The Holy Fathers and their Love of the Truth
We must despise and have an aversion for all of man’s customs and traditions which are opposed to the holy Canons of the Holy Ecumenical and Regional Synods, and to the Canons and divine words of the God-inspired Fathers and holy Teachers of our Church. For the Holy Synods and the divine Fathers did not utter words of their own, nor did they speak with the spirit of this world, as do worldly men, but they spoke with the illumination and grace of the Holy Spirit, and their words are Divine teachings that lead men to the kingdom of God. - from the New Ladder by St. Nikodimos the Agiorite
On Sunday, June 12 (May 30 Old Style), we will celebrate the memory of the 318 God-bearing Fathers of the First Ecumenical Council, which the Holy Emperor and Equal to the Apostles Constantine the Great convened in 325 AD to fight the heresy of Arianism and to bring order to the life of the Church, which was emerging from the Catacombs to become the triumphant and dominant Faith of the civilized world. This Sunday of the Holy Fathers is the Seventh Sunday of Pascha which comes every year exactly one week before the Great Feast of Pentecost.
The entire struggle of the Holy Fathers throughout the Church’s history to preserve Her dogmas and way of life unchanged seem strange, even foolish, to modern man. The true Fathers of every age, including our own, have always fled politically motivated compromises which might distort the Church’s teaching, even when this meant that they were in a tiny minority, virtually alone, and that theworld would laugh at them. Why did they choose to do so? There are many reasons, but here are three:
1. The Holy Fathers have a burning love for the Truth - Illusion, haziness, and distortion of all kinds are foreign to the clear, honest, and holy mind of a true Orthodox teacher. Theological truth is the highest, most important, and most foundational truth, a matter of eternal life and death, and therefore it is worthy of every sacrifice, including the sacrifice of our entire earthly life.
2. Heavenly things are more real to the Saints than earthly things - People who would never compromise on who their favorite basketball team is think it odd that the Fathers would not compromise on the homoousios or the Two Natures of Christ. The Fathers understood what was truly real and what is not, what is permanent and what is passing away. Their priorities are right side up; the world’s are upside down.
3. The Fathers feared above all to lose the presence of Jesus Christ in their hearts - This is a point often not considered and yet, when seeking the interior motivation of someone like St. Athanasios the Great or St. Maximos the Confessor, it is probably the key. True Fathers constantly carry about in their minds and hearts the unceasingly repeated Name of Jesus, and by this means they receive the knowledge of God and the presence of the Trinity in their innermost being. This presence is to them not theoretical or emotional or sentimental, but rather directly perceptible and objective. But if they should slip and compromise their teaching on dogma or morals in any way, they actually perceive the presence of Grace leaving them. They fear this loss more than anything, for it is the infinite, incalculable loss of that which is Most Precious in all the Universe and beyond the Universe, and therefore they flee compromise in dogmatic and moral matters like fire. The founders of heresies, like Arius or Nestorius, or today’s modernists, are those possessed of a great intellect but who either never receive the unceasing Presence within them or, when they feel it leaving, choose rather to delight in the constructions of their intellect and various material advantages rather than to repent of their false teachings and receive back this Presence.
Think of it this way: The dogmas and canons are a strong wall protecting the inner garden of the Church’s heart - the Life of prayer and presence of Jesus Christ. This inner Life instructs the mind how to build the wall, and the wall protects the inner Life. But sometimes this Life is not practiced, and then the wall seems no longer important. Or, as sometimes happens, when the wall is carelessly torn down, the Life is lost. This is why the Holy Fathers struggle to the death to practice the life of unceasing prayer and to keep the Church’s dogmatic and moral teachings unchanged.
St. Nikodimos on Reading the Scriptures and the Fathers
Along with the Scriptures, read also the divine Fathers, the interpreters of the Scriptures. You will derive no less pleasure from them than from the Scriptures, for by developing through their sacred writings the hidden meanings contained in the Scriptures, the Fathers enlighten the mind and enable it to know things it did not know before. “The manifestation of thy words will enlighten and instruct the simple” (Psalm 118: 130). Since naturally the knowledge of hidden meanings is accompanied by great delight, according to the maxim of the philosopher [Aristotle], “All men by nature desire to know”(Metaphysics, Book I), ineffable delight and joy shall be produced in your soul from the interpretations and words of the divine Fathers, so that you too will cry out those enthusiastic words of David, saying, “I have delighted in the way of thy testimonies, as much as in all riches” (Ps. 118: 14).
- from the Handbook of Counsel
St. Makarios of Corinth on the Unceasing Jesus Prayer
The Holy Spirit has instructed the Fathers, who were wise in the things of God, as regards general inner wakefulness, inner attention with respect to all things, and the guarding of the mind. Also He has revealed to them a truly wonderful and most scientific way of finding Grace. This way is that of unceasing prayer to our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, by bringing the whole mind back to the inner man and invoking from within us, from the depths of the heart, the All-holy name of the Lord and seeking His mercy, having our attention directed to the bare words of the prayer and to them alone, admitting nothing at all into the intellect, either from outside or within, but keeping it free of all forms.
- from the Introduction to the Philokalia