Anathema: Eastern Orthodoxy and The Ritual Cursing of All Other Christians
Many have been told that Eastern Orthodox Christianity is a welcoming, mystical version of Christianity, one that is not “hung up” on legalism or on excessive dogmatism. It may come as a surprise, then, to learn that Eastern Orthodox Christians not only formally believe that they are the only Christians on planet earth (Synod of Jerusalem of 1672, Decree 10), but that Eastern Orthodox Christians are called to ritually and formally curse, every year, all who disagree with them.
The canonical document that they use to curse all non-Orthodox is called the Synodikon of Orthodoxy, and technically is supposed to be read yearly on the Feast of Orthodoxy, also called the Sunday of Orthodoxy, and the Triumph of Orthodoxy. From the titles of the Feast Day on which it is read, it is clearly being associated with the very identity of Eastern Orthodox Christianity, and of what it means to be an Eastern Orthodox Christian. It is celebrated on the first Sunday of Great Lent in the Eastern Orthodox Church.
The Synodikon is especially associated with the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which defines the meaning of anathema. This is mentioned because some will try to change the definition of anathema to one which is not that given by the Council. The Council, however, defines and describes its own use of terms, and so therefore its definition is the requisite one for properly establishing the Eastern Orthodox understanding of anathema. The Council’s definition of an anathema is: “Now anathema is nothing less than complete separation from God” (2nd Nicaea, "The Letter from the Synod to the Emperor and Empress, from The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd Series, Vol. 14, p. 573). The Imperial Sacra, read at the First Session, also describes the “canonical censure” as sending one to “the fires of Gehenna” (pg 532). In Session VI the Council speaks of those who refuse to bow down and kiss icons with affection (cf. pgs 572-573) as “God-forsaken” and “God-hated heretics” (pg 542). It must also be recalled that, according to the Eastern Orthodox, these Conciliar documents and their pronouncements have the same infallible authority as Scripture.
It is moreover clear that these anathemas are not “medicinal,” nor conceived as such by the Eastern Orthodox Church as prescribed in its Conciliar documents. Giving these anathemas a therapeutic spin is therefore incredibly misleading, for in reality these anathemas are a using of the Keys of the Kingdom - given to the Church by Christ - to send people to the Lake of Fire. There is nothing therapeutic about the Lake of Fire.
Notice, these anathemas are not calls to repentance. They are a judicial sentencing followed by their corresponding judgments. As Canon 13 (in this instance dealing with those who misuse monastic properties) from the Seventh Ecumenical Council states, to be “excommunicated” is to be “condemned from the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost, and assigned their place where the worm dieth not and the fire is not quenched” (pg 564).
Returning more directly to the Synodikon, and having clearly in mind what is meant by anathema, it clearly states in the section from 1583, signed by the three chiefest Patriarchs, of Constantinople (and so Russia by inclusion for at the time it was a Metropolia under Constantinople), Alexandria, and Jerusalem, respectively, concerning all who are not in the Eastern Church:
That whoever does not confess with heart and mind that he is a child of the Eastern Church baptized in Orthodox style, and that the Holy Spirit proceeds out of only the Father, essentially and hypostatically, as Christ says in the Gospel, shall be outside our Church and shall be anathematized.
In other words, not being in the Orthodox Church, and affirming the filioque, means that you are consistently and formally cursed to perdition by the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Regarding those who take Communion:
That whoever says that our Lord Jesus Christ at the Mystic Supper had unleavened bread (made without yeast), like that of the Jews, and not leavened bread, that is to say, bread raised with yeast, let him depart far from us and let him be anathema as one having Jewish views and those of Apolinarios and bringing dogmas of the Armenians into our Church, on which account let him be doubly anathema.
In other words, anyone who doesn’t use leavened bread for Communion is now confirmed to be going to hell. Furthermore, after cursing all Roman Catholics, and regarding all those do not use Eastern customs or the Eastern calendar:
That whoever does not follow the customs of the Church as the Seven Holy Ecumenical Councils decreed, and Holy Pascha, and the Menologion (an ecclesiastical calendar prescribing feastdays and fasting periods) with which they did well in making it a law that we should follow it, and wishes to follow the newly-invented Paschalion and the New Menologion (i.e. the Gregorian calendar) of the atheist astronomers of the Pope, and opposes all those things and wishes to overthrow and destroy the dogmas and customs of the Church which have been handed down by our fathers, let him suffer anathema and be put out of the Church of Christ and out of the congregation of the Faithful.
In other words, not using the right calendar, or celebrating Pascha (Easter) on a different day, places one in hell, according to the formal and unchangeable pronouncement of the Eastern Church.
The Eastern Orthodox Church appears to have fallen victim to the Galatian heresy:
Formerly, when you did not know God, you were enslaved to those that by nature are not gods. (9) But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more? (10) You observe days and months and seasons and years! (11) I am afraid I may have labored over you in vain. (Galatians 4:8-11 ESV)
One might also be reminded of the Apostle Paul’s admonition to the Colossians:
Therefore let no one pass judgment on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. (17) These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance belongs to Christ. (Colossians 2:16-17 ESV)
Jesus Christ did not nail such things to the Cross in order to give merely a Christian version of the same. The Apostle Paul thus commands we “let no one pass judgment on you” in relation to such calendrical observances, and yet the Eastern Church considers its “triumph of Orthodoxy” to be the passing of sentence and judgment on these very sorts of things, down to the minutiae of which calendar keeps one out of hell. Of course, they may give many high-sounding phrases why holding to such traditions is valuable, and we will not dispute that holding to such things can be beneficial, but not unto condemnation!
See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition (παράδοσιν τῶν ἀνθρώπων), according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. (Colossians 2:8 ESV)
In conclusion, the Eastern Orthodox Church is one which not only refuses to acknowledge that any non-Orthodox are Christian, but ceaselessly curses all others who would claim to be Christian independently of their ecclesiastical authority and practice. If you are not Eastern Orthodox, they are cursing you, they have been cursing you, they will continue to curse you, and they are cursing all of your Christian ancestors. This yearly, ritual cursing, called to be done openly in the Church, carries all authority for them, and in their mind is bindingly true. It condemns everyone else to hell, and is not therapeutic but juridical. Those who claim that the Eastern Church is not legalistic or given to dogmatism are either misled or misleading.
-The Reformed Ninja
Please also see this article regarding the authenticity of the Sigillion of 1583.
