A Response To The Critics Of The Sacred Canons (ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΗ ΣΤΟΥΣ KATHΓΟΡΟΥΣ ΤΩΝ ΙΕΡΩΝ ΚΑΝΟΝΩΝ)
Kyriaki – Sunday Sermonette
Issue No. 1858
Metropolitan Avgoustinos (Kantiotes) of Florina
A Response To The Critics Of The Sacred Canons
ΑΠΑΝΤΗΣΗ ΣΤΟΥΣ ΚΑΤΗΓΟΡΟΥΣ ΤΩΝ Ι. ΚΑΝΟΝΩΝ.pdf
This past July, in the occasion of the remembrance of the Fathers of the 4th Ecumenical Synod we opened an issue. The memory now of the Fathers of the 7th Ecumenical Synod and the spirit of the undervaluing as much of the holy fathers (“metapatristic” theology) as much as the sacred canons (“codification”), give us again the opportunity to continue setting forth the related teaching of father Augustinos concerning the sacred canons drawing from his works.
If, my beloved, one steeps oneself in the study of the sacred canons as wise canon law specialists of the Orthodox Church interpret them, and indeed as saint Nicodemos the Hagiorite does; if above all he or she believes that the sacred canons are decisions not of a certain ministerial council or of some council but of sacred men who come together and deliberate in holy Spirit, then he will see them in a different light. He will see the depth of patristic thought and not the surface, the spirit and not the letter. “The letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3.6). The essence, which is contained in the forms of the sacred canons, have eternal value.
Certain ones, in order to spurn and mock the sacred canons, refer to some of them which touch upon different questions of moral order, and standing firmly behind their letter maintain that the canons no longer have a place in contemporary life.
We answer them the following.
They say that the canons, since they were instituted 1.200 – 1.600 years ago, are excessively old. They forget however, that certain things don’t grow old. For example the sun, which despite its age is for all absolutely indispensable. Can the sun be abolished. Read more »