Synod of Jerusalem (1672)
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The Synod of Jerusalem was convened by Orthodox Patriarch Dositheos Notaras in March 1672. Because tit took place at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, it is also called the Synod of Bethlehem.
Name, date and location
The Synod of Jerusalem is also called Synod of Bethlehem, because the synod took place at the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem. The synod took place in 1672.[1]
Calvinist controversy
In 1629, a small book, attributed to Cyril Lucaris, the Patriarch of Constantinople, and commonly referred to as the Confession of Cyril Lucaris, was published in Latin at Geneva. It contained an eighteen-point summary of beliefs that conformed with Calvinist teaching. French, English and German translations appeared in the same year. A Greek version called Eastern Confession of the Christian Faith appeared in Constantinople in 1631.[2] In view of this book, Lucaris has been accused of adopting in his book Calvinistic views and asserting that Calvinism was in fact the faith of the Eastern Church. His Orthodox defenders claim that the book was a forgery. Cyril himself verbally denied authorship, but did not disavow it in writing.[3]
Refutation of Calvinism
The Synod refuted the Confession of Lucaris article by article,[2] seeking to put an end to the Calvinists' theses of unconditional predestination and of justification by faith alone, and to reassert traditional Orthodox doctrines about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and the fate of the soul after death, which some commentators have regarded as substantially the same as the Roman Catholic views of transubstantiation and personal eschatology.[4]
Against both the Roman Catholic Church and most Protestants, the Synod affirmed that the Holy Ghost proceeds from God the Father alone and not from both Father and Son.[5] This rejection of the Filioque clause was not unwelcome to the Turks, though it does not mean that the decisions were made under political pressure from the Ottoman Empire. Protestant writers say that the eastern hostility to Calvinism had been fanned by the Jesuits.[6]
In their correspondence with the 18th-century Non-Juror Anglican bishops, the Eastern Patriarchs insisted on acceptance of the Synod's teaching on transubstantiation.[7]
Decisions
The synod rejected the doctrine of the Protestant Reformers, and also attempted to "articulate the dogmatic heritage of [Eastern] Orthodoxy in face of the dispute between Catholics and Protestants."[1]
The synod affirmed "the teaching role of the the church and therefore of tradition against Protestant sola scriptura". The synod also affirmed "the role of love and grace, and therefore of deeds, in justification." The synod affirmed the seven mysteries (sacraments) and that those are not "merely symbolic or expressive"; moreover, the synod affirmed that the Christ was truly present in the eucharist and taught this by using the Greek equivalent to the Latin transubstantiatio. The synod also "confirmed the canonicity of the deutero-canonical books of the Old Testament, rejecting the Protestant shorter, Hebrew canon."[1]
Importance
The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica called the Synod of Jerusalem "the most vital statement of faith made in the Greek Church during the past thousand years."[8] Protestant scholar Philip Schaff wrote: "This Synod is the most important in the modern history of the Eastern Church, and may be compared to the Council of Trent."[4]
References
- ^ a b c Parry, Ken; Melling, David J.; Brady, Dimitri; Griffith, Sidney H.; Healey, John F., eds. (2017-09-01) [1999]. "Jerusalem, Synod of (1672)". The Blackwell Dictionary of Eastern Christianity. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. p. 267. doi:10.1002/9781405166584. ISBN 978-1-4051-6658-4.
- ^ a b Michaelides, George P. (1943). "The Greek Orthodox Position on the Confession of Cyril Lucaris". Church History. 12 (2): 118–129. doi:10.2307/3159981. ISSN 0009-6407.
- ^ Cyril I Lucaris at the Wayback Machine (archived 26 January 2020)
- ^ a b Schaff, Philip. "Creeds of Christendom, with a History and Critical notes. Volume I. The History of Creeds. - § 17. The Synod of Jerusalem and the Confession of Dositheus, A.D. 1672". Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Retrieved 2021-11-11.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ^ Decree 1 of Confession states: "We believe in one God, true, almighty, and infinite, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; the Father unbegotten; the Son begotten of the Father before the ages, and consubstantial with Him; and the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, and consubstantial with the Father and the Son. These three Persons in one essence we call the All-holy Trinity, — by all creation to be ever blessed, glorified, and adored" (Calvinism as Heresy).
- ^ "Jerusalem (After 1291)". Catholic Encyclopedia. 1913. Retrieved 2008-07-10.
- ^ "They are furious about the Non-Jurors' denial of transubstantiation (after the Bethlehem synod) and they call the Non-Jurors' denial, criticism, even hesitation, blasphemous" (H.W. Langford, The Non-Jurors and the Eastern Orthodox).
- ^ Rockwell, William Walker (1911). . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 15 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 335.
External links
- The Confession of Cyril Lucaris
- The Confession of Dositheus (also here)
- Robertson, James Nathaniel William Beauchamp, ed. (1899). The acts and decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem, sometimes called the Council of Bethlehem, holden under Dositheus, Patriarch of Jerusalem in 1672. Harvard University. New York, AMS Press.
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