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# 009

BAPTISM, ECCLESIOLOGY, AND CANONOLOGY

ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CANONICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

In the West, “canons” are often associated only with Roman Catholicism, and since the legal realist movement of the early 20th century, “law” has implied little more than a positivistic expression of governmental will. However, there is an entire other realm and of “canon law.” For Eastern Orthodox Christians, canons are just one aspect of the life of The Church as it struggles to actualize and express the kingdom of God in an imperfect world, one part of the ongoing dialectic between the Church triumphant and the Church militant. While the concept of “canon law” is not alien to Orthodox theology, this nomenclature, particularly given the post-modern connotation of “law,” fails to describe a truly Orthodox approach to canons of the Church. Using the conventional western 20th century understanding of the term, there is no such thing as “Canon Law” in an Orthodox context. What Orthodox canonists do is not law, as a lawyer understands the term. Thus it should be called by a different name. Rather, true study of the Church’s canons (“canonology” if you will) is a branch of theology that, consciously or unconsciously, draws upon a broad range of disciplines, including history, sociology, political science, and yes, even jurisprudence.

Surveying the varying approaches of a whole range of contemporary Orthodox canonists serves to illustrate this point. Clearly defining or identifying different methods of “doing” Orthodox “canon law” is not as easy a task as might appear at first blush. Some Orthodox canonists, in part through using inapt terminology like “canon law,” still appear to treat canons as subject to “strict interpretation,” as if they were laws. Other Orthodox canonists are as likely to label each other as to label themselves. However, two concepts do permeate labeling and polemics among Orthodox who discuss the canons. These concepts are “tradition” and “ecumenism.” For example, Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna has written Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Thought: The Traditionalist Voice, and other works published by “The Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies.” This group and its spokesmen strongly oppose any acknowledgement of Roman Catholics or Protestants as members of “The Church.” At the other end of the spectrum is the Eastern Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States, whose purpose is to foster dialogue between the two denominations. The “third rail” of this discussion, i.e., the “white elephant in the room” that goes unmentioned, is whether or not “heterodox” Christians are members of The Church. Are they really Christians? A significant part of the answer to this question would seem to be whether their baptisms mean anything theologically. This is obviously both an ecclesiological and a soteriological question. Thus, a central issue like baptism, and various canonists’ views of the canons about it, provide a convenient prism through which to view the advantages and coherence of a “canonological” approach. In addition, baptism is one of the main “litmus tests” of a contemporary theologian’s “traditionalism” or “ecumenism.”

A. THE CONSERVATIVES

The aforementioned Archbishop Chrysostomos’ books and writings, and those of other self-proclaimed “traditionalists” are recommended on the website titled “Orthodox Christian Information Center,” which claims to be “An Internet Voice for Traditional Orthodox Thought and Practice.” This website is strongly critical of the views of many reputable Orthodox theologians who are termed “modernists” or “ecumenists.” For example, one finds criticism of Fr. Thomas Hopko, former dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary in Crestwood, New York and Fr. John Erickson, the current dean, as well as criticism of Illuminator, the official publication of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Pittsburgh under Metropolitan Maximos Aghiorgoussis.

Of the thirteen subpages on the website grouped under the heading “Ecumenism Awareness” two of them deal specifically with baptism and ecclesiology. In fact, much of the “traditional” polemic is devoted to criticizing the current practice in North America of receiving converts from some Christian denominations by chrismation or mere profession of faith (thus implicitly recognizing as valid their non-Orthodox baptisms). For example, one book recommended by the Orthodox Christian Information Center is I Confess One Baptism by Fr. George D. Metallinos, Adjunct Professor at the University of Athens. In this book, Fr. Metallinos relies heavily on St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite and his canonical compilation, The Rudder. Fr. Metallinos sees St. Nikodemos and his Kollyvade colleagues, Neophytos Kafsokalyvitis, Makarios of Corinth, and Athanasios Parios, as monastic leaders of a traditionalist reaction against a “modernism” that Metallinos equates to the “modernism” some Orthodox theologians are accused of today.

Others touted as traditionalists are Dr. Constantine Cavarnos, who has written a biography of St. Nikodemos. Many “traditionalists” also consider the use of the Gregorian (new) calendar to be heretical, and they thus believe that the vast majority of the Orthodox Churches (those in communion with the Ecumenical Patriarch) have lapsed into heresy both over the reception of converts from other denominations by any means other than baptism, and over the use of the modern calendar.

While this “school” identifies itself as “traditionalist” or “conservative,” understanding the cluster of beliefs implied by the name requires examination of the canonical methodology of the writers and thinkers within this group. In an article entitled “BEM and Orthodox Spirituality,” Archbishop Chrysostomos puts forth what he calls his “traditionalist” or “conservative” criticism of the interfaith paper on baptism, Eucharist, and ministry (“BEM”) published in Lima, Peru in January of 1992 by the Plenary Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches. He comments particularly upon what he calls the “Orthodox reception” of the BEM document as reflected in papers and discussions appearing in the Greek Orthodox Theological Review. He apparently feels that the response of mainstream Orthodox theologians reflected in these articles is over-accommodating to “the West,” and he implies that the majority of such opinions are “of a reformist spirit.”

First, he claims that modern Orthodox theologians are held captive by Western categories of thought in such a way as to generate “self-criticism that borders on self-abnegation.” He holds that “in short, the Western captivity still exists.” Second, he argues for a holistic approach to all theology, particularly in understanding the sacraments and the limits of the church. He argues that “with regard to baptism, the Eucharist, and ministry outside the Orthodox Church, it is imperative that we regain a certain spiritual perspective which many of the Orthodox responses to Lima lack.” In evaluating the work of these Orthodox respondents to the Lima BEM, the Archbishop comments that, “our theology still falls short of that blending of personal spirituality and intellectual exposition which marks the great apologists and confessors of the Orthodox faith.”

Hence, in this second supporting leg of his argument, Chrysostomos attacks the Western categories of understanding he perceives in the mindset of his opponents, and he simultaneously criticizes “modernist” Orthodox theologians for being improperly or incompletely grounded or “immersed” in what he calls the “patristic consensus” and “spiritual Gestalt which the whole sacramental life (of the Orthodox Church) forms.” This theme of the Western captivity of modern Orthodox theology and the necessity of immersion in history and theology from an “Eastern and patristic mindset” are evidenced in other works by the same author. This theme is echoed by Cavarnos and Fr. Metallinos. The conservative, it seems, depends upon a thorough background understanding of patristic theology and historical context in order to properly “do” canon law.

This part of Chrysostomos’ argument is a classic among Orthodox theologians over the centuries: Not only do we disagree with “the West” on matters of theology, we are not even “doing” the same thing when we “do” theology; in fact, our minds do not even work in the same way (and unlike the Westerners, we are using faculties which are more than merely “rational” or “mind”).

A third characteristic of this criticism is the assumption or assertion that the Archbishop’s understanding of the nature and characteristics of the sacraments and life of the Church are axiomatic. The Archbishop claims that all Christians properly immersed in the patristic mindset will share his understanding of the nature and life of the Church (including the sacraments). For example, he asserts without textual reference that Orthodox baptism “is not simply entry into the Church community or congregation as such,” and it “has no universal focus, such as the forgiveness of original sin and the entry of an individual into the Christian oikoumene, but rather intensely draws the candidate’s attention to a personal struggle, within the confined limits of the Orthodox Church itself, with the power of the devil for the liberation of the soul and its union with God” (emphasis added). With respect to the Church into which Orthodox baptism allows entry, the Archbishop asserts that, in effect, that Church is the Orthodox Church (as he defines it), and he then quotes St. Diadiochos of Photiki to the effect that “Grace leads the soul toward good from without…From the moment we are reborn in baptism, however…grace dwells within.” The Archbishop proceeds to interpret this statement as meaning that only baptism within the Orthodox Church confers grace that “dwells within,” while only “external grace … touches those outside Orthodoxy.” Aside from the controversial nature of the statements about original sin and the putative distinction between “types” of grace, there is also an important assertion made that the Orthodox Church (however that term may be defined) is the sole repository and conferrer of indwelling grace.

What is somewhat remarkable in these arguments is the lack of any satisfying definition of “Orthodox,” “non-Orthodox,” and “Church.” The Archbishop does attempt to define the local Church as the local Eucharistic community possessing a valid priesthood. This valid priesthood is rooted in the spiritual life of those who have taken part in it before and who have “fallen asleep in the faith,” but this begs the question of the criteria by which we judge that immersion and the outlines of that faith. If we are engrafted upon the tradition of the proper fathers and forefathers through communion with them in the Eucharist, and we define the “Orthodox” fathers and forefathers as those with whom we commune, is this anything more than a circular argument? There must be some other standard for determining what Chrysostomos defines as “Orthodox,” a standard that is missing from his writings but assumed by his argument.

One final characteristic of the conservative’s canonical method is his usage of the term “oikonomia.” The basic theory of the conservative or “traditionalist” is to assume the existence of a universal rule set forth by “the canons” and to explain any departure from (or contradiction within) these rules in terms of “oikonomia.” For example, in explaining the apparent contradiction between Canon VII of the Second Ecumenical Council and the Canon of Carthage/St. Cyprian, For Metallinos, the preference given to Canon VII by the Byzantine canonist Zonaras (because it is ecumenical and later) is wrong because: “Our theologians…living in the Church’s tradition…are not satisfied with this answer. They do not admit even the slightest discrepancy between Fathers and Councils…” Who are these theologians that Metallinos accepts and that are “not satisfied” with the approach of Zonaras and his colleagues? One is St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite, a figure to whom the traditionalists often turn. Note also Metallinos’ implication that he does not admit of even the right of an Ecumenical Council to “revise” previous conciliar rulings or even canons written by individual theologians, nor does he seem to accept any difference between dogmatic or “unchangeable” canons on the one hand and disciplinary or “changeable” canons on the other. Thus, Fr. Metallinos implies that the only explanation for Zonaras’ interpretation of the baptismal canons is that he (and those who agree with him) must somehow fall short of “living in the Church’s tradition.” Is this any different than merely labeling Zonaras a heretic and dismissing him as irrelevant, while defining Nikodemos as a “true” theologian? Upon what basis is this ad hominem judgment made?

Metallinos gives no satisfactory answer, but in a circular, syllogistic fashion, he clearly expects St. Nikodemos’ explanation (as one given by a theologian “living in the Church’s tradition”) to differ from Zonaras’. That explanation, according to Metallinos, is that “the Church has two methods of governing and correcting, namely acrivia…and economia…According to this saint, the Second Ecumenical Council kept the (previous) Canon partially, acting in accordance with economia and concession…” Similarly, Archbishop Chrysostomos often resorts to the concept of oikonomia (economia) to explain interpretations or applications of the Canons differing from his view of the “general rule.”

The conservative school sees the Canons as an integrated whole without any true internal contradiction. Any apparent contradictions between canons or between interpreters of them are quickly resolved by an ad hominem, unexplained, determination of which interpreter is “truly” Orthodox. We are not told what Orthodox means in this context in any meaningful, non-circular way. There is no need for any theory of amendment, nor any hierarchy of authority among canons, nor any distinction between changeable and unchangeable canons. There is, however, a real utility in the theory of oikonomia to explain inconsistencies between canons or between canon and practice. Most importantly, there is also an admission of the need to understand the patristic tradition and the historical context underlying the canons and the Church’s past applications of them. What is lacking is an explanation of how one determines which canonists are validly “immersed in the tradition” and which are not. The whole conservative approach thus begs the ecclesiological question that canons, in part, seek to answer: Who is, or is not, “Orthodox?”

B. THE MODERATES

“Non-conservative” Orthodox canonists and theologians offer a variety of approaches. While space prohibits thoroughly subcategorizing them here, a discernible spectrum of views exists within this “moderate” or “non-conservative” camp. The ends of the spectrum can be described as the “legalistic” and the “non-legalistic.”

1. THE LEGALISTIC VIEWPOINT

A good place to begin survey of the “legalistic” end of the “moderate” spectrum is Bishop Kallistos Ware, who has been described by Archbishop Demetrios of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of North America as “perhaps the most knowledgeable, sensitive, and articulate spokesman for Orthodox Christianity in the West.” In his standard introduction to Orthodoxy, The Orthodox Church, Bishop Kallistos describes the Orthodox canonical understanding in this way:

Orthodox, while reverencing this inheritance from the past, are also well aware that not everything received from the past is of equal value…nor is everything received from the past necessarily true …It is absolutely essential to question the past…It is necessary to avoid alike the error of the ‘Old Believers’ and the error of the ‘Living Church’: the one party fell into an extreme conservatism which suffered no change whatever in traditions, the other into spiritual compromises which undermined Tradition…True Orthodox fidelity to the past must always be a creative fidelity; for true Orthodoxy can never be satisfied with a barren ‘theology of repetition’, which, parrot-like, repeats accepted formulae without striving to understand what lies behind them…The Orthodox conception of Tradition is…not a dead acceptance of the past but a living discovery of the Holy Spirit in the present. Tradition, while inwardly changeless (for God does not change), is constantly assuming new forms, which supplement the old without superceding them.

Like the conservatives, Bishop Ware describes a historically and temporally contextual understanding of Church “law,” albeit one less literalistic and rigorous. Unlike the conservatives, he adopts two categorical dichotomies in describing Orthodox Tradition that are commonly found among modern canonists: 1. unchangeable dogmatic definitions of ecumenical councils vs. changeable disciplinary ecumenical canons; 2. canons of ecumenical councils vs. less binding canons of local councils.

In this, he is joined by Dr. Lewis Patsavos, Professor of Canon Law at Holy Cross Greek Orthodox School of Theology. Dr. Patsavos adds that, as to amendment of disciplinary canons, “only a synod of equal or greater importance than the one that promulgated the legislation can effect the transaction.” He goes on to state that “ A mechanical knowledge of the law is no help. What is necessary is an understanding of the spirit of the law, which can only be attained by understanding the legislator’s reason and purpose for issuing the law.” He recommends four approaches to interpreting these “laws”: 1. grammatical or linguistic interpretation; 2. logical interpretation which examines the logical relationships within the parts of each “law”; 3. historical interpretation (as with the thinkers discussed above); 4. systematic interpretation which examines the logical relationships between various “laws. With respect to the issue of baptisms performed by non-Orthodox denominations, Patsavos’ view is clearly at odds with the conservatives. He relies on the mainstream view that while only sacraments performed by Orthodox ministers are usually “valid,” the Orthodox Church has, through oikonomia, treated some non-Orthodox baptisms as “valid.” He lists those of “Monophysites and Nestorians,” and those of Roman Catholics as “valid.” As authority for this he cites Canon VII of Constantinople I and Canon 95, Penthekte (Trullo). He gives no reason for the differing practice he reports of Monophysites and Nestorians being received by mere confession of Orthodox faith, while Catholics are “usually requested…to undergo Holy Chrismation.” Protestants are apparently located farther away on this spectrum. In their case, “According to exactness, the baptism of Protestants is invalid…Current practice recognizes the validity of Protestant baptisms performed with the Trinitarian formula, but requires the performance of Holy Chrismation.”

Another distinguished contemporary Orthodox canonical specialist is Archbishop Peter L’Huiller, whose book The Church of the Ancient Councils-The Disciplinary Work of the First Four Ecumenical Councils is widely considered the authoritative work on its subject. His complex, scholarly approach is similar to those of Patsavos and Bishop Ware and may hence also be characterized as toward the “legalist” end of the “moderate” spectrum, although he shares some characteristics of the “non-legalists” described below. For example, he is comfortable considering ecumenical canons as “the core of Church Law in the Christian East”, and, contradicting the conservatives, he cites with approval Zonaras’ classification of canons according “to an order of the weightiness of the sources.”

Archbishop Peter assumes throughout his work that councils legislate “laws” governing the church. Hence, he is concerned with serious scholarly study of mens legislatoris:

The understanding of the ancient canons does not interest just the historians of institutions but also all Orthodox practitioners of canon law, sine the canons; stipulations constitute the core of all legitimate law now in force. The point of all interpretations is obviously to determine the exact meaning of each canon. Me must, therefore, investigate the intention of the legislator, the mens legislatoris…Research must be concerned as much with the historical context as with the canonical text itself; we must carefully investigate what the lawgiver wanted to correct, suppress, add, or simply call to mind.

To be sure, Archbishop Peter acknowledges the dangers inherent in automatically applying “to canon law principles of interpretation established by specialists in civil law,” and he cautions against understanding all canon law as “law in the proper sense which has general application.” He sets forth a methodology by which to determine if a canon is to be considered such a “law” or merely an “application strictly limited to a moment in church history.” To this, he adds that canons may “lose their force” either fully or partially, and that “economy excludes by nature an automatic application of analogy,” i.e., that oikonomia prohibits rote application of a canon or canons to any situation not precisely the same as the one producing the canon. In this, he appears to understand oikonomia less as a legalistic dispensatio than as the overarching principal of managing the church in good order. In this particular respect he corresponds more with the non-legalist group described below, but otherwise analyzes canonical problems in legal terminology a la Patsavos. Moreover, as will be seen below, he can still be found using the term oikonomia in the dispensatio sense to denote an ad hoc act of liberality towards heretics.

As to the recognition of non-Orthodox baptisms, for example, Archbishop Peter’s position is reflected in his brief discussion of The Rudder, and in his commentary on Canon VII, Constantinople I, he describes the value of The Rudder to be “first and foremost, valuable witness for the understanding of the milieu in which it was formed.” He considers any belief in the dogmatic infallibility of The Rudder a “manifest exaggeration,” particularly in connection with St. Nikodemos’ position on the invalidity of Roman Catholic baptism. Here he takes serious issue with the conservatives’ rote reliance on Nikodemos and his Rudder. In his commentary on Canon VII of Constantinople I, the archbishop refers to Macedonians being received into the Church without rebaptism “by economy.” Also, in a footnote to the introduction to his book, Archbishop Peter accepts the “hierarchical view” of canonical authority that “the canons issued or approved by the General Councils cannot be abrogated or modified except by another General Council.” As a result, he fits more within the “legalist” end of the “moderate” school, rather than with the non-legalists discussed below.

Finally, the canonical views of Patriarch Bartholomew Archondonis of Constantinople require mention. These correspond closely to those of Bishop Ware and Archbishop Peter. In an article entitled “A Common Code for the Orthodox Churches,” the Ecumenical Patriarch set out his view that the canons of the Orthodox Church should be codified, and that such a codification “will of necessity be connected with their revision…which will imply the change, fusion, shortening, and even abrogation of some canons.” He accepts the distinction between dogmatic and disciplinary canons, stating that all canons are changeable, with the sole exception of “the fundamental laws of the Church…formulated basically by the Lord and the Apostles, or those which are in accordance with the essence of the Church and are expressions of it.” He cites Basil the Great, Tertullian, Augustin, and Leo the Great as patristic evidence of such alterability, and he frankly acknowledges that some canons contradict each other. He quotes Nicholas Afanasiev thus: “The Church cannot live only by the existing canon law, which is in reality the law of the Byzantine Church supplemented by the decrees of local Churches. The Church has the right to perform creative canonical work at all times, not just at a restricted period of time.”

Importantly, the Ecumenical Patriarch tells us two things about the nature of the evolution over time of the Church’s canonical understanding. First, the actual practice of the Church demonstrates both the need and the permissibility of change because “the Church…guided by the Holy Spirit, follows practices always tending to foster the achievement of her highest purpose, that is to say the salvation of human souls.” Second, changes should be made (or changes in Church praxis should be canonically recognized) only when there is evidence of the usefulness of the change (rather than mere speculation) and urgent necessity (rather than a mere desire to experiment or a mere belief that change is better). Within this wise institutional inertia, evolution is nonetheless inevitable and advisable because the aim is always “serving the salvation and the progress of the peoples,” not slavish obedience to “canons as positive laws of (in)disputable authority for all places and all times.”

2. THE NON-LEGALISTIC APPROACH

As we move further from the legalistic end of the moderate spectrum, we reach a general canonical outlook that is labeled by conservatives as “ecumenist” or “modernist.” It is a viewpoint typified by John H. Erickson and The Eastern Orthodox-Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States (henceforward the “U.S. Consultation,” for brevity’s sake), who are among the conservatives’ most frequent polemical targets. To coin a term based upon Erickson’s writing, we may label this end of the moderate spectrum “non-legalistic.” In “The Orthodox Canonical Tradition” Erickson argues that correct interpretation of canons must reject both legalism and anarchy. Anarchy rather obviously assigns the canonical tradition no value whatsoever, and hence it is only marginally relevant to any canonical study. Therefore, Erickson’s primary argument is:

We Orthodox Christians today desperately need to rediscover the implications of communion for community, lest our much-vaunted ‘spirituality’ and ‘mystical theology’ degenerate into dilettantish escapism, and our church community into that caricature idolized by the legalist and scorned by the anarchist. In this task of rediscovery, the canonist…cannot imitate the legalism of the classic Byzantine canonists for whom it was enough to cite the text, chapter and verse, and then resolve any apparent contradictions by wooden application of certain arbitrary hermeneutical rules- the canon of an ecumenical council takes precedence over one of a local council, a later canon takes precedence over an earlier one, etc. Nor can he simply ignore the canons when it seems expedient, justifying his actions by appeals to pastoral discretion or ‘economy’.

His argument is essentially that the word “canons” is not synonymous with “laws.” In his own words, the canonist: “must go beyond ‘canons’ and ‘canon law’ to the ‘canon’ as that word was understood in the early Church.”

With regard to the meaning of oikonomia, and with respect to the subject of non-Orthodox baptisms, Erickson takes the following positions:

For example, most Orthodox these days would receive a non-Chalcedonian or a Roman Catholic or a mainstream Protestant without (re)baptism,, and most would receive at least non-Chalcedonian clerics in their orders, without (re)ordination. But how is this reception to be explained?…An alternative approach to the question of acceptance or non-acceptance has been particularly prominent in Greek sacramental theology since the eighteenth century. For convenience this approach may be labeled “economic”: because of the prominence which it gives to the term oikonomia or “economy.”

Erickson describes this as an alternative approach by comparison to the “Western,” “Augustinian” approach said to underlie the actions of the seventeenth century Russian church, which recognized the sacraments of “mainstream” non-Orthodox as “valid” but not fully effective or fruitful.

As to oikonomia, he reminds his readers that “The most frequently encountered technical use of the word oikonomia in canonical literature reflects this pastoral orientation: the apportionment or disposition of a penance.” His point is that true oikonomia is much more than the conservative’s or the extreme legalist’s conception of a “departure from or suspension of strict application (akribeia) of the Church’s canons and disciplinary norms…in many respects analogous to the West’s dispensatio.” Indeed, it would be more accurate to say that canons are particular examples of the Church’s oikonomia, rather than that oikonomia is an exception to the Church’s canons.

This general outlook is shared by the Orthodox members of the US Consultation, as reflected in The Quest For Unity, a compilation and publication of various statements by the joint Orthodox-Catholic “US Consultation.” In “an agreed statement on the Lima Document: Baptism, Eucharist, and Ministry,” the US Consultation agreed in 1984 that:

“The presentation of the theological meaning of baptism as renewal of life in Christ, participation in Christ’s death and resurrection, cleansing from sin, the gift of the spirit, incorporation into the body of Christ, and a sign of the Kingdom, sets forth essential elements of faith in regard to this sacrament. Chief among these are affirmation that Christian baptism is in water and the spirit, in the name of the Trinity, and that baptism is an unrepeatable act. … We affirm with the Lima statement that baptism, in its full meaning signifies and effects both ‘participation in Christ’s death and resurrection’ and ‘the receiving of the spirit.’ We further recognize that each of our churches expresses this unity in its rites, although there are significant differences in practice … the Consultation agrees that in the Lima statement we can recognize to a considerable degree the faith of the church in regard to baptism. Because of this agreement, we recommend that our two churches explore the possibility of a formal recognition of each other’s baptism as a sacrament of our unity in the body of Christ, although we acknowledge that any such recognition is conditioned by other factors.”

Likewise, in connection with the proper understanding of the term “oikonomia,” the Consultation, 1976, held that the conservative and moderate-legalist understanding of economy

“as a departure from or suspension of strict application (akribeia) of the Church’s canons and disciplinary norms, in many respects analogous to the West’s dispensatio does not do justice to the genuine whole tradition underlying the concept and practice of economy. The Church of Christ is not a legalistic system whereby every prescription has identical importance, especially when ancient canons do not directly address contemporary issues. Nor can the application of economy make something invalid to be valid, or what is valid to be invalid. Because the risen Christ has entrusted to the Church a stewardship of prudence and freedom to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit about today’s problems of Church unity, a proper understanding of economy involves the exercise of spiritual discernment.”

C. TOWARD “CANONOLOGY”

We should notice several distinctions and similarities here between the conservatives and the other viewpoints. Both the conservative and the legalist-moderate share a view of the canons as “legislation,” and hence they require “oikonomical” theories that are legalistic in nature. Both the traditionalist school and the legalistic end of the moderate spectrum share an understanding of oikonomia as largely a “dispensation” from the rigid application of canonical laws that are assumed to have determinate non-ambiguous meanings. However, the two groups differ in that the conservatives reject the notion of a hierarchy of authority among canons and many of the other legalistic distinctions of the moderates, opting instead for the notion that there is no need for such hierarchies or distinctions because all the canons are really uniform; i.e., there are no contradictions between them that require explanation or adjudication, only exceptions in individual cases via oikonomia. The conservative also believes that many apparent contradictions between canons can be explained by the observer’s insufficient grounding in the “patristic mindset.” In this, the conservative is surprisingly close to the non-legalistic viewpoint which, although acknowledging contradictions between canons, still seeks to harmonize them by some method other than mechanical distinctions between legislating authorities, such as the rule that “a later council may amend or overturn the rulings of a prior one.”

The non-legalists believe that the apparent contradictions within “canon law” are a function of the incomplete historical or theological understanding of the observer, rather than differing opinions or levels of authority among the authorities generating the canons. They believe that historical study and theological understanding should reveal the same theological truth behind the various canons that may appear to contradict one another. Oddly, the ultra-conservative traditionalist at the other end of the spectrum generally shares this view.

While the non-legalist disagrees with the moderate-legalist and the conservative about the use of “oikonomia” as a ready explanation for contradictory canons and as an easy tool to avoid applications of the canon that seem anomalous, the conservative and the moderate-legalist agree on oikonomia and disagree about “legalism” or “hierarchy” as we have described it. The conservative and the non-legalist agree in rejecting “legalism” and “hierarchy,” but disagree about oikonomia. The moderate-legalist and the non-legalist disagree about oikonomia and about legal formalism, but they agree in rejecting the conservative’s rigid understanding of history and his belief that all canons are “unchangeable” and hence, essentially dogmatic.

What all the contemporary Orthodox canonists do agree upon is this: the absolute necessity of understanding the canons within their historical context, and within the totality of the Tradition of the Church revealed in its life, its worship, and its vast corpus of patristic writing. Other Orthodox canonists would agree.

This then is a consensus Orthodox canonical methodology: historical contextual analysis. While disagreeing about many other things, all contemporary authorities agree that a candid examination of the historical context of the canons is useful. On the other hand, at least two things separate these experts’ positions on the contemporary application and understanding of various canons. First, they disagree about the actual historical context of the canons. Second, the three general groups disagree fundamentally (and in a sense, “triangularly”) on what “canon law” means, and on the method of reasoning and the mental categories through which canons are to be understood or systematized. It is conceivable that a sufficiently thoroughgoing examination of history might force agreement not only upon the first subject, substantive historical context, but also upon the second subject of reasoning methodology. One need only assume that the history of how and why the canons themselves were promulgated and used by the Church is relevant to how they should be used and understood by us today.

One last crucial observation is in order. Even those canonists whom we have denominated “legalistic” acknowledge that “canon law” is not to be understood as “law” in the same sense as civil law or other governmental enactment. As such, the very use of the term “law” in connection with the canons is at best confusing, and at worst leads to the idolatry condemned by Patriarch Bartholomew and the pharisaism bemoaned by Metropolitan Vlachos. “Canon law” is an oxymoron resulting from non-Orthodox methods of thinking. There is some support for this statement among all of the contemporary canonists we have cited. Hence, the use of this term should cease. This article instead coins the term “canonology,” i.e., the study of canons. That is what canonists really have been doing and should continue to do. It has nothing to do with law. It has to do with imperfectly translating the true, unknowable, inexpressible, and untranslatable “Canon of Faith” into human language, and then temporally applying it to particular situations, or to case-by-case adjudications. This is the human component of our theandric Church grappling with the challenges of life in this world while still focusing on the eschaton and remaining inspired by the Holy Spirit and in communion with the Trinity. Only insofar as it assists in maintaining that communion and in effecting that salvation, is study of this subject useful. The subject is not law. It is a branch of theology, consisting of both theory and praxis.

D. BAPTISM AND ECCLESIOLOGY RE-EXAMINED CANONOLOGICALLY

It is within this methodological context that Orthodox canonists must analyze canonical disputes over baptism, and all other canonical issues. If, as Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and Professor Afanasive have written “the truth that canons express is in itself absolute, but the content of canons is not this truth itself, but the mode through which this truth must be expressed in a given historical form of the church’s life,” then we must appropriately account for the “given historical form of the church’s life.”

As one example, one might apply this methodology to both the contemporary dispute about non-Orthodox baptism and to the canonical tradition of St. Nikodimos upon which many conservatives rely. This yields interesting insights. A recent ethno-religious study by Dr. Tia Kolbaba of Princeton, the historical works of Bishop Ware, and the sociology of Max Weber and others, are particularly useful in analyzing the relevant historical circumstances. These would begin with the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and end with the compilation in Greece of The Rudder by St. Nikodemos in 1800. This is the period that Sir Steven Runciman describes as “The Great Church in Captivity,” i.e., the period during which the Islamic Ottoman Empire ruled virtually all of the Orthodox Christian world except Russia, Georgia, and Romania. From a Greek perspective, this period was characterized by three important relationships: (1) the relationship between the Greek Orthodox and their Ottoman overlords; (2) the relationship of the Greek Orthodox to the Catholic West; (3) the relations between the Greek Orthodox and free Orthodox nations like Russia.

The relationship between Greeks and Turks was a bad one. The Turkish tradition was epitomized by the “millet system,” whereby subject peoples were treated as ethnic units subject to certain disabilities, and were ruled and manipulated through leaders ostensibly their own, but in reality Turkish puppets, or at best precarious middlemen. From the late 15th century until 1575, the Turks were involved in constant warfare with the Venetians. The first war started in 1463 and lasted 16 years, during which the Venetians were able to occupy Athens in 1466, but only for a short time. Venice and Turkey went to war again in the early 1500s, at which time the Turks conquered Venetian possessions in the southwestern Peloponnesos. Venice, however, retained control of Cyprus, which had been bequeathed to her by the last of the Lusignan Crusader dynasty, beleaguered by unsuccessful but damaging Genovese invasions.

Constant wars over territory between the Venetians and the Turks continued throughout the remainder of the 16th century. During that century, there were no less than two more conflicts that ended in the loss of additional Venetian territory in the Ionian and Eastern Mediterranean. By the 1600’s, the Turks were recognized as a player in European power politics and had treated with France and Austria. In the 17th century, while the Turks initially continued their territorial gains in places like Crete (taken from the Venetians in 1670) and Poland, increasing pressure on them from the north allowed the Venetians to begin turning the tide in the late 17th century. By that time, in addition to Venice in the South, the Turks were also fighting the Austrians and the Russians on the northern frontier.

The constant warfare between the Catholic powers of the West (primarily Venice) and the Ottoman Sultanate gave the indigenous Greek population much opportunity to observe the difference in political style between the two. This was particularly true in areas that passed back and forth between the Venetians and the Turks, such as Crete, Cyprus, the southwestern Peloponnesus and the Ionian Islands. Grand Duke Lukas Notaras’ famous statement that “Better to see the turban of the Turks reigning in the middle of the city than the Latin tiara” accurately summarizes the dominant view of the subject Greek population during the ensuing centuries of Ottoman rule. As an Austrian observed:

The Venetians kept their subjects in Cyprus (like the Genovese theirs in Chios) worse than slaves … After the Turks came, the poor people are freed of their burden, and are equally free, but their masters, who had tortured them, were caught and sold in Turkey.

Similar accounts come from Crete, the Ionian islands, and the Peloponnesos.

Bishop Timothy (Kallistos) Ware has written one of the best descriptions of the everyday relationships between common Greek Orthodox Christians and Roman Catholics in the 1600’s and 1700’s. Ware believes that Italian Catholics living in Greek areas were disproportionately powerful as compared to Orthodox Christians because of the presence of Jesuits and other missionary priests and because of Western economic support. Their influence was increased by their willingness and ability to recruit intelligent young Greeks to study in Italy, since educational opportunities in Greece were extremely limited.

Nonetheless, although an underlying hostility towards the West “is never entirely absent,” relations between Greeks and Latins throughout the 17th Century were “extraordinarily cordial.” Catholics and Orthodox went to confession with each other’s priests, received communion from each other’s priests, used each other’s altars, were accepted as each other’s godparents, and frequently married each other without serious complication. Bishop Ware gives several anecdotal examples from the Ionian islands of Corfu, Zakyntos and Kephallonia, although he cites similar examples in the Aegean Islands of Mykonos, Naxos, and Chios. These local accommodations were largely without sanction by, or even in violation of, the official pronouncements of ecclesiastical authorities.

Bishop Ware ascribes the later deterioration in relations between Greeks and Italians to several factors that combined during the 1700’s to undermine tolerance among Greek common people, and to bring them around to a stricter view of formal Church pronouncements. Initially, there was the Venetian occupation or reoccupation of the Peloponnesos and various islands from 1685 to 1718. Ware agrees with others already cited that, as rulers rather than visiting merchants, the Venetians were far more unpleasant and oppressive than the Turks. For example, the Venetians occupied Chios in 1694 at the invitation of the Latin community, and once in power they treated the Greeks with great severity. “They shut up all their churches, confiscate the goods of many, forbid the Grecian priests the exercise of the function and the administration of the sacraments, and will suffer none but Latins to confess dying Greeks, or to baptize infants.” When they were expelled the following year, the Greeks convinced the Turks that the Venetian merchant community had instigated the invasion. The Turks were thus prevailed upon to deliver to the Greeks all Catholic Church property, and they did not interfere with less formal Greek reprisals against the Italian traders who stayed behind. As long as Italian merchants acted as mercantile intermediaries posing no serious or political threat to the Greek cultural status quo, friendly relations prevailed. When they sought to stay and to rule, resentment and ethnocentrism boiled over quickly. Greek attitudes toward the Venetians in Chios exemplified “the same tolerance and cordiality in the middle of the seventeenth century, followed by the same growing hostility.”

Moreover, by the 1700’s the Turks had long been actively pitting the Orthodox and Catholics against one another. Other factors also were at work. Agents of both the Turks and Catholics constantly influenced patriarchal elections in Constantinople and elsewhere by bribery and intrigue. Throughout the 17th century it was not uncommon to see Ecumenical Patriarchs come and go in the space of weeks, only to return when their party (either pro-Latin or anti-Latin) again gained the upper hand with the Sultan or the synod. For example, Joannikos II, probably with Latin help, held the Patriarchal throne four separate times in less than a decade. The Latins were also secretly obtaining allegiance and even “conversions” from Orthodox prelates everywhere.

Meanwhile, during the 17th and 18th Century, Russia’s star was on the rise. With all four of the original Orthodox patriarchs (Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem) operating under Turkish captivity, the Patriarch of Moscow claimed ever-growing authority as a spokesman for Orthodoxy. He was, after all, the leader of a church larger in population than any of the other four, and he was the only high ranking prelate free of Turkish control. In 1547, Ivan the IV “the Terrible” became Tsar of Russia. He summoned a Russian synod to attempt to conform Russian liturgical practice to that of the Constantinople Church. However, the result of that synod was to determine that the existing Russian practice was correct, whether or not it coincided with the Greek. As Russia grew more powerful, “just as in the middle ages the Orthodox Christians under Arab rule looked to the Byzantine Emperor for protection and the ultimate hope of freedom, so the Orthodox under Turkish rule began to look to the Russian Tsar.” By 1589, the Metropolitan of Moscow was raised to the rank of patriarch with the approval of Jeremias II of Constantinople. In addition, Constantinople recognized the right of the Moscow Patriarch to be elected by his own synod of Russian bishops, independent of Constantinople.

The 1600’s in Russia were marked by conflict and reform within the newly powerful Russian church. The Tsars and Patriarchs provided financial support and political encouragement to Christians under Ottoman rule, and they continued to support the Russian monastery on Mt. Athos, St. Panteleimon, founded in 1169. A council of bishops in Moscow in 1621-22 determined that Latin converts to Orthodoxy must be rebaptized. In 1649, there were anti-foreign riots in Moscow consistent with contemporary suspicion of foreigners and Latins. However, when the reformer Nikon became Patriarch in 1652 at the invitation of Tsar Alexis, he immediately embarked upon attempts to reform the Russian church, including purifying the church from drink and tobacco, and (as Ivan had previously attempted) correcting all of the old Slavonic service books to bring them into accord with Constantinopolitan usage. This produced substantial popular opposition. Nikon’s reforms caused a wholesale schism within the Russian church, with those rejecting these reforms being thenceforward known as “Old Believers.” By 1666, the Nikonite church, rid of its conservative wing of Old Believers, held a council in Moscow that reversed the prior decision on the baptism of Latins, confirming that they could be received by chrismation.

Under Peter the Great, who became Tsar in 1682, the Russian Church continued its liberal accommodation of Latin Christians and its Westernizing tendencies until well into the 1700’s. Ultimately, Peter’s impatience with the comparative traditionalism of the hierarchy of the Russian Church led him to effectively abolish the Moscow Patriarchate. By 1718, he was writing the Patriarch of Constantinople for resolution of such Church issues as how to receive Protestant converts.

Dr. Tia Kolbaba’s book, Byzantine Lists of Latin Errors During the Late Byzantine Period From 1080 to 1453, demonstrates that earlier Orthodox polemic against the West also contained the same combination of religious and a socio-political components Bioshop Ware describes during the later Ottoman period. Kolbaba’s study concludes that the larger the gap was “between the ideal of the universal, eternal empire and reality … all the more tenaciously” did the Orthodox Church hold on to its “ideal of an unchanging church (emphasis added)” Conservative cultural morays were used by Greeks to reinforce their self-image, their ethnicity, and their culture. Religion and politics “were never far apart.” Kolbaba shows how religious polemics advocating “an absolute separation of the sacred from the profane” were really manifestations of a desire to maintain ethnic “separateness.” This separateness assured cultural identity in the face of a crumbling practical world by purifying Greek culture and religion from foreign contamination. To a late Medieval Greek, that contamination might well explain God’s apparent indifference to the Greeks’ dreary plight. In this, Kolbaba cites Max Weber for the proposition that “the sacred … is uniquely unalterable. As a result, it is also uniquely stable in an unstable world.”

Apparently, anti-Latin polemic in the form of lists of their errors waxed and waned in the Greek world relative to the same factors identified by Bishop Ware in his analysis of the cordiality of later relations between ordinary people. Those factors are intense military or political conflict on the one hand, and fear of Latin infiltration or conquest and loss of Greek Orthodox identity on the other. Key is the notion of the ethno-religious survival of Greeks who feared absorption through conquest from without, but more importantly, through subversion from within. Publishing and circulating lists of Latin theological errors was designed to scandalize overly Latinophilic Greeks and to avoid the total cooption of the indigenous population by an affluent, tempting, and visible Latin presence within the Greek world. One of the main conclusions arising from careful study of these lists is that they are “directed less at Latins than at those who considered themselves Orthodox and yet associated with, married, or even share religious services with Latins.”

Dr. Kolbaba’s work identifies several interrelated sociological explanations for the ebb and flow of anti-Latin polemics. First, rigid separation of the sacred and profane within Greek religion and the corresponding emphasis on hierarchical authoritarianism corresponds to an equivalent separation between Greeks and barbarians, Orthodox and Latins. Second, while anti-Latin propaganda certainly increases during times of overt conflict with Catholics (e.g., war with the Normans in the 11th century or the later Venetian and Genoese depredations in the Mediterranean), this only occurs when they represent a real presence within Greek society, a credible “fifth column” with a real chance of contaminating, converting, and “de-Hellenizing” local Greeks. It is this presence, combined with conflict and hard times, that produces the impetus for cultural purification and hence religious puritanism.

The Church’s vacillating view of Latin baptisms prior to and during the 300 years under discussion is another illustration of the pendulum-like nature of anti-Latinism. In describing the 700 years culminating in Cyril V’s 1755 decree condemning Latin baptisms and The Rudder’s 1800 acceptance of it, Ware posits three categories of heterodox Christians based on how they were received into Orthodoxy: by simple public rejection of their previous denomination and its errors; by such abjuration plus chrismation but without rebaptism; and by abjuration, chrismation, and rebaptism. He then observes that:

With an inconsistency more apparent than real, the Orthodox Church has sometimes placed Latin converts in the first class and sometimes in the second or third. As an added complication, the practice of the Russians at any given moment has usually differed from the Greeks: when the Russian Church rebaptized the Latins, the ancient Patriarchates of the east did not, and vice versa.

Rebaptisms occurred from 1054 through 1300 with sufficient frequency to draw Roman protest, but “as a general rule neither Baptism nor Chrismation was considered necessary.” In the late 12th century, a time of Latin/Byzantine military cooperation, Balsamon, the Byzantine canonist, wrote as though neither rebaptism nor chrismation were required. By 1484, immediately after unpopular and failed imperial attempts at church reunification, a more xenophobic council in Constantinople required chrismation of converting Latins, as well as abjuration of previous error, but not rebaptism. This was the Greek “official” rule until the disputes precipitated by Cyril V in the 1750’s, although rebaptisms were performed as early as the mid-1600’s in areas like Corfu and Chios that hosted large and powerful Latin populations. Policies towards rebaptizing the new Protestant Christians varied and were too recent and multifarious to be relevant here, although the Russian Church, in reliance upon a 1718 ruling by Patriarch Jeremias II of Constantinople, received them without rebaptism throughout the reign of Peter the Great and ever after.

While Bishop Ware notes that the Russian and Greek Churches were often at odds over this issue, each flip-flopping more than once, some Russian/Slavic perspectives see this history somewhat differently. For example, in an article published in Russian in 1996, Archmandrite Ambrosius Pogodin argues forcefully that Cyril’s xenophobic decree and St. Nikodemos’ endorsement of it in The Rudder were regressive anomalies “and a repudiation of the beneficial experience of the Russian and other Slavic Churches.” Although his article is unnecessarily cluttered with examples of ill will between Greek and Russian church officials of the era, he does cite Bishop Nikodim Milash of Serbia, professor A.P. Lebedev, and Professor N.F. Kapterev in support of his view of the history of the period.

Pogodin’s “Russian” argument is essentially three-fold. First, Cyril’s decree and The Rudder’s endorsement of it occurred “during the gloomiest period of the Constantinopolitan Patriarchate’s history, when the Church’s decrees…were in substance motivated not by the true needs of the Church, but came about because of ignorance, demagoguery, and extreme chauvinism…” Second, with respect to the same matters, “Not a single Orthodox Church, except the Greek, accepted this decision.” Pogodin points out that the Russian Church uniformly recognized Latin Catholic and Lutheran baptisms as valid since the Russian canon to such effect of 1667. Lastly, as a result, The Rudder’s interpretation regarding the invalidity of all heterodox baptisms cannot have any universal canonical authority.

Bishop Milash puts the matter thus:

“This decision by the above mentioned Council in Constantinople was called for by extraordinary circumstances, which arose in the 18th century in the relations between the Greek and Latin Churches, and was a reaction on the part of the Greek Church towards the aggression against that Church on the part of Latin propaganda. From a formal point of view the motivation for this decision has some basis since the orthodox Church’s canons call for baptism to be performed by triple immersion of the one baptized into the water, and the term baptism itself, is derived from the act of immersion, and the same canons condemn that baptism which was done by a single immersion…by various sects of the first centuries of the Christian Church. But the Church has never condemned that baptism which was done by pouring. Not only that, but the Church itself permitted such a form of baptism in the event of need and considered baptism by means of pouring as not contrary to the apostolic tradition. Therefore, the above-noted decision of the Constantinople Council cannot be considered as binding for the whole Orthodox Church since it is contrary to the practice of the Eastern Church of all centuries and particularly, to the practice of the Greek Church itself from the time of the division of churches to the time of that Council in Constantinople.”

Whether one analyzes the situation using Kolbaba’s perspective, Bishop Ware’s perspective, or the perspective of Russian historians, it is clear that in the Greco-Ottoman world, the second half of the 18th century was a time of intense anti-Western feeling, while it was a time of cordiality with the West in Russia. In both countries, the pendulum had swung several times over the previous centuries between friendship and cooperation with Westerners on the one hand and fear and derision on the other. Religious practices in this regard not only varied from time to time, but from place to place. The late 1700’s of St. Nikodemos were the last high point of anti-Western feeling prior to the Greek revolution of the early 1800’s. This xenophobic era coincided with the beginnings of Greek revolutionary agitation and a new Greek nationalism. As proto-nationalism matured into full-blown revolution, need for military and economic assistance from the West began to reverse the pendulum once again, in part through the highly publicized efforts of philhellenes like Lord Byron. However, the church for which St. Nikodemos was writing had not yet met Byron. It did remember, however, the recent depredations of the Venetians and the Genoese, and the money and intrigues of the Western powers and the Jesuits in patriarchal elections.

E. CANONOLOGY CONCLUDED

Like Max Weber, cited by Kolbaba, the German sociologist Georg Simmel discovered a relationship between the socioeconomic context of cultural and religious groups and their perception of the necessity of rigid faithfulness to conservative rituals and beliefs that differentiate them from other groups. Simmel believed that:

As the size of the group increases, the common features that fuse its members into a social unit become ever fewer. For this reason … a smaller minimum of norms can, at least, hold together a large group more easily than a small one. Qualitatively speaking, the larger the group is, usually the more prohibitive and restrictive the kinds of conduct which it must demand of its participants in order to maintain itself.

Conversely, the smaller the cultural group, the larger the number of more specific norms required to hold the group together.

He goes on to say that “the more general the norm and the larger the group in which it prevails, the less does the observance of the norm characterize the individual and the less important is it for him – whereas its violation, on the whole, has consequences which are especially grave, which single out the individual from his group.” This principle operates with respect to the maintenance of group cohesion, and combined with the first principle, sheds light on the cultural norms of large but powerless and threatened groups, like the Orthodox subjects of the Turkish Sultan.

Simmel posits an even more relevant theory in connection with what he calls “the stranger.” The phenomenon of the stranger (in this case we should think of the Venetian or other Western interloper into Greco-Ottoman society) crystallizes “the unity of nearness and remoteness involved in every human relation.” The more permanent a stranger becomes, the more he stands out. If he is merely a trader who facilitates interaction between the resident culture and outsiders, he generates less resentment. If he chooses to stay, or worse to exert control, his “strangeness” is amplified, producing a greater need to emphasize norms defining him (and his associates) as “other.”

Both history and sociology, then, teach that it is human nature (at least in pre-industrial Eastern Orthodox societies) for groups threatened with infiltration and subversion by more powerful neighbors to respond by morally marginalizing them. The intensity of the response is proportionate to the proximity (culturally and geographically) and power of the stranger and the perceived precariousness of the indigenous culture’s position. For example, the Muslim Turks, posed little danger of appearing innocuous and attractive to the Greek Orthodox, and required less expenditure of cultural capital to reinforce their “otherness” and to protect Hellenic culture from being unwittingly absorbed by them. Catholic Christians who claimed to be coreligionists, and with whom the Greeks’ only contact was through resident émigré trading communities posed slightly more danger of not being recognized as “strange,” but not enough to draw reprisals in most instances. However, “coreligionist” Latins who planned to stay, and who ingratiated themselves into the highest levels of politics (ecclesiastic and civic) and into the most mundane community activities, posed the greatest threat of confusion and amalgamation.

It is to be expected, then, that in their temporal aspects, the Church and her canons as theandric organism and theandric manifestation, respectively, will react differently to “strangers” depending upon the circumstances. They not only will, but should, prescribe rigorous and conservative norms in proportion to the threat posed by such “strangers” to the church’s integrity and very existence at that particular moment in time. Consistent with canonology, The Rudder’s particular treatment of the Canons concerning heterodox baptisms should be understood as one such response, one that coincided with the historical zenith of a real need in Greece for rigorous and exclusive norms. However, the conservative’s rote application today of this one canonical precedent or understanding to other temporal and spatial realities is not only misplaced, it is not itself “canonical.”

This “real” justification for The Rudder’s strict rule championed by conservatives can be easily found in some of Nikodemos’ own anti-Latin comments. For example, Nikodemos says Canon 72 of Trullo, dealing with mixed marriages between Orthodox and heterodox, prohibits such marriages because “it is not right to mix things immiscible, nor to let a wolf get tangled up with a sheep.” Evidently, there was some perceived need in the late 7th Century for such a proscription, since the previous Ecumenical Councils did not see fit to promulgate such an edict with respect to lay people. The closest corollary is Canon 14 of Chalcedon prohibiting mixed marriages by tonsured chanters and readers. Interestingly, it is in this same section of The Rudder that St. Nikodemos’ notions of contamination and “intermingling” reappear as stern anti-Latin warnings:

“Let those prelates fear the penance of the present Council who are in the island provinces and all those regions where there are Latins; and by no means and on no account whatsoever let them allow a Latin man to marry an Orthodox woman, or a Latin woman to take an Orthodox man to husband. For what communion can there be of the Orthodox party with the heretic (emphasis ours)?”

The same fear of Latinization recurs in The Rudder’s treatment of baptism. Canon 95 of Trullo picks up where Canon 7 of Constantinople left off and lists various heretics and whether they must be “re-baptized” to be accepted. In his commentary to Canon 7 of I Constantinople, and in interpreting this later Trullo Canon, Nikodemos asserts that Manicheans, Valentinians, Marcionists, Eunomians, and Montanists must be rebaptized, whereas Nestorians, Eutychians, Dioscorites, and Severians need only to abjure in writing their heresies and leaders. In support of this he cites Balsamon’s reply 29 to the same effect. However, it is less than clear that this is what the Canon says. It is, as Nikodemos says, identical with Canon 7 of Constantinople I with respect to the heresies described therein. However, with respect to all of the heresies that have been added in this Canon, there is no explicit statement requiring baptism. Rather, as to all these, the statement is made:

“And the Marcionites, amnd Valentinians, and Marcionites and all of similar heresies, they have to give us certificates and anathematize their heresy, the Nestorians, and Nestorius, and Eutyches and Dioscorus, and Severus, and the other exarches of such heresies, and those who entertain their beliefs, and all the aforementioned heresies, and this they are allowed to partake of holy Communion.”

Nikodemos interpolated that the requirement of anathema and certification is in addition to what is required of the other heretics listed earlier in the canon, who are accepted “as Greeks.” In fact, the text of the canon appears so liberal with respect to admission of the newly listed heretics that Balsamon, even in his day, believed it to have been somehow corrupted earlier.

Here Nikodemos’ frustration with the Latins appears again, although it seems a bit gratuitous and out of place:

So, then, get it into your head and understand from this that both heretics and Latins, when they join the Orthodox Eastern Church, ought of their own accord and on their own account to seek to have themselves baptized, and not have to be urged to do so by the Orthodox.

Nikodemos points out that the Carthaginian Canon (presumably Canon 66) was confirmed and ratified by the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Trullo (its Canon II), and thus became ecumenical. He adds that Trullo also ratified St. Basil’s canons, and he quotes St. Basil’s remark to St. Cyprian to the effect that a baptism is insufficient for remission of sins when “the one baptizing is not an Orthodox.” He follows St. Basil in finding invalid the baptisms of both schismatics and heretics, but arguing that oikonomia is permissible in the case of schismatics “in behalf of the multitude.”

St. Nikodemos admits that “one might rightfully wonder” how the Trullo synod could simultaneously approve the Canon of Carthage allegedly condemning all heretical baptism, and its own Canon 95 that extended the liberality of I Constantinople. Nikodemos also acknowledges that Canon 7 of Constantinople is just as inconsistent as Canon 95, Trullo, with his interpretation of the Apostolic Canons and the Canons of Carthage. Having identified a significant portion of the problem, St. Nikodemos gives us his solution:

“In order to have an easily understandable solution of this perplexity there is need that one should know beforehand that two kinds of government and correction are in vogue in the Church of Christ. One kind is call Rigorism (akribeia); the other kind is called Economy and Moderatism (oikonomia); with which the economists of the spirit promote the salvation of souls, at times with the one, and at times with the other kind. So the fact is that the holy apostles in their aforesaid canons, and all the saints who have been mentioned, employed Rigorism, and for this reason they reject the baptism of heretics completely, while, on the other hand, the two Ecumenical Councils employed Economy … because in the times especially of the Second Council, the Arians and the Macedonians were at the height of their influence, and were not only very numerous but also very powerful, and were close to the kings, and close to the nobles and to the senate. Hence, for one thing, in order to attract them to Orthodoxy and correct them the easier, and, for another thing, in order to avoid the risk of infuriating them still more against the church and the Christians and aggravating the evil, those divine fathers thus managed the matter economically.”

St. Nikodemos goes on to state that there was “a second reason” akin to the ground of oikonomia why the Ecumenical Councils were more liberal toward accepting the baptisms of certain heretics:

“This is the fact that those heretics whose baptisms they accepted also rigorously observed the kind and the matter of the baptism of the baptism of the orthodox, and were willing to be baptized in accordance with the form of the Catholic church.”

Nikodemos even gives the example of the Arians in support of this analysis because, although they considered the Son and Holy Spirit lesser members of the Trinity, they did perform triple immersion and at least recite the names of each of the members of the Trinity.

St. Nikodemos well understood the importance of these Canons to contemporary treatment of Latins:

All this theory which we have been setting forth here is not anything superfluous; on the contrary, it is something which is most needful, … especially today on account of the great controversy and the widespread dispute which is going on in regard to the baptism of the Latins, not merely between us and the Latins, but also between us and the Latin-minded (otherwise known as Latinizers). So, following what has been said, since the form of the Apostolic Canon demands it, we declare that the baptism of the Latins is one which falsely is called baptism, and for this reason it is not acceptable or recognizable either on grounds of Rigorism or on grounds of Economy. It is not acceptable on grounds of Rigorism: (1st) because they are heretics. That the Latins are heretics there is no need of our producing any proof for the present. … wherefore we must not even think of uniting with them. So, it being admitted that the Latins are heretics of longstanding, it is evident … that they are unbaptized, in accordance with the assertions of the St. Basil the Great above cited, and … having become laymen as a result of their having been cut off from the Orthodox Church, they no longer have with them the grace of the Holy Spirit with which Orthodox priests perform the mysteries (emphasis added).”

The second reason that St. Nikodemos gives why the Latins are unbaptized is because they “do not observe the three immersions.” He specifically cites Eustratios Argenti’s book in support of this notion. Interestingly, Nikodemos anticipates the logical question of what happens if a Latin does use three immersions. His response is that if “anyone among the Latins or the Latin-minded should put forward a claim to the three invocations of the Holy Trinity, he must not pretend to have forgotten those things which he was told further above by sacred Firmilian … that those super godly names are idol and ineffective when pronounced by the mouth of heretics (emphasis added.)”

Finally, he answers what he knows will be yet another Latin objection, i.e., that Latins had been accepted into Orthodoxy by chrismation alone for centuries. His response is that the Church, for some period of time, “wished to employ some great economy with respect to the Latins,” based upon the example of the Second Ecumenical Council (I Constantinople). In support of his argument that such acceptance could only take place by oikonomia, he argues the use of chrismation to accept Latins to its logical extreme:

“We reply in simple and just words: That it is enough that you admit that she used to receive them in chrism (alone). So they are heretics. For why the chrism if they were not heretics?”

This entire argument is often circular, and certainly less than clear. For example, it is odd that the Apostolic Canons and the local canons of Carthage provide the “general rule” while three Ecumenical Councils (I Nicaea, I Constantinople, and Chalcedon) are “limited exceptions.” Also, Nikodemos understands the “form of the ritual” to be a “separate” reason for recognizing the validity of certain heretic baptisms, aside from application of oikonomia. One might expect him rather to use form as a justification for extending oikonomia. He does not. His explanation for the simultaneous approval by Trullo of mutually exclusive canons is similarly unsatisfying, but most disturbing is his vitriolic attack on Latin baptism, compared to his two-fold apology for Arian baptism. Arian baptisms were considered valid by application of oikonomia because they were so many. As a separate (and confusing) “non-oikonomical” reason, although they are non-Trinitarian heretics, they at least baptize in the name of the Trinity by triple immersion. Yet, St. Nikodemos says that even Latins who are baptized by triple immersion in the name of the Trinity are not validly bapized “either on grounds of Rigorism or on grounds of Economy.” The only sense one can make of this glaring inconsistency is by reference to the temporal threat to the church from the Latins, and more importantly from the Latin-minded Latinizers.

St. Nikodemos’ anti-Latin comments betray a fundamental discomfort with the notion of making reception into the Orthodox Church of his day an easy matter. Even in all of the instances where rebaptism was not required, Nikodemos regards chrismation as required, when the canons do not so state. His insistence upon chrismation in those circumstances may serve the subliminal purpose of emphasizing the “separateness” of the heterodox. To say so is not to diminish the ecclesiological “validity” of any such purpose, at that point in time.

It is, indeed, a fallacy to regard any sociological, psychological, or cultural justification for a canon as per se invalid. Many Christians engage in a similar fallacy when they regard scripture as “the word of God” rather than as the work of men inspired by God. In both instances, the fallacy arises from overlooking the theandric nature of the work of the Apostolic Church in this world, including the scripture and the canons she has produced. The 21st century Orthodox theologian, Father John Chryssavgis makes a similar point about the importance of context in any theological exercise:

“Now we may read texts that cross cultures and cut through centuries, but we must always remember the context and the culture in which these were first written. Church history, indeed human history is always cultural. A denuded, a-cultural history is inconceivable and impossible. ‘That which has been believed everywhere, always, and by all’ concerning the Christian faith, cannot be properly understood or even arguably denied without an estimation and appreciation of the entire Patristic Tradition as this has been expressed at different times and in different places. For Patristic theology is inescapably contextual and historical conditioned in respect of its catholicity, simply reminding us of the need to interpret that which is received, to incarnate or ‘flesh it out’ in historical context.”

Doesn’t this recognition, though, leave us without logical, predicable, and consistent principles with which to govern the work of the Church and evaluate the “validity” of those groups who claim to be part of it? Does this analysis not, in effect, leave us “rudderless?” The answer is yes and no. To the extent that the church does have centuries of canonical precedents to guide its present course, the answer is: “No, there are guiding principles,” in the same way that prior case-law provides precedents for decision-making in Anglo-American common law jurisprudence. To the extent that those precedents cannot be applied woodenly and without regard for their imperfect human contexts, as laws (nomoi), the answer is: “Yes, to that extent we are rudderless, or better said, free.” The matter is not simple. If it were, one might wonder exceedingly at why Christ left us no such compendium of statutes, rules, or (dare we say it) laws (nomoi). The fact is He did not. The Holy Apostles did not either, at least as far as we yet know.

In steering between rudderlessness on the one hand, and slavish adherence to precedents applied in procrustean fashion to inapposite situations on the other, canonology can serve at least two functions. First, as the sociologist Alvin Gouldner did for Marxism, or as Max Weber did for modern western Capitalism, it can turn the criteria and critiques of any particular canonical consciousness or system on itself, exposing where the system’s incarnation (worldly apparatus) begins to conflict with the pure theory from which it springs. Second, it can view a past canonical consciousness in its own historical context, and thereby attempt to reify the absolute (theic) Truth spoken of by Patriarch Bartholemew, merely by identifying and understanding its historical, and relative (andric) component. The first endeavor might be called reflexive Canonology. It seeks to refine the canonical consciousness by revealing its practical inadequacies and inconsistencies when compared against the world it sought to create or ideate.

The second is a form of apophatic theology, seeking by understanding and transcending the relative and historical, to approach, but not to rationalize, the inherently supra-rational Divine energy that gives life and form to the Church through the Holy Spirit. It is a fundamental tenet of Orthodoxy that The Divine Nature is unfathomable, and that God is “known” (or better said, “apprehended”) only incompletely in this life, through His uncreated Divine Energies. Neither of the two Canonological methods described disputes the validity or authority of each particular canonical manifestation or incarnation within human history. On the contrary, this method assumes that each such incarnation of the Truth was “true” and “valid,” if it was the real and true reflection of the Church’s canonical consciousness at that point in time.

One exercise in the reflexive method of Canonology would be to take St. Nikodemos’ own canonical principles (the primary source of authority for the conservative viewpoint) and apply them to his substantive interpretations of the canons, so as to expose ways in which his system is constructed at odds with its own avowed norms. For example, Nikodemos believes that the Bible is of greater weight than any canon, and that a canon of an Ecumenical Council controls over local or regional ones. If we apply to him his own methodology, we discover dissonance that may help us refine our own canonical understanding.

St. Nikodemos’ theory, insofar as we can deduce it from his comments on specific canons, is based, at least in part, upon the higher authority of the Apostolic Canons. Otherwise, the more liberal treatment of heretical baptisms found in Canons 8 and 19 of Nicaea I and Canon 7 of Constantinople I would be the rule, and stricter treatment the exception. Yet, the Apostolic Canons are not “Apostolic” (in the sense Nikodemos believed), but regional in character. Hence, by Nikodemos’ own analysis, Nicaea and Constantinople would be the true rule and strict rejection of heretical baptism the true exception. This does not mean that Nikodemos was “wrong.” It only means that he was not universally, and eternally, and logically, “right.” It may only mean that the historical circumstances of the Church in his era tended to produce his method of interpretation, and, that perhaps then, his interpretation was “best” for the time being.

Similarly, St. Nikodemos admits that any canon must be subordinate to Holy Scripture. Applying, his formulation to his own conclusions produces more dissonance. What does one make of the exclusivistic ecclesiology of St. Nikodemos’ canonical system when compared to St. Paul’s formulation of the Body of Christ and its constituent members in his letter to the Ephesians? Does dissonance not result when we compare St. Nikodemos’ canonical understanding with Matthew 18:20, “For wherever two or three are gathered in my name, I am there also.” Paul, in Ephesians 1:22-23 tells us that God the Father gave Christ to be “head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Paul also tells us that no one can call Jesus “Lord” but by power of the Holy Spirit. 1st Corinthians 12:11-13 agrees with Ephesians that “we” were all baptized into one body. Again, the circularity of any resulting argument or understanding can only be solved by directly defining who “we” are. 1st Corinthians 12:24-28 says “but God composed the body, having given greater honor to that part that lacks it, that there should be no schism in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or if one of the members is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually. And God has appointed these in the church …”

In light of these scriptural references, the ultimate canonical authority, can any council or canon deny that those who call upon Jesus as Lord do so through the Holy Spirit? Can anyone deny that two or three people who honestly believe themselves to be Christians do not become among His body when they call upon His name in faithful unison? If such people are, in that sense, in the Spirit and of the Body, and if they have been baptized, how is it that they have not been baptized into the Body of Christ? Canons and councils cannot answer these questions ontologically because:

“The Divine Nature, whatever it may be in Itself, surpasses every mental concept. For It is altogether inaccessible to reasoning and conjecture, nor has there been found any human faculty capable of perceiving the incomprehensible; for we cannot device a means of understanding inconceivable things.”

The second, apophatic, method of Canonology, is related to the first. Viewing St. Nikodemos’ canonical construct as only one incarnation of divine/human truth within a particular temporality helps avoid overemphasizing the andric, rather than the theic component. Nikodemos, an acknowledged saint of the church, led a battle for ethnic and religious survival against Turkish corruption on one hand, and the threat of Latin aggression and absorption on the other. His ecclesiology and canonical consciousness had to account for those human components. That it did so is precisely why his views of heterodox baptism are opposite those of the Russian/Slavic churches, which faced no such exigencies. Non-rationalistic Eastern Orthodox theology requires us to understand clearly that both canonical consciousnesses were equally “valid.” Reason is not comfortable spanning such apparent contradictions, but canonists must do so. An “ecumenist” citing the Russian practice as prima facie authority for how the Church should receive baptized converts would be just as unreflective as a “conservative” mechanistically citing The Rudder for the opposite proposition, and just as wrong.

There are probably many valid hypotheses for reconciling the apparently contradictory views about baptism of the Russian vs. the Greek Church, or the Ecumenical Councils vs. the Apostolic Canons. The one chiefly suggested by this article is that different canonical incarnations of the Truth are required by temporal exigencies of the Church, and it is a mistake to try to argue away the inconsistencies logically or to solve them by arranging canons hierarchically. It is also a mistake to make of them laws of universal and timeless application rather than case-specific, temporally limited, adjudications.

When we refuse to value-judge or artificially prioritize apparently conflicting canonical incarnations, contemplation of the fundamental truth expressed in each of them becomes possible. The contemplation of which we speak involves a tension between maintaining the pure doctrine of the faith against threat of adulteration and realizing the Body of Christ on earth in its fullest possible manifestation to most fully inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth. Walking the fine line of equilibrium within that tension is a difficult task. “Strait is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life, and few are they who find it. [Matthew 7:14].”

� For example, nomocanons came into use as governmental codifications or expressions of church rules.

� Of course, by Eastern Orthodox, we refer to the Christian denomination that considers Roman Catholicism to have split from it in the middle ages. The conventional date given for this “Great Schism” is 1054. There is renewed interest in Orthodox Christianity among both Catholics and Protestants. The author wishes to express his deep appreciation to all those who helped make this article possible, including my teacher and mentor, Fr. Patrick Viscuso, who spent countless volunteer hours educating me and providing me with difficult to find source materials, Fr. Joseph Allen and the entire faculty of the St. Stephen’s Program in Orthodox Theology, Fr. John Kaloudis of the IOCC who read earlier manuscripts with care, Professor Lewis Patsavos who read the manuscript and made several helpful suggestions, and all the priests and monks who contributed to this work and to my study over the years. This article should not be read as representing the views of any of these friends, except to the extent that it is deemed profound or useful. In all other respects, and particularly with respect to any errors, I am solely responsible.

� Archbishop Chrysostomos of Etna, Contemporary Eastern Orthodox Thought: The Traditionalist Voice (Etna, Cal.: The Center for Traditionalist Orthodox Studies, 1988).

� Hereinafter we will use the terms “heterodox” and “non-Orthodox” to denote those religious organizations who consider themselves Christian but who do not place themselves under the administrative authority of any Orthodox bishop. For our purposes here, an Orthodox bishop will be defined as a bishop in full communion with the Patriarch of Constantinople. Without such a definition, our arguments become circular and our language confusing. We should note that such definitions are, in a sense, matters of linguistic and logical convenience, in that many self-identified Christians who we would not thus define as Orthodox claim to be just as “orthodox” or even just as “Orthodox” as anyone else. In fact, the whole matter of definition begs some of the very ecclesiological questions raised by this article. It is odd how rarely this linguistic observation appears to have been made in Orthodox literature. This is why we analogize it to Political Science’s “third rail” or Psychology’s “white elephant.”

� See William J. Chriss, “St. Nikodemos and The Rudder Concerning Heterodox Baptisms,” (unpublished, 2003).

� http://www.orthodoxinfo.com

� See http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/intro

� See http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism awareness

� Rev. George Metallinos, Ph.D., D.Th.; I Confess One Baptism ( Daphne, Greece:Paul’s Monastery Press, 1992).

� I have adopted the phonetic translation “Nikodemos,” which I consider closer to the original Greek, as opposed to the more common latinized version of “Nicodemus.” “Nikodimos” might be more phonetically correct, but might also cause confusion by being so different from the dominant latinized translation. “Hagiorite” is a transliteration based on the Greek name for Mount Athos, the Holy Mountain (Hagion Oros), where St. Nikodemos lived and worked as a monk. Hence, one could as easily refer to him as “St. Nikodemo