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Commemorated on May 22
The Second
Ecumenical Council was convened in the year 381 and consolidated the
victory of Orthodoxy, attained in the year 325 at the First Ecumenical
Council.
During the difficult
years which passed after the acceptance of the Nicean Symbol of Faith, the
Arian heresy developed new off-shoots. Under the guise of struggle against the
Sabellian heresy, which taught about a blending together of the Hypostatic
Persons of the Father and the Son [as mere aspects or modalities within the
Trinity], Macedonias began to employ the word "homoi-ousios"
("podobosuschen" or "of like essence" [in contrast to the
Orthodox teaching of "homo-ousios", "one selfsame
essence"]) regarding the essence of the Son to that of the Father. This
formula still presented a danger in that Macedonias set himself forth as a
struggler against the Arians, who employed the term "like to the
Father". Besides this, the Macedonians being semi-Arians, wavering in
dependence on conditions and advantages of the moment now towards Orthodoxy,
now towards Arianism, wound up blaspheming also the Holy Spirit by
suggesting that He did not have "oneness of essence" with the Father
and the Son. A second heretic Aetius, introduced the concept
"anomoion" ("different in essence" or
"inosuschen") and he said, that the Father has a completely different
essence from that of the Son. His student Eunomios taught about an hierarchical
subordination of the Son to the Father, and of the Holy Spirit to the Son.
Everyone who came to him he re-christened into the "death of Christ",
denying the Baptism in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit, which is commanded us by the Saviour Himself.
A third heresy arose
from the teachings of Valentius and Ursacius at the Arimonian (Rimini) Council.
They attempted to deceive the Orthodox bishops, proclaiming, that the Son of
God is from God and is in likeness to God the Father, and is not a created
being as the Arians taught. But under the pretention that the word
"essence" is not found within the Holy Scripture, the heretics
proposed not to use the term "one in essence" in the relation of the
Son to the Father. Besides these three fundamental heresies, there were also
many other false-teachings. The heretic Apollinarios said: ""The
flesh of the Saviour, taken from the bosom of the Father in Heaven, did not
have an human soul or reasoning; the Word of God filled in for the absented
soul; Divinity remained dead over the course of three days".
For dealing with
these crafters of heresy, the holy Emperor Theodosius the Great (379-395)
convened at Constantinople an Ecumenical Council, at which 150 bishops were
present. Upon investigation by the holy fathers there was proposed affirmation
of a Confession of Faith from a Roman Council, which holy Pope Damasus had sent
to the bishop of Antioch, Paulinos. Having read aloud the scroll, the holy
fathers, in disavowing the false-teaching of Macedonias, unanimously affirmed
the Apostolic teaching that the Holy Spirit is not a subordinated being, but is
rather the Life-Creating Lord, Who proceedeth from the Father, and together
with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. For the confuting of
other heresies: of Eunomians, Arians and Semi-Arians, the holy fathers
attested in affirmation the Nicean Symbol-Creed of the Orthodox Faith.
In the Symbol
(Creed), accepted by the First Ecumenical Council, the Divine dignity of the
Holy Spirit was not addressed, since at that earlier time [year 325] heresies
against the Holy Spirit had not become problematic. Wherefore the holy fathers
of the Second Ecumenical Council thereupon appended the Nicean Symbol-Creed
with its 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th sections, i.e. they definitively
formulated and affirmed the Nicean-Constantinople Symbol of Faith, confessed in
the Creed even now by all the Orthodox Church.
The Second Ecumenical
Council besides this established also the norms of ecclesiastical courts {Canon
VI], and it decided the acceptance into communion through the Sacrament of
Chrismation those repentant heretics who were properly baptised in the Name of
the Holy Trinity, but those baptised with a single immersion are to be received
as pagans.
Sainted Gregory the
Theologian [Nazianzus] (Comm. 25 and 30 January) at the Second Ecumenical
Council gave in his talk the following exposition of the Orthodox Faith:
"The Originative-Principle Without-Beginning [alt. "Uncaused
Cause"] and that Subsistent with the Originative-Principle is One God.
But the "Without-Beginning" or "UnBegottenness" is not the
essence of the Without-Beginning Originative-Principle. Because every essence
is defined not by that which it is not, but rather by that which it is:
it is the affirmation and not the negation of the existing. And the
Originative-Principle, that what it gave origin to is not separate from the
Without-Beginning, since for it to be an origin does not constitute the
essence, just as also beforehand the first to be Without-Beginning; wherefore
this only but relates to the essence, and is not the essence itself. And the
Subsistent with the Without-Beginning and with the Originative-Principle is not
something other than what They are. The Name of the Without-Beginning is the
Father, the Originative-Principle the Son, the Subsistent with the
Originative-Principle is the Holy Spirit; and the essence is Tri-une God.
In unity is the Father, from Whom and to Whom They proceed, not confusedly
mixed together, but co-dwelling with Him, nor divided amidst Itself either by
time, nor by will nor power".
© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.
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