The Holy Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council
Our Church remembers the Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Council this Sunday and presents them to to us as examples to imitate their faith and their commitment to Christ and His Church.
The Fathers are the infallible criteria of revealed truth and orthodox doctrine. They followed the truth and path and experience of that which was lived and taught by the Apostles, Apostolic Fathers and the succeeding Fathers of the Orthodox Catholic Church.
The criteria of truth in the Orthodox Church is the experience and teaching of those holy men, who through the cleansing of their passions, acquired illumination and the mind of Christ, and who, through their ascetic labours and struggles, achieved deification or union with God.
Orthodoxy is not a system of dogmas, a rational system of religious philosophy which, if one simply accepts, is saved. The dogmas of the Orthodox Church are expressions of revealed truth; they appeal to our intelligence and strike a deep cord in our heart. But one is not saved by simply accepting Orthodoxy, as a system of thoughts and beliefs, but by living these beliefs in his daily life; by using them as guides and helps in order to cure our fallen human nature which we have inherited from our common ancestors, Adam and Eve. We are called to acquire and experience the same revelation and Grace that the Holy Fathers and Saints of Christ. Just as one does not become a doctor, simply by studying and accepting in theory various medical practices and even by passing his medical courses at the University summa cum laude, but only by successfully applying them in his treatment of the sick and afflicted.
This is why, during the Baptismal service in the Orthodox Church the Priest prays that God, will implant him or her who is about to be baptized as a plant of truth in His Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and establish him or her upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, who having experienced real and true unity with God, are the ultimate criteria of revealed truth. He who is baptized in this way, is called to live and grow within this truth attaining to the glory of God, to the full measure of the stature of Christ, as St. Paul says.
The doctrines the Fathers expounded do not exhaust the fullness of revealed truth as experienced by the saints, since they only point to, through created words and concepts, uncreated and eternal truth which can only be indicated to those who have not experienced it. Thus the dogmas of the Church are only signposts on the spiritual roadmap leading to the Kingdom of God, showing the path which one is to follow in order to gain true union with God, and to experience the revelation of the saints.
Thus the dogmas of the Church are only signposts on the spiritual roadmap leading to the Kingdom of God, showing the path which one is to follow in order to gain true union with God, and to experience the revelation of the saints.
The Holy Fathers of the Church gathered in Council not to search for divine truth, since they were actively living and experiencing it, but to put forth in the best way possible unerring doctrine and guidelines for those who had not as yet experienced it, so that they might achieve it and not be led away from this truth through false and heretical teachings. Let us therefore know and live our faith.
With love, Fr. John P. Angelis
