Synod of Jerusalem (1672)

The Synod of Jerusalem is an Eastern Orthodox synod held in 1672. Since it took place at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, it is also called the Synod of Bethlehem.

The synod was presided by Patriarch Dositheus of Jerusalem. The synod produced a confession refered to as the confession of Dositheus.

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.

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. 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 E. Orthodox defenders claim that the book was a forgery. Cyril himself verbally denied authorship, but did not disavow it in writing.

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." The synod "defined [Eastern] Orthodox dogma in areas at issue in the Western Reformation."

The Synod refuted the Confession of Lucaris article by article.

The synod affirmed "the teaching role of 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." The synod also rejected the theses of unconditional predestination and of justification by faith alone.

The Synod affirmed that the Holy Ghost proceeds from God the Father alone and not from both Father and Son.

Aftermath

The 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.

In their correspondence with the 18th-century Non-Juror Anglican bishops, the Eastern Patriarchs insisted on acceptance of the Synod's teaching on transubstantiation.

Importance

The 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica called confession of the Synod of Jerusalem "the most vital statement of faith made in the Greek Church during the past thousand years." 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. Both fixed the doctrinal status of the Churches they represent, and both condemned the evangelical doctrines of Protestantism. Both were equally hierarchical and intolerant, and present a strange contrast to the first Synod held in Jerusalem, when 'the apostles and elders,' in the presence of 'the brethren,' freely discussed and adjusted, in a spirit of love, without anathemas, the great controversy between the Gentile and the Jewish Christians."

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.