The Anti-Chalcedonian Monophysites

Containing the views of St. Justin Popovich, Vladyka Philaret of NY & St. John Maximovitch and preceded by the testimony of a former Coptic priest

Testimony of Fr. Athanasios Henein (Former Coptic Priest)

00:00:16 Fr. Athanasios Henein:

00:00:16 “Many speak of heresy, many write about the condition, but few are those who have tasted the bitterness of heresy, and fewer still those who have lived and shed blood to free themselves from its captivity.

00:00:32 Heresy is a way of life, it is a great prison, it is a mental, as well as physical, illness. I, Athanasios Henein, lived these tragic events as the head of the Coptic community in Athens for fifteen years.

00:00:48 Copts divide the person of Christ and abolish His inter-human reality and His realistic presence in the world and in the Church.

00:01:04 But the miracle of my healing and conversion to our Mother, the Orthodox Church, was by the grace of the Triune God…”

On the Nature of Monophysitism

00:01:16 It should be noted that Monophysitism has many forms: the extreme form of Eutychius and the more moderate form of Sevirus and Dioscorus…

00:01:18 It is a ‘many-headed Hydra’ according to the Rudder…

St. Justin Popovich on Church Division and Heresy

00:01:30 St. Justin Popovich:

00:01:40 “A division within the Church has never occurred, nor indeed can one take place, while apostasy from the Church has and will continue to occur after the manner of those voluntarily fruitless branches which, having withered, fall away from the eternally living theanthropic Vine—the Lord Christ (John 15:1-6).

00:02:00 From time to time, heretics and schismatics have cut themselves off and have fallen away from the one and indivisible Church of Christ, whereby they ceased to be members of the Church and parts of her theanthropic body.

00:02:20 The first to fall away thus were the gnostics, then the Arians, then the Macedonians, then the Monophysites (Anti-Chalcedonians), then the Iconoclasts, then the Roman Catholics, then the Protestants, then the Uniates, and so on—all the other members of the legion of heretics and schismatics.”

Vladyka Philaret of NY on Monophysite Doctrine

00:02:30 Vladyka Philaret of NY:

00:02:50 “The word Mono-physite obviously means of one nature in literal translation. This meaning is in line with the heretical pseudo-teaching of the Monophysites who maintain that our Savior was of one nature only, the Divine nature, as His human nature had allegedly vanished or dispersed without a trace in His Divine nature like a tiny drop in an endless sea…

00:03:10 Given this state of things, is not a Coptic or Monophysite liturgy but a piece of non-representational nonsense without any real substance or meaning?

00:03:12 Indeed, the subject-matter of the mystery of the Eucharist are the Divine Flesh and Blood of Christ - the Flesh that suffered for us, and the Blood that was shed for us. Yet the Flesh and the Blood are appurtenances of the human nature of our Savior: God can neither suffer nor die.

00:03:30 If the Monophysites completely deny the human nature of our Savior, what meaning can their liturgy possibly have? Verily their Eucharist is of the kind that our Holy Fathers bluntly referred to as demons’ food…

00:03:50 You know how merciless the holy canons are when it comes to participating in heretical services. The canons that deal with this are the strictest. Thus the Church resolutely safeguards itself against any form of communion with those outside its domain. That’s where the Copts are, too.

00:03:58 No matter what has been said about the recent rapprochement between us, we are still divided by the same chasm which they cannot cross except by complete negation of their false teaching and acceptance of the Orthodox teaching.

00:04:02 The heat of ancient ecclesiastical debates has long since worn off. Moreover, the Copts are certainly closer to us than, say, the Catholics, in such aspects as fasting and other ascetic fundamentals. This was pointed out by the Holiest Metropolitan Anthony and his faithful disciple and adherent, His Eminence John.

00:04:12 However, as long as their principal dogma persists, they will stay outside our domain…

00:04:30 It is true that we administer our divine services at Our Lord’s Grave and at Our Lady’s, and that the Copts and the Catholics do so, too, but can we put our routine sermons on an equal footing with the things that take place in the center of World Christianity? All things therein executed are anything but routine, and are inconceivable elsewhere.

00:04:50 Moreover, if those sacred places were in our hands, no Copts or Catholics would be allowed to serve there…

00:05:00 What I do doubt though is that the principle of economia can go quite that far…When it comes to saving souls from delusion, the Fathers accept and approve of economia.

00:05:10 However, no matter how and in what form economia is applied, it must not deviate from its essential postulate whereby it must always be made clear to heretics that Christian Truth is something that only Orthodoxy can give them.

00:05:20 Heretics know not the Truth, or else their Truth is mutilated and distorted. They may not partake of the Truth except through full rejection of their heresy and full acceptance of Orthodoxy, including its dogmas, its moral commandments, its divine rituals, canons, rules, etc.”

St. John Maximovitch on Attending Heretical Services

00:05:50 St. John Maximovitch’s views:

00:05:56 “Two days ago I was conversing about Vladyka John with a man whom Vladyka knew while still in Yugoslavia. When war broke out in the 1940s, and then during the post-war upheavals, this man was forced, ‘in the struggle for existence’, to roam quite a bit about this wide world.

00:06:10 When, after the passage of several years, he again met with Vladyka, he began to recount to him concerning his ‘tribulations’. In particular, he said: ‘For three years I had to live where there was no Orthodox church, and I went to the Copts.’

00:06:20 ‘What? You went to the Copts?’ inquired Vladyka John. The man, having cringed, as he himself related, at Vladyka’s severe tone, replied: ‘Yes, I did, but I didn’t attend their liturgies.’

00:06:28 ‘But you did attend the vigils?’ ‘I did, Vladyka.’ ‘But did you repent of it?’ ‘No, but then, I didn’t pray there, I was only present.’

00:06:38 ‘Well, the next time you go to confession, without fail repent of the fact that you were present at the services of the heretics,’ concluded Vladyka John.

00:06:42 (Related by Vladyka Philaret of NY)”