"Orthodox Controversies?"

I know I said I'd post weekly, but this is too good to wait. I just happened upon this article by Frederica Mathewes-Green and think it well worth the read:

Orthodox Controversies?

The Church

As I mentioned earlier, my spiritual journey shifted into high gear the moment I realized that the Scriptures refer to the Church—rather than to the Scriptures themselves—as “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Tim 3.15), and “the fullness of Him who fills everything in every way” (Ep 1.23); and that the Church has the authority to expel unrepentant Christians and the power to “bind and loose” (Mt 18.15-18).

The problem I faced was trying to reconcile the doctrine of an authoritative, truth-filled Church with the existence of more than 30,000 Christian denominations who all teach different doctrines, follow different practices, and disagree on their understandings of the nature of the Trinity and the Incarnation of Christ; the role of good works; the proper place of Mary and the Saints; the right approach to Scriptures; the definition and means of salvation, justification, sanctification, glorification; the meaning, method, and timing of baptism; the substance of the elements of Communion; the proper understanding of atonement, original sin, mortal sin, venial sin; predestination versus freewill; imparted versus imputed righteousness; lordship salvation versus free grace; efficacious versus prevenient grace; total versus limited depravity; conditional versus unconditional election; premillennialism versus postmillennialism versus amillennialism and on, and on, and on, et cetera, ad nauseam, ad infinitum…

Is it possible, I wondered, that all these different doctrines can be correct?
Maybe doctrine is irrelevant and the differences don't matter?
Or maybe only certain doctrines are important and the rest is just academic?

Or perhaps Christ established more than one church?

Further reading showed me that Christ said “I will build my church,” not “churches” (Mt 16.18), and that “there shall be one flock and one shepherd,” not 30,000+ flocks (Jn 10.16). So, I had to conclude that Christ did not establish dozens, hundreds, or thousands of churches; He established one church, which is His one body.

But if the Church is the “body of Christ” (Col 1.18,24), and all the tens of thousands of denominations in this world are part of that one body, can all their disparate beliefs and teachings be valid? Is it acceptable to have conflicting and contradictory doctrine within the one Body of Christ?

St Paul wrote that “if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted, let him be eternally condemned!” (Ga 1.8-9)

He told Timothy to “command certain men not to teach false doctrines,” and that “some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” (1 Tm 1.3, 4.1)

He wrote that, only under the "unity of faith," and in the "fullness of Christ," will we "no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming.” (Ep 4.11-16)

He told Titus that an elder in the Church “must hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it,” and that Titus himself “must teach what is in accord with sound doctrine.” (1.9, 2.1)

Christ told his disciples that “the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you,” and that “he will guide you into all truth.” (Jn 14.26, 16.13)

God Himself said that “I the Lord do not change” (Mal 3.6), so what reason did I have to believe that His doctrines—the means by which we attempt to understand Him, worship Him, and live a life of devotion to Him—will change, develop, evolve?

Doctrine clearly does matter, but which doctrine?
Can we divide doctrine into essential and non-essential?

I remembered where Christ said during His temptation in the desert that man is to live by “every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Mt 4.4), and in the Sermon on the Mount where He said that, “until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. Anyone who breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5.18-19)

I began to ask myself: if Christ is the Truth (Jn 14.6), can there exist in His Body any falsehood?

The answer, or course, is: NO!!

The belief that the Church is the body of Him in Whom there is “no variation or shadow of turning” (Jam 1.17) absolutely excludes the possibility of contradictory or conflicting doctrine.

So, from reading all these passages, I was able to determine that Jesus established one church, in which all doctrine matters and does not conflict, and which contains the full truth as revealed by God. And if Christ has kept the promise He made in Matthew 28.20, then that Church must still exist.

How then could I possibly accept the notion that every body of Christian believers is a part of that Church? Two confessional bodies that hold contradictory beliefs can't both be true. One of them has to be wrong. Ten thousand worship communities that confess contradictory beliefs can't all be true. Nine-thousand, nine-hundred, ninety-nine of them must be wrong.

Given Christ's promise that the Holy Spirit would guide His Church in "all truth," I could only conclude that those worship bodies that are wrong can not be the Church. For me to claim otherwise would be to call Christ a liar.

If it's true that there are thirty-thousand Christian "denominations" in this world that all hold different beliefs, then there can be precisely one that is the true Church.

That, of course, led me to the million-dollar question: which one?

Could there be a Church that can claim to have been founded on Pentecost, and that all the evidence points to as having preserved the faith—including doctrine, practice and worship—of the Apostles, unadulterated, unmodified, unaltered?

Well, as I said before, I believe I have found a church that does in fact answer that description.

So, if this church is the Body of Christ and the Pillar and Foundation of Truth—and I have every reason to believe that it is—what excuse could I possibly come up with to justify not joining it immediately?

There isn't one.

Now, I'm not afraid to admit that I'm anything but the sharpest knife in the drawer; I've been mistaken once or twice in my life. So if anyone thinks they have a better answer, I'm all ears.

For further reading:
The Church is Visible and One

Church History

I recently read about a daytime talk-show host—a professed Christian—who informed her audience that the ancient Greeks were the ones tossing Christians to the lions and that the Christians predated the Greeks and Romans. Needless to say, this talk-show host has been the target of ridicule since then. And rightly so: not knowing when Christians came onto the scene or who persecuted them is the Christian equivalent of Americans not being able to name the first U.S. president: it's not something you need to know in order to be an American, but it sure helps you understand what being an American is about; and you look like and idiot if you don't know.

Therefore, in order to spare my readers the shame of not knowing their Crusades from their Reformation, I have compiled this brief summary of the otherwise very long, dramatic, complicated, and brutally violent history of the Christian Church:

After Pentecost, sometime around the year A.D. 33, the Apostles disbursed throughout the Roman Empire, establishing churches, appointing church leaders, and baptizing converts, covering a territory that stretched from India to Spain, Britain to Ethiopia. In time, four churches emerged as centers of Christian leadership: Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem (Constantinople would later be included in this "Pentarchy" and given a rank second behind Rome).

In the aftermath of a devastating fire in Rome in A.D. 64, persecution of Christians became the state policy of the Empire, and remained so for the next 249 years, during which time thousands of Christians were put to death, including all but one of the Twelve Apostles, every single bishop of Rome, and such Christian luminaries as Ignatius of Antioch, Justin of Caesarea, Perpetua and Felicity, Polycarp, and Irenaeus.

When the Romans destroyed the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70, Antioch became the center of Christianity. Twenty-five years later, St John the Evangelist completed his book of Revelation, the last canonical book of the New Testament.

In 301, Armenia became the first nation ever to adopt Christianity as the state religion. Ten years later, the Emperor Galerius, formerly an adversary of Christianity, issued a deathbed statute suspending the state policy of persecution against Christians. Then, in 313, the Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and issued the Edict of Milan, legalizing Christianity in the Empire; he then relocated his capital to Byzantium, renaming it Constantinople. In 391, the emperor Theodosius made Christianity the official religion of the empire. As Christianity spread, many false teachings, or heresies, sprang up. In response to these heresies, the Church held a number of Ecumenical Councils, affirming the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3) and defending and confirming doctrines related to the Incarnation of Christ and the nature of the Holy Trinity. One of the better-known results of these Councils is the Nicene Creed, which to this day is affirmed by Christians as the fundamental statement of Christian faith.

A series of local councils during the 4th and 5th centuries ratified and confirmed the canon of Scripture, rejecting many books and epistles thought to be uninspired or of questionable doctrinal integrity.

In 589, a local synod of bishops in Toledo, Spain, in an attempt to fight Arianism, inserted the filioque clause (Latin: filius “son” and -que “and the”) into the Nicene Creed. This addition, although initially rejected by the Eastern and Western churches alike, was gradually adopted by Rome and is generally regarded as the first in a long succession of events that eventually led to the rupture between the Eastern and Western Churches.

An Arabian merchant and self-proclaimed prophet named Muhammad began in 632 to preach a new faith (الإسلام al-'islām, meaning “submission”), which spread rapidly throughout the Middle East and North Africa, beginning what would up to the present day be a major threat to Christianity in the region.

Pope Leo III, in 800, further set the east and west at odds when, despite the fact that the Roman Empire was still alive and well in Constantinople, he crowned the Frankish king Charlemagne Holy Roman Emperor in the west.

In 862, two brothers from Thessalonika, Greece, named Cyril and Methodius, set out to evangelize the Slavs. Their evangelization efforts eventually led to the conversion of Prince Vladimir I of Kiev, who in 988 adopted Christianity as the state religion of Kievan Rus’ (Russia). During his missionary work, St Cyril created a new alphabet into which he translated the Bible. This system of writing, called the Cyrillic alphabet, is still in use today in the languages of Russia, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Macedonia, Serbia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Mongolia.

The Roman church, after centuries of debate and equivocation, formally confirmed the use of the filioque in 1009 by inserting it into the Mass, and Constantinople in response, removed the name of the Roman pope from their diptychs (the prayers venerating and recognizing Orthodox bishops). For the next forty-five years, the popes of Rome attempted to be reinstalled in the diptychs, which the Patriarch of Constantinople refused unless Rome dropped the filioque. Then in 1054, a delegation from Pope Leo IX walked into the Church of the Holy Wisdom (Άγία Σοφία) in Constantinople during the Liturgy and laid a bull of excommunication from the pope upon the altar, making official the break in communion between the churches of Rome and Constantinople.

In 1066, William the Conqueror of Normandy invaded England and defeated the Orthodox king Harold II at the Battle of Hastings. Pope Alexander II of Rome crowned William of Normandy king of England and Orthodox English bishops where then systematically deposed, imprisoned, or executed (or all three!), and replaced with Norman bishops loyal to Rome.

In early 1095, the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I sent to Rome for help defending his empire against the invading Islamic Seljuk Turks. Later that year, Pope Urban II, at the Council of Clermont, called on all Christians to join in a holy war against the Turks and the recovery of the Holy Land from the Muslims, promising immediate remission of sins to those who died in the cause. Thus began the Crusades, which led to the breaking off of communion between Rome and the other Patriarchs—Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem—and the sacking of Constantinople in 1204, further widening the break between East and West. The slaughter of eastern Christians and the desecration of their churches by the participants of the fourth Crusade were regarded by the East as the ultimate outrage, and by this time, neither East nor West recognized the other as belonging to the “One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church.”*

The Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus recaptured Constantinople from Latin rule in 1261.

At the Council of Florence in 1439, an attempt was made at reconciliation and reunification between the Eastern and Western churches. A few eastern churches submitted to Rome, but the majority felt that the filioque and papal supremacy represented an impasse to East/West reunion.

The Church of Russia became autocephalous in 1448, and Moscow came to be regarded as the Third Rome (after Constantinople), hence the use of the title “tsar” (from “Caesar”) for Russian leaders. Not long after tons of priceless church art treasures were relocated to Moscow from Constantinople, the latter fell to the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1453. Thus ended the millennium-old Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire.

Two years later, the German inventor Johann Gutenberg printed the Bible for the first time ever.

Then in 1478 Pope Sixtus IV granted Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile permission to launch the Spanish Inquisition, a church tribunal targeting recent Jewish converts to Christianity, and later Protestants. The tribunal was officially abolished in 1834 by Isabella II.

During the 16th century, various Christian groups began parting ways with the Roman church because of disagreements regarding theology, practice, hierarchy, etc. In 1517 Martin Luther touched off the Protestant Reformation with the publication of his 95 Theses, and in 1534 King Henry VIII rejected papal authority and named himself supreme head of the Church of England. Soon dozens—and later hundreds—of groups also split with Rome, and then with each other.

Tsar Peter the Great of Russia began reforms of the Russian Orthodox Church in 1700, altering the church government and restricting entry into monasteries. These reforms essentially made the Church a department of state, severely weakening it and placing it in a poor position to take on the challenges it would face centuries later.

In September 1794, eight Russian monks, including St Juvenal, the first Orthodox martyr of the New World, arrived in Alaska, introducing Orthodox Christianity to the indigenous peoples of America and initiating an evangelization mission that would reach as far south as California.

During the nineteenth century, the Roman Catholic Church introduced new doctrines to the faith, including the Immaculate Conception in 1854 and papal infallibility in 1870.

In 1917, the largest Christian nation in the world fell into Communist control. From that time until the fall of Communism in 1990, the Russian Church suffered persecution on a scale never before realized as nearly fifty million Russian Christians were martyred for their faith.

After the fall of the Iron Curtain, Eastern Europe experienced an explosion of Christian activity that continues to this day.

On 25 July 2008, Ukraine celebrated the 1020th anniversary of St Vladimir's baptism and the conversion of Kievan Rus'.

Today, there are approximately 2 billion self-professed Christians in the world who belong to over thirty-thousand confessional bodies.

Here is a graphical timeline of Church history.

For a fascinating account of the early Church through the middle of the fourth century, read Eusebius' Church History



*While each side believed—and still believes—that they alone were catholic (i.e. “universal and complete”) and orthodox (i.e. “theologically correct”), over the centuries the western Church came to be known as the “Catholic” or “Roman Catholic” church, while the eastern Church came to be known as the “Orthodox” or “Eastern Orthodox” church.

Introduction

Updated 8 Jan 2010

This is not an Orthodox blog. This is a blog by an Orthodox Christian.

There is a difference.

The purpose of this blog is to challenge, not to debate; it is intended to be informative not polemical. It is not my purpose to beat up on anyone or to attack the beliefs of any of my readers.

This blog is intended to communicate to my family and friends my observations, insights, and opinions regarding the Christian Faith, as well as to present my readers with news and information about Christianity that they may not receive from "mainstream" western Christian sources. My observations and opinions are the result of many months and years of reading, research, discussion, and prayer and not of any formal theological training.

I don't for one minute claim to be any kind of theologian.

And while it is certainly not my intention to misrepresent any body of Christian worship or the doctrines and practices thereof, I confess to a bank of knowledge that is anything but comprehensive. I promise to do my very best to be as accurate and factual as possible, but I also recognize the likelihood of my distorting, garbling, perverting, complicating, confounding, or otherwise goofing up the facts. I apologize ahead of time, and welcome your gentle rebuke.

The purpose of this blog is to address any questions and concerns that my recent explorations and investigations into Orthodox Christianity might provoke. It is my prayer that this blog will encourage, enlighten, and draw its readers—and author—closer to God.

Furthermore, I truly believe that anyone who makes an honest and thorough examination of Scripture, history, and the Patristic writings will ultimately arrive at many of the same conclusions I have; I hope this blog will serve as a springboard for such examination.

My readers are invited to participate or not participate as they feel inclined; comments and questions are welcomed and encouraged, but I ask that all comments posted include the name of the person posting; anonymous comments will be deleted.

I understand that, given what I know to be the religious background of my intended readers, that there will be much about the Orthodox faith and doctrine with which they will disagree, and which they will wish to challenge. Believing as I do that truth will always hold up under scrutiny, I welcome and encourage honest inquiry and will do my best to provide accurate information. Where possible, I will quote the writings of others who understand and can explain the Orthodox faith much better than I ever could.

The truth is, there is much yet that I don’t know or understand about the Orthodox Church; there are many things that baffle me, and a few things that, frankly, I’d like to see done differently. But until I find a church that...

…can better or more clearly demonstrate continuity between its present self and the Church established at Pentecost,

…can be shown to have adhered to and taught more steadfastly the "faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3),

…more consistently and accurately reflects the teaching of the Scriptures,

…gives more appropriate respect and honor to “the mother of my Lord” (Lk 1.43),

…has a fuller and more active and robust prayer life,

…can make a better case to being the One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church,

…then I’ll continue to follow the faith as lived out within the Orthodox Christian Church.

Thank you for reading.
Matt
11 July 2008


Here are some entries that might be worth looking at:

My faith journey

My thoughts on the Church

What to expect at an Orthodox church

An introduction to Holy Icons

Infant baptism

Eucharist

Orthodox prayer

Conversion

Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy

Sacraments

The Filioque

Fasting

Ancient Church Documentary

Christianity Quiz

100 Reasons Why You Should be an Orthodox Christian

Forty Excuses for Not Joining the Orthodox Church

Click here to return to the previous page

How I Got Here

Note: The following is a highly condensed history of my journey through the Christian faith. Not included—but implied—in this account are innumerable conversations, prayers, studies, events, debates, doubts, and struggles which, if included, would make a document of several hundred pages that, not only would no one want to read, but that I would certainly not want to write. Below is all those things distilled down to a manageable and readable document.

I

I was raised attending what at the time was a small traditional Baptist Church with an organ and a choir wearing long blue robes. The congregation sang hymns every week and, on the first Sunday of every month, took Communion “as a continuing memorial of the broken body and shed blood of Christ.” Newcomers to the faith were immersed in the waters of baptism as “an act of obedience symbolizing the believer’s identification with the death, burial and resurrection of the Savior Jesus Christ.”

My family attended church every Sunday and most Wednesdays. My parents were very involved in the church and I made many friends there, some of whom I maintain contact with to this very day.

Over the years, members of the church leadership came and went. New faces emerged bringing fresh new ideas with them. As the church leadership changed, so did some of the church’s old customs and practices. The choir was replaced with a “praise team;” the hymns with “praise songs.” The organ stayed where it was, but the new music meant a different, non-traditional instrumental accompaniment was needed: a rock band complete with guitars, drums, and synthesizers. As a fledgling musician, I eagerly became involved in the church band and remained so for several years.

Growing up in the Baptist faith, I don’t recall paying much attention to the many other expressions of Christianity. I was aware they were out there, but never concerned myself with discovering how their doctrines stacked up against ours. My feeling was that if they based their faith on the Bible and nothing else—as we did—then they couldn’t possibly be wrong. Any apparent differences between us and them was really about preference rather than truth.

I did, however, at some point get the impression that the Catholics were way off the mark; that they worshipped Mary, the Pope, and the dead saints; that they believed you had to work your way into Heaven, and insisted on reciting pre-written prayers; that they may or may not have believed in Jesus as their savior, but insisted on portraying Him as a cadaver on the cross; and that they didn’t even have Bibles in the pews!

It became our church’s mission at some point to be the contemporary fulfilment of the New Testament church, and eventually our worship body took on a new name in order to identify it more with the “non-denominational” movement than with any particular Christian sect. Still, it officially remained—and remains to this day—affiliated with the North American Baptist Conference.

Through college, I continued to seek out Baptist-leaning “non-denominational,” contemporary worship communities, and, on my return home, went right back to the church of my youth, which had since tripled in size: the nave and the pews were replaced by an auditorium with theater seating. Whatever had remained of the old traditional style was gone.

I stayed with the church and kept up my involvement with the band, which had expanded, both in size and in skill. The church was an active player in the community and was growing dramatically. Grace Community Church was an exciting place to be. Then, in the summer of 2001, my dad, who was chairman of the elder board, found himself in the center of a conflict involving the letting-go of the pastor. It was an ugly episode. The incident brought out the worst in people and divided the church. We all left Grace.

II

I think Mom and Dad began attending Christ the King Lutheran Church, not because they had any particular interest in Lutheran doctrine or practice, but because it happened to be the closest church to their house. I was disgusted with what I had seen at Grace, and kept out of church for a short while. But not for long. Eventually they dragged me to Christ the King and I loved it. It was so different from what I had known growing up. This was a liturgical church, with vestments, stained glass, a pipe organ, candles, and creeds. It seemed so very reverent, so worshipful. Like my old church, Christ the King celebrated Christmas and Easter, but unlike the Baptists, the Lutherans didn’t stop there. Suddenly there were celebrations and observances throughout the year that I had never heard of: Advent, Epiphany, The Transfiguration, Annunciation, Lent, Ascension, Pentecost. And there was a particular color and set of hymns associated with each one. I initially had some difficulty with the Lutheran doctrines of infant baptism and the Real Presence—which are unknown in the Baptist faith—but accepted them as I learned that both have scriptural, theological and historical support.

I had always had a great respect for Martin Luther. I admired his incredible courage and integrity in the face of incalculable pressure from the corrupt and apostate Roman Catholic Church. I saw him as the prime mover in the recovery of a Church that had begun to go astray soon after the last of the Apostles had died, and that had wandered steadily further and further from correct teaching and practice in the centuries that followed. When my parents eventually returned to Grace, I stayed at Christ the King, seeking a purer, more genuine understanding of the Faith as taught by the man responsible for its rescue.

After my second deployment to the Middle East, I did a brief stint back at Grace, where, thinking that perhaps it was an affront to God not to use my musical gifts to His glory, I played in the band one Sunday a month, while attending Christ the King the rest of the month. The band at Grace is very good, very professional, and receives a lot of accolades. I began to wonder for whose glory I was actually playing. I realized after a few months that, in order for Christ to increase, “I must decrease" (Jn 3.30) and that wasn't going to happen as long as I was up on stage.

I went back to attending Christ the King exclusively. I became more interested in the doctrine and history of the Lutheran Church and even considered pursuing ordination in the clergy. I got to know and love the pastors, I became involved in the church as an usher, got married there, and helped out with VBS. I grew to love Christ the King Church and had no reason to consider a move elsewhere, until I was confronted with a very important question: Where is the Church?

III

There were two choices for the churchgoer at Kirkuk Air Base: the contemporary Protestant/Evangelical worship service, or the Roman Catholic Mass. Given the distaste I had developed for the former, I opted for the latter, despite what I perceived as certain theological and doctrinal difficulties. My feeling was that worshipping God alongside Roman Catholics in a liturgical manner similar to what I had become accustomed to did not mean that I had to sign on to their beliefs.

I was immediately struck with how biblical and prayerful the Roman Catholic Mass was. Far from being the nearly pagan celebration that I expected, bereft of any mention of Christ or the Gospels, it was solemn and reverent and filled from beginning to end with Scripture (so that's why they didn't need Bibles in the pews!). I actually grew to appreciate and enjoy the Roman Catholic liturgy and soon got to know the priest, with whom I began to meet on a semi-regular basis to talk about things of a biblical or spiritual nature. We had many fascinating and thoughtful discussions and it wasn't too long before I began to inquire into the particulars of Roman Catholic belief and practice. Turns out, I had been all wrong about the Catholics. I learned that the Roman Catholic Church claims to be the very church founded on Pentecost and that its bishops can actually trace their ordinations all the way back to the Apostles. The Pope—whom, it turns out, they don't worship, nor believe is sinless—is the successor of Saint Peter, whom they recognize as the "Rock" upon which Christ built His church (Mt 16.18). I learned that there is, in fact, a scriptural defense for a lot of doctrines that I thought were flat wrong—perpetual virginity of Mary, purgatory, confession to a priest, sacred tradition, mortal sin—and that the Inquisitions, the Crusades, the campaign against Galileo, pre-Reformation corruption and 0ther stains on the Church were the actions of fallible and sinful people, and were not official policies and positions of the Roman Catholic Church itself.

During my discussions with the base chaplain and in my own personal study of Scripture and other writings, the most astonishing and shocking and compelling discovery I made was that, contrary to what I had grown up believing, according to the Bible itself, it is not the Bible that is the “the pillar and foundation of the truth” (1 Ti 3.15), or “the fullness of him who fills everything in every way” (Ep 1.22); it was not to the Bible that Christ told us to go when our brother sins against us (Mt 18.15-20); it wasn’t to—or even through—the Bible that Christ promised to send His Spirit of Truth (Jn 20.21-23).

It was the Church. Not the Bible. In fact, it was the Church that wrote the Bible!

So, of course, this led me to wonder: which Church? Can there be more than one? Can all the bodies of Christian believers actually be the one true Church? Could it be that the Roman Catholic Church really is the Church, as it claims to be? The pieces seemed to fit. The dots seemed to connect. I determined that any church that claims to be the Church, and can show historical backing to support that claim deserved a closer look.

When I returned home, I enrolled in RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults), which is the class that adults take before being received into the Roman Catholic Church. It met late enough on Sunday mornings to allow me to continue attending Christ the King, and from the very start, I made it clear to the deacons leading the class that I was not there to become “catholic;” I was simply searching for the truth. If the truth led me into the Roman Catholic Church, so be it, but that was not a foregone conclusion. It was of some concern to me how Kathryn would respond to the proposition of switching church affiliations, so I wanted to be certain that I knew what I was getting us into. I asked the tough questions, and wouldn’t settle for incomplete or unsatisfying answers. I interrogated those poor deacons relentlessly, and stayed after class when necessary to get the answers I needed.

In the meantime, I read several books and hundreds of articles—both for and against Roman Catholicism. I read the early Church Fathers, and the histories and canons of the Ecumenical Councils, and listened to as many radio programs, seminars, speeches, debates, and podcasts that I could find. I also attended Mass at least once a week, normally in the morning after dropping Kathryn off at work.

I developed a profound appreciation for the beauty, history, art, and the sense of sacredness within the Roman Catholic Church. I appreciated their esteem for the Virgin Mary (despite behavior that I felt was a touch excessive), the rich monastic tradition, and their celebration of the lives of departed Christians. Nor was there anything like the indifference toward Christ that I had expected: He was at the center of every prayer, every hymn, every move and action.

But in the end, there were certain doctrines and practices that, despite whatever biblical or logical argument might be made to support them, I simply had difficulty accepting: purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, annulment, the filioque, and indulgences, among others. However, I felt that I could somehow learn to live with these if only I could bring myself to accept the one doctrine that gave me the most trouble: papal infallibility.

I focused intensely on this one subject. I read everything I could get my hands on and discussed this difficulty with the deacons. I knew that Christ promised to lead His Church in “all truth” (Jn 16.13), and that the Roman Catholic Church had the pedigree to show that it was indeed this same Church. But I simply could not reconcile the doctrines of papal infallibility or universal papal jurisdiction with the historical record. That Saint Peter was chief among the Apostles is indisputable, as is the fact that Rome held a position of honor within the early Church, but nowhere in the Patristic writings, or the canons of the Ecumenical Councils, or even in the writings of the early popes themselves could I find any indication whatsoever that the Church of the first eleven centuries had any notion of either of these papal doctrines. The more I learned, the more I became convinced that the Roman Catholic Church was simply wrong on this key doctrine. I could see no other way.

But how could it be, if this was the Church that Christ Himself promised the Holy Spirit would lead in “all truth,” and against which He assured His followers the gates of hell would not prevail (Mt 16.18), that they could be mistaken on such an important doctrine?

About a week before last Christmas I learned that there is an alternative. There is another Christian Church that claims—and has the evidence to show—that it too was founded on Pentecost and whose leaders, like those in the Roman Catholic Church, can trace on paper an unbroken line of succession all the way back to the very Apostles of the New Testament; This is a Church that shares my aversion to the dogmas of papal infallibility and universal jurisdiction, and that knows nothing of purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, annulment or certain other Roman Catholic doctrines.

I immediately began to immerse myself in study. The more I got to know this alternative, the more it would exceed my every expectation, defy my every prejudice, confound every stereotype, frustrate every norm, and present to me a whole new paradigm of Christian worship, devotion, thought, and expression.

IV

I had been vaguely aware that there were Orthodox Christian communities that typically identified themselves with particular eastern European countries, like Russia, Greece or Serbia. I assumed you had to have -os or -ov at the end of your name to attend these churches, and they certainly didn’t strike me as major players among the legion of Christian movements worldwide. While I could rattle off the names of present-day big shots from nearly every other Christian faith—Graham, Falwell, Dobson, Wallis, Swaggert, Warren, Benedict XVI—I could name not a single Orthodox Christian. Beyond their apparent ethnocentrism, they seemed so mysterious and exotic and inaccessible and virtually unknown. And, frankly, irrelevant.

Boy, was I wrong!

The Orthodox Church has for two thousand years been the “Pillar and Foundation” of the Christian Faith. All other Christian traditions try to trace their family tree back to the Apostles, but none of them—no, not even the Roman Catholic Church—can do so without grafting their branch onto the trunk of the Orthodox Church. Orthodoxy makes up the second largest Christian group in the world (Roman Catholic 50%; Orthodox 25%; all Protestant 25%)

The short history is this: During the first few centuries after Pentecost, there was one worldwide (i.e. “catholic”) Church, which consisted of thousands of local churches (i.e. “dioceses”), each under the authority of a bishop, who was in communion with all the other Christian bishops; that is, they all held the same beliefs, taught the same doctrine, and partook of the “one bread” (1 Co 10.17). There were occasional defections of those who didn’t agree with this or that doctrine (the Coptic, Armenian and Assyrian churches, for example), but for the most part, there was “one bread, and one body.”

In time, because of differences in culture, language and politics, the churches of Europe and western Africa began slowly to drift away from their brothers in the East until they broke away entirely around the eleventh century. Free from the constraints of doctrinal accountability to their eastern brethren, the western church began introducing dogmatic innovations like purgatory, indulgences, the Immaculate Conception, and papal infallibility. Eventually, certain European church and political leaders—Luther, Calvin, Henry VIII among them—broke ties with Rome over conflicts of doctrine and practice and established their own church bodies, which over the years further splintered and fragmented, and continue to do so to this very day.

Meanwhile, the Eastern Church maintained unchanged the “faith which was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 3); it never needed to be rescued or recovered; it never experienced a Reformation, or a counter-Reformation, or a restoration, or a revival; it is and has for twenty centuries been the living fulfillment of the continuing New Testament Church, the very "Body of Christ."

Of course, I didn’t know all this when I first became aware that there was this alternative to the Protestant and Roman Catholic bodies. In fact I really knew nothing whatsoever about Orthodoxy, but I wanted to learn. So, I contacted the nearest Orthodox priest and requested a meeting. We met and had a fascinating and enlightening conversation. He was raised Roman Catholic and had converted to Orthodoxy (interestingly, I have yet to meet an Orthodox Christian who is not a convert from another strain of Christianity), was ordained and became the priest of a local Greek Old Calendarist parish. He invited me to attend the Liturgy the following Sunday, which I did.

To say that it was the most confusing, unfamiliar and foreign worship service I had ever witnessed is a gross understatement. The entire time all I could think was “Kathryn is never going to go for this!”

However, to say that it was also the most beautiful, holy, majestic, reverent, Christ-centered offering I had ever witnessed doesn’t even begin to express what I saw that day, and what I have seen every time since that day that I have stepped into an Orthodox temple. What I have seen is a Church in which, not only are the beauty and history rich and deep, but the sense of sacredness is on a level I never knew existed; this is a Church in which the Virgin Mary is fittingly honored and the departed saints are hailed as examples and embraced as partners in prayer; which takes seriously and puts into action Saint Paul’s instruction to “Pray without ceasing” (1 Th 5.17), and in which a spiritual discipline like fasting is a vital activity in the lives of the faithful rather than a quaint vestige of a bygone era. This is a worship community in which every prayer, every hymn, every word, every movement, every gesture, every color, every sound, sight, smell, touch, and taste, every action, every discipline, every doctrine, every symbol, every sign is directed with humility and praise to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. If Christ did indeed establish His Church on the day of Pentecost, and if that Church has withstood “the gates of hell” for two thousand years as Christ promised, then it is impossible to deny the very real possiblity that the Orthodox Church is that very same Church, the “Pillar and Foundation of Truth,” the “fullness of Him who fills everything in every way,” the very “Body of Christ.”

V

If someone had told me ten years ago that I would of my own free will ever be attending a liturgical, sacramental church with priests, vestments, candles, incense, and images of saints and angels, I would have laughed. I have been a Protestant all my life and the idea of ever being anything but Protestant was unthinkable to me. This blog will be my attempt to explain not only why my move to Orthodoxy makes perfect sense, but why it was inevitable, and why those of my readers who have not already done so should consider the move as well.

Since my first visit to an Orthodox church back in January, Kathryn I have been to several others.* We haven’t been received into the Orthodox Church as of yet, but hope to be someday. It is my sincere prayer that my readers will consider joining us.

"Come and see!" (Jn 1.46)

Matt
6/21/2008

*Other churches I/we have attended include Assumption in St Clair Shores, Holy Transfiguration and the Basilica of St Mary in Livonia, St Petka in Troy, Holy Trinity in Detroit and Holy Incarnation in Lincoln Park.

Western Orthodoxy

I have been fascinated to learn during my investigation of the Orthodox Church that Orthodoxy is not limited to Greek, Middle Eastern and Slavic ethnic groups. For the first millennium after Pentecost, all the churches of Europe were in communion with those in the East and until the Norman conquest of 1066, England itself was Orthodox.

The Church puts a lot of emphasis on the lives and writings of eastern heavyweights like St John Chrysostom and St Basil the Great. But the Western Church has also historically included big names like St Peter, St Joseph of Arimathea, St Irenaeus, St Ambrose, St Augustine, St Alban, St Dunstan, St Patrick, Pope St Gregory the Great, King Arthur, King Alfred the Great of England, and many others. Gregorian chant—named for St Gregory—Ambrosian chant—after St Ambrose—and the Latin Tridentine Mass all have historical roots in Western Orthodoxy. As do all the western Christian liturgies from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer to the Lutheran Divine Service.

In fact, Orthodoxy thrived in western Europe until the middle of the 11th century, when, following its split with the East, Rome sought the allegiance of western European churches. Most followed without resistance. Those in England did not.

With the blessing of Pope Alexander II, Duke William (the Conqueror) of Normandy launched an invasion with the intention of bringing England into communion with Rome. On October 14, 1066, Harold II (Godwinson), England’s last Orthodox king died in battle at Hastings, as did the ancient Anglo-Saxon Orthodox Church. The demise of the Celtic Orthodox churches of Ireland, Scotland, and Wales followed shortly.

Thus the liturgies, traditions and heritage of the Western Church were lost to Orthodoxy.

It wasn’t until the nineteenth century that a group of western converts to Orthodoxy, wishing to retain the forms of worship familiar to them, reintroduced western liturgies into the Orthodox Church.

There are currently two liturgies in use by Western Rite Orthodox churches in the United States:

The Liturgy of St. Tikhon was developed from the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer and the Anglican Missal, both of which were, in fact, adapted from ancient Orthodox liturgies.

The Liturgy of St Gregory is a revised version of the Roman Tridentine Mass, which was modified to remove the filioque and insert a Byzantine epiclesis.

Twenty-six Antiochian and five ROCOR (Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia) parishes and monasteries in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand currently celebrate the Western Rite Mass.

The church I have been attending, Holy Incarnation, is an Antiochian mission that celebrates the Western Mass. It is a very young (just over a year old), very small mission, and to my knowledge is the only Western Orthodox parish in the Midwest. It is fully orthodox, and in full communion with the greater body of Orthodox churches.

For more information:
Western Orthodoxy
Antiochian Western Rite
Western Orthodox (blog)

Quick Answers

There are certain practices within the Orthodox Church that will cause a lifelong Protestant like me to recoil and start citing Christ's warnings about the "traditions of men" (Mk 7.8).

It turns out that this reaction is really more a result of the lingering after-effects of Post-Reformation "Romaphobia" than of any particular scriptural or doctrinal objections.

Here is a very brief defense of a few such practices for your consideration.

Crucifix: When Protestants display the cross, it will normally not include the Corpus. They feel that a bare cross better represents the doctrine of the Resurrection. However, a crucifix doesn’t deny the Resurrection any more than a bare cross affirms it. Does an empty cross necessarily indicate an empty tomb? Wouldn't the cross still have been empty if Christ hadn't risen from the dead?

Displaying the cross—either with or without the Corpus—is proper as long as the reason for doing so is in keeping with sound Christian doctrine. It would be wrong, for example, for someone to display the crucifix with the intention of suggesting that Christ didn't rise from the dead. But who's doing that?!

"Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." (Jn 3.14-15; cf. Num 21:6-9)

…but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles… (1 Co 1.23)

I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. (1 Co 2.2)

You foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. (Gal 3.1)

“Father”: Christ tells us "Call no man your father on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven." (Mt 23.9) Why then would calling a priest “father” not be a direct violation of a very clear instruction from God? Why, in fact, would calling one’s own biological father “father” not also be a violation?

Christ was using hyperbole to rebuke the Pharisees for their pride in not looking to God as the source of all authority and fatherhood and teaching, and did not intend to forbid all use of the titles “father” or “teacher” that weren’t directed at God.

Here are several New Testament references to legitimate spiritual fatherhood:

…in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel. (1 Co 4.14–15)

My dear children, for whom I am again in the pains of childbirth until Christ is formed in you… (Gal 4.19)

My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. (1 Jn 2.1)

I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. (3 Jn 4)

Timothy, my son, I give you this instruction in keeping with the prophecies once made about you… (1 Ti 1.18)

You then, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. (2 Ti 2.1)

I appeal to you for my son Onesimus, who became my son while I was in chains. (Phm 10)

She who is in Babylon, chosen together with you, sends you her greetings, and so does my son Mark. (1 Pt 5.13)

Incense: There are many places in the Bible where incense is used as an offering to God and as a sign of our prayers rising to Him:

"And thou shalt make an altar to burn incense upon." (Ex 30.1-8)

"He is to put the incense on the fire before the Lord..." (Lv 16.12-13)

May my prayer be set before you like incense. (Ps 141)

"...in every place incense shall be offered unto My name." (Mal 1.11)

...they presented unto him gifts; gold, and frankincense and myrrh. (Mt 2.9-11)

[Zechariah] was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to go into the temple of the Lord and burn incense. (Lk 1.8-12)

And when he had taken it, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb. Each one had a harp and they were holding golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. (Rev 5.8)

The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God. (Rev 8.3-5)

*Intercession of the Saints: Christians often ask each other to pray on their behalf. This practice is certainly biblical (Rom 15.30; 2 Th 3.1), but why limit those intercessory prayers only to the Saints on earth? Why not ask for the prayers of the Saints who have finished the race and who are now face-to-face with the Almighty? St James says that the "prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective." (Jam 5.16) Well, the Christians who are in Heaven are about as righteous as it gets. St Paul reminds us also that we are surrounded by "a great cloud of witnesses" (Heb 12.1) who are still very much a part of the Church and who are every bit as willing and able to pray for us as are the people sitting next to us in the pews.

Making the Sign of the Cross: Christians (with very few exceptions) appreciate the value of displaying the cross, and rejoice in the love and sacrifice that the cross brings to mind. We display the cross on our cars, our churches, our Bibles, in our houses, on our clothes, on rings, earrings, and suspended from chains around our necks. It follows then that we should feel no compunction whatsoever about making the sign of the cross on ourselves at every opportunity. Our attitude should be like that of St Paul, who wrote, "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world." (Gal 6.14)

Consider also what some of the early Church Fathers had to say about it:

John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople (4th cent): "When, therefore, you sign yourself, think of the purpose of the cross, and quench any anger and all other passions. Consider the price that has been paid for you."

Tertullian, theologian (2nd cent): "In all our travels and movements, in all our coming in and going out, in putting on our shoes, at the bath, at the table, in lighting our candles, in lying down, in sitting down, whatever employment occupies us, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross."

Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (4th cent): "By the sign of the cross...all magic is stayed, all sorcery confounded, all the idols are abandoned and deserted, and all senseless pleasure ceases, as the eye of faith looks up from Earth to heaven."

Cyril, bishop of Jerusalem (4th cent): "Let us not be ashamed to confess the Crucified. Let the cross, as our seal, be boldly made with our fingers upon our brow and on all occasions over the bread we eat, over the cups we drink, in our comings and in our goings, before sleep, on lying down and rising up, when we are on the way and when we are still."

Basil, bishop of Cappadocia (4th cent), affirmed the sign of the cross as a practice handed down from the Apostles, "who taught us to mark with the sign of the cross those who put their hope in the name of the Lord."

*Mary: “Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee!” (Lk 1.28) The Archangel Gabriel said it. Why should we deny it? Mary’s cousin Elizabeth certainly didn’t deny it: “Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.” (v.42) Mary herself said that “from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” (v.48)

Is it enough then to give her a quick mention once a year at Christmas, and maybe again at Easter, and then neglect her for the rest of the year?

Absolutely not!

This is the woman who actually bore God! (hence the title Θεοτόκος), whom Elizabeth calls “the mother of my Lord.” (Lk 1.43)

Should she be worshipped? No. But she is the most important person ever created and certainly deserves more than the bit role to which the Protestant world has relegated her.

Relics: The Lord has seen fit in the past to perform miracles through the relics of His Saints (living and departed), and continues to do so to this very day.

Once while some Israelites were burying a man, suddenly they saw a band of raiders; so they threw the man's body into Elisha's tomb. When the body touched Elisha's bones, the man came to life and stood up on his feet. (2 Kg 13.21)

God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them. (Acts 19.11-12)

It was not Elisha's bones or Paul's handkerchiefs that cause the miracles; it was God working through these items

*We will address these topics more fully in future posts.

The Councils

For as long as I can remember, I have believed that the Trinity is three distinct persons in one divine essence, rather than three gods or three personalities or functions of God.
But if anyone had asked me to point to the Bible verse or verses that spell out this precise understanding of God, I would have been at a loss. In fact, there is no place in the Bible that actually does specifically define the Trinity in this way. Nor for that matter is there to my knowledge anywhere in the Bible that explicitly lays out the belief that Christ is fully human and fully divine.
Rather these doctrines, and many others, were defined by the Church through a series of seven churchwide, or “ecumenical,” (from οἰκουμένη, meaning "the inhabited world") councils during the first eight centuries. The purpose of the councils was to condemn heresy, not to provide an exhaustive explanation of Christian Doctrine. As Clark Carlson writes in his book The Truth,

All early conciliar definitions of dogma were the response to specific heresies. The Church defined the doctrine of the Trinity in response to Arianism and Eunomianism, and even then the Church never pretended to define the "whole truth" about the mystery of the Trinity. Similarly, the Christological definitions of the later councils were occasioned by the heresies of Nestorianism, Monophysitism, Monothelitism, and Iconoclasm. Nowhere did the Fathers of these councils claim to have exhausted the "whole truth" about the mystery of the Incarnation. These definitions never ever presumed to explain these mysteries, but to exclude false opinions. They were not so much positive statements as negative ones (p.163)

1. First Council of Nicaea:
Held in A.D. 325 in Nicaea, Asia Minor; Convened by the Emperor Constantine the Great; Attended by 318 bishops.

Condemned Arianism and attempted to standardize Easter.

Adopted the original Nicene Creed, devising the term homoousios (from the Greek όμού meaning “same” and ουσία meaning “essence or being”) to describe Christ’s relationship to the Father (contrary to homoiousios: from όμοιος meaning “similar” and ουσία meaning “essence or being.”)

This and all subsequent councils are not recognized by nontrinitarian churches: Arians, Unitarians, Latter-day Saints and members of other Mormon denominations, and Jehovah's Witnesses.

Key figures:
Alexander of Constantinople, bishop
Eusebius of Caesarea, historian
Athanasius of Alexandria, theologian
Arius of Alexandria, priest

2. First Council of Constantinople:
Held in A.D. 381 in Constantinople, Asia Minor; Convened by the Emperor Theodosius the Great; Attended by 150 bishops.

Condemned Macedonianism and Apollinarianism; Defined the doctrine of the Holy Spirit; decreed that there was one God in three persons.

Revised the Nicene Creed into the present form used in the Eastern and Oriental Orthodox churches and prohibited any further alteration of the Creed without the assent of an Ecumenical Council.

Key figures:
Basil of Caesarea, bishop and theologian
Gregory of Nyssa, bishop and theologian
Gregory of Nazianzus, bishop and theologian
Macedonius I of Constantinople, bishop
Apollinaris of Laodicea, bishop

3. First Council of Ephesus:
Held in A.D. 431 in Ephesus, Asia Minor; Convened by the Emperor Theodosius II (grandson of Theodosius the Great); Attended by 200 bishops.

Condemned Nestorianism; proclaimed that Jesus was fully divine from conception, thus naming the Virgin Mary the Theotokos (Greek Θεοτόκος, "God-bearer" or more commonly "Mother of God"); Declared that Jesus Christ is one person, not two separate "people": the Man, Jesus Christ and the Son of God, complete God and complete man, with a rational soul and body.

Affirmed the text of the "Creed" decreed at the First and Second Ecumenical Councils to be complete and forbade any addition or deletion.

This and all following councils are not recognized by the Assyrian Church of the East.

Key figures:
Cyril of Alexandria, bishop
John Chrysostom, bishop
Nestorius of Constantinople, bishop

4. Council of Chalcedon:
Held in A.D. 451 in Chalcedon near Constantinople; Convened by the Emperor Marcian; Attended by 630 bishops.

Condemned the doctrine of monophysitism; described and delineated the "Hypostatic Union" and affirmed the two natures of Christ: human and divine.

Adopted the Chalcedonian Creed.

Recognized Constantinople as the “New Rome” and granted Jerusalem the fifth position of honor within the “Pentarchy”: 1) Rome, 2) Constantinope, 3) Alexandria, 4) Antioch, 5) Jerusalem.

This and all following councils are not recognized by the Oriental Orthodox.

Key figure:
Leo I of Rome, bishop

5. Second Council of Constantinople:
Held in A.D. 553 in Constantinople; Convened by the Emperor Justinian the Great; Attended by 165 bishops.

Reaffirmed decisions and doctrines explicated by previous Councils, condemned new Arian, Nestorian, and Monophysite writings, decreed Theopaschite Formula (“God suffered in the flesh”).

Key figures:
Eutychius of Constantinople, bishop
Vigilius of Rome, bishop

6. Third Council of Constantinople:
Held in A.D. 680 in Constantinople; Convened by the Emperor Constantine IV; Attended by 170 bishops.

Condemned monothelitism, affirmed that Christ had both human and divine wills, that He acted as God only: that His divine will made the decisions but His human will carried them out.

Key figure:
Maximus the Confessor, theologian

7. Second Council of Nicaea:
Held in A.D. 787 in Nicaea; Convened by the Empress Irene; Attended by 367 bishops.

Condemned iconoclasm, upheld the display and veneration of icons.

Addressed the broader issues of the character of Christ's human nature, the Christian attitude toward matter, and the true meaning of Christian redemption and the salvation of the entire material universe.

Key figures:
Tarasios of Constantinople, bishop
John of Damascus, theologian and hymnographer

For a more thorough treatment of these councils, I highly recommend this excellent series of lectures.

The Heresies

The Apostle Paul warned us that the Church would be attacked by false teachings, or heresies:

"For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Tim 4.3-4)

Heresy (from the Greek word αιρεσις, which is a derivative of αιρεομαι, meaning "to choose") always comes from within the Church, never from without. It is not simply a difference of opinion, but is a corruption or perversion of correct (i.e. orthodox) teaching. Islam, for example, which rejects the doctrine of the Trinity, is not a heresy; it’s an entirely different religion. However, a Christian doctrine that rejects the Trinity is a heresy.

Heresy is not the same as apostasy, which is a rejection of the Christian faith entirely.

The following are a few of the major heresies that the Church has confronted over the centuries:

The Judaizers (1st Century)
Taught that one must become a Jew in order to be a Christian (Acts 15.1). The majority of the first Christians were Jews, and early Christianity itself was considered to be a part of Judaism. As Gentiles (non-Jews) sought conversion, a conflict arose concerning what was required of them in order to become Christians.
The Church declared that Gentiles may become Christians without being required to keep the Law of Moses. Paul vigorously defended this teaching in his epistles to the churches in areas where the Judaizers’ heresy had spread, such as Rome (3.27-31), Philipi (3.2-4), and Galatia (2.11-21).
Condemned by the Council of Jerusalem, A.D. 50

Gnosticism (1st and 2nd Centuries)
From the Greek γνώσις meaning “knowledge.” Taught that matter is evil and that salvation is achieved through a cosmic process in which one gains ever deeper spiritual insights.
Gnosticism rejected the Incarnation and contradicted the scriptural teaching that everything God created is “very good” (Gen 1.31).
They also believed in divine beings, known as “æons,” who mediated between man and the ultimate, unreachable God, and that the lowest of these æons, the one with whom men had contact, was Jesus Christ.
Docetism, from the Greek δοκέω meaning “to seem,” was a subcategory of Gnosticism that believed Christ was a purely spiritual being and only seemed to have a physical body and to physically die.
Condemned in one form or another by every Church council

Sabellianism (Early 3rd Century)
Also called Modalism and Monarchianism, this heresy taught that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were not three distinct persons, but three aspects or “modes” of one person. According to them, the three persons of the Trinity exist only in God’s relation to man, not in objective reality.
Condemned by the First Council of Constantinople, 381

Arianism (4th Century)
Arius, a priest from Alexandria, denied the divinity of Christ and taught that, if Jesus was born, then there must have been a time when He did not exist; if Jesus became divine, then there was a time when He was not divine. By citing Scripture and dressing his heresy in orthodox or near-orthodox terminology, Arius was able to muster the support of many bishops.
Condemned by the First Council of Nicaea, 325

Macedonianism (4th Century)
Named for Bishop Macedonius I of Constantinople, who denied the divinity of the Holy Spirit.
Condemned by the First Council of Constantinople, 381

Apollinarianism (4th Century)
Also called Apollinarism. A belief taught by Apollinaris, bishop of Laodicea, that Jesus had a human body, but a divine soul.
Condemned by the First Council of Constantinople, 381

Donatism (4th Century)
Named for Donatus Magnus, whose followers refused to accept the sacraments and spiritual authority of the priests and bishops who had fallen away from the faith during the Roman persecution.
Condemned by the Synod of Arles, 314; and the Council of Carthage, 411

Pelagianism (5th Century)
Pelagius, a British theologian, taught that we can become personally righteous by imitating Christ without the need of God’s grace. He believed that man is born morally neutral and can achieve salvation through his own efforts, and that the purpose of God’s grace is merely to make easier the otherwise difficult task of pursuing righteousness.
Condemned by the Council of Ephesus, 431

Nestorianism (5th Century)
Named for Archbishop Nestorius of Constantinople, who taught that the Virgin Mary gave birth to a man, Jesus Christ, not God. Nestorius claimed that she bore only Christ’s human nature in her womb, and proposed the title Christotokos (Greek Χριστοτόκος "Christ-bearer" or "Mother of Christ"). He taught that Christ was a vessel for divinity but not Himself divine.
Condemned by the Council of Ephesus, 431

Monophysitism (5th Century)
Originating as a reaction to Nestorianism, monophysitism (from μόνος “one” and φυσις “nature”) went to the other extreme, claiming that Christ was one person with only one nature: a fusion of human and divine elements.
Condemned by the Council of Chalcedon, 451

Monothelitism (7th Century)
A misguided attempt to appease the non-Chalcedonian churches, monothelitism (from μόνoς “one” and θέληση “will”) taught that Jesus Christ had two natures but only one will.
Condemned by the Third Council of Constantinople, 680

Iconoclasm (7th and 8th Centuries)
This heresy, driven by a misinterpretation of the Second Commandment and propogated by a group of people known as iconoclasts (literally "icon smashers"), taught that it was sinful to make pictures and statues of Christ and the saints.
Condemned by the Second Council of Nicaea, 787

The Creeds

Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed:
Recognized today as the Nicene Creed, this creed was formulated to combat various heresies and is recited today as the primary affirmation of the Christian faith.
Its original form was accepted by the First Ecumenical Council (Nicaea, 325):

We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of all things, visible and invisible; And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten from the Father, only-begotten, that is, from the essence of the Father, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one essence with the Father, through Whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth, Who because of us men and because of our salvation came down and became incarnate, becoming man, suffered and rose again on the third day, ascended to the heavens, and will come again to judge the living and the dead; And in the Holy Spirit.

The Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, 381) clarified its statement about the nature of Christ, and added a more complete statement regarding the Holy Spirit:

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all worlds, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made:Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man; And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered and was buried; And the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures; And ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; And He shall come again with glory to judge the living and the dead, Whose kingdom shall have no end.

And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and Giver of Life, Who proceeds from the Father, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spoke by the Prophets;

And we believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. We look for the Resurrection of the dead, And the Life of the world to come. Amen

Chalcedonian Creed:
A profession of faith ascepted by the Fourth Ecumenical Council (Chalcedon, 451) and intended to counter monophysitism.

We, then, following the holy Fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood;truly God and truly man, of a reasonable [rational] soul and body;consubstantial [co-essential] with the Father according to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Manhood;in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, according to the Manhood;one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably;the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ;as the prophets from the beginning [have declared] concerning Him, and the Lord Jesus Christ Himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us.