a human name.
It is
important here to distinguish between the denotation of the name Jesus,
its indicating the Son of God, and the name’s connotation, its meaning
as “Saviour”. When we think of the names of people we naturally think of
them in their denotational use, as indicating the persons, no more. That
is how we would naturally understand the statement “the Son of God is called
‘Jesus’”. However, this statement is not equivalent to the statement:
“the Son of God is the Saviour”, nor to the statement: “the Son of God is
rightly and appropriately called ‘Jesus’, insofar as He is truly the Saviour of
the world”. The name-worshippers craftily confuse the denotative and
connotative uses of the name “Jesus” in order to accuse their Orthodox
opponents of blasphemy.
Thus the
Orthodox fully accept that Jesus Christ is rightly and appropriately called
“Jesus”, insofar as He is truly the Saviour of the world. This is a fundamental
tenet of our faith, to deny which would indeed be to “signify the abolition of
the whole of Christianity, the whole existence of the Church and Her teaching
and sacraments”. But it is quite another truth, - and a truth of a lower, less
fundamental order, - that the Lord’s name according to His humanity was
“Jesus”. A person who denies that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of the world is
not a Christian. But a person who accepts this truth, but for some reason or
other does not know that the Lord is called “Jesus”, or thinks he had another name
according to His humanity, has not denied the faith and is still a Christian.
Fr.
Gregory attempts to justify his and Fr. Hilarion’s teaching on names by a very
strange distinction between the concepts “word” and “name”. “Any human being
you like can be called by the word ‘Jesus’, and it can become his name.
But the name ‘Jesus’ as the property of the Person of the God-man
belongs only to Him and cannot belong to any other hypostasis. The name ‘Jesus’
in Jesus son of Nave and the name ‘Jesus’ in the Lord, are identical words but
different names belonging to different persons”.[50]
However,
in ordinary language names are words. And in ordinary language “Jesus”
as referring to the Son of God and “Jesus” as referring to the son of Nave are
one and the same word and one and the same name. Moreover, if they were not
one and the same word and one and the same name having one and the same
connotative meaning, the very important correspondence – albeit on vastly
different planes – between the two Jesuses would be missed: the correspondence,
namely, between the mission of Jesus the son of Nave as physical and political
saviour of the Old Testament people of God, and the mission of Jesus the Son of
God as the spiritual Saviour of the New Testament people of God.
In confirmation of all this,
St. Theodore the Studite writes: “Many bear the name of Jesus, but only
the Saviour of all – Jesus Christ”.[51]
One and the same name can point to different people
depending on the intention of the person who uses it, just as a torch can point
to different objects in the darkness depending on the direction in which it is
pointed. It goes without saying that if the torch illumines a beautiful
picture, the effect will be different that if it illumined only a dustbin. But
in both cases the torch remains the same. In the same way, although the name
“Jesus” acquires an infinitely greater depth and power when it refers to the
Son of God – a genuinely Divine depth and power, - than when it refers to a
simple mortal, it remains one and the same name.
The persistence with which both Fr. Hilarion and Fr. Gregory insist on
the identification of objects and persons with the names they bear shows that
this is a cardinal axiom of the name-worshipping heresy, whether in its early,
unsophisticated, or contemporary, more sophisticated form.
Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also a cardinal axiom of the
fourth-century heretic Eunomius, who said: “A name is one and the same as the
object being named”[52], on the
basis of which he constructed his heretical teaching on the knowability of the
Essence of God through certain revealed Names which express that Essence. And
Hilarion certainly seems to come close to Eunomianism when he writes that “the
name expresses the very essence of the object and is inseparable from it”; for
if the object in question is God, then this statement is asserting that the
name of God expresses His essence. The later name-worshippers expressed
themselves more cautiously.
This is not the only similarity that was observed between
name-worshipping in its early phase and Eunomianism. Many suspected the early
name-worshippers of believing, like Eunomius, that the Essence of God was
knowable through the Divine Names. Later, however, as we have seen, this misunderstanding
was cleared up when the leading name-worshippers, especially Fr. Anthony
Bulatovich, declared that by “God” they did not mean the Divine Essence, but
the Divine Energies.
But misunderstandings continued to be created by the name-worshippers’
use of the phrase “God Himself”, as in the confession of faith of the
name-worshippers of the Athonite skete of St. Andrew on January 10, 1913: “I,
the undersigned, do believe and confess that the Name of God and the Name of
the Lord Jesus Christ is holy in itself, inseparable from God, and is God
Himself…" The
addition of the word “Himself” was considered by the Ecumenical Patriarch
German V to be heretical on the grounds that it presupposed the idea of the
Divine Essence; and he condemned the name-worshippers on these grounds.[53]
The name-worshippers were also suspected of identifying the
names of God with the physical sounds or letters with which they are pronounced
or written. That this was a real temptation for some Russian believers is proved
by the superstition of some priestless Old Believers, who reasoned that since
the Orthodox spelled the name of the Son of God according to His humanity as
“Iisus” in Russian, while they themselves spelt it as “Isus”, the Orthodox were
actually worshipping a different Jesus.[54] The
better-educated name-worshippers did not fall into this temptation. However,
the theological commission established by the Ecumenical Patriarch Joachim III
in September, 1912 noted, and condemned, a tendency towards pantheism among the
name-worshippers, that is, a tendency to confuse the boundary between the
created and the Uncreated. As we shall see in more detail below, the conclusion
of the Greek theologians is confirmed by a study of both the old and the new
name-worshippers.
An example of the kind of text that gave rise to this suspicion is the
following: “But can this Divine feeling be removed from the mind of the
believer, who sees God existing in the whole of creation, in Heaven and on
Earth, in the seas and in all the abysses. There is not the smallest line in
space, nor a single moment in time. But everything that exists in the visible
and invisible world is full of the presence of the Divinity. As a most pure and
boundless Spirit, the whole Lord is everywhere in the whole of His Essence. And
without doubt he abides in it also in Holy name.”[55] But then, to avoid any suspicion
of pantheism, the elder goes on: “Only one must remember that, as it says in
Theology, although ‘the action of the omnipresence of God is everywhere, it is
not to the same degree at every level of created being: it is in different
forms in impersonal and personal beings, in pious and impious people. It is in
the one place and in the other in accordance with the capacity of creatures to
receive it.’ And this may be the true reason why they do not want to give
Divine status to the name ‘Jesus’ and have this name as, as it were, the Son of
God Himself.”[56]
In avoiding the accusation that they are deifying written letters or
sounds, the name-worshippers are forced to distinguish between two senses of
the word “name”, one created and the other Uncreated. Thus Bulatovich writes:
“When we are talking about the Name of God, and have in mind the essence of the
Name itself, by which we name God, then we say that the Name of God is God.
But when we have in mind letters and syllables, by which the truth about God
and the Name of God is conventionally expressed, then we say that God is
present in His Name”. Again he writes: «In the Name of Christ we have a
created, so to speak, shell, that is, those sounds and letters by which we
express the Truth. These sounds and letter are different in each language, and
do not pass into eternity, and are not united with the Lord Jesus Christ, which
is why, when we, in speaking about the Name, have in mind the created human
word, by which an idea about God and Christ is expressed, it is fitting to
speak about the presence of God in His Name. But when we have in
mind the Name itself, then it is the Truth itself, is God Himself, as the Lord
said of Himself: ‘I am… the Truth’ (John 14.6)”.[57] Fr.
Gregory Lourié, makes
a similar distinction between created names of God and Uncreated Names of God:
“Created names are indissolubly bound up with the Uncreated Energy-Names, and
in their capacity as names point to God or to the Mother of God, Angels and
Saints represented in them, and not to chance objects or people”.[58]
Does this distinction between created names and Uncreated Energy-Names
help the name-worshippers? No: it helps clear up some confusions, only to
create others.Thus what is the relationship between the created name and the
Uncreated Energy-Name? Does not the one name the other? Is not the
created name “wisdom”, for example, the name of the Uncreated Energy-Name
Wisdom? Yes, of course. “Wisdom” is the name of Wisdom, the name of the
Name. But then a distinction must be
made between the created name “wisdom” referring to the Uncreated Energy-Name,
Divine Wisdom, and the created name “wisdom” referring to the created property
of men, human wisdom. And then these two kinds of wisdom, together with their
created names, must be distinguished from Christ, “the Wisdom and the Power of
God” (I Cor. 1.24). For here “wisdom” is not a common name referring to
a human property or Divine Energy, but a proper name referring to a Divine Hypostasis,
in Whom “are hidden all the treasures of wisdom” (Col. 2.3), both human
and Divine, but Who is to be distinguished from these treasures as being their
Possessor. So now we have the following schema: “Wisdom”, the name of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the Divine Wisdom, “Wisdom”, the name of the Uncreated
Energy-Name, Divine Wisdom, and “Wisdom”, the name of the created
property, human wisdom.
In this context it hardly matters whether we call “wisdom” a single name
with three different denotations, or three distinct name-“homonyms”, as Fr.
Gregory prefers. The important point is that it is impossible to tell, simply
by hearing or reading the created name “wisdom”, whether it is referring to a
Divine Hypostasis, a Divine Energy or a human energy. A further piece of
information is required: the intention of the speaker or writer, the idea he
had in his mind when uttering or writing the word.
What is the relation between the created name and the idea behind the
name, which determines what the name refers to? Let us first see Bulatovich’s
answer to this question: “The word of every language and in every form,
as long as it is alive and is pronounced orally or mentally, is, of course, a
reflection of the idea, and has a real connection with the idea, - while
the idea is also a reality, having a hypostatic existence. For
example: the Russian “áëàãî”,…
Greek “to agaqon”, etc. – these are words. Then there is “èäåÿ-áëàãî”, and finally “Áëàãî-Áîã, òðèèïîñòàñíûé”.[59]
“The word…is… a reflection of the idea” is somewhat
vague. Could the word be said to be a name of the idea, its “external shell”? To the
present writer’s knowledge, this question is left unanswered by Bulatovich and
the other leading name-worshippers.
In any case it seems that we must
distinguish between three levels of reality: the name-word, the name-idea and the object named.
Thus we get the following expanded schema:“wisdom”, a name-wordÞ (a) “wisdom”, a name-ideaÞ (a) Jesus Christ;“wisdom”, a
name-wordÞ
(b) “wisdom”, a name-ideaÞ (b) Divine Wisdom;“wisdom”, a name-wordÞ (c) “wisdom”, a name-ideaÞ (g) human wisdom.
From this schema it is immediately evident that the Lord Jesus Christ,
the Hypostatic Wisdom of God (a), has only a created name (1 or a),
confirming our conclusion in part I. The non-Hypostatic (“Energetic”) Wisdom of
God (b)
also has only a created name (2 or b), while being Itself an Uncreated
Name (in the unconventional, “Dionysian” sense of the word “name”). As for
human wisdom (g),
that is, of course, created, and has itself a created name (3 or c). Thus out
of the nine elements in the schema only one (b) can be called a Name of God in
the name-worshippers’ understanding – that is, a Name of God that is at the
same time God Himself. But of all these nine applications of the word “name”,
this one is the most unusual, the most unconventional. For in ordinary
language “name” never means “energy”.
At the same time, we have involuntarily had to resort to the
conventional sense of the word “name” in order to explicate the
name-worshippers’ unconventional use of the word. For there is no other way to
understand the relationship between created names (whether name-words or
idea-names) and Uncreated Names except in terms of the created names being the names
(in the conventional, everyday sense) of the Uncreated Names. They are the
names of the Names, as it were. But
then the thought arises: if we have to use the word “name” in the conventional
sense (in which names are distinct from their bearers) in order to explicate
the meaning of “Name of God” in the unconventional sense (in which names are
not distinct from their bearers, but are fused with them, as it were), why not
stick to the conventional sense in all our discourse in order to avoid
confusion? True, St. Dionysius used the word “name” in an unconventional sense
for a specific purpose: to express the idea that the Energies of God reveal God
to us, and are therefore in a sense the “names” of God. But since God in His
Essence is in fact unnameable, there is nothing, strictly speaking, that these
Names actually name; they are the Names of the Unnameable. So the heresy of
Eunomianism can be avoided only by making it clear that these Names are not
“names” in the conventional sense; they reveal God without naming Him.
Conclusion: 5. Following the heretic Eunomius, the name-worshippers identify names with that which is
named. But names are distinct from the objects and persons to
which they point, just as a shadow is distinct from the body that casts it. We
can distinguish nine possible meanings of the word “name” in the context of the
name-worshipping controversy. Out of these nine only one corresponds to the
name-worshippers’ use of the word, that is, “name” in the sense of the
uncreated Energy of God. But this “energetic” meaning of the word is the most
unusual and the most unnatural, since in ordinary language “name” never
signifies “energy”. Moreover, if we ask the question: «What or who is named by
these uncreated Name-Energies?», then only reply is possible: the Essence of
God. But the theory that the Essence of God is nameable is the heresy of
Eunomius.
6. Name-worshipping and Pantheism
The name-worshippers have not been in a great hurry to dispel the confusion which they have
created in the minds of their readers by their revolutionary use of language.
They have created confusions, as we have already noted, not only between
created and uncreated name-words, but also between uncreated and created
name-ideas. Now let us examine more closely how these confusions are
developed in Bulatovich’s Àpology.
The name-worshippers’ thesis is that if an idea is about God, it is God, whoever thinks this idea. As
Troitsky writes: “In the Apology [of Bulatovich] it is proved that the
name, as our idea about God and our expression of this idea in words, is God.
‘Every mental representation of the named property of God is the Name of God’,
it is said here (p. 52). The contemplation of the name of God is God Himself (53). ‘The conscious naming of God is God Himself’ (27). ‘We call the very idea of God God’ (26).”[60]
What if the person who has the idea of God
is a heretic or a criminal or even a demon? It makes no essential difference,
according to Bulatovich. The idea is still God, only in the case of an evil man
the idea is thought to his condemnation, just as the Body and Blood of Christ
is received by an evil man to his condemnation.
In what sense, according to Bulatovich, is the name of God an idea about
God, and therefore God Himself? In the sense that it is an Energy of God, or
more precisely: a verbal Energy or Action of God. Bulatovich approaches
these subject in the following way: “God is unchanging, but also ever-moving.
The evermovingness of God is expressed in the revelation by Him of the
properties of His Essence. Before the creation of the angels and men, the
action of God was turned towards God Himself – ‘and the Word was with God’
(John 1.1). But lo! God turned His attention partly also to creatures, and in
creation He began to show His Divine properties. And, first of all, being Himself
Light unapproachable, He poured out His Divine Light on the ranks of the
angels, making them in different degrees light-bearing. And this Light by which
the angels are radiant – is God Himself. But the first-created people shone
with a similar Light in Paradise, but the fall deprived them of this Light.
However, although God deprived man of a visible radiance, He did not completely
deprive him of the radiance of the Light of Truth, and after the fall continued
to reveal to men the God-revealed truths about Himself by His Holy Spirit
through the patriarchs and prophets. And finally He shone with the noetic Light
of Truth in the Sun of Righteousness – His Only-Begotten Son. And so, just as the Divine visible Light
is the action of the Divine Light and is God, so the noetic Light of Truth
is the verbal action of God and is God Himself. And so, just as the
Church recognises the visible Light of Tabor to be God and pronounces anathema
on those who do not recognise this Light to be God, so also the words of God on
Tabor, that is the naming of Jesus as the ‘Beloved Son’ (Luke 9:35),
is also God Himself, as being the verbal action of God; and so also in general, every God-revealed
truth announced to people by the Holy Spirit through the prophets and apostles
and God-bearing men, and also every truth pronounced by the incarnate God and
Word, and also every God-moved prayer and the Church prayers inspired into the
Church by the Holy Spirit – are God, for they are the verbal action
of God. Consequently also, every Name of God, as a God-revealed truth,
is God Himself, and God exists in them with the whole of His Essence, in
accordance with the inseparability of His Essence from His actions.”[61]
Two things immediately strike us about
this definition. The strangeness of the definition of statements of truth as
“names”. And the broadness of the definition of “the verbal action of
God”.
Let us examine the first point first. In ordinary language a name is not
a truth, because to name or indicate a thing or person is not the same
as to affirm a statement – and truths are affirmed, not named or
indicated. Òhus “Jesus” is
a name, and “Saviour” is a name. But “Jesus is the Saviour” is not a name, but
an affirmation, an affirmation of a most important truth. The word “Truth” is
also a name when it refers to Jesus Christ, but “’Jesus’ means ‘Saviour’” or
“Jesus Christ is the Truth”, or “I am the Truth” in the mouth of Christ
Himself, are all not names, but true affirmations. By means of a confusion between true names and affirmations of
the truth, the name-worshippers try to confuse prayer and theology. Thus it is
one thing to call on the name of Jesus, invoking the Saviour and speaking to
Him, and quite another to declare the truth: “Jesus is the Saviour”. The first
is prayer; the second is theology, a statement of truth. Of course, true prayer
must be based on true theology; he who prays to Jesus not knowing that He is
the Saviour, is not praying to the true Jesus. And it is also the case, as one
Church writer said, that only he who truly prays can be a true theologian, and
theology that is not mixed with the spirit of prayer is empty words.
Nevertheless, prayer and theological thought are different activities involving
different persons of speech (the second person in the case of prayer, the third
in the case of theology). The name-worshippers’ error here consists in
confusing intellectual activity about God with prayer to God, the statement that
Jesus is the Saviour with the Person of Jesus the Saviour. It is the
intellectualist heresy par excellence.
As regards the definition: “every Name of
God, and God-revealed truth is God Himself,…the verbal action of God”, great
caution is necessary.
First, Bulatovich tries to draw a parallel
between the Uncreated Light of Tabor, which is indeed the Action (Energy) of
God, and every true word that has ever been spoken about God, which is not.
By introducing the
theme of the Uncreated Light, the name-worshippers hoped to invoke the
authority of St. Gregory Palamas in their favour and against their Orthodox
opponents. Since the link between name-worshipping and Palamism is not
immediately obvious, it may be worth reminding ourselves of the main thesis of
Palamism, which consists in the assertion that the Divine Essence is to be
distinguished from the Divine Energies (this distinction is already explicit in
the words of St. Basil quoted above), but that both are uncreated and both God.
Hence the Divine Light which the apostles saw on Mount Tabor, being a Divine
Energy, was God (or “the Divinity”, to use the terminology of the Russian
Synodal theologians). Now the name-worshippers point out that the Divine Light
was not the only Divine Energy manifest on Tabor: there was also the voice of
the Father, Who said: “This is My Beloved Son”. By analogy, therefore, assert
the name-worshippers, all the words that are used in the Holy Scriptures
and the Divine services and the Holy Fathers, and in general all true ideas or
thoughts about God are “the verbal actions of God” and God Himself in His
uncreated Energies. And those who deny it, they say, fall into the same category
as the heretic Barlaam, who denied that the Divine Light on Tabor was God and
who was anathematised by the fourteenth-century Palamite Councils!
But is there really no substantial
difference between the words of God the Father on Tabor and the writings of the
Holy Fathers? Is there really no difference between “the verbal actions of God
Himself” and the «verbal
actions», not of God
Himself, but of men inspired by God – and still more, of any man on the
street who dares to speak about God?
It is necessary to understand the
difference between the direct Revelation of God, which is uncreated, and the consequences
of this Revelation in the created world. We must distinguish between:
(a) The words spoken
directly by God the Father Himself or God the Son in the Old and New
Testaments.
(b) The words of the
Prophets and Apostles when they speak about God. These also are the Word of God
(for “neither flesh nor blood has revealed this to you, but My Father Who is in
the heavens” (Matt. 16, 17), and it is the Holy Spirit Who “spoke
through the Prophets”), but not in the direct sense of the word, because they
are passed down through the medium of human consciousness.
(c) True words about God
spoken by people, but without the full faith and understanding which the
Apostles had. They are lower than the Word of God in the first two categories.
(d) Still lower are the
“confessions” of heretics and demons, which may from a formal point of view
contain true words about God (for “even the demons believe, and tremble” (James
2.19). These words must not be considered to be the Word of God. And that is
why the Lord forbade the demons to confess Him.
The
boundary between uncreated grace and the effects of grace in the created
world is difficult, if not impossible to draw. And yet the necessity of there being such a boundary may be understood
from the following example. When the Lord created man, “He breathed into his
face the breath of life, and man became a living soul” (Gen. 2.7). Now the words for the Spirit Who inbreathes (pneuma, Äóõ) and the human soul created as a result of this
inbreathing (pnoh, äóøà) are very similar in both Greek and Russian, and indicate a real
kinship between the created human soul and the Creator God in Whose image it is
created.[62]
Nevertheless, to infer that the soul is God is paganism of the grossest
kind. The soul may be filled with God, it may be deified by communion
with God, so that, as the apostle says, our spirit and God’s become “one
Spirit”. And yet our created soul, or spirit, is not the uncreated God.
In defence of his definition of idea-names as “the verbal
Actions of the Divinity”, Fr. Antony writes: “Let
us try to prove that the Name of God is by no means a simple everyday human
word, but Spirit and Life, a living and active word. God is unnameable,
that is, the very essence of the Divinity remains unknown and unattainable for
the minds of created beings, and cannot be expressed by a created word. But
insofar as the human soul is created in accordance with the image and likeness
of God, that is, it possesses properties similar to the properties possessed by
God, the properties of God can be named by man, and God is nameable by man in
accordance to the properties of God that are known to him, which God Himself
revealed to man, either from His creation, or in His word. One of the properties of God is His truthfulness, and,
consequently, every word of truth is a verbal action of God Himself, and,
consequently, as an action of God it is also God Himself (cf. the 5th
definition against Barlaam). Every word of truth about God, being a truth revealed by God,
and the word of God, is not an abstract and lifeless truth, but is living
truth… The fact that truth is one of the main properties of the Divinity, and that the Tri-Hypostatic God
can truly be named the Tri-Hypostatic Truth by us is witnessed to by the
Lord Jesus Christ Himself: ‘I am the Truth’ (John 14.6).
and “He Who glorifies Me (the Father) is true” (John 8. 26), and the Holy Spirit is “the Spirit of truth” (John 16.13), and “Ye shall know the truth, and
the truth shall set you free” (John 8.32)”. “And so, if God is the Tri-Hypostatic Truth, Who is so called in accordance with one of His main properties, just as He is: “Tri-Hypostatic Love”, then is not every word of truth revealed by God to men the verbal action of the Tri-Hypostatic Truth?”[63]
Now the words of the Gospel, being God-inspired truth, are
venerated by the faithful on a par with the holy icons and the holy cross. For
they are filled with the grace of God. But just as the cross is not Christ, and
the icons are not the persons, Divine, human or angelic, that are depicted on
them (we shall discuss this in more detail below), so the words of the Gospel
are not God Himself. True, they are not lifeless, abstract words, but are
filled with life, the life of God. And true again: God is Life and Truth
and Spirit. But God as Life is not the same as those words of men which His
life-creating Spirit enlivens, and God as Truth is not the same as those
statements of men which His Spirit of truth informs and infuses with truth.
God as Truth transcends creation, and cannot be twisted, perverted or
defiled by His creatures. But true words can be perverted and defiled by evil
men, who, like the witches in Macbeth, “lie like truth”. Is God in the mouth of
heretics or sinners when they quote Scripture in order to justify their own
heresy or sin? No – for “they have set their mouth against heaven” (Psalm
72.9), and “unto the sinner God hath said: Why declarest thou My statutes and
takest up My covenant in thy mouth?” (Psalm 49.17). Is God in the mind
of a demon when He confesses the existence of God - and trembles because he
sincerely believes in the truth of his words? No - for the Lord forbade the
demons to speak, even when they spoke the truth about Him.
The Apostle Paul acted in the same way when the demon-possessed woman
said of him and those with him: “These men are servants of the Most High God,
who proclaim to you the way of salvation” (Acts 16.17). But Paul
replied: “I charge you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her” (Acts
16.18). For the truth that this woman declared here was not inspired in her
heart by the Spirit of truth, but by the father of lies. Can the Name forbid
the Name, or God forbid God? No, no more than demons can really cast out
demons. In the final analysis, all
truth and goodness and beauty come from the Uncreated God. But, if we are not
speaking about the Incarnation of God the Word Himself, then after this truth
is incarnate, as it were, in the created realm, it acquires a certain
autonomous existence, which can then be manipulated by the enemies of God. But
in this manipulation of the truth the Spirit of truth plays no part.
Before leaving this section, it is worth pointing out that the Catacomb
Bishop and Hieromartyr Mark Novoselov, who is commonly thought of as being a
name-worshipper, and who certainly sympathised with the movement, nevertheless
rejected Bulatovich’s cardinal idea that every true idea of God is God. Thus Bulatovich
wrote: “Human thought is not the product of the human mind to the extent that
that which the human eye sees is not a product of his vision… Forcing the mind
to think about God is a human action, but any true thought about God is already
a vision of God in some God-revealed property of His and is God Himself.” But
Hieromartyr Mark rejected this idea, writing: “The thought and my object
are not one and the same… The thought of a man about God remains a human
thought… The power of God, penetrating the mind, elicit in him a thought about
God, which is nevertheless a human thought, a condition of my mind.”[64]
Conclusion: 6. Just as names are distinct from the objects or persons
which they name, so name-ideas are distinct from those objective facts which
they affirm. Contrary to the theory of the name-worshippers, a true affirmation
about God is not the same as God-the-Truth, “Jesus is the Saviour” is not the
same as Jesus the Saviour. The source of all truths, in the final analysis, is
God-the-Truth; but the true affirmation of a created man or angel participates
in God-the-Truth only to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the
relationship of the man or angel to the Creator. In general, uncreated grace is
to be distinguished from the consequences of this grace in the created world.
Otherwise we fall into pantheism.
7.
Name-worshipping and the Sacraments
Bulatovich places particular emphasis on the role of the name of God in
the sacraments, claiming to see in them proof that the name is “the verbal
action of God” Himself: “And so the denial by the fighters of the name [i.e.
the Orthodox] that there is a Divine power in the Name of the Lord [which,
however, the Orthodox in no way deny] must logically and necessarily lead only
to a wavering in faith in the unfailing accomplishment of the holy sacraments.
And in actual fact will it be possible for us to retain in ourselves faith in
the unfailing accomplishment of any of the sacraments if we do not believe that
the Name of God and the prayer by which the sacrament is consecrated is God? If
we place the accomplishment of the sacrament in dependence on the faith of
those who accomplish it, then is it possible to be certain that every baptised
person is in fact baptised, or every person who has received communion or been
chrismated has in fact been communed and chrismated? If we recognise the main
effective and Divine force in the sacraments to be the force of the priest’s
faith, then there will turn out to be a vast number of cases when the priest has
not carried out the sacrament completely worthily or, for example,
absent-mindedly, and during the invocation of the Name of the Lord his mind has
suddenly been distracted by some other thought. And so if the very Name of God
and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ is not God, but a mediating power between
the priest and God, then of course if the priest has called on the Name of the
Lord without faith, then it must remain inactive, the sacrament cannot be
accomplished; but if the Name of God is… God, then even if It is unworthily
invoked It accomplishes the sacrament through the Divine power inherent in
it. – To this day the Holy Orthodox Church has believed that the
Name of God invoked in the sacrament and the very words of the sacraments by
the power of the Holy Spirit which is inherent in them and inseparable from
them, as the Word is inseparable from the Father, and the Holy Spirit from the
Word, accomplish the sacrament. Let us recall the description in the Prologue
for January 8 of how some children thought of serving the liturgy as a
joke, and having placed the bread of consecration on a stone and read all the
appointed prayers, which they evidently knew by heart, there descended fire
from heaven and burned up both the bread and the stone, while they fell
unconscious. Let us recall one bishop from the Lives of the Saints, who,
when he was a child, as a joke baptised some pagan children on the sea-shore,
and the local hierarch, on hearing this, recognised them all as truly baptised
and ordered the newly-baptised to be chrismated with the holy chrism. Let us
remember, finally that at the present time the sacrament of baptism is
recognised as valid even if performed by a midwife, for the sake of the Name of
the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit that is invoked on the baptised. But if
we recognise the Name of God to be only a mediating power, then everything that
has been said will turn out to be impossible, for the Name of God will turn out
to be only a mediating power between the priest and the Holy Spirit, and the
priest does not baptise by the Name of God, but only calls on the Holy Spirit.
And so, of course, the Holy Spirit will not listen to him who calls on Him
in a not altogether worthy manner, and the sacrament will not be accomplished,
for the Name of God is not God, but a mediating power between God and man, as
the name-fighters teach. But we cannot accept this new teaching.
We recognise the effectiveness of every invocation of the Name of God – whether
for salvation, or for condemnation, for we believe that the Name of God is
God Himself. Therefore we believe that the sacraments, even if not accomplished
altogether worthily, are nevertheless unfailingly accomplished, being
consecrated by the very Name of God and by prayer and by the sign of the cross
formed in the shape of the name, forming the Name Jesus Christ. Since we
also believe that both the Name of God and the words of prayer, and the Name
Jesus Christ are God Himself, as the verbal action of the Divinity, we
suppose that the priest who does not have this faith cannot even carry out his
priestly service with a pure conscience. We think that it is also impossible
for Christians to approach any of the Sacraments peacefully and with assurance
if he does not believe that the words of the Name of God and of the prayer
accomplish the Sacrament independently of the worthiness of the priest”.[65]
This passage contains a reductio ad absurdum of
name-worshipping. Thus let us note that a distinction is made between the Name
of God in the sacraments and the power of the Holy Spirit that is said to be
“inherent” in it. And this distinction is crucial to Bulatovich’s argument. For
he affirms that if a priest simply calls on the Holy Spirit, the Spirit “will
not listen to him who calls on Him in a not altogether worthy manner, and the
sacrament will not be accomplished”, whereas by calling on the Name of God he
is guaranteed the validity of the sacrament. But what is this if not a
recognition that the Name of God is not God, since it works in a different
way (and more reliably!) than God Himself?! Bulatovich places great emphasis on the words
(names) of the rite, independently of who pronounces them, with what kind
of faith, and in what Church the sacrament is accomplished. But this is very
reminiscent of the magical nature of the Latins’ attitude to the sacraments.
According to the Latins, even a heretic or schismatic can perform the sacrament
provided he pronounces the correct words (and has apostolic succession from a
Catholic bishop). However, according to the teaching of the Orthodox Church, no
sacraments are accomplished in the conventicles of the heretics and
schismatics, even if they have exactly the same words and rites and intentions
(Apostolic Canons 46, 47; First Canonical Epistle of St. Basil the Great). It
is true, as Bulatovich says, that even a midwife may carry out the sacrament of
baptism – but that sacrament and no other, and only if she is Orthodox. Again,
only an Orthodox priest can carry out the sacrament of the Eucharist - and only
if he is given authority to do so by an Orthodox bishop. Exceptions to the
rule, like that quoted by Bulatovich from the Prologue, prove only that
God is absolutely free and sovereign and can make exceptions to His own rules,
not that He is a slave to words and rites. As a rule, the correct words
and rites are insufficient in themselves to accomplish the sacraments, but only
in the context of the faith and prayer of the True Church, the Orthodox Church,
to which God has promised His grace (and God never breaks His promises). To
believe otherwise, and to maintain that God can be guaranteed to
accomplish the sacrament, not by virtue of His promise to fulfil the prayer of
His true servants, but by virtue of the utterance of a certain name or set of
words, is to adopt a magical view of the sacraments, as if God is forced to
submit to the actions and invocations of mortal men provided that certain words
and rites are carried out correctly.
The ñontemporary
name-worshippers have attempted to come to Bulatovich’s rescue here by an
attack on the Russian Holy Synod’s Definition against name-worshipping.
Thus Fr. Gregory (Lourié) writes: “In the [1913] Definition of the [Russian Holy] Synod it says that the Name of God ‘can also work miracles, but not in and of itself, but in consequence of a certain… Divine power that is always as
it were sealed in it’, and that ‘the holy sacraments are accomplished not
according to the faith of him who accomplishes them, and not according to the
faith of him who partakes of them, and not also by virtue of the Name of God
that is pronounced or depicted, but in accordance with the prayer and faith of
the holy Church, in whose name they are accomplished, and by virtue of the
promise given by the Lord’
“This is also something unheard of for the Orthodox teaching of
the faith. This is what, for example, St. John of Damascus says: ‘The bread itself and the wine are
changed into God’s body and blood. But if you enquire how this happens, it is
enough for you to learn that it was through the Holy Spirit… And we know nothing further save that the Word of God is true
and energises and is omnipotent, but the manner of this cannot be searched out…
The bread of the table and the wine and the water are supernaturally
changed by the invocation and presence of the Holy Spirit into the body and
blood of Christ’[66]”.[67]
But was it really necessary for the holy
father to say everything simultaneously in one place? Did he not say in another
place with complete clarity that heretics and schismatics do not have the grace
of sacraments, because they do not have ‘the faith of the Church’? And has not
this been the position of the Church at all times? But if we take this argument
to its logical conclusion, we are led to suppose that heretics and schismatics
also have the grace of sacraments, which is one of the main affirmations of the
ecumenist heretics. Moreover, such a point of view presupposes a magical
understanding of the sacraments which is completely unacceptable for the
Orthodox. If the invocation of the name of God were sufficient for the
accomplishment of the sacraments, without it having to take place in the bosom
of the True Church and in accordance with the faith of the True Church, then
God would be compelled to accomplish the sacrament even if the name of God were
pronounced by satanists. Such a perception of God is the extreme of impiety.
It should also be pointed out that Bulatovich here, as so often,
exploits the ambiguity in the name-worshippers’ definition of the phrase “name
of God”, as “the verbal action of God”, slipping almost imperceptibly from one
part of the definition to the other, from the name as a “verbal” creation to
the name as an uncreated “action of God”. The name-worshippers love to insist
that the names of God are the uncreated Energies of God, and that created
written characters or pronounced words are nothing more than the “external
husk” of the Name, and not the Name Itself. However, if Bulatovich writes that
“the Holy Orthodox Church believed that the Name of God invoked in the
sacrament and the very words of the prayers of the Sacraments… accomplish the
sacrament”, and cites a case in which certain children “read the words of
transubstantiation, and fire fell down from heaven”, and denies that God guarantees
the accomplishment of the sacrament (for the Holy Spirit “will not listen to
him who calls on Him in a not altogether worthy manner, and the sacrament will
not be accomplished”), then it is evident that he is laying the emphasis,
not on the uncreated, but on the created name, the created, human
element of the rite....
However, there is no
doubt that the
sacrament is accomplished, not through the
created name, but through the uncreated grace of the Holy Spirit, Who descends
“in accordance with the prayer and faith of the holy Church”, as the Most Holy
Synod completely correctly puts it.[68] The
pronunciation of certain created words and names plays an important – indeed,
an essential – role in the sacrament, but it does not accomplish the
sacrament. The sacrament is accomplished by the Lord God alone, in response to
the prayer and faith of the Church expressed in the words of the rite.
Bulatovich also opines that already during the time of the proskomedia,
“from the moment” of the piercing of the lamb, “the lamb and the wine in the
chalice are a most holy thing, sanctified by the confession of the Name of
Jesus, and is Jesus Himself by grace, but not yet in essence”.[69] There
can be no doubt that the bread and wine are holy already during the time of the
proskomedia. But it does not follow from this that Bulatovich “completely
correctly wrote that this is ‘Jesus Himself by grace’”, as Fr. Gregory affirms.[70] Such an
expression is unacceptable in relation to the unsanctified gifts. As we shall
see below, the Holy Church does not use the phrase “god by grace” in relation
to inanimate objects, even very holy objects, but only to holy people. Fr.
Gregory also affirms that according to the teaching of the Synod, “this bread
is not a holy thing, and one must not make full prostrations before it as
before an icon (the practice of making a full prostration during the Cherubic
hymn proves the opposite).” But the Holy Synod does not say this, and in
general does not deny the iconic character of the bread, but only
Bulatovich’s claim that the bread is “Jesus Himself by grace”.[71]
The name-worshippers also like to quote Mark
9.38-40 as an example of a miracle worked through the name of Jesus but without
faith: “John said to Him, ‘Teacher, we saw a man casting out demons in Thy
name, and we forbade him, because he was not following us’. But Jesus said: ‘Do
not forbid him; for no one who doeth a mighty work in My name will lightly
speak evil of Me’”.
But this example does not confirm the
name-worshippers’ thesis, for the person who accomplished the miracle most
probably did have faith – he simply did not belong to the number of the
apostles. In any case, Orthodoxy does not assert that every miracle can only be
accomplished in accordance with the faith of Christians. God is free and can
accomplish miracles with or without the faith of man. The rule is
heartfelt prayer to God filled with faith, but God is higher than all rules,
even His own. He can make exceptions to every rule. However, the point of view
of the name-worshippers’ presumes that He is bound to accomplish a miracle at
the invocation of His name insofar as He is His name – which, as
indicated above, is nothing other than magic.
Let us see how the Lord punishes those who pronounce His name in vain, without true faith, in furtherance of the aims of impious magic: “Some
of the itinerant Jewish exorcists undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord
Jesus over those who had evil spirits, saying, ‘I adjure you by the Jesus Whom
Paul preaches’. Seven sons of a Jewish high priest called Sceva were doing
this. But the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but
who are you?’ And the man in whom the evil spirit was leapt on them” (Acts
19.13-16).
The sounds of the name of Jesus were incapable in themselves of acting on the evil spirit, which, of course, would not have happened if Divine grace were “inherent” in the very sounds or idea of the name, as Bulatovich asserts
(“we believe that even in these sounds the grace of the Divine pronounced by
them is inherent”)[72].
The evil spirit paid attention not only to the name invoked, but also to the
person who invoked it: he knew Jesus and Paul, but he did not know the sons of
Sceva. If the name had been pronounced by Jesus or Paul, the demon would have
had to depart from the people possessed by him, but insofar as the sons of
Sceva were not Christians, and did not believe in Jesus, the name in their
mouth was powerless. And so the effectiveness of the name as a rule presupposes
faith, the faith of the person who pronounces it in the Person to Whom it
refers.
The Lord said: “Many will say unto Me in that day: ‘Lord,
Lord, in Thy name did we not prophesy? And in Thy name cast out demons? And in Thy name work many miracles?’
And then I will declare to them: ‘I
never knew you; depart from Me, ye workers of iniquity’ (Matt. 7.23).
These “workers of iniquity” have the name of God on their lips,
but their hearts are far from Him. And insofar as He is far from them, the Lord does not
even know them. Even if we suppose, following Blessed Theophylact, that God,
and not the devil, worked these miracles in His name, He worked them not
because He was forced to it by their pronunciation of His name, but because
these miracles were the fulfilment of His holy will, in spite of the evil will
of those who pronounced His name in vain.
Bulatovich’s idea that every idea about
God is God Himself is so revolutionary, so redolent of pantheism, that even
those who sympathised with him were compelled to reject it. Thus Bulatovich
once wrote: “I do not agree with Troitsky, who calls the human thought a human
action. The human thought is not the product of the human minds, insofar as
that which the human eye sees is not the product of human sight… Forcing the mind to think about
God is a human action, but any true thought about God is already the vision of
God in some God-revealed property of His and is God Himself”.[73] To this
the Church writer and future catacomb bishop, M.A. Novoselov, who sympathised
with the name-worshippers, replied: “My thought and its object are not one
and the same thing. … Ìan’s
thought about God remains a human thought… The power of God penetrating the
mind elicits in it a thought about God, which is nevertheless a human thought,
a condition of my mind”.[74]
Conclusion: 7. The name-worshippers affirm that it is not God, but the names of
God pronounced in the rites, that guarantee the validity of the sacraments. But
the words of the sacraments, including the names of God, do not accomplish the
sacraments by themselves, although they are necessary elements. The sacraments
are accomplished by God alone, and only in the context of the prayer and faith
of the True Church. The basis of faith in the validity of the sacraments is not the pronunciation of certain words or names, but the faithfulness
of God to His promises. If we identify the
uncreated God with the created words of the rite, we fall into pantheism.
8. Name-worshipping and Icons
We noted above that, according to
Bulatovich, the sign of the cross in a sense is the name of God: “The sacraments, even if not
accomplished altogether worthily, are nevertheless unfailingly accomplished,
being consecrated by the very Name of God and by prayer and by the sign of
the cross formed in the shape of the name, forming the Name Jesus Christ.” This
view finds some support among the Holy Fathers. Thus St. Theodore the Studite
writes that the image of Christ, “like the image of the Cross”, is “just as”
worthy of one and the same veneration with its Archetype”.[75] And
again: “The
righteous, the victors over sin, over the Devil and over the world will have as
their boast, as their trophy, the sign of the Cross! ‘And His name shall be on
their foreheads’ (Rev. 22.1), meaning ‘the sign of the Lord’ (Abba
Isaiah, Evergetinos, vol. II, p. 466). The Cross!”[76]
However, it is not clear whether “the Name of God”, in Bulatovich’s
lips, means the Uncreated Name or the created name. On the one hand, the whole
context of the passage (quoted in full above) would appear to indicate that the
Uncreated Name, “the verbal Action of God”, is being spoken of. On the
other hand, “the sign of the cross” and “the shape of the name, forming the
Name” would appear to indicate a physical formation, and so the created
name. Certainly, Abba Isaiah and the words quoted from Revelation are speaking
about a physical formation.
This same ambiguity, which plagues the writings of Bulatovich, is found
in the following passage: “That the Name of the Lord according to Divine power
can by no means be equated with the holy icons is evident from the fact that
the holy icons, according to the definition of the 6th Ecumenical
Council (cf. the Greek Rudder) are not subject to sanctification, but the
sanctification for any icon is the inscription of the Name of the saint that is
depicted on it, or of the Lord, or of the Mother of God. In the same way on
each cross it is the inscription on it of the Name “Jesus Christ” which serves
as its sanctification, making it holy and distinguishing it from the crosses of
the robbers.”[77]
It is not
in fact true that it is the inscription of the Name of Jesus Christ on a cross
that makes it holy: the shape of the cross alone, made with reverence by a
believer, has the power to drive away demons. However, leaving that aside, this
passage is in any case ambiguous. The phrase: “that the Name of the Lord
according to Divine power can by no means be equated to the holy icons” would
seem to indicate that the Uncreated Name is in question – the grace of God,
which is indeed higher than the “honourable matter” of the icons. But then
Bulatovich goes on to talk about “the inscription of the Name”, which would
seem to indicate the created name – the letters as written in paint on the
icon. And this is confirmed by the reference to “the inscription on it of the
Name “Jesus Christ”” in the last sentence.
A
third example of almost the identical ambiguity is to be found in the following
words of Fr. Gregory Lourié: “The Name of God, although it cannot be God according to its
sounds or letters, is God according to the energies (by analogy with the
presence of God in the holy icons; cf. … on the sanctification of the icon by
the inscription of the name on it). The name of God is the
most primary type of icon. If the teaching on this by St. Dionysius the
Areopagite (especially in his tract On the Divine Names) and St. Maximus
the Confessor (especially in his Mystagogy) had been taken account of,
then the task of the Russian name-worshippers in the quarrels of the years
1913-1918 would probably have been substantially simplified”.[78]
Here there seems to be no doubt that the created name is being
talked about. For only something created could be called “the most primary type
of icon”. But then why mention St. Dionysius’ On the Divine Names,
which, as Fr. Gregory points out with great insistence in other places, speaks
about the Uncreated names?
However, lest we think that the name-worshippers are always ambiguous
in this context, we shall quote the following honourable exception from the
writings of one of Fr. Gregory’s pupils, Tatiana Senina: “We venerate the
Theotokos and the saints, the icons and the relics, and bow down to them
because God is present in them according to the energies, and the saints
themselves, from their union with God, are called gods – not by essence, but by
grace. But the name is one and the same. But the Name according to its inner
essence is greater than the icon, insofar as it is the energy of God (this is
evident from the fact that the icon is sanctified by the Name), whereas the
inscription of the Name is truly equal to the icon, since in it, as in the
icon, God is present by His energies.”[79]
This at
last is clear. The Uncreated Name is clearly distinguished from the created
name, and it is clearly stated that it is the Uncreated Name (in the
name-worshippers’ terminology) that sanctifies the icon, not the created name
inscribed on it. Can we agree with this?
We can certainly agree that it is the grace of God, and not the physical
inscription that sanctifies the icon. At the same time, the physical inscription
is necessary, because it is through that inscription, as through a channel,
that the grace of God sanctifies the icon. This is confirmed by St. John of
Damascus, who writes: “In obedience to Church tradition, we allow the paying of
reverence to icons that are sanctified by the name of God and the friends of
God and for this reason are overshadowed by the grace of the Divine Spirit”.[80] And again: “Divine grace is communicate to objects consisting of matter, since they bear the names of those who are represented on them”.[81]As the Seventh Ecumenical Council
says: “The visible icon has communion with the archetype only according to its
name, and not according to its essence”. And again: “The
icon has communion with the archetype only according to its name, and not
according to its very essence… The icon receives the very name of the Lord;
through it alone is it in communion with Him; and for that very reason it is
holy and worthy of honour”.
Of course, the presence of the inscription alone does not guarantee
the sanctification of the icon. Otherwise, completely inaccurate or even
blasphemous representations of God and the saints would be icons so long as
they contained their names. Icons are accepted as true and holy representations
of their holy archetypes insofar as they are more or less accurate likenesses
of these archetypes, where by “likeness” we mean the composition of the icon
as a whole. The presence of the correct name is only a part of the
representation - albeit a very important part.[82]
That is why St. Tarasius,
president of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, writes: “It is fitting to accept
the holy icons of Jesus Christ… so long as these icons are painted with
historical accuracy, in agreement with the Gospel story”. [83] One cannot say that this is a
simple question: icons can be more or less similar to their archetypes and yet
remain icons. But as a minimum there must be a visible link between the icon
and the archetype. That is
why St. Theodore the Studite writes: “Even if we allow that the icon does not
look the same as the archetype because of the lack of skill of the artist,
nevertheless our arguments do not lose their force. For the veneration is given
to the icon not because it is unlike the archetype, but because it is like it.” [84] In other words, for St.
Theodore, the relationship of the icon to the archetype is not established by
the name in itself, but by their general correspondence (resemblance) to each
other.
So why is the name necessary? Because it is part of the likeness, part
of the historical picture, part of the Gospel story. But not the whole of
it. And of course, this written
name, being a physical object, cannot be considered to be an Energy of God, and
cannot sanctify the icon. The name itself is sanctified by the Energies, and is
then a channel, as it were, for the Energies of God that sanctify
the icon. And the Energies of God sanctify the icon in response to the faith
and prayer of those who make and venerate them; for “matter is filled with
divine grace,” writes St. John of Damascus, “through prayer addressed to those
portrayed in the images”.[85]
The matter becomes clearer when we consider the names of the saints. It is obvious that the icon of the Apostle Peter is
not sanctified only by the created name “Peter”, and also not by any uncreated
name “Peter” (for none exists), but by the grace of God, which issues from the
archetype, the Apostle Peter himself, to the icon because of the general
resemblance between the icon and the archetype.
And now let us return to Senina’s article, in which it is said that God
and the saints have “one and the same name”. What is Senina’s aim in insisting
that God and the saints have “one and the same name”? And what relation
does it have to the nature
of names and icons?
It appears that the following
argument is being adduced: “Just as the saints are gods, insofar as God abides
in them, and also in their clothes and names, in the same way the Name of God
is God, insofar as God abides in it.”
Now the saints are indeed called “gods” in
the Holy Scriptures (“Ye are gods, and all of you the sons of the Most High” (Psalm 81.6)), so we can agree that God and the
saints have one and the same name – if we pay no heed to the not
insignificant fact that the saints are called “gods” with a small letter “g”,
and never with a big letter “G”. But it is important to note that this
conclusion contradicts the name-worshippers’ arguments on the nature of names.
For, as was noted above, they
insist that “Jesus” as applied to Jesus the son of Nun is not the same
name as “Jesus” as applied to Jesus, the Son of God. Òhus according to their own principles, “God” in relation to God Himself,
and “god” in relation to the Mother of God, and “god” in relation to St.
Nicholas, etc. are all different names.
But what kind of name are we talking about in this context? Created
or uncreated? Created, it would seem, since God “abides” in His creatures, and “names”
here are placed on the same level as “clothes” – and clothes, it goes without
saying, are created things. But created names cannot be called the uncreated
God. Even the saints cannot be called that. We say that they are “gods by grace”, and grace, of course, is uncreated. But that does not
mean that they are uncreated Gods (or gods). Once again we see with what amazing skill
and cunning the name-worshippers mix up two different senses of the word
“name”: “name” as a created word (the normal, everyday, and at the same time
patristically sanctified sense), and “name” as the uncreated Energy or Grace of
God (the unusual, strictly specialized, “Dionysian” sense). We see an artfully
created confusion. Its aim: to demonstrate that the created name is in fact
uncreated, that both the
uncreated God Himself, and those created beings in which He abides, are one
and the same...
In order to gain complete
clarity here, we need carefully to distinguish between the many different ways in which God may be said to be present
in a thing. First, there is the sense in which God is in all places and fills
all things. Without this universal presence of God sustaining all things, the
whole universe would disappear into nothingness. But does that mean that God is
all things? Certainly not; for this would be pantheism, and would imply
that God is even the devil! Secondly, there is the sense in which God is
present in holy but inanimate things such as icons, holy water, holy oil, the
cross, the Holy Scriptures.
Because of this special presence of God in these things, they are holy and we
pay them honour – not the honour and worship that is due God alone (Greek: latreia), but the honour
and veneration (Greek: proskunhsiV) that is due to that which God has sanctified. Thirdly,
there is the sense in which God is present in men by virtue of the fact that
men are created in the image and likeness of God. Even evil men who have lost
the likeness of God retain his image; and that image is due veneration. Saints
are worthy, of course, of far greater veneration, so great that we call them
gods by grace; for they are not only made in the image of God – they have
recovered His likeness.
There is an important
difference between the holiness of the saints and the holiness of “honourable
matter”. The energies of God can enter and sanctify a vast variety of material
objects – for example, wood in the holy cross, water in holy baptism, oil in
the sacrament of anointing. But we do not call these objects gods by grace. The
saints fall into a different category because, unlike physical objects such as
wood, water and oil, they are made in the image and likeness of God; and it was
by virtue of this likeness that God became man without ceasing to be God. But
God cannot become wood or water or oil. For God can only become that which is
akin to Him, which already, in its originally created state, bears the imprint
of that freedom, rationality and eternity which belongs to God alone.
God took on matter, made it
part of Himself, only in and through His natural likeness, that is, man.[86] But
matter can be said to become divine only by being “enhypostasised” in Him, in
the man who is also God, the God-Man Jesus Christ. Thus there is a cardinal
difference between the wood of the holy cross, the water of holy baptism, and
the oil of the sacrament of anointing, on the one hand, and the bread and the
wine of the holy Eucharist after they have been sanctified and transformed into
the Body and Blood of Christ, on the other. The grace of God works on all these
material objects; but in the case of the wood, the water and the oil, it works
to sanctify, but not deify in the sense of make part of God hypostatically;
whereas in the case of the bread and the wine it works to incorporate that
matter into God by making it into the Body and Blood of the God-Man.
When we
say that the saints are gods by grace, we mean that they are filled with grace,
that they are deified by participation in the God-Man, but not that they are
God, or the grace of God. If the saints were the grace of God, then they
would be uncreated, since the grace of God is uncreated. Thus to say that the
saints are the grace of God is heresy; for it removes the boundary
between created and uncreated being. The
greatest of the saints, the Mother of God, is called by St. Gregory Palamas
“the boundary of created and uncreated nature”[87]; and
she attains this supremely exalted position, “more honourable than the Cherubim
and more glorious beyond compare than the Seraphim” through the action of the
uncreated grace of God working in her, penetrating her completely and making
her “all-holy” and “full of grace” (the Greek word kecaritoumenh could perhaps better be translated: “engraced”). But she
remains a created being. To confuse the created being of the saints with the
uncreated grace that deifies them is an anthropological variant of the
Monophysite heresy.
If it is a
heresy to say that the images and likenesses of God that are the saints are the
grace of God, then a fortiori it is heresy to say that the names of God are
the grace of God, or “the verbal action of God”, as Bulatovich would put it.
The contemporary name-worshipper Eugene Pavlenko has constructed a
similar argument to Senina’s and coming to the same conclusion. First he cites
St. John of Damascus: “If a certain person painted Christ crucified on an icon
and someone asks him: “Who is this?”, he would reply: “Christ our God, who
became man for our sakes”.[88] Then he
cites the similar thought of St. Theodore the Studite: “If people study
the imprint of the portrayed person, they call the icon ‘Christ’ or ‘an image
of Christ’ – ‘Christ’ by reason of the identity of name, ‘an image of Christ’
by reason of the relationship”.[89] “And so”, writes Pavlenko, “they call the icon an image of Christ by reason of
the similarity of representation, and Christ by reason of its inscription. So
much the more can and must the very Name of Christ be called God by reason of
the presence in it of the Divine energies.”[90]
Let us note the insistence: the Name of Christ “can and must be
called God” (“God” with a capital “G”!). “Can” maybe; “must” – certainly not.
It is not the normal way of speaking about icons. It
is not the normal way because it engenders confusion, confusion between the
icon and its archetype. Is that to say that St. John and St. Theodore were
engendering confusion? By no means! They were making a special point in a
special context. They would no doubt be very surprised to learn how their words
would be used by the name-worshippers to make a quite different point in a
quite different context. The two
defenders of Orthodoxy against iconoclasm are here emphasising the undividedness
of an icon and its archetype, by virtue of which, in praying in front of an
icon of Christ, one can say that one is praying in front of Christ, which
undividedness is reflected in the identity of names. For the honour rendered in
prayer to the icon ascends to the archetype, as St. Basil the Great says. But
undividedness is not the same as identification.
And so St. Theodore says in another place: “The archetype and its
representation are not at all the same thing, since one is the truth, and the
other a shadow”.[91] For obviously a piece of wood,
even a piece of wood sanctified by the energies of God, is not the same thing
as the Lord Jesus Christ. And the same with icons to the Mother of God and the
saints.
For, as Archbishop Nicon quite correctly says: “It is accepted
by the Church that there are wonder-working icons [of the Mother of God]” in
which “a certain power of God is inherent… But
nobody calls them the Mother of God”.[92] Or if they do, it is understood by everybody that the icon and its archetype are different in nature, even if they share the same name. In the same
way, we may point to a photograph of Peter and say “That’s Peter!”, but it is
understood by everybody that the photograph is only an image of Peter and not
Peter himself.
St. Theodore
the Studite confirms that the name “Christ” is given to the icon of Christ and
Christ Himself in different senses. Thus he writes: "In the proper
sense the icon of Christ is called His icon, and not in the proper
sense is it called Christ".[93]
And again: "The icon of Christ is called Christ, not in the proper sense,
but in a figurative sense".[94]
What is said here about images must also be said about names:
they and their bearers are undivided, but at the same time unconfused, being of
different natures. In prayer it is the undividedness that is felt, so that a
person who is praying to Christ in front of an icon of Christ and using the
name of Christ feels no difference between the name and the icon of Christ, on
the one hand, and Christ Himself, on the other. Only when he stops praying,
reflects, looks at the icon in isolation from its archetype, or thinks of the
Name in isolation from the Person named, does the unconfusedness of icon and
archetype, name and person named, come to the foreground of consciousness. But
the psychological fusion of icon, name and person prayed to in prayer –
a fusion which is at the same time spiritual, since it is formed by the
grace of God – is not the same as ontological identity or equivalence.
Schema-monk Epiphany (Chernov) confirms this thought: “The holy
and God-bearing Fathers teach us to venerate the name of God as an image of God
that is holy and worthy of honour. This is precisely the teaching of St.
Theodore the Studite: ‘The name is a certain natural image of the object’.[95] An
image of the object, and not the object itself! For the object itself for the
image is the archetype. God is the archetype for every representation
(pictorial in the icon and verbal in the name). And there can never be equality
or identity between the image and the archetype. ‘For always,’ teaches the holy
confessor, ‘the archetype will be the archetype, just as the representation
will be the representation, and the one will never turn into the other’.[96] That
is, God, as the Archetype, will always remain the Archetype, and the name of
God, as a representation, will always remain a representation. And God will
never become a name, and the name of God will never become God, although God is
present in the name of God as the archetype is present in the image. But this
presence is not according to essence.”[97]
Conclusion: 8. It is the grace of God that sanctifies the holy icons,
which grace is communicated from the archetype to the icon if the icon bears a
general resemblance to its archetype. This resemblance must include the
inscribed, created name of the archetype. But the inscribed, created name is
not the sanctifying element, the grace of God, but only the means, the channel,
as it were, through which the grace of God is communicated to the icon.
9.
Name-worshipping and the Jesus Prayer
Fr. Hilarion, writes: “The Name ‘Jesus’ is as eternal as the Divinity
itself… The Name ‘Jesus’, being eternal, as God is eternal, appeared on earth
in the Person of the Saviour of the world.”[98] Fr. Hilarion’s thesis was supported
by Bulatovich, who wrote that the name “Jesus” is in actual fact “God Himself
and the Lord Jesus Christ”.[99] But this contradicts another,
central thesis of the name-worshippers, that the names of God are Divine Energies.
For Jesus, as we saw above, is not a Divine Energy, but a Divine Hypostasis.
Leaving aside this contradiction, we should note that the names “Jesus”
and “Christ” refer to Christ after His Incarnation, as incarnate in
space and time. Therefore it is wrong to assert that they existed before
space and time. Otherwise we would have the absurd idea of a name
pre-existing that to which it refers, an idea that recalls the heretical
Origenistic idea of the pre-existence of souls!
Egor Kholmogorov tries to rescue Fr. Hilarion at this point by
interpreting him to mean that the name of Jesus was in the Divine Counsel
before all eternity, a logos or idea in the mind of God, but not an Energy of
God. However, as Kholmogorov himself goes on to point out, if «he is simply speaking about the
pre-eternal counsel”, “then it is not an argument in favour of the special
Divinity of the name of Jesus.[100] Why? Because in fact everything
was in the Divine Counsel before all eternity. Therefore the fact that the
name of Jesus was predetermined from all eternity to be the name of God does
not make it eternal in itself.[101]
But Kholmogorov believes he can rescue the name-worshipping position in
another way. Abandoning the thesis the name of Jesus is a Divine Energy or
simply identical with Jesus Christ as a whole, he identifies it with a part of
the Divine-human Hypostasis of Christ according to His human nature: “The name
of the Lord Jesus Christ attached solely to the incarnate Son of God
constitutes a hypostatic characteristic of His Divine Hypostasis according to
the humanity, and for that reason inseparably belongs to Him, as does His flesh
and His features… In this and only in this sense we say that ‘the name
of Jesus Christ is God Himself’, not deifying the created words and sounds or
ideas, but witnessing to the fact that in Jesus Christ the true Humanity is
wholly united with the true Divinity in the one Hypostasis of the incarnate Son
of God and completely deified.”[102]
However, there are several problems with this definition.
First, if the name “Jesus” is part of the human nature of Christ on a
par with His Flesh, then the question arises: when did it become so? And
the answer must be: on the eighth day after his birth; for the Angel said to
Mary at the time of the Incarnation: “you shall call His name Jesus” (Luke
1.31), making it clear that His name was not yet Jesus, but that He was
to receive that name (from His Mother) at a later time. Òhat is, the name “Jesus” cannot
have been a part of the human nature of Jesus from the very beginning, at
conception.
The same conclusion follows from St. Demetrius’ Homily on
the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, in which the angel is represented as
addressing Joseph thus: “Fear not, ‘for that which is conceived in her is of
the Holy Spirit. She shall bring forth a Son,’ and as His father, you shall
name Him, though you had no part in His conception. It is the custom that
fathers name their children, like Abraham did Isaac. You are only the supposed
father of Mary’s son; nonetheless, you shall fulfil the paternal duty of giving
Him His name.” And he quotes Saint Theophylact, who has the angel tell Joseph:
“It is true that you had nothing to do with the conception, but I still give
you the title ‘father’, that you may name the Child.”[103]
So the human nature of Christ was created by God at the Incarnation; but
the name of Jesus was given by men on the eighth day after His birth.
Evidently, therefore, the name Jesus was not part of His human nature as
created by God in the beginning, at conception. And this is only to be
expected; for names point to that which they name, and so are given after
that which they name has come into existence: they are not part of that
which they name.
Secondly: if the name of Jesus is part of His Divine-human Hypostasis
according to His human nature, what part of His human nature are we talking
about? His soul or His body? Both alternatives present difficulties. It is
certainly difficult to speak of my name as being part of my body. More
promising, and more consistent with the name-worshippers’ own description of
the name as an idea, is the identification of the name with a part of my
soul. If my soul can be said to include all my learned experiences, and every
aspect of my self-image, then having a particular name can be said to be part
of my self-image, insofar as my self-image would change, however slightly, if I
abandoned this name and acquired a new one.
But the idea that one’s name is an essential part of one’s soul
is difficult to accept, still more the idea that this comparatively unimportant
part or attribute of oneself (if it is that) can be identified with
oneself, as in the sentence: “The name ‘Peter’ is an attribute of Peter,
therefore the name ‘Peter’ is Peter.” This sounds strange, and for the
same reason as indicated before: because, namely, we are not accustomed to
identify names with their bearers. Names refer to their bearers, they point
to them, but they are not identical with them. There is always a certain
conceptual distance between a name and its bearer: once we identify a name with
its bearer it ceases to be a name in the ordinary sense of the word “name”.
For, as St. Gregory of Nyssa writes: «One thing is the object which is subject by
its nature to the name, and another is the name which signifies the object”.[104]
Thirdly,
if the name of Jesus is part of Him just as His Flesh is, then to have the name
of Jesus on one’s lips or in one’s mind is equivalent to receiving the Holy
Sacrament. But none of the Holy Fathers has ever said this. And not
surprisingly; for insofar as one does not have to be Orthodox in order to pray
the Jesus prayer, it would mean that salvation through partaking of the human
nature of Christ is possible outside the True Body of Christ, which is the
Orthodox Church.
A tendency to see the name of Jesus as
equivalent to the Eucharist can be seen also in the early name-worshippers.
Thus Fr. Hilarion
writes: “The Son of God… is unchangingly in the whole fullness of His Divine
Essence in the Holy Eucharist, in the Christian churches: and He is wholly and
completely in His holy Name with all His perfections and with the whole
fullness of His Divinity”.[105] And yet there is a difference
between the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and in the Christian churches:
the Eucharist is Christ (His Body and Blood, together with His all-holy
Soul and “the whole fullness of His Divinity”), whereas Christ cannot be
identified with the churches in which He dwells by His grace. And the name of
God is closer in this respect to the Christian churches than to the Eucharist. For all these reasons, then, we may reject
the name-worshippers’ thesis that the name of Jesus is one of the Energies of
God, on the one hand, or a part of the Divine-human Hypostasis of Christ, on
the other.
Does this mean that the Name is necessarily insignificant and unholy?
Not at all. The name in itself, be it a word or a sound or a thought, is
insignificant; but through the grace of God it becomes of enormous
significance. For grace creates the naming relationship between the name and
the Person named, making the former to partake of the greatness of the latter.
However, to say that grace creates the naming relationship is by no means the
same as saying that the name is grace...
From the time that the name of Jesus was applied to the Son of God, it
acquired - in this application alone - a status and grace and power that
it did not have before. It became a Divine name, since it became the
name of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, Jesus Christ. Moreover, this
name as applied to Christ was no longer changeable; it belonged and
belongs to the Son of God for all eternity.[106] Others
since Christ may have taken the name of Jesus - or even Emmanuel (“God with
us”) – and dropped it again. But Jesus the Son of God will never abandon this
name; and it is precisely to this name as applied to this Man that every knee
will bow (Phil. 2.10)…
Insofar as it was now the name of God, the name “Jesus”
received the grace of God, just as its “forerunner” in the Old Testament,
“Jehovah”, received the grace of God, becoming so holy and terrible that in the
last centuries of the Old Testament Church it was considered impious even to
pronounce it outside the Divine services of the Temple for fear of using the
name of God in vain.
In the same way, in the New Testament the name “Jesus” received the
grace of God and became holy and awesome – but also most sweet. Not only
“Jesus”, but also all the other names that refer to the Divine Hypostases, such
as “Father”, Son” and “Holy Spirit”, receive grace and holiness through their
association with God. Similarly, the names of Divine Properties or Energies,
such as “Wisdom”, “Power”, “Spirit”, “Truth”, “Goodness”, “Beauty” and
“Peace”. All these names, as we have
seen, are human inventions originally referring to created beings or
properties, which become Divine and grace-bearing when they refer to Divine
Persons and Properties. In this respect the Divine names become a special case
of the general truth stated by Fr. George Florovsky as follows: “When divine
truth is expressed in human language, the words themselves are transformed. And
the fact that the truths of the faith are veiled in logical images and concepts
testifies to the transformation of word and thought – words become sanctified
through this usage. The words of dogmatic definitions are not ‘simple words’,
they are not ‘accidental’ words which one can replace by other words. They are
eternal words, incapable of being replaced. This means that certain words –
certain concepts – are eternalized by the very fact that they express divine
truth .”[107]
Having said that, it is important to realise that the
transformation undergone by human names when they refer to the Divine is not a
change of nature. For, as St. Anastasius of Sinai writes, “Deification is an
exaltation to what is better, but not an enlarging or change of nature… and not
a change of its own nature”.[108]
Let us now examine this question in the context of the Jesus prayer, which was the starting-point of the whole name-worshipping controversy at the beginning of the 20th
century.
The Jesus prayer,
like all prayer, has both a Divine and a human element. On the human side it is
a psycho-physical action, involving the pronunciation of the name of Jesus with
the lips (although this physical aspect is optional) and the calling on the
name of Jesus in the mind. If no words are pronounced, and no name called on,
there is no prayer (I am not here talking about the highest, wordless forms of
prayer). Both the physical action of pronouncing the name and the psychological
action of calling on the name are the actions of created people: they are not
the actions of God. However, that does not mean that God is inactive in the
Jesus prayer. On the contrary: without God there can be no true and effective
prayer. The Energy or Grace of God inspires, strengthens, purifies and perfects
prayer. Both elements – the human (created) and the Divine (Uncreated) – are necessary.
The name-worshippers argued against this Orthodox position by distorting certain isolated statements of the Holy Fathers. As an example, let us cite a patristic passage discussed by the warring sides: the words of St. Gregory of Sinai so beloved of the name-worshippers that “prayer is God, Who accomplishes everything in everyone”.[109] The context of this statement is as follows: “Prayer is the preaching of the Apostles, an action of faith, or, rather, faith itself, ‘that makes real for us the things for which we hope’ (Heb. 11.1), active love, angelic impulse, the power of the bodiless spirits, their work and delight, the Gospel of God, the heart’s assurance, hope of salvation, a sign of purity, a token of holiness, knowledge of God, baptism made manifest, purification in the water of regeneration, a pledge of the Holy Spirit, the exultation of Jesus, the soul’s delight, God’s mercy, a sign of reconciliation, the seal of Christ, a ray of the noetic sun, the heart’s dawn-star, the confirmation of the Christian faith, the disclosure of reconciliation with God, God’s grace, God’s wisdom or, rather, the origin of true and absolute Wisdom; the revelation of God, the work of monks, the life of hesychasts, the source of stillness, and expression of the angelic state. Why say more? Prayer is God, Who accomplishes everything in everyone (cf. I Cor. 12.6), for there is a single action of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, activating all things through Christ Jesus.”
Now all of these descriptions of prayer adduced
by the holy father are true and relevant to an understanding of prayer in the
round. But whereas some quite clearly point to the Divine element in prayer
(“God’s grace, God’s wisdom”), others equally clearly point to the activity of
men (“the work of monks, the life of hesychasts”). By virtue of the
interpenetration of the Divine and the human in Christ and Christians, no sharp
distinction between these elements is made. But that is not to say that no
distinction exists; for while the Divine and human in prayer, and in the
spiritual life generally, are inseparable, they are nevertheless unconfused. Properly understood, the saint is
saying that the grace of God is the most important element in prayer, without
which it would not be prayer at all; that God is the initiator, sustainer and
fulfiller of all true prayer. This is perfectly true, and may be seen as an
elaboration on the words of St. Paul: “not I, but Christ working in me” (Gal.
2.20). But neither the words of St. Gregory nor those of St. Paul can be
understood to mean that prayer is God in the literal sense: without the human
element, without the synergy of man’s will with the will of God, prayer would
not be prayer. This synergetic essence of prayer is expressed by Metropolitan
Theoliptus of Philadelphia, who writes: “Prayer is the mind’s dialogue with
God, in which words of petition are uttered with the intellect riveted wholly
on God.”[110]
As another example of how the
name-worshippers distort the holy fathers, let us consider their oft-repeated
claim that St. John of Kronstadt believed that the Name of God was God. Now it
is quite true that St. John sometimes employed expressions which, taken out of
context, might lead one to believe that he was a name-worshipper. But the
context was always prayer; and the point St. John was always trying to make was
that in true, heartfelt prayer, no distinction is felt between God and the Name
of God. And this, as we have seen, is perfectly true. But that St. John did not
confuse the subjective identification of “Jesus” and Jesus in prayer
with their objective identification in reality is evident from the
following: «Let not the heart weak in faith think
that the cross or the name of Christ act of themselves, or that this cross and
this name of Christ produces miracles when I do not look with the eyes of my
heart or with the faith of Christ”.[111] These words of St.
John contradict one of the main theses of name-worshipping, namely, that the
name of God, being God Himself, works of itself . His words were echoed
by one of the leading theologians of the time, Archbishop Theopan of Poltava,
who was later to head the subcommission on name-worshipping at the 1917-18
Council of the Russian Church (whose proceedings were cut short by the
revolution): “Let not the heart weak in faith think that the cross or the name
of Christ work miracles of themselves, and not through Christ, or that this
cross of name of Christ produce miracles when I do not look with the eyes of my
heart or with the faith of Christ the Lord, and do not believe from my heart in
everything that He accomplished for our salvation”.[112]
Let us look at another passage. During the practice of the Jesus prayer,
writes Hilarion, “the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, if one may put it in this
way, as it were becomes incarnate, the person clearly feels the Lord Himself in
the Name of God through an inner feeling of his soul. This feeling of the Lord Himself and His name merges into identity in such a way that it is impossible to distinguish the one
from the other. And this in its turn becomes comprehensible if we remember that
if the Lord Jesus Christ received our nature into His Divine person and is
called by the one name of the God-man, because in His flesh ‘there dwelt the
whole fullness of the Divinity’ (Col. 1.19), then undoubtedly this
fullness of His Divine perfections dwells also in his all-holy name, Jesus
Christ. One could put it this way: if it dwelt visibly and bodily in the flesh,
then it dwelt invisibly in His Holy name, but spiritually it is felt only in
the heart or in one’s spirit. And so, introducing this name into our heart, in
It, according to the word of St. Macarius the Great, we touch as it were the
very nature of Christ, His theanthropic nature, and in this inner, most
profound and heartfelt union or as it were merging of our spirit with the
Spirit of Christ, we become with Him, according to the witness of the Holy
Apostle, ‘one spirit’ (I Cor. 6.17). Where by reason of the extremely close and intimate union or as it
were merging, we already of necessity partake of the characteristics of Christ:
His goodness, love, peace, blessedness, etc. – we perceptibly taste that the
Lord is good. And from this we undoubtedly ourselves become, in accordance with
the image of Him Who formed us, good, meek, unspiteful and humble; we bear in
our hearts ineffable love for everyone and feel eternal life in ourselves. And
only such a person, for the sake of his union in heart with the Lord distinctly
feels in his spirit His Divine presence (Him Himself) in the name Jesus Christ,
and without hesitation can witness before the whole world that the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ is He Himself, the Lord God; that His name is inseparable
from His most holy essence, and one with Him, basing himself in this not on
rational considerations, but on the feeling of his heart, which is penetrated
by the Lord Spirit.”[113]
Most of this is perfectly
acceptable from an Orthodox point of view; and even if the conclusion that “the
name of the Lord Jesus Christ is He Himself, the Lord God” strikes one with its
boldness, one is inclined to overlook it as simply a loose way of expressing
the undoubted fact of the inseparability of the Lord and His name in prayer.
However, it must be emphasised that inseparability is not the same as identity.
It is one thing to say that in prayer the name of the Lord is felt as being
inseparable from the Lord Himself. It is quite another to say that they are in
fact one and the same thing. When I call Peter by name, I am thinking about
Peter himself, not about his name, and I am waiting for the arrival of Peter
himself, not his name. But this does not mean that the name “Peter” and the man
Peter are one and the same.
S.V. Troitsky developed this point in his report on
name-worshipping to the Russian Holy Synod in 1913: “If those places in it [Fr.
Hilarion’s book] which later aroused such controversy are examined in
themselves without reference to the arguments that were later put forward in
their favour, then one will find nothing offensive here except for some
unsuccessful and inaccurate expressions. As the author declares, ‘our concern,
in composing this book, was to express the need, importance and necessity of
practising the Jesus prayer in the matter of everyone’s eternal salvation’ (X).
‘While making as detailed an explanation of the Jesus prayer as possible,’ he
‘encountered the inevitable need’ to touch on the significance of the name
‘Jesus’. He explained this significance both in the foreword and in three chapters: the 3rd – ‘giving an explanation of the fact that God Himself is present in the
name of God’, in the 4th – presenting ‘proofs of why a Divine status
is ascribed to the name ‘Jesus’ and why for the person who believes in and
loves the Lord Jesus it is as it were the Lord and Saviour Himself’, and in the
26th – ‘On the incarnation of the Son of God and on the fact that in
His name He Himself abides for the believer in His Divine Essence’: texts from
the Holy Scriptures (see also chapter 27). For every faithful servant of
Christ… the name is… as He Himself (p. 11), writes the author, and goes on to
explain: ‘When a person calls with his mind or lips on the name of God through
the sacred prayer of Jesus: “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a
sinner,” the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, if one may put it in this way, as it were becomes
incarnate, the person clearly feels the Lord Himself in the Name of God through
an inner feeling of his soul. This feeling of the Lord Himself and His name merges into identity in such a way that it is impossible to distinguish the one
from the other’. (p. 12).
“This description of the inner experiences of the person who prays must be recognised as being completely correct. Logic and psychology tell us about the law of the
objectivisation of thought, whereby during the process of thought we identify
our thoughts and words with those objects and persons to which they refer. We deal with the former as we would with the latter, and distinguish thoughts
and names only when we direct our theoretical reason towards this distinction.
But since prayer
is not a practical and not a theoretical activity of our spirit, it is
impossible to make such a distinction during it; for once our consciousness is
occupied with the purely theoretical thought that the name of the Lord and the
Lord Himself are not one and the same, prayer will no longer exist, but there
will be abstract, theoretical reasoning. Always inherent in prayer, together
with this identification of the name of the Lord with the Lord, is an unfailing
certainty that the Lord is present and attending to the one who prays; and the
name of the Lord does not refer to, and is not identified with, the theoretical
concept of God, but with the living representation of Him, as of an Essence
close to and inherent in the man who prays.”[114]
Conclusion: 9. The name “Jesus” is neither
an Energy of God nor Jesus Himself nor a part of the Divine-human Hypostasis of
Jesus, as the name-worshippers claim. It is filled with the Energies of God and
bound up with Jesus Himself, but is distinct from Him. In the very act of the
Jesus Prayer, which is composed of both Divine (Uncreated) and human (created)
elements, of which the psycho-physical action of calling on the name is the
human element, the name of Jesus is fused in the consciousness of the believer
with Jesus Himself. But the name-worshippers err when they assert that
objectively Jesus and His name are one and the same. This is pantheism.
Conclusions
1. The first act of the first-created man was the naming of the animals.
He thereby demonstrated his knowledge of their nature. The act of naming with
correct names and classifications, and the knowledge of created natures is a
combined activity of God and man.
2. According to His Essence, God cannot be
named, He is unknowable. For He simply is. Therefore His Essence can be named
or defined only by means of a tautology – “I am Who I am” or “I am the Existing
One”.
3. Although God is unnameable in His Essence, He is nameable in His
Energies, which are God’s actions, or, in the words of one of the Holy Fathers,
“the movements of the Essence”. The names of God sometimes refer to His
Uncreated Energies, and sometimes to His Divine Hypostases.
………
4. “Jesus” is the name of the compound Divine-human Hypostasis of the Son
of God. It is created, and before the Incarnation of the Son of God it was the
name, not of God, but of created people. But after the Incarnation it has
become holy and worthy of veneration and indissolubly bound with our Lord Jesus
Christ Himself.
5. Following the heretic Eunomius, the name-worshippers identify names
with that which is named. But names are distinct from the objects and persons
to which they point, just as a shadow is distinct from the body that casts it.
We can distinguish nine possible meanings of the word “name” in the context of
the name-worshipping controversy. Out of these nine only one corresponds to the
name-worshippers’ use of the word, that is, “name” in the sense of the
uncreated Energy of God. But this “energetic” meaning of the word is the most
unusual and the most unnatural, since in ordinary language “name” never
signifies “energy”. Moreover, if we ask the question: «What or who is named by
these uncreated Name-Energies?», then only one reply is possible: the Essence
of God. But the theory that the Essence of God is nameable is the heresy of
Eunomius.
6. Just as names are distinct from the objects or persons which they
name, so name-ideas are distinct from those objective facts which they affirm.
Contrary to the theory of the name-worshippers, a true affirmation about God is
not the same as God-the-Truth, “Jesus is the Saviour” is not the same as Jesus
the Saviour. The source of all truths, in the final analysis, is God-the-Truth;
but the true affirmation of a created man or angel participates in
God-the-Truth only to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the relationship
of the man or angel to the Creator. In general, uncreated grace is to be
distinguished from the consequences of this grace in the created world.
Otherwise we fall into pantheism.
7. The name-worshippers affirm that it is not God, but the
names of God pronounced in the rites, that guarantee the validity of the
sacraments. But the words of the sacraments, including the names of God, do not
accomplish the sacraments by themselves, although they are necessary elements.
The sacraments are accomplished by God alone, and only in the context of the
prayer and faith of the True Church. The basis of faith in the validity of the
sacraments is not the pronunciation of certain words or names, but the
faithfulness of God to His promises. If we identify the uncreated God with the
created words of the rite, we fall into pantheism.
8. It is the grace of God that sanctifies the holy icons, which grace is
communicated from the archetype to the icon if the icon bears a general
resemblance to its archetype. This resemblance must include the inscribed,
created name of the archetype. But the inscribed, created name is not the
sanctifying element, the grace of God, but only the means, the channel, as it
were, through which the grace of God is communicated to the icon.
9. The name “Jesus” is neither an Energy of God nor Jesus Himself nor a
part of the Divine-human Hypostasis of Jesus, as the name-worshippers claim. It
is filled with the Energies of God and bound to Jesus Himself, but is distinct
from Him. In the very act of the Jesus Prayer, which is composed of both Divine
(Uncreated) and human (created) elements, of which the psycho-physical action
of calling on the name is the human element, the name of Jesus is fused in the
consciousness of the believer with Jesus Himself. But the name-worshippers err
when they assert that objectively Jesus and His name are one and the same. This
is pantheism.
It is tempting to think, on a first reading of Fr. Hilarion,
that the heresy is based on no more than a misunderstanding, or a careless use
of language. Thus he writes at one point: “In the name of Jesus Christ the
almighty power of God is present, and therefore (italics mine – V.M.)
this name is God Himself”.[115] The
premise of this statement is Orthodox, and if the name-worshippers had confined
themselves to it, there would have been no quarrel: but the conclusion does not
follow from it, and is false. Again, in another place Fr. Hilarion says that
the name of God is “as it were the Lord Jesus Christ (italics mine – V.M.)”[116]. But there is a big difference
between “as it were Jesus” and “Jesus”!
If this view of the conflict
were true, then careful analysis of the different uses of words employed by the
two sides would reveal an identity of faith underlying the differences in
usage, and agreement would be attainable through a kind of translation process.
However, no such agreement has been reached, either in the earlier phase of the
conflict (in the years 1912-18), or in its recent resurgence. The Church
authorities, not only in Russia, but also in Constantinople, came to the firm
conclusion that they were dealing here, not with a simple misunderstanding, but
with a real heresy. And justly: like the heretics of all ages, the name-worshippers use deception and
violence (see the works of New Hieromartyr Archbishop Nicon (Rozhdestvensky)[117] and
the autobiography of another witness of the events on Athos, New Hieroconfessor
Schema-Bishop Peter (Ladygin)[118]). And, again like the heretics of
all ages, they accuse the Orthodox of various terrible heresies, as, for
example, “Barlaamism”, “iconoclasm” and, of course, “name-fighting” Fr. Gregory
Lourié even writes of the Russian Holy Synod in 1914 that “perhaps, most
likely, it was from the father of lies, and not from God”![119] After such judgements, it comes as
no surprise to learn that the leading name-worshippers have not departed into
the desert, but prefer to remain in those Churches which recognise the Synod of
1914 as Orthodox – in which another trait of the heretics of all ages is
revealed, their inconsistency...
Of course, if the
name-worshippers, on the basis of one or two quotations from the Fathers, wish
to use words in an unusual way, contrary to the normal way of speaking that has
been accepted in the Orthodox Church for centuries, they are entitled to do so
– so long as they make their meaning clear and unambiguous, and do not insist
on others adopting their use of language. The problem is that they do not make
their meaning clear and unambiguous, and they do insist on others adopting
their own eccentric use of language – under threat of being labeled
“Barlaamites” or “iconoclasts” or “fighters of the name”.
Another major problem is that the name-worshippers give very
different meanings to the phrase: “The Name of God is God”. Not all the
name-worshippers (we are not talking here about the sophianist
name-worshippers, who have still other definitions) accept that the names of
God are Energies of God, which is the position of Bulatovich and Lourie. But
Lourie also likes a quite different definition: “the name is a primary type of
icon”. And Bulatovich, following Hilarion, considers that the name “Jesus” is
Jesus Himself (Who, of course, is not an
Energy of God). Pavlenko professes a variant of the “energetic” position: “The
first meaning which patristic ontology attaches to the concept of “name” is the
logos-thoughts of God about creation”.[120] And Kholmogorov professes a variant
on the “Name of Jesus is Jesus” position: “The name of God is a part of the
Hypostasis of Jesus”...
In view of
this confusion, it is not in vain that Pavlenko writes: “Quarrels over
name-worshipping have illustrated one very important problem – what we are going
to call a ‘name’ – which only at first sight appears to be terminological. In
fact it is far from unimportant what content is attached to the understanding
of this or that term. We can see this clearly from the history of the Councils.
Behind non-Orthodox understandings of this or that term there is often hidden
another picture of the world, another ontology. That is why it is all the more
important to conform the concept of the name with patristic ontology”.[121]
Exactly!
And so let us see what are the main meanings of the term “name”, emphasising,
however, that which is the primary and central definition as opposed to the
secondary, minor or even metaphorical definitions:
1.
The name as word-indicator of some person or thing. This is the primary
and central definition of the word. It is important to note here that the name
as indicator is not necessarily sounds or letter, since a name is not
necessarily pronounced or written, but is simply thought. But both that which
is pronounced or written, and that which is thought, are equally created. For,
as St. Maximus the Confessor writes, “we create names for God”[122] – and that which men create cannot
be the uncreated God. It is also important to note that the name as indicator
is always and necessarily distinct from the named person or thing. Therefore
if, in the phrase “the name of God is God”, the word “name” is an indicator,
then the statement is false, for the name in this sense cannot be God. There is
only one exception to this rule:
2.
The name as a Divine Person, the Word-Indicator of God the Father, that
is, the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God and God. This definition especially
applies to certain expressions in the Psalms and to the words of the Lord’s
Prayer: “Hallowed be Thy Name”, for, as St. Maximus the Confessor writes in his
interpretation of the Prayer: «The Name of God the Father is… the Only Begotten
Son». This use of the word is often found in Jewish-Christian literature of the
first two centuries of Christianity.[123] Bulatovich writes: “In its highest
sense the Name of God is the Word of God”[124], and we can agree with this
judgement. But it is important to note that the Name as the Word of God, the
Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is not the Name as “verbal action of God”,
because a Person is not an action or energy.
3.
The Name as a Divine Energy or all the Divine Energies as a whole. «Name»
in this sense is found among the Fathers (Saints Dionysius the Areopagite,
Simeon the New Theologian, Tikhon of Zadonsk), but this meaning must be
considered metaphorical, because “name” in this sense is not an indicator and
does not name anything. For what does the Name-Energy name? Not the Essence of
God, because the Essence is unnameable. And so the Energies of God in a certain
ineffable sense reveal God, and God is revealed in them, but in the direct,
central meaning of the word “name” They do not name Him and are not names.
The
name-worshippers’ main stratagem consists in systematically confusing the first
(main) and third (metaphorical) senses of the word “name”. For example, in the
Sacraments names in both the first sense (the words of the rite) and the third
(the Energies of God) are present. Every Orthodox Christian knows that the
Sacrament is accomplished by the Energies of God, not by human words. Human
words are necessary, because they declare and demonstrate the faith of the
Church, in response to which God acts. But the Actor Himself is not man, and
not human words, but the Holy Spirit. However, Bulatovich insists that the
validity of the sacraments is guaranteed, not by the Holy Spirit, but by the
names of the rite. This is magism or pantheism.
Again, in
the icons names are present in both the first sense (the inscription of the
name of God or an angel or a saint or a sacred event) and the third (the
Energies of God). Every Orthodox Christian knows that an icon is sanctified,
not by the inscription, but by the Energies of God. The inscription is
necessary, because it is a part of the likeness of the icon to its archetype,
and without the likeness the grace of God is not attracted and the archetype is
not present in the icon. But it is not the inscription which makes a holy icon
out of simple wood and paint, but the grace of God. The name-worshippers,
however, insist that the name creates the icon. But “name” in what sense? If we
are to believe Fr. Gregory Lourié, then it is “name” in the first sense,
because, as he writes, “the name is a primary type of icon”, and an icon is not
a name in the third sense, that is, an Energy of God. But on the other hand the
name-worshippers love to repeat that they do not mean by “name” created sounds
and letters. Which means that they have in mind “name” in the third sense, the
sense of uncreated grace. But if so, why speak about the name as “a primary
type of icon”? For a sacred icon is not the same as the grace that sanctifies
it. Are we not witnessing here a most dangerous ambiguity, a mixing of the
categories of the created and the uncreated – that is, magism or
pantheism?
Again, in
the prayer of Jesus names in all three senses are present. There is “Jesus” (a
name in the first sense). There is Jesus Himself (“the Name” in the second
sense). And there is the Energy of God (“Name” in the third sense). In real
prayer a man invoking the “name” (in the first sense) becomes “one spirit” with
“the Name” (in the second sense) through the “Name” (in the third sense). The
name-worshippers, however, mix up all three meanings in a terrible confusion.
And if the Orthodox try to make some distinctions, they accuse them of
“subjectivism”, “psychologism”, “nominalism”, “positivism”, etc.... But it is
evident that the distinction between “Jesus” and Jesus, between the name and He
that is named, is not subjective, but logical and ontological.
There
remains for the name-worshippers only one important argument that is not based
on the mixing up of various meanings of one and the same word. We can know
about God, the argument goes, only from God Himself. We really pray to God only
in God. Without Him we can do nothing, for “in Him we live and move and have
our being” (Acts 17.28). So it is God Who gives names, gives knowledge, gives prayer.
God, and not man. Generally speaking, all true knowledge, all real naming of
the uncreated God and the created world is possible only thanks to the fact
that God by His grace so directs our minds that our human conceptions and names
should correspond to the real order of things. But in what does this real order
consist? In the logos-thoughts of God concerning Himself and His creation,
which are uncreated – that is, God Himself.[125] Therefore, they say, the name of God
is God Himself.
This is a
serious argument containing much truth. But the conclusion is nevertheless
false. Everything created and all our knowledge about the created and uncreated
depends completely on the uncreated God. But the distinction between the
created and the uncreated nevertheless remains and is not annihilated by God.
Let us recall the first act of naming in the history of the world: “And God led
them to the man to see what he [that is, the man, not God] should call them” (Gen. 2.19). There is no question that
this act of naming was inspired by God, and constituted true knowledge of the
animal world only thanks to God. But God Himself wanted man to use his mind and
his creativity, created in the image of God the Creator, to understand the
essences of things. And it is no different with the knowledge of God Himself.
As we saw above, the holy Fathers write about the names of God as inventions of
men (St. Gregory of Nyssa), “ñreated by man” (St. Maximus), “taken
from created things” (St. Dionysius), which explain the Energies of God (St.
John of Damascus) – but are not to be identified with Them.[126] However highly we place the
participation of God and the Energies of God in the processes of our knowledge
of the Truth and union with Him, the boundary between the created and the
uncreated remains to the ages. People can by deification become gods by grace.
But they will still remain human beings...
It remains only to summarise the teaching of the Orthodox Church on the
Names of God and related issues discussed in this article.
At the summit of the hierarchy of Being are the three Hypostases of the Holy Trinity: the Father, the Son and the
Holy Spirit, containing the unnameable Essence, and the nameable Energies.
Apart from this one God – Hypostases, Essence and Energies – there is no God.
The Names of God are created words which are applied by men, under the
inspiration of God, to the three Divine Hypostases and to their Uncreated
Energies. There is no Name of God which is God in the strict ontological sense.
The truth of this is not affected by the fact that the Second Person of the
Holy Trinity is called “the Name” in some patristic texts, nor by the fact that
the Energies of God are called “the Names of God” in some patristic texts.
Descending from the summit of the hierarchy of Being, we come to the
rational creation, angels and men. Men are called “gods”, not by nature, but by
grace. For they are made in the image of God, reflecting God’s own rationality,
freedom and eternity, and when adopted by grace, they become sons of God and
gods in the Son of God and God, Jesus Christ.
Descending still further down the hierarchy, we come to the holy icons,
the holy Gospels, the Divine services, the holy churches, the honoured cross
and the names of God. These objects and ideas are filled with the grace of God
and can therefore be said to be images of God and holy.[127]
But none of them share with men the honour of being called gods, for none of
them is rational and free as man is, and none of them has been grafted into the
Son of God through His Body and Blood, the only avenue by which created nature
can ascend to participation in God, the avenue opened, as the apostle says, “in
Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and made Him sit at His right hand in
the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion,
and above every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that
which is to come” (Ephesians 1.20-21).
March 25 / April 7, 2002
The Sunday of the Holy Cross.The
Annunciation of the Most Holy Theotokos.
St. Tikhon, Patriarch of
Moscow and All Russia.
APPENDIX:
THE DECREES ON NAME-WORSHIPPING
On October 5/18, 2002 Hieromonk Gregory
(Lourié) supposedly expressed “repentance” for his name-worshipping
views before the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Autonomous Church. In fact,
however, Lourié’s “repentance” read more like a self-justification than
a statement of repentance. He expressed “regret”, not about his belief in the
Bulatovich’s heresy, but only about the fact that his public statements on the
subject had “become a reason for discord within our Church” – in other words,
that he had been indiscreet in his public proclamation of the heresy. There was
no mention of Bulatovich, no condemnation of any specific heresy, and no
admittance that he had ever confessed any heresy at any time. Instead he
actually denied that he confessed heresy: “I hold to the teaching of the
Holy Fathers and confess no heresy about the names of God, which would have
been condemned by previous Fathers and Councils”. He could say this with
sincerity (and cunning) because he considers that the teaching of Bulatovich is
“the teaching of the Holy Fathers” and is in fact not a heresy. Moreover, no
large Council has yet condemned Bulatovich’s teaching, only several Synodal
decisions of both the Russian and the Greek Churches. So in saying that no
Council has condemned the teaching, he is not lying according to the letter of
the law. But there is a direct lie in is his assertion that no previous Fathers
ever condemned that teaching. For several Fathers did, including Patriarch
Tikhon, Hieromartyr Vladimir of Kiev, Hieromartyr Agathangel of Yaroslavl,
Hieromartyr Basil of Priluki, St. Barsanuphius of Optina, etc. And he lies
again when he says: “I also hold to the resolutions of the All-Russian Local
Council of 1917-1918, which were confirmed by two resolutions of the Synod of
our Church, in accordance with which the decision on the essence of the
question of name-worshipping belongs exclusively within the competence of a
Local Council of the Church of Russia”. For there were in fact no resolutions
of the 1917-18 Council on name-worshipping, as Lourié (who has gone on
record as calling the 1917-18 Council “a tragic-comic story, which exerted a minimal,
or negative rather than positive, influence on the following life of the
Church…”![128]) well
knows.
A few weeks later, following a
presentation by the Parish of the Holy Archangel Michael, Guildford, England of
twelve questions relating to the heresies of Fr. Gregory to the Holy Synod
(which questions have not been answered to this day), Fr. Gregory wrote a
further “report”, dated November 11, 2002, in which he states that he “submits
to Church authority and rejects the errors listed by the holy patriarch Tikhon”
in a Nativity Epistle written on February 19, 1921. On the internet Bishop
Gregory of Denver immediately expressed delight at this “report”, considering
that, although it contained even fewer expressions of penitential feeling than
the previous “repentance”, it was nevertheless more precise than the previous
“repentance”, in that Lourié had now “anathematized even the more
deceptive version of name-worshipping… Even though he has not anathematized
Bulatovich, he has succinctly anathematized his heretical teachings”.
Let us examine what the patriarch
supposedly said in this previously completely unknown Nativity epistle[129]: “In
these high days, when the Church is celebrating the Nativity of the God-Man,
Who brought the peace and goodwill of God the Father to earth, I consider it
appropriate to remind you in brief of the Athonite imyaslavtsi
(name-glorifiers) and give you certain instructions on how to treat these
monks. It can be seen, that the Holy Synod in its definition of April 22-25
1914, number 3479, was indulgent to the spiritual mood and to the way of
thinking of the Athonite monks, who have a poor knowledge of theology as
expounded in books and of the forms of paper work, and allowed them, instead of
the previously required signing by the imyabozhniki (name-worshippers)
of a denial of their false teaching, to substitute for this a written testimony
(a promise on oath) of their Orthodox faith, with the kissing of the Holy Cross
and the Gospel. They promised exactly to follow the Orthodox Church and obey
the God-established hierarchy, believing exactly as the Holy Church teaches,
neither adding anything from themselves, nor taking anything away. In
particular in regard to the glorification of the name of God, they promised not
to consider His name the essence of God, nor to separate it from God, not to
venerate it as a separate Deity, nor to worship the letters and sounds and
occasional thoughts about God. The Holy Synod decided to admit into Church
those who believed in this way and declared their willingness to obey the
Church authorities, and to allow their priests to serve. But, in rendering its
indulgence, the Holy Synod did not change its former opinion of the very error
contained in the writings of Anthony Bulatovich and his followers, whom the
Synod decided to pass over for the consideration of the All-Russian Holy
Council, upon which depends the resolution of the whole issue in essence”.
Now the teaching of Bulatovich can be
summarized in two propositions: that the names of God are energies of God, and
that the name of Jesus is Jesus Himself. Neither of these teachings is in the
list of errors listed by the patriarch. “To consider His name the essence of
God” was not one of Bulatovich’s teachings (although it may have been that of
some of his more ignorant followers). For, as St. Gregory Palamas teaches, the
essence of God is not to be identified with the energies of God. “To venerate
it as a separate Deity” is, again, not one of Bulatovich’s teachings. “To
worship the letters and sounds” is, again, not one of Bulatovich’s teachings.
“To worship… occasional thoughts about God” is one of Bulatovich’s teachings,
and the only one, therefore, which Lourie may be said to have renounced
(although it is doubtful, judging from his dialogue with Vladimir Moss on the
subject, that he would accept such a phrase as representing Bulatovich’s real
view). In any case, the most important point is that the two propositions that
summarise Bulatovich’s main views are not in this list, nor can they be
reinterpreted to come within this list.
So why was the patriarch’s
characterization of Bulatovich’s errors inaccurate? In order to answer this question,
we need to investigate a little further. Let us begin by posing the question:
In what other document of the time can we find this same list?
The answer is: in the judgement issued by
the Moscow Diocesan
Court with regard to the name-worshippers on May 8, 1914: “… The Synodal Office
has found that in the confessions of faith in God and in the Name of God coming
from the named monks, in the words, ‘I repeat that in naming the Name of God
and the Name of Jesus as God and God Himself, I reject both the veneration of
the Name of God as His Essence, and the veneration of the Name of God
separately from God Himself as some kind of special Divinity, as well as any
deification of the very letters and sounds and any chance thoughts about God’ –
there is contained information allowing us to conclude that in them there is no
basis for leaving the Orthodox Church for the sake of the teaching on the Names
of God.’ (decree ¹ 1443)”. The coincidence of
wording is striking. It is obvious that the list of errors referred to by the
patriarch in the document quoted by Lourié is in fact the list drawn up,
not by the Holy Synod in its Resolution ¹ 3479 of April 22-25, 1914, which does not
contain a list of errors[130], but
by the Moscow Diocesan Court on May 8, 1914.
However, it is essential to realise that the decision of the Moscow
Diocesan Court of May 8, 1914 was overturned
by the Holy Synod in its decree ¹ 4136 of May 10-24, 1914, which
set aside decree ¹ 1443 of the Moscow Synodal Office, and confirmed
the sentences against the name-worshippers. This confirmation of the sentences
against the name-worshippers was again confirmed by decree ¹ 2670
of March 10, 1916. And yet again by Patriarch Tikhon and his Synod on October
8/21, 1918. And yet again by the Nativity Epistle of 1921.
Lourié tries to get round this
by claiming that there was yet another decree of the Holy Synod that was
supposedly passed in 1921, just before the patriarch’s Nativity epistle, and
which supposedly formed the basis for the patriarch’s Nativity epistle.
“Unfortunately,” Lourié writes, “the true text of the decree of 1921 on
removing all the bans from those name-worshippers who remained alive has not
reached us”. Unfortunate indeed! And devastatingly destructive for his whole
case. For since this mysterious decree “has not reached us”, I think we are
fully entitled to conclude that it does not exist. After all, if it did
exist, why should the patriarch not refer to it?
Again, Lourié says that that mysterious “disappearing” decision “removed all the bans from those name-worshippers who remained alive”. But Bulatovich was dead in 1921 (he was killed by robbers in 1919)!
It should be pointed out that
the patriarch’s desire to refer the whole question of the name-worshipping
heresy to review by a future All-Russian Council in no way changes the
canonical force of the bans placed on Bulatovich and his followers. It is of
course highly desirable that this question should be reviewed in depth at a
future Council, when precise anathematisations of the heresies and the heretics
can be formulated and proclaimed by the highest organ of administration of the
Russian Church. But until the convening of that Council the unrepealed
decisions of the Holy Synod remain in force, and it is completely improper for
the name-worshippers and their protectors to argue: “Well, the future Council
may reverse the decisions against Bulatovich and his teaching, so we can assume
that the question is open and that it is permitted to consider him a saint and
his teaching true”. To speculate that a future Council will and should overturn
the decisions of the holy patriarch and many of his fellow hieromartyrs is
already to separate oneself in spirit from the Church of that same holy
patriarch, which is the Church of the Holy New Martyrs and Confessors of
Russia.
[1] Quoted in Priest Paul Florensky,
Correspondence with M.A. Novoselov, Tomsk, 1998, p. 206 (in Russian).
[2] Gubanov, Tsar Nicholas II and
the New Martyrs, St. Petersburg, 2000, p. 770 (in Russian).
[3] St. Ephraim, Commentary on
Genesis, 2. Quoted in Fr. Seraphim Rose, Genesis, Creation and Early Man,
Platina: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 2000, p. 177.
[4] St. Ambrose, On Paradise,
ch. 11; Rose, op. cit., p. 180.
[5] St. John Chrysostom, Homilies
on Genesis, 14.5.
[6] Metropolitan Philaret, Notes
of Guidance for a Basic Understanding of the Book of Genesis, Moscow, 1867,
p. 47 (in Russian).
[7] St. Ephraim, Commentary on
Genesis, 2; Rose, op. cit., p. 187.
[8] Metropolitan Philaret, op.
cit., p. 48.
[9] St. Gregory the Theologian, Second
Oration on Pascha, 8; Rose, op. cit., p. 173.
[10] Metropolitan Philaret, op.
cit., p. 71.
[11] Metropolitan Philaret, op.
cit., p. 100.
[12] Sunday of the Holy Fathers, Mattins,
Canon, Ode 3, verse.
[13] Archimandrite Theophan (Bystrov),
The Tetragram, St. Petersburg, 1905, p. 159 (in Russian).
[14] Rose, op. cit., pp.
233-234.
[15] Archimandrite Theophan, op.
cit., pp. 166-167.
[16] Philo, Life of Moses, 1.14.75.
[17] St. Gregory of Nyssa, Life of
Moses, II.24-25.
[18] Archimandrite Theophan, op. cit.,
p. 63.
[19] See Alan Cole, Exodus,
London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973, pp. 69-70.
[20] St. John of Damascus, Exact
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, I, 12.
[21] Archimandrite Theophan, op.
cit., p. 73.
[22] Archimandrite Theophan, op.
cit., p. 214.
[23] St. John of Damascus, Exact
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, I, 12.
[24] St. Basil the Great, On Faith,
part V; quoted in Schema-Monk Epiphany (Chernov), Against Hilarion.
[25] St. Gregory the Theologian, Fourth
Theological Oration.
[26] St. Gregory of Nyssa, To
Ablabius, on ‘not three Gods’, P.G. 45, 121B; Schema-Monk Epiphany (Chernov), op.
cit.
[27] St. Basil the Great, Letter
to Amphilochius, P.G. 32, col. 869.
[28] St. Amphilochius, Concerning
the Newly-Illumined and on the Resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ, 5; Amphilochii
Iconiensis Opera, ed. C. Datema (Corpus Christianorum Series Graeca
[Turnhout: Brepols, 1978]), vol. III, pp. 155-162; translated in Orthodox
Tradition, vol. XIX, no. 1, 2002, p. 4.
[29] St. Gregory of Nyssa, Homily
1 on the Song of Songs.
[30] St. Dionysius, The Divine
Names, I, 6; quoted by E. Kholmogorov, Notes on Name-worshipping..
[31] St. Dionysius, The Divine
Names, III, 1.
[32] St. Maximus, Scholia on the
Divine Names, II.
[33] St. Gregory Palamas, Triads,
II, 7.
[34] St. Gregory Palamas, Triads, III,
2,10.
[35] St. Gregory Palamas, Triads,
III, 1, 9.
[36] St. John of Damascus, Exact
Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, III, 3.
[37] St. Gregory of Nyssa, Against
Eunomius, VII, 4.
[38]
Bishop Ignatius, “Word on the Jesus Prayer”, Complete Collection of Works, vol.
II, p. 218.
[39] Quoted by Vladimir Lossky,
letter of January 6/19, 1937, in Polischuk, E.S. (ed.), Name-worshipping. An
Anthology (Imiaslavie. Antologia), Moscow, 2002, p. 518 (in Russian).
[40] “În the false teaching of the
name-worshippers”, Church Gazette (Tserkovnie Vedomosti), ¹ 20,
1913 (in Russian).
[41] Archbishop Nicon, “A great trial
surrounding the most holy name of God”, Church Gazette (Tserkovnij Vestnik),
¹ 20, 1913,
pp. 853-869. Even Florensky, whose attitude to Archbishop Nicon’s
article is highly critical, says that here “he expressed himself well”.
See Florensky, in
Nicon, op. cit., footnote 77.
[42] St. Gregory of Nyssa, Against
Eunomius, quoted from the Russian edition, Moscow, 1864, book 12, p. 373.
[43] On the Mountains of the
Caucasus, foreword (in Russian).
[44] On the Mountains of the
Caucasus, p. 889 in the fourth edition, St. Petersburg, 1998; quoted in
S.V. Troitsky, “The Commotion on Athos”, Church Gazette (Tserkovnij Vestnik),
¹ 20, 1913,
pp. 882-909.
[45] Dialogue on
name-worshipping between Fr. Gregory (Lourié) and Vladimir Moss, 2b (in
Russian) (http://imiaslav.narod.ru/sovr/sovr.htm).
[46] Lourié,
op. cit.
[47] Lourié,
op. cit.
[48] Lourié,
op. cit.
[49] Lourié,
op. cit.
[50] Lourié,
op. cit.
[51] St.
Theodore, Collected Works, St. Petersburg Theological Academy, 1907-08,
vol. 2, p. 100 (in Russian).
[52] Quoted by St. Gregory of Nyssa, Against
Eunomius, from the Russian edition, Moscow, 1864, book 12, p. 329.
[53] See Hieromonk Theophan
(Areskin), “Sketch of the history of the life and activity of the Athonite
name-worshippers in Russia after the Athonite rout” (in Russian), http://imiaslav.narod.ru/istoire/xronik_feof.htm.
Bulatovich tried to avoid this accusation, writing: “To this day I have
not simply used ‘God’ when speaking about the Name of God, but ‘God Himself’,
precisely in order to weaken the force of the naming and so as to eliminate the
idea that in the Name of God some special God apart from the One God Himself
was understood” (Letter
to P. Florensky of 8 April, 1913, in Florensky, op. cit., pp. 91-92).
[54] See Metropolitan Philaret of
Moscow, Opinions,
Comments and Letters, Moscow,
1998, p. 364 (in Russian).
[55] On the Mountains of the Caucasus, foreword (in Russian).
[56] On the Mountains of the Caucasus, foreword.
[57] Bulatovich, My struggle with the fighters of the name on the Holy
Mountain, Petrograd,
1917, p. 117 (In Russian).
[58] Lourié,
Dialogue, op. cit., 2b.
[59] Bulatovich, letter to a bishop, in Apology of the Faith, editorial introduction (in
Russian).
[60] Troitsky, op.
cit.
[61] Bulatovich, Apology, op.
cit., ch. 1.
[62] Blessed Augustine, De Genesi
ad Litteram, VII, 2, 3.
[63] Bulatovich, Apology, op.
cit., ch. 2.
[64] Florensky, op. cit., pp.
101, 190.
[65] Bulatovich, Apology, op.
cit., ch. 1.
[66] St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, IV, 13.
[67] Lourié,
Dialogue, op. cit., 1b.
[68] Bulatovich, quoted in the Epistle
of the Holy Synod, “On the false-teaching of the name-worshippers”, op. cit.
[69] “În the false-teaching of the
name-worshippers” op. cit.
[70] Lourié,
Dialogue, op. cit., 2b.
[71] Ìîss, Dialogue, op.
cit., 3à.
[72] Bulatovich, Apology, p. 89; quoted in Troitsky, op. cit.
[73] Bulatovich and Novoselov, in Florensky, op.
cit., p. 101.
[74] Bulatovich and Novoselov, in Florensky, op.
cit., p. 190.
[75] St. Theodore, Collected
Works, vol. 2, p. 97 (in Russian). Quoted from Metropolitan Benjamin
(Fedchenko), The Teaching of St. Theodore the Studite on the veneration of
the Cross of the Lord and the Holy Icons (in Russian), http://st-jhouse.narod.ru/biblio/Name/letters/let3.htm
[76] Archimandrite Vasilios
Bakogiannis, After Death, Katerini: Tertios, 1995, pp. 117-118.
[77] Bulatovich, Apology, ch. 3.
[78] Lourié, commentary
on the Russian translation of Protopresbyter John Meyendorff, A Study of St.
Gregory Palamas, London, 1964, St. Petersburg: Vizantinorossika,
1997, pp. 393-394 (in Russian).
[79] Senina, “Name-glorifiers
or name-worshippers”,
Religion in Russia (Religia v Rossii) (in Russian), http://religion.russ.ru/discussions/20011221-senina.html, p. 7.
[80] St. John of Damascus, First
Sermon against those who deny the holy icons, 16.
[81] St. John of Damascus, First
Sermon against those who deny the holy icons, 36.
[82] And for the purely practical reason that without the name we in many cases would not be able to
determine whom the given icon represents!
[83] Mansi,
XIII, 404D; quoted in Leonid Ouspensky, The
Theology of Icons, Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1992, p.
167.
[84] St.
Theodore, Antirrheticus III, 5; in Ouspensky, op. cit., p. 167. Even
Fr. Gregory admits
that for St. Theodore the Studite “the most important line of defence of
icon-veneration passes via the establishment of a correspondence between the
icon and its archetype” (Ìåyendorff,
op. cit., p. 381).
[85] St. John of Damascus, Ancient
Documentation and Testimony of the Holy Fathers concerning Images, in St.
John of Damascus on the Divine Images, Crestwood, N.Y.: St. Vladimir’s Seminary
Press, 1980, p. 36.
[86] That is why the monastic saints
are called “like” in Slavonic (prepodobnij in Slavonic). See Ouspensky, op.
cit., p. 158, note 10.
[87] St. Gregory Palamas, “On the
Dormition”, PG 151, 472B.
[88] St. John of Damascus, First
Sermon against those who deny the holy icons, 67.
[89] St. Theodore, P.G. 99, 34
1BC.
[90] Pavlenko, “Name-worshipping and
the Byzantine theory of the image”, Theological Collection (Bogoslovskij
Sbornik), VIII, Moscow, 2001, pp. 56-69 (in Russian); http://imiaslav.narod.ru/sovr/sovr2eugen.htm
(in Russian).
[91] St. Theodore, First
refutation of iconoclasm, 12.
[92] Archbishop Nicon, op. cit.,
p. 860.
[93] St. Theodore, Letter 147, to
Diogenes. Quoted in Fedchenko, op.
cit.
[94] St. Theodore, Letter 161, to
Niketas Spatharios. Quoted in Fedchenko, op. cit.
[95] A fuller quotation: “The name is
the name of that which is named by it, and a certain, as it were, natural image
of the object which bears this name: in it the unity of veneration is
indivisible” (Antirrheticus, 1, 14).
[96] St. Theodore, Third
refutation of iconoclasm, 4
[97] Schema-monk Epiphany, Against
Hilarion, Conversation 3, 7 (in Russian).
[98] Fr. Hilarion, On the
Mountains of the Caucasus.
[99] Bulatovich, Àpology, ch. 1.
[100] Kholmogorov, Notes on
name-worshipping (in Russian).
[101] What, then, is a logos, or idea
in the mind of God? It is a kind of icon. For, as St. John of Damascus writes:
“The second kind of image is God’s foreknowledge of things which have yet to
happen. His changeless purpose from before all ages. The divine nature is
immutable, and His purpose is without beginning. His plans are made before all
ages, and they come to pass at the time which has been predetermined for them
by Him. Image and figures of things He has yet to do, and the purpose of each
of them, were called predeterminations by the holy Dionysius. In God’s
providence, those things predetermined by Him were characterized, depicted, and
unalterably fixed before they even came to pass.” (St. John of Damascus, Third
Word against Those who attack the Divine Images, 19; translated by David
Andersen, St. John of Damascus: on the Divine Images, Crestwood, N.Y.:
St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1997, pp. 75-76) At the same time, as Fr. George
Florovsky writes, “the Divine idea of creation is not creation itself; it is
not the substance of creation” (Florovsky,
“Creation and Creaturehood”, in Creation and Redemption, vol. 3 of the
Collected Works, Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1976, p. 61.
[102] “Letter of the layman of the
ROAC Egor Kholmogorov to the editors of the journal ‘Vertograd’, 10 theses” (in
Russian), http://vertograd.ru/doc/011113001.html
[103] St. Demetrius of Rostov, The
Great Collection of the Lives of the Saints, December 25.
[104] St. Gregory of Nyssa, Against
Eunomius, quoted from the Russian edition, Moscow, 1864, book 12, p. 373.
[105] On the
Mountains of the Caucasus, ch. 4.
[106] Those who will be saved will
also receive a new an unchanging name in the age to come: “To him who conquers
I will give… him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone which no
one knows except him who receives it” (Rev. 2.17).
[107] Florovsky, “Revelation,
Philosophy and Theology”, in Creation and Redemption, vol. 3 of the Collected
Works, Belmont, Mass.: Nordland, 1976, p. 33.
[108] St. Anastasius, Viae dux,
chapter 2, P.G. 89, 77; quoted in the Russian edition of Florovsky’s
“Creation and Creaturehood”, p. 149, note 113.
[109] St. Gregory of Sinai, Chapters,
113; P.G. 150, 1280A.
[110] St. Theoliptus of Philadelphia, On
Inner Work in Christ.
[111] Fr. John Sergiev, My Life in
Christ, 1893 edition, St. Petersburg, vol. 4, p. 30 (in Russian).
[112] Archbishop Theophan of Poltava,
“On the Divine names”, The Hierarch-Hermit Theophan of Poltava, His Works, St.
Petersburg, 1997, p. 714 (in Russian).
[113] On the Mountains of the Caucasus,
chapter 3.
[114] Troitsky, op.
cit.
[115] On the Mountains of the
Caucasus, chapter 4.
[116] On the Mountains of the
Caucasus, foreword.
[117] “My trip to Old Athos and the
fruits of ‘the great temptation’”, The Two-Edged Sword, St. Petersburg,
1995, pp. 214-255 (in Russian).
[118] Church Life (Tserkovnaia Zhizn’), ¹¹ 5-6,
7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 1984; NN 1-2,
3-4, 5-6, 7-8, 1985
(in Russian). It may be not out of place here to mention that, according to
Schema-Bishop Peter, the political sympathies of Bulatovich were with the Left
Social Revolutionaries…
[119] Lourié,
Dialogue, op. cit., 1à.
[120] Pavlenko, “Name-worshipping in patristic
ontology. Theses of a report” (in Russian), http://webforum.land.ru/mes.php?id=3236207&fs=0&ord=0&board=12871&1st=&arhv= (26/03/02).
[121] Pavlenko, op. cit.
[122] St. Maximus, Scholia on the
Divine Names, II.
[123] Ñf. Jean Daniélou, The Theology of
Jewish Christianity, London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1964, pp. 147-162.
[124] Bulatovich, Àpology, ch. 2.
[125] Pavlenko, op cit..
[126] In this context we have nothing to say against the words of the name-worshipper Pavlenko: «Thoughts,
ideas, names, are first of all created; secondly, they are in the minds of
rational beings and not as substances, but as accidents of the latter. No world
of ideas in itself, distinct from the world of logoses and that which is in the heads of
rational beings, exists. The opposite opinion would be Neoplatonism.... What
relationship does
the world of accidents have to the world of logoses? The most direct one. There
is no accident which does not correspond to a definite logos. The opposite opinion would suppose that there existed
something ‘created’ which was not created by God” (my italics – V.M.) (“Name-worshipping and the
patristic ontology. Theses of a report 2” (in Russian), http://webforum.land.ru/mes.php?id=3236217&fs=0&ord=0&board=12871&1st=&arhv= (26/03/02)).
[127] For the different kinds of
images, see St. John of Damascus, Third Sermon against those who deny the
holy icons, 18-23.
[128] http://www.vestris.com/cgi-agnes/twenty-eight/agnes?PoetAgnes+PoetAgnesHTMLArticle+archive+Àðõèâ_íîìåð_5+127.3.1
[129] Its existence appears to have
been discovered by V. Kapitanchuk, “Name-Glorifying”, Tsar’-Kolokol (The
Tsar Bell), 1990. ¹¹ 6,7; reproduced in Polischuk, op. cit., p.
512.
[130] The text of the decree can be
found in Polischuk, op. cit., p. 499.