Homilies and Hymns, Volume 2

Byzantine origin, and the Western Church even in our time is still beset by new heresies and endless splits.

Indeed at the Council of Chalcedon, following the death of Theodosius II, when the Greeks and the Latins finally found themselves free to repudiate the Monophysite confession of a single nature in Christ to which they had previously subscribed (either due to personal bias as in the case of the Roman Pontiff who had a score to settle with Patriarch Nestorius, or out of fear as in the case of John, Patriarch of Antioch, who had been threatened by the Emperor with expulsion as in the case of Chrysostom and Nestorius), now they rejected that confession and reverted to the original profession of the duality of natures in Christ. Ironically, the very confession for which all three of them had accused Patriarch Nestorius of heresy; and now the Greeks and the Latins themselves were being accused of the same heresy by the Monophysites and labelled with the same misnomer, all three of them had applied to the Church of the East: "Nestorians."

This was to be followed by a final split between the Greeks and the Latins on the doctrine of the filioque the clause in the creed stating the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son introduced by the latter during the eleventh century.

The rise and the astounding spread of Islam, for the first time since the days of Constantine, placed Western Christianity in a defensive position and with it brought a lull in the theological internecine strife which had marked its whole history of the intervening centuries. But no sooner than the yoke of Islam had been overthrown in Europe, an acrimonious controversy accompanied by unprecedented acts of violence broke out in the Latin Church itself; this time under the guise of reformation while in reality, as is evident from the history of the period itself, it was a struggle for power and the wealth of Europe. Once again the accusations of heresy, corruption, and other vindictive epithets were traded between the two parties, namely, the Roman Catholic Church and the, so-called, Reformers, later known under the general name of Protestants.

Just like in the past, many an innocent person paid the extreme price. They were burned at the stake or otherwise tortured in the name of Christ and His Holy teaching, by both sides.

The purpose of this introduction is not to pass judgment on the righteousness of the cause of either side, but merely to point out that acts of injustice, betrayals and cruelty have always redounded. That the expulsion and martyrdom of SS Chrysostom, Nestorius, or the excommunication of men long dead, such as Diodorus, Theodore, did not prevent endless heresies and splits within Western Christianity, whether it be Manichaeism, Marcianism, Arianism, Apollinarianism, Monophysitism, Chalcedonianism, Protestantism, Sectarianism or indeed any other ism!