The Synod of Greek Old Calendarist Bishops made pronouncements on the sacraments of the Church of Greece on this day in 1940. Emperor Diocletian’s (r. 284–305) persecution in North Africa, in an area roughly corresponding to today’s Tunisia, triggered the events of the first Christian schism. The Roman imperial authorities were indifferent to the fundamental beliefs of their multiethnic empire. They sought to see to it that all people show their loyalty to Rome by participating in the worship of the emperor as a divine monarch (e.g., Diocletian adopted the name of Jupiter). Participation in this imperial cult served as a litmus test for civic loyalty, and those who refused to participate in it were persecuted. The Christians, like all other Roman subjects (except Jews), were not exempted from performing these "civic duties." Some refused to compromise on their belief in the One True God. Those who did not comply were subjected to torture or, out of fear, voluntarily burned incense to an effigy of the Emperor. Some confessors of the faith, who had withstood the torture, declared the sacraments of the fallen Christians void of salvific Grace. The adherents of this first Christian sect were called "Donatists" after their leader, Donatus Magnus. In response to their claims, the Catholic (universal) Church said that, since we cannot gauge how the personal qualities of a celebrant affect a valid sacrament, we must wait for a decision on the matter by the church authorities. However, Donatist views have been constantly finding their way into the circles of Orthodox struggling for the purity of the faith. Thus, the bishops leading the Orthodox who did not recognize the change of the liturgical calendar in Greece in 1923 proclaimed on August 30, 1940, that "the sanctifying grace of the sacraments, according to the spirit of the divine and sacred rules and our opinion, is contained and acts through those church ministers who keep the sacred traditions and rules of the Orthodox Church without accepting any innovation, and not through those who have strayed from the sacred traditions and violated the divine and sacred rules, and, therefore, under the oaths of the Holy Fathers" (Translated from the Russian source below). Although the emphasis here is more on fidelity to Tradition – or to be more precise, to a particular interpretation of some aspects there of – the decision to condemn those one believes to be in error, prior to a conciliar decision, testifies to an attitude similar to that of the Donatists. Source: Monk Benjamin (Gomartely). Letopis’ tserkovnykh sobytii Pravoslavnoi Tserkvi nachinaia s 1917 goda. [The Chronicle of the Events in the History of the Orthodox Church Beginning in 1917]. Part 3. 1939-1949. Historical Studies of the Russian Church Abroad. |
