The Confession of Dositheus, or the Eighteen Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672)

Synod of Jerusalem · later Orthodox writers

The Confession of Dositheus, or the Eighteen Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672)

The Confession of Dositheus, or the Eighteen Decrees of the Synod of Jerusalem (1672) A fresh English translation by T. R. Holliday. Translated from the Greek original, cross-checked against the accompanying Latin version (as printed in Kimmel's Monumenta Fidei Ecclesiae Orientalis and Hardouin's Acta Conciliorum, reproduced in Philip Schaff, Creeds of Christendom, Vol. II, pp. 401–444). Dositheus, by the mercy of God Patriarch of Jerusalem, to those who ask and inquire concerning the faith and worship of the Greeks — that is, of the Eastern Church — namely, what he holds concerning the orthodox faith, issues, in the common name of all the Christians subject to our apostolic throne and of the orthodox pilgrims who resort to this holy and great city of Jerusalem (with whom the catholic Church agrees in every article of the faith), this brief confession, as a testimony before God and before men, offered with a sincere conscience and without any pretense. We believe in one true God, almighty and without limit, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit: the Father unbegotten; the Son begotten of the Father before the ages, of one substance with Him; the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father, of one substance with the Father and the Son. These three hypostases in one essence we call the all-holy Trinity, forever blessed, glorified, and worshiped by every creature. We believe the divine and sacred Scripture to be taught by God; and therefore we ought to believe it without hesitation — yet not otherwise than as the catholic Church has interpreted and handed it down.

For while the whole filth of heretics receives the divine Scripture, they wrest it by metaphors and ambiguities and the sophistries of human wisdom, confounding what ought not to be confounded and trifling in matters that admit no trifling. For otherwise — if each man held a different opinion about it day by day — the catholic Church would not, by the grace of Christ, have remained until this day one Church holding one opinion concerning the faith, and believing always in the same way and without wavering; instead she would have been split into countless parts and fallen prey to heresies, and the holy Church would not be the pillar and ground of the truth, without spot and without wrinkle, but a congregation of evildoers — which is manifestly, beyond doubt, what has become of the heretics, and especially of the followers of Calvin, who are not ashamed to learn from the Church and then wickedly reject her. For this reason we believe that the testimony of the catholic Church is of no less authority than that of the divine Scripture itself. For since one and the same Holy Spirit is the author of both, it is entirely the same thing whether one is taught by Scripture or by the catholic Church. Moreover, any man whatsoever, speaking on his own authority, may err, deceive, and be deceived; but the catholic Church, as one that has never spoken and does not speak on her own authority but from the Spirit of God — who, being her never-failing teacher, enriches her unto the age to come — cannot at all err, nor in any way deceive or be deceived; rather, she possesses, just as the divine Scripture does, unfailing and everlasting authority.

We believe that the supremely good God has from eternity predestined to glory those whom He has chosen, and given over to condemnation those whom He has rejected — not, however, in such a way that He willed to justify the one and, without cause, to reject and condemn the other. For this would be foreign to God, the common Father of all, who shows no partiality and wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Rather, He foreknew that the one class would make good use of their free will, and the other, evil use; and accordingly He predestined the former, and condemned the latter. We understand the use of free will in this way: the divine and illuminating grace, which we also call preventing grace, is bestowed on all alike, like a light to those in darkness, by the divine goodness — for it benefits not those who are unwilling but those who are willing to yield to it; and to those who consent to be guided by what it commands as most necessary to salvation, a particular grace is further given, which, cooperating and strengthening them, makes them steadfast in the love of God — that is, in doing the good works that God wills, which the preventing grace also enjoined — and so justifies them and renders them predestined.

But to those who are unwilling to obey and to consent to grace, and who therefore do not keep what God wills us to do, but instead abuse, in the service of Satan, the free will they received from God to work good willingly, there comes about the abandonment to everlasting condemnation. But to say — as the most abominable heretics do, as is set down in this same chapter — that God predestines or condemns without any regard whatsoever to the works of those predestined or condemned, we know to be profane and impious. For thus Scripture would contradict itself, since it teaches the believer that salvation comes through works, and God alone is the cause of it, by grace alone, the illuminating grace, which He grants without any preceding works, in order to show man the truth of things divine and to teach him how, if he wishes, he may assent to it and do what is good and pleasing, and so obtain salvation. It does not take away his freedom to will or not to will, to obey or not to obey. But to hold that the divine will is simply and without cause the cause of the condemned — what madness does this not display? What slander does it not bring against God? What injustice and blasphemy does it not utter to the very heights? For we know that the Godhead is untouched by evil and wills the salvation of all equally, since with Him there is no respect of persons; and we confess that condemnation is justly allowed to fall upon those who, by their own wicked choice and unrepentant heart, have become vessels of dishonor.

But that God is ever, ever the cause of eternal punishment, of cruelty, of mercilessness, of hatred of mankind — He who declared that there is joy in heaven over one sinner who repents — this we neither believe nor think, so long as we are in our right mind; rather, we subject to everlasting anathema those who say and think such things, and we know them to be worse than any unbeliever. We believe that God in three hypostases — the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit — is the maker of all things, visible and invisible: of the invisible, namely the angelic powers, the rational souls, and the demons (although God did not make the demons to be such as they later became of their own choice); and of the visible, namely heaven and what is under heaven. And because the Maker is good by nature, He made all that He made very good, and He can never be the maker of evil. But if any evil — that is, any sin committed contrary to the divine will — is found in man or in the demon (for we acknowledge no evil simply present in nature), that evil belongs either to man or to the devil. For this is a true and unfailing rule: that God is in no way the author of evil, nor can evil rightly be charged to God at all.

We believe that all things, visible and invisible, are governed by the providence of God; and that God foreknows and permits evils as evils, yet is not their provider — since He is not their maker either. And things already done He sometimes directs, by His supreme goodness, to some useful end — not by doing them, but by turning them, so far as possible, toward what is better for those concerned. We ought to adore the divine providence in its secret and wholly unrevealed judgments, not to examine it. Yet what is handed down concerning it in the divine Scripture, as tending toward eternal life, we ought reverently to search out, and accordingly to receive it without hesitation, in accordance with the foremost conceptions we hold of God. We believe that the first man, created by God in paradise, fell when he disobeyed the divine commandment through the deceitful counsel of the serpent; and from this the ancestral sin flowed on by succession, so that no one is born after the flesh who does not bear this burden and feel its fruits in the present age. By these fruits and this burden we do not mean sin itself — such as impiety, blasphemy, murder, sodomy, adultery, fornication, hatred, and whatever else arises from a wicked choice contrary to the divine will, and not from nature. For many of the patriarchs and prophets, and countless others, both under the shadow of the law and under the truth of grace — the divine forerunner chief among them, and above all, in a singular sense, the Mother of God the Word, the ever-virgin Mary — never experienced such transgressions or others like them.

Rather, what divine justice gave to man as punishment for the transgression — the sweat of labor, afflictions, bodily weaknesses, the pains of childbirth, a life spent laboriously in this sojourning, and finally, bodily death — these alone they experienced. We believe that the Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, underwent a self-emptying — that is, that in His own hypostasis He took to Himself human flesh from the Holy Spirit, being conceived in the womb of the ever-virgin Mary and made man, born without causing His mother, according to the flesh, either pain or travail, and without impairing her virginity; that He suffered, was buried, and rose in glory on the third day according to the Scriptures; that He ascended into the heavens and sits at the right hand of God the Father; and that we look for Him to come to judge the living and the dead. We believe that our Lord Jesus Christ became the sole mediator, and, giving Himself as a ransom for all, made reconciliation between God and men through His own blood, and, caring for His own, is Himself our advocate and the propitiation for our sins. Yet in our supplications and petitions addressed to Him, we say that the saints are our intercessors — and before all, the all-pure Mother of God the Word Himself — as well as the holy angels, whom we know to be set over us, the apostles, prophets, martyrs, the holy ones, and all whom He has glorified as His faithful servants — among whom we number also the high priests and priests who stand about the divine altar, and men distinguished for righteousness and virtue.

For we are taught by the sacred oracles that we ought to pray for one another, that the prayer of the righteous avails much, and that God hears the saints more readily than those wallowing in sin. And we confess that the saints are our mediators and intercessors with God not only while they are still in this sojourning, but also, and especially, after death — when, the mirrors having been put away, they behold the Holy Trinity clearly, and its infinite light sets before their minds our own affairs. For just as we have no doubt that the prophets, while still clothed in a body perceptible to sense, knew the things of heaven, by which they prophesied what was to come, so also we do not doubt — but rather firmly believe and confess — that the angels, and the saints who have become like the angels, know our affairs by the infinite light of God. We believe that no one is saved without faith. By faith we mean that most correct opinion concerning God and things divine which exists within us, which, working through love — that is, through the divine commandments — justifies us before Christ, and without which it is impossible to please God. We believe that the so-called — or rather, the truly existing — holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, in which we have been taught to believe, embraces universally all who believe in Christ, namely all who, even now, are still in this sojourning and have not yet made their way to their homeland.

We by no means confuse this Church, which is still on the way, with the Church that is in the homeland, as if — as certain heretics say — the members of both were, as it happened, sheep of the same chief Shepherd, God, and were sanctified by the same Holy Spirit; for this is at once absurd and impossible, since the one still contends and is upon the road, while the other has borne away the prize and been established, triumphant, in the homeland. And since a mortal man cannot be the universal and everlasting head of this catholic Church, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself is its head, and He Himself, holding the helm, steers its governance through the holy fathers. And for this reason the Holy Spirit has set over the particular churches — which are churches in the proper sense, made up of members in the proper sense — leaders and shepherds who, not by any abuse of the term but properly, are their rulers and heads, namely the bishops, who look to the author and perfecter of our salvation and refer to Him the working of the provision they administer as heads. And since, along with their other impieties, it has also seemed good to the Calvinists to hold that a mere priest and a bishop are, as it happens, one and the same thing; that there may be no bishop, and the Church may be governed by certain priests; that not the bishop alone but even a priest may ordain a priest, and that several priests may ordain a bishop; and since they loudly proclaim that the Eastern Church shares in this same wickedness (which is why the tenth chapter was written against Cyril) — we declare more fully, in accordance with the opinion that has prevailed in the Eastern Church from the beginning: That the dignity of the bishop is so necessary in the Church that without it neither a church nor any Christian could exist, or even be so called.

For the bishop, as successor of the apostles, having received in unbroken succession, by the laying on of hands and the invocation of the all-holy Spirit, the grace given to the apostles by the Lord to bind and to loose, is the living image of God on earth, and, by his fullest participation in the working of the Spirit who is the source of all mysteries, is the fountain of all the mysteries of the catholic Church, through which we attain salvation. We consider him thus necessary to the Church, as breath is to man and the sun to the world. Whence it has also been elegantly said by some, in praise of the episcopal dignity, that what God is in the heavenly Church of the firstborn, and the sun in the world, each bishop is in his own particular church — the one through whom the flock is enlightened, warmed, and made a temple of God. That the great mystery and dignity of the episcopate has been transmitted by unbroken succession down to us is plain. For the Lord, having said that He would be with us to the end of the age — though He is with us in other ways too, by grace and divine benefits — is united and present with us above all through the episcopal ministry, and is joined to us through the sacred mysteries, of which the bishop, through the Spirit, is the first minister and celebrant; and he does not allow us to fall into heresy.

For this reason Damascene, in his fourth letter to the Africans, said that the universal Church has generally been entrusted to the bishops; and Clement is confessed to have been the first bishop of Rome, Evodius of Antioch, and Mark of Alexandria, as successors of Peter. And the divine Andrew appointed Stachys to the throne of Constantinople in his stead; and in this great holy city of Jerusalem the Lord Himself made James bishop, and after James another succeeded, and after him another, down to ourselves — and for this reason Tertullian, in his letter to Papianus, calls all bishops successors of the apostles. This succession, and the apostolic dignity and authority of the bishops, Eusebius Pamphili also attests, and the fathers generally bear witness to it (it would be superfluous to list them), and the common and most ancient custom of the catholic Church confirms it. That the episcopal dignity differs from that of a mere priest is plain. For the priest is ordained by the bishop, but the bishop is not ordained by a priest, but by two or three bishops, as the apostolic canon requires. And the priest is chosen by the bishop, but the bishop is not chosen by priests or presbyters, nor is he chosen by civil rulers, but by the synod of the highest church of that district in which lies the city that is to receive the man to be ordained, or at least by the synod of that province in which the bishop is to be made.

And if at times the city also has a part in the choosing, it is not the city alone that determines it; for the election is referred to the synod, and if the synod judges it to be canonically sound, the one elected is put forward through the laying on of hands of the bishops and the invocation of the all-holy Spirit; but if not, whomever the synod wills is advanced instead. And the priest keeps to himself alone the authority and grace of the priesthood he has received, but the bishop imparts it to others as well. And the priest, once he has received the dignity of the priesthood from the bishop, administers only holy baptism and the oil of unction, performs the unbloody sacrifice, and gives to the people the all-holy body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ; he anoints the baptized with the holy chrism, crowns the pious who marry according to the law, prays for the sick and for the salvation and true knowledge of all men, and especially for the remission and forgiveness of the sins of the pious, living and dead. And if he excels in trial and virtue, having received authority from the bishop, he corrects the pious who come to him and guides them on the road to gaining the heavenly kingdom, and he is appointed a herald of the sacred gospel.

But the bishop is the minister of all these things too, since he himself is, as has been said, the source of the divine mysteries and gifts through the Holy Spirit, and he alone performs the consecration of the holy chrism. And the ordinations of all the orders and ranks in the Church belong to him alone; and in the first and highest sense he binds and looses, and his judgment is acceptable to God, as the Lord has said; and he teaches the sacred gospel and defends the pious faith, and separates from the Church, as heathens and publicans, those who refuse to obey; and he subjects heretics to excommunication and anathema, and lays down his own soul for the sheep. From all this it is manifestly beyond dispute that the bishop differs from a mere priest, and that without him no priests in the world, however many, are able to shepherd or in any way govern the Church of God. But it has well been said by one of the fathers that it is not easy to find a wise heretic. For, having abandoned the Church, they have been abandoned by the Holy Spirit, and no understanding or light remains in them, but darkness and blindness. For had this not befallen them, they would not set themselves against things so manifest — among which is the truly great mystery of the episcopate, taught by Scripture, recorded and attested by the whole of ecclesiastical history and the writings of the saints, and ever held and confessed by the catholic Church.

We believe that the members of the catholic Church are all, and only, the faithful — those, that is, who hold without wavering the blameless faith of Christ the Savior, as it was set forth by Christ Himself, by the apostles, and by the holy ecumenical councils — even though some of them may be guilty of sins of every kind. For if the faithful who live amid sins were not members of the Church, they would not be judged by the Church. But now, since they are judged by her, and called to repentance, and guided into the path of the saving commandments, then even though they may still be defiled by sins, for this reason alone — that they have not fallen into despair, and that, holding fast to the catholic and pious faith, they are members of the catholic Church — they both are, and are known to be, members of the catholic Church. We believe that the catholic Church is taught by the Holy Spirit. For He is the true Comforter, whom Christ sends from the Father to teach the truth and to drive darkness from the minds of the faithful. Yet the teaching of the Holy Spirit does not adorn the Church immediately, but through the holy fathers and leaders of the catholic Church. For just as the whole of Scripture is and is called the word of the Holy Spirit — not because it was spoken by Him immediately, but because it was spoken by Him through the apostles and prophets — so also the Church is taught by the life-originating Spirit, but through the mediation of the holy fathers and teachers (whose rule the holy ecumenical councils have been confessed to be — a thing I will not cease to repeat a thousand times over); and for this reason we are not only persuaded but confess as true and unquestionably certain that it is impossible for the catholic Church to sin, or to be led astray at all, or ever to choose falsehood in place of truth.

For the all-holy Spirit, working always through the holy fathers and leaders who minister faithfully, delivers the Church from every kind of error whatsoever. We believe that man is justified not by faith alone, simply, but by faith working through love — that is, by faith together with works. As for holding that faith, fulfilling the office of a hand, merely lays hold of the righteousness that is in Christ and applies it to us for salvation — this we know to be far from all piety. For faith so understood would fit every man equally, and there would be no one who is not saved — which is plainly false. On the contrary, we believe that it is not something correlative to faith, but rather the faith that is within us, working through works, that justifies us before Christ. And by works we do not mean things that merely bear witness to and confirm our calling, but things that are, in themselves, fruits, through which faith becomes operative and is, in itself, made worthy — by the divine promises — for each of the faithful to receive again what he has done in the body, whether good or evil. We believe that man, having slipped through transgression, has been made comparable and likened to the beasts — that is, he has been dimmed and has fallen from perfection and from freedom from passion, though he has not, for that, departed from the nature and operation he received from the supremely good God.

For otherwise he would no longer be rational, and therefore no longer man; rather, he retains the very nature in which he was created, and the natural operation of that nature — which is free will — living and active, so that by nature he is able to choose and do good, and to flee and abhor evil. For it would be absurd to confess that the good nature created by the supremely good God is without any share of good operation; for this is to say that the nature itself is evil — and what could be more impious than that? For operation depends on nature, and nature on the Maker, even though the manner differs. That man is able by nature to work good is suggested by the Lord Himself, when He says that even the heathen love those who love them; and it is taught most clearly by Paul (Romans, chapter 1, and elsewhere expressly), where he says that the Gentiles, who have not the law, do by nature the things of the law. From this it is also plain that it is impossible for any good that man does to be sin — for it is impossible for what is good to be evil. Yet such good, arising from nature alone and making its doer merely natural and not also spiritual, contributes nothing at all toward salvation without faith — but neither does it contribute toward condemnation, for that too is impossible: the good, as such, can never be the cause of evil.

In the regenerate, however, this same operation — wrought under grace and with grace — is made perfect, and renders him who performs it worthy of salvation. Man, then, before regeneration, is by nature able to incline toward the good, and to choose and do what is morally good. But that he, once regenerate, may do what is spiritually good — for the works of the faithful, being a contributing cause of salvation and wrought by supernatural grace, are rightly called spiritual — it is necessary that grace go before and precede them, in the manner already stated in the discussion of predestination; so that of himself man can accomplish no work worthy of life in Christ, though of himself he does have it in his power to will or not to will to consent to grace. We believe that the mysteries of the Gospel are in the Church, and that they are seven in number. We admit no lesser or greater number of mysteries in the Church, since a number of mysteries other than seven is the offspring of heretical derangement. The number seven is established and gathered from the sacred Gospel, as are the other doctrines of the catholic faith. The Lord delivered holy baptism, first, through the words: Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and: He who believes and is baptized shall be saved, but he who does not believe shall be condemned.

Confirmation — that is, the holy chrism and the sacred anointing — He delivered through the words: But tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are clothed with power from on high; with which power they were clothed at the coming of the Holy Spirit — and this is what the mystery of confirmation signifies, of which Paul also speaks in the first chapter of Second Corinthians, and more plainly still through Dionysius the Areopagite. The priesthood He delivered through the words: Do this in remembrance of me, and: Whatsoever you bind and loose on earth shall be bound and loosed in heaven. The unbloody sacrifice He delivered through the words: Take, eat, this is my body, and Drink of it, all of you, this is my blood of the new covenant, and: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, you have no life in yourselves. Marriage, after recounting what was said of it in the Old Testament, He delivered as though by a seal, through the words: What God has joined together, let no man put asunder — which the divine apostle also calls a great mystery. Repentance, in which sacramental confession is included, He delivered through the words: Whosoever sins you forgive, they are forgiven them; whosoever sins you retain, they are retained, and: Unless you repent, you shall all likewise perish. The holy oil, or the oil of unction, is mentioned in Mark, and expressly attested by the brother of the Lord.

The mysteries consist of the natural and the supernatural together; they are not bare signs of God's promises — for then they would be no different from circumcision, than which what could be more wretched? Rather, we confess them to be effective instruments, necessarily conferring grace on those who are initiated by them. But we spit out, as foreign to Christian teaching, the notion that the integrity of the mysteries requires the actual consumption of the earthly element; for this is contrary to the mystery of the offering, which, instituted by the substantive word and sanctified by the invocation of the Holy Spirit, is perfected in the very existence of that which it signifies — namely, the body and blood of Christ — and this perfection necessarily precedes its use. For if it were not perfect before its use, then he who used it wrongly would not eat and drink judgment upon himself, since he would only have partaken of bare bread and wine. But now, whoever partakes unworthily eats and drinks judgment to himself; so that the mystery of the eucharist has its perfection not in the use, but even before the use. We also reject, as an abomination and a defilement, the notion that a defective faith injures the completeness of the mystery. For the Church receives heretics who, having renounced their heresy, are joined to the catholic Church, even though, while holding a defective faith, they had received a perfect baptism — and so, once they have later acquired a perfect faith, they are not rebaptized.

We believe that holy baptism, ordained by the Lord and administered in the name of the Holy Trinity, is among the things most necessary. For without it no one can be saved, as the Lord says: Whoever is not born of water and the Spirit shall not enter the kingdom of heaven. And for this reason it is necessary also for infants, since they too are subject to the ancestral sin and cannot obtain remission of it apart from baptism — which the Lord, in declaring this, did not state partially but simply and universally: Whoever is not born — which is the same as saying that all who, after the coming of Christ the Savior, are to enter the kingdom of heaven must be born again. And if infants are human beings, and if human beings need salvation, then infants need salvation, and therefore need baptism also. And those not born again, as not having received remission of the ancestral sin, are subject to the everlasting penalty due to sin, and consequently are not saved without baptism; so that it is necessary that infants too be baptized. Moreover, infants are saved, as is said in Matthew; and he who is not baptized is not saved; therefore infants too must necessarily be baptized. And in the Acts it is said that whole households were baptized — therefore infants too. This the ancient fathers also clearly attest, among them Dionysius, in his work on the ecclesiastical hierarchy; and Justin, in his fifty-sixth question, who says expressly: They are accounted worthy of the blessings conferred through baptism by the faith of those who present them for baptism.

And Augustine says it is an apostolic tradition that children are saved through baptism; and elsewhere: the Church lends to infants the feet of others, that they may come; the hearts of others, that they may believe; the tongue of others, that they may profess. And elsewhere again: Mother Church supplies them with a heart of their own. Baptism is performed with the matter of pure water, and no other liquid. It is administered by a priest alone; yet, under unavoidable necessity, it may also be administered by another person, provided that person is orthodox and has the intention proper to holy baptism. The effects of baptism, briefly stated, are these: first, the remission of the ancestral sin, and of whatever other sins the baptized had committed; second, it delivers him from the everlasting penalty to which he was liable, whether for the ancestral sin or for his own mortal sins; third, it grants him immortality, since, by justifying him from his former sins, it restores him as a temple of God. Nor can it be said that not all sins whatsoever committed before baptism are dissolved by baptism, but that they remain, only without effect — for this is full of the utmost impiety, and a denial rather than any confession of piety at all; rather, every sin that existed or was committed before baptism is blotted out, and reckoned as though it had never existed or been committed.

For the types of baptism, and all the sayings that foreshadow and complete it, alike suggest a perfect cleansing; and this same thing is confirmed by the very names given to baptism. For if baptism is by the Spirit and by fire, then plainly the cleansing is perfect for all, since the Spirit cleanses perfectly. If it is light, it has dispelled the darkness; if it is regeneration, the old things have passed away — and what are these old things but sins? If the one baptized puts off the old man, then he puts off sin also; if he puts on Christ, then he becomes actually sinless through baptism, for God is far from sinners. This Paul also teaches more plainly, saying: as through the one man we, the many, were made sinners, so through the One we are made righteous. And if righteous, then free from sin; for life and death cannot exist in the same subject at once. If Christ truly died, then the remission of sin through the Spirit is truly real as well. From this it is plain that all baptized infants who fall asleep are, beyond doubt, saved, being predestined through the death of Christ. For if they are outside all sin — outside the common sin, because they have been redeemed by the divine washing, and outside personal sin, because infants, having no actual power of choice, do not sin — then they are also saved.

Baptism also imprints an indelible character, as does the priesthood. For just as it is impossible for the same man to receive the same priesthood twice, so it is impossible for one who has been rightly baptized once to be baptized again, even though he should happen to fall into countless sins, or even into outright apostasy from the faith; for whoever wishes to return to the Lord recovers, through the mystery of repentance, the adoption he had lost. We believe that the all-holy mystery of the sacred eucharist, which we placed fourth in order above, is that very mystery which the Lord delivered on the night on which He gave Himself up for the life of the world. For, taking bread and blessing it, He gave it to His holy disciples and apostles, saying: Take, eat; this is my body. And taking the cup and giving thanks, He said: Drink of it, all of you; this is my blood, which is shed for you for the remission of sins. We believe that in the celebration of this mystery our Lord Jesus Christ is present, not typically, nor figuratively, nor by an overflowing of grace as in the other mysteries, nor by a bare presence, as some of the fathers have said concerning baptism, nor by way of impanation, so that the divinity of the Word is united to the bread of the eucharist set before us substantially, as the followers of Luther most ignorantly and wretchedly hold — but truly and really, so that, after the consecration of the bread and wine, the bread is changed, transubstantiated, converted, transformed into the very true body of the Lord, which was born in Bethlehem of the ever-virgin, was baptized in the Jordan, suffered, was buried, rose again, ascended, sits at the right hand of God the Father, and is to come upon the clouds of heaven; and the wine is converted and transubstantiated into the very true blood of the Lord, which, as He hung upon the cross, was shed for the life of the world.

Further, after the consecration of the bread and wine, the substance of the bread and wine no longer remains, but the very body and blood of the Lord, under the species and form of bread and wine — that is, under the accidents of the bread. Further, this same most pure body and blood of the Lord is distributed and passes into the mouth and stomach of those who partake, whether pious or impious; yet to the pious and worthy it brings the remission of sins and eternal life, while to the impious and unworthy it brings condemnation and everlasting punishment. Further, the body and blood of the Lord are cut and divided by hand or by teeth only according to the accidents — that is, according to the accidents of the bread and wine, by which they are also confessed to be visible and tangible — but in themselves they remain wholly uncut and undivided. Whence the catholic Church says: He is broken and divided who is broken but not divided, who is ever eaten yet never consumed, but sanctifies those who partake of Him worthily. Further, in each and every smallest part or fragment of the bread and wine that has been changed, there is not a mere part of the body and blood of the Lord — for this would be blasphemous and impious to say — but the whole Christ the Master entire, according to substance, that is, with soul and divinity, that is, perfect God and perfect man.

Whence, even when many liturgies are being celebrated at one and the same hour throughout the world, there are not many Christs or many bodies of Christ, but one and the same Christ is truly and really present, and His body and blood are one in all the particular churches of the faithful — not because the body of the Master that is in the heavens comes down upon the altars, but because the bread of the offering set forth in each of the particular churches, being changed and transubstantiated after the consecration, becomes and is one and the same with that which is in the heavens. For the body of the Lord is one in many places, and not many; and for this reason this mystery is especially called, and is, wonderful, and comprehensible by faith alone, not by the sophistries of human wisdom, whose vain and foolish inquisitiveness concerning things divine our pious and God-delivered religion casts aside. Further, this same body and blood of the Lord, present in the mystery of the eucharist, ought to be honored with the utmost reverence and worshiped with the worship of adoration; for the worship of the Holy Trinity and of the body and blood of the Lord is one and the same worship. Further, it is a true and propitiatory sacrifice, offered for all the pious, living and dead, and for the benefit of all, as is expressly set down in the prayers of the mystery handed down to the Church by the apostles, in accordance with the Lord's command to them.

Further, that which is kept in the sacred pyxes, both immediately after the consecration and before its use, and after its use, for the communion of the dying, is the true body of the Lord, and in no way different from itself, so that before the consecration and after it, in use and after use, it is in every respect the true body of the Lord. Further, we believe that the word transubstantiation is not meant to declare the manner in which the bread and wine are changed into the body and blood of the Lord — for this is wholly incomprehensible, and impossible except to God Himself, and brings ignorance together with impiety upon those who think they can grasp it — but rather that the bread and wine, after the consecration, are not changed into the body and blood of the Lord typically, nor figuratively, nor by an overflowing of grace, nor by the communion or presence of the divinity alone of the Only-begotten, nor by any accident of the bread and wine being changed by some alteration into an accident of the body and blood of Christ; but truly, really, and substantially the bread becomes the very true body of the Lord, and the wine His very blood, as has been said above. Finally, we believe that this mystery of the sacred eucharist can be performed by no one other than a pious priest, who has received the priesthood from a pious and lawful bishop, in the manner the Eastern Church teaches.

This is, in brief, the opinion of the catholic Church, and her true confession and most ancient tradition concerning this mystery, which those who wish to be pious, and who reject innovations and the profane vain talk of heretics, must in no way curtail, but must of necessity keep this handed-down tradition whole and unshaken. For the catholic Church of Christ rejects and anathematizes those who transgress it. We believe that the souls of those who have fallen asleep are either at rest or in torment, according to what each has done — for, being separated from their bodies, they at once depart either to joy or to grief and mourning, though it is acknowledged that neither their enjoyment nor their condemnation is yet complete. For after the general resurrection, when the soul is reunited with the body with which it lived well or wickedly, each one shall receive the complete measure, either of enjoyment or of condemnation. As for those who have died entangled in mortal sins, yet not in despair, but who repented while still living in the body, though without producing any fruit of repentance — that is, without shedding tears, without kneeling in wakeful prayer, without afflicting themselves, without comforting the poor, and in short without showing, in works, their love toward God and their neighbor (which the catholic Church has rightly called, from the beginning, satisfaction) — the souls of these also, we believe, depart into Hades and there endure the penalty for the sins they have committed, remaining conscious of their eventual release, and being freed by the supreme goodness of God through the prayers of priests and the good works which the relatives of each of the departed perform on their behalf — the unbloody sacrifice availing most of all, which the catholic and apostolic Church offers daily, both individually for the departed relatives of each and in common for all.

It is understood, however, that we do not know the time of this release; for that such release from these torments occurs, even before the general resurrection and judgment, we know and believe — but when, we do not know. Ought the divine Scripture to be read by all Christians in common? No. For we know that all Scripture is God-inspired and profitable, and so necessary in itself that it is impossible to live piously at all without it. Yet it is not fitting that it be read by everyone, but only by those who, with fitting inquiry, search into the depths of the Spirit, and who know by what methods the divine Scripture is to be searched, taught, and read at all. But for the untrained, who take up the things of Scripture indiscriminately, or according to the bare letter only, or in some other manner foreign to piety, the catholic Church — knowing the harm from experience — has ordained that such reading is not permitted. So that every pious person is permitted to hear the things of Scripture, that he may believe with the heart unto righteousness and confess with the mouth unto salvation; but the reading of certain parts of Scripture, and especially of the Old Testament, is forbidden for the reasons stated, and for others like them. And it amounts to the same thing to forbid the untrained from reading the whole of sacred Scripture in this manner, as to command infants not to touch solid food.

Is Scripture clear to all Christians who read it? If the divine Scripture were clear to all Christians who read it, the Lord would not have enjoined the searching of it upon those who wished to attain salvation; Paul would have written in vain that the gift of teaching was placed by God in the Church; and Peter would not have said that certain things in Paul's epistles are hard to understand. It is plain, then, that Scripture has great depth, and great breadth of meaning, and that it requires learned and divine men for its investigation, its true comprehension, and a right understanding consonant with the whole of Scripture and with the Holy Spirit, its author. So that, while for the regenerate the faith concerning the Trinity is well known, as are the incarnation of the Son of God, His sufferings, His resurrection, His ascension into the heavens, and the doctrine of the regeneration and the judgment — for which cause many have not hesitated to undergo death — it is not necessary, but rather impossible, for all to know also those things which the Holy Spirit reveals only to those trained in wisdom and holiness. What books do you call sacred Scripture? Following the rule of the catholic Church, we call sacred Scripture all those books which Cyril enumerated, gathering them from the Synod of Laodicea, together with those which he unwisely and ignorantly — or rather maliciously — called apocryphal: namely, the Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobit, the History of the Dragon, the History of Susanna, the Maccabees, and the Wisdom of Sirach.

For we judge these, together with the other genuine books of the divine Scripture, to be likewise genuine parts of Scripture; because the ancient custom that has handed them down — and, above all, the catholic Church — has, beyond doubt, handed down as genuine both the holy Gospels and the other books of Scripture, and these as well, as being parts of holy Scripture; and to deny these is to reject those. And even if it should seem that not all of these books have always been counted by everyone alike, nevertheless they are counted and reckoned among the whole of Scripture by councils and by very many of the most ancient and approved theologians of the catholic Church — all of which we too judge to be canonical books, and confess these to be sacred Scripture. What ought we to hold concerning the holy icons and the veneration of the saints? Since the saints are, and are confessed by the catholic Church to be, our intercessors, as has been said in the eighth chapter, it is now time to say that we also honor them as friends of God, and as those who entreat the God of all on our behalf. And we honor them in two ways: in one way, the Mother of God the Word, whom we honor with a veneration we call hyperdulia. For although the Mother of God is truly a servant of God alone, she is also His mother, as having borne in the flesh the One of the Trinity; wherefore she is celebrated as incomparably exalted above all angels and saints, and for this reason we render to her hyperdulic worship.

In a second way — which we call dulia — we worship, or rather honor, the holy angels, apostles, prophets, martyrs, and, in a word, all the saints. Furthermore, we worship and honor the wood of the precious and life-giving cross, on which our Savior wrought the world-saving passion, and the sign of the life-giving cross, the manger at Bethlehem by which we were delivered from irrationality, the place of the skull, the life-bearing tomb, and the other holy places of pilgrimage; and also the sacred Gospels and the sacred vessels through which the unbloody sacrifice is performed. And we adorn and honor the saints with yearly commemorations, public feasts, sacred foundations, and votive offerings. Moreover, we worship, honor, and kiss the icon of our Lord Jesus Christ, and of the all-holy Mother of God, and of all the saints — and likewise of the holy angels, in the form in which they appeared to certain of the patriarchs and prophets. And we also depict the all-holy Spirit, in the form in which He appeared, as a dove. But if some say that we are idolaters for worshiping the saints and the icons of the saints and the rest, we consider this a vain and feeble charge. For we render the worship of adoration to God alone, who is Trinity, and to no other; but we honor the saints in two ways — first, in reference to God, since it is for His sake that we honor them, and second, in themselves, since they are living images of God.

This latter honor, given to them in themselves, has been defined as dulia. But the honor given to the holy icons is relative, since the honor paid to them is referred to their prototypes. For whoever worships an icon worships, through the icon, its prototype; and the glory is not divided, nor is it in any way split between the icon and the one depicted, but becomes one and the same — just as the honor paid to a king's portrait is paid to the king himself. As for the passages they draw from Scripture to support their innovation, these do not help them as they suppose, but rather appear to agree wholly with us. For when we read the divine Scripture, we examine the time, the person, the example, and the cause. Why, indeed, does the same God at one time say, You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness, nor shall you worship or serve them, and at another command that Cherubim be made? And again, when we see oxen and lions made in the temple, we do not judge their meaning obstinately, for in obstinacy there is no faith; but, as has been said, considering the time and the rest, we arrive at the right opinion concerning these matters, and we hold that you shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness means the same as you shall not worship strange gods, that is, you shall not commit idolatry.

For in this way both the custom that prevailed in the Church from the time of the apostles, of venerating the holy icons relatively, and the worship due to God alone, are preserved, and God is not shown to contradict Himself. For if Scripture says, You shall not make, nor shall you worship, we cannot see how God could afterward have permitted the making of likenesses but not their worship. Wherefore, since the commandment concerns idolatry alone, we find that serpents, lions, oxen, and Cherubim were made, and figures or likenesses, among which angels appeared, were worshiped. As for the saints they cite as saying that it is not lawful to worship icons, we consider that these rather support our position, since those fathers, contending polemically, spoke against those who worshiped the holy icons with the worship of adoration, and against those who brought into the churches the images of their deceased relatives, and subjected those who did so to anathema — not against the right worship of the saints, the holy icons, the precious cross, and the rest that has been mentioned; especially since very many both record and proclaim that holy icons have existed in the Church, and have been worshiped by the faithful, from the time of the apostles — a tradition followed by the holy seventh ecumenical council, which puts to shame every heretical impurity, since it most plainly makes clear how the holy icons ought to be worshiped, and anathematizes and excommunicates those who either worship icons with the worship of adoration, or say that the orthodox, in worshiping icons, are idolaters.

We too, therefore, together with that council, anathematize those who worship, with the worship of adoration, any saint, angel, icon, cross, holy relic, sacred vessel, or Gospel, or anything else whatsoever in heaven above, on earth, or in the sea — rendering the worship of adoration to God alone, who is Trinity. We anathematize also those who call the worship of icons idol-worship, or who refuse to worship them and to honor the cross and the saints as the Church has handed down. And we worship the saints and the holy icons in the manner stated, and we depict them for the adornment of the churches, and that they may be books for the unlearned, and for the imitation and remembrance of the virtues of the saints, and for the increase of love, and to stir us always to call upon the Lord, as our Master and Father, and the saints as His servants, and our helpers and intercessors. This, then, concludes what is to be said concerning the chapters and questions of Cyril. The heretics also revile the prayer of the pious to God — and then, we do not know why, direct their accusation against the prayer of monks alone. We, then, know prayer to be a converse with God, and a petition for fitting goods, which we hope to receive from Him; an ascent of the mind toward God and a pious disposition directed to God; a seeking after the things above; a help to the holy soul; a worship acceptable to God; a sign of repentance and of firm hope; and it is performed either by the mind alone, or by mind and voice together; and in it are contemplated the goodness and mercy of God, together with the unworthiness of the one who asks, and thanksgiving, and the promise of future submission to God.

It also involves faith, and hope, and perseverance, and the keeping of the commandments, and, in the first place, the petition for heavenly things; and it has many fruits, which it would be superfluous to list; and it is to be performed continually, whether standing or kneeling. So great is its benefit that it is confessed to be the food and life of the soul. And all this is gathered so plainly from the divine Scripture that whoever demands proof of it is like a fool, or like a blind man disputing about the light of the sun at noonday in a clear sky. The heretics, wishing to leave nothing that Christ has permitted unassailed, have laid hold of this too. Yet, ashamed to be so openly impious concerning prayer itself, they do not, for the present, forbid it outright, but are disturbed by the prayers of monks — and they do this precisely so that they may instill in simple people a hatred of monks, so that these will not so much as endure the sight of them as profane innovators, let alone endure being taught by them the doctrines of the pious and orthodox faith. For the adversary is wise in evil and shrewd in vanity; wherefore among his followers — such as these heretics chiefly are — piety is not so much their heart's desire as the constant eagerness to plunge headlong into the depth of evils and to break out into places which the Lord does not visit.

They must therefore be asked what they say the prayers of monks are; and if they should say that the monks have made up on their own something strange and out of tune with the orthodox religion of Christians, then we too agree, and say that such monks are not only not monks, but not even Christians. But if the monks declare at length the glory and the wonders of God, continually and unceasingly, and at every season glorify the Godhead, as far as man is able, with hymns and doxologies — chanting, on the one hand, the very words of Scripture, and on the other, composing hymns from Scripture, or at least speaking in harmony with it — then we confess that they are fulfilling an apostolic and prophetic work, or rather a work of the Lord Himself. Wherefore we too, in chanting the Paracletice, the Triodion, and the Menaia, fulfill a work in no way out of tune with Christians. For all such books discourse of united and distinguished theology, and, through hymns gathered partly from divine Scripture and partly composed by the gift of the Spirit, so that the words may fit the melodies, we sing, in other words, the things of Scripture; and further, so that it may be entirely clear that we are always singing the things of Scripture, we append to each hymn, in what is called a troparion, a verse of Scripture.

And if we also chant and read the prayers of Thecara and others composed by the ancient fathers, let our adversaries say what blasphemy or impiety is in them, and we will join them in rejecting those as well. And if this alone is what they mean — that praying continually and unceasingly is an evil — what is that to us or to them? Let them contend with Christ instead — as indeed they do — who, to show that we ought to pray continually, spoke the parable of the unjust judge, and taught us to watch and pray, to flee tribulations, and to stand before the Son of Man. Let them contend with Paul, in the first chapter to the Thessalonians and in many other places besides. I pass over the divine leaders of the catholic Church from Christ to ourselves; for the united testimony of the patriarchs, apostles, and prophets concerning prayer is enough, and more than enough, to put the heretics to shame. If, then, the practices of monks are the practices of the apostles and prophets — nay, may it be said, of the holy fathers and of the very forefathers of Christ Himself — then it is plain that the prayers of monks are fruits of the Holy Spirit, the giver of gifts. But the innovations which the Calvinists have introduced — blaspheming concerning God and things divine, wresting the divine Scripture, mutilating it, and treating it with contempt — these we declare to be the sophistries and inventions of the devil.

It is likewise idle folly for them to say that it is impossible for the Church to ordain abstinence from certain foods and fasts without violence and tyranny. For the Church, in order to mortify the flesh and the passions generally, most rightly and carefully prescribes prayer and fasting, of which all the saints have been lovers and models, and through which — the devil our adversary, together with his armies and powers, being cast down by the grace from above — the course set before the pious is easily accomplished. The Church, spotless everywhere, considering these things, uses neither violence nor tyranny, but exhorts, admonishes, teaches the things of Scripture, and persuades by the power of the Spirit. To all this is added, by a certain little man previously mentioned at Charenton, one Claude, and certain other things against us, ridiculous and worth no notice; but we consider what he has said mere fables, and know the man himself to be a charlatan and thoroughly unlearned. For even after Photius, countless men have arisen, and still exist, in the Eastern Church, distinguished in wisdom, theology, and holiness, by the power of the Spirit. Most ridiculous also is their argument that, because some of the Eastern priests keep the holy bread in wooden vessels hanging somewhere inside the church, outside the sanctuary, upon one of the pillars, they therefore do not confess the real and true change of the bread into the body of the Lord.

For we do not deny that some poor priests keep the Master's body in wooden vessels; for Christ is not honored by stones and marble, but requires of us a sound mind and a pure heart. This very thing happened also to Paul, who says: We have this treasure in earthen vessels. But where particular churches are able — as, for instance, among us here in Jerusalem — the Master's body is honored within the holy sanctuary of each church, and is ever illumined by a seven-branched lamp. I cannot but wonder how the heretics, having seen in some church the Master's body hanging outside the sanctuary — perhaps because the walls of the sanctuary had crumbled with age — draw from this their baseless conclusions, and yet have not seen Christ depicted as an infant within the paten, beneath the semicircle of the holy sanctuary — so that they might know that, just as the Easterners depict within the paten not a type, not a grace, not anything else, but Christ Himself, so also they believe that the bread of the eucharist becomes, not something else, but the very body of the Lord substantially — and thus they might have drawn the true conclusion along with us. But of all these matters it has been treated more fully and more clearly in the work called the Orthodox Confession of the Eastern Church; by George Coresius of Chios, in his works on the mysteries, on predestination and grace, on free will, on the invocation and worship of the saints, and on the veneration of icons, and in the refutation he composed against the unlawful synod of the heretics once held in Flanders, and in many other works; by Gabriel of the Peloponnese, Metropolitan of Philadelphia; by Gregory the Protosyncellus of Chios, in his work on the mysteries; by Jeremiah, the most holy Patriarch of Constantinople, in three dogmatic and synodal letters to the Lutherans of Tübingen in Germany; by John Nathanael, priest and steward of Constantinople; by Meletius Syrigos of Crete, in the orthodox refutation he composed of the chapters and questions of the so-called Cyril; by Theophanes, Patriarch of Jerusalem, in his dogmatic letter to the Russians; and by countless others besides.

Before all these it was excellently said by Symeon of Thessalonica, and before him by all the fathers and the ecumenical councils, by the writers of ecclesiastical history, and even by those who, living under the Christian Roman emperors, wrote secular histories and touched on these matters here and there — all of whom agree in one judgment: that everything stated above has been received without dispute from the apostles, whose traditions, handed down in writing and by word, have reached us through the fathers. And what has been said above is confirmed also by the testimony of the heretics themselves. For the Nestorians, after the year 428 of our salvation, and the Armenians, the Copts, the Syrians, and also the Ethiopians who dwell under the equator and beyond it toward the winter tropic — whom the people there commonly call Campesians — broke away, after … years from the incarnate coming of the Lord, from the universal Church, each holding only the particular heresy for which all know them from the acts of the ecumenical councils. Yet concerning the purpose and the number of the sacred mysteries, and all the other matters stated above — apart from their own particular heresy, as has been said — they believe just as the catholic Church does, as we ourselves see with our own eyes at every hour, and learn by perception and report, here in this holy city of Jerusalem, where very many of them, both learned, so far as such men can be, and simple, dwell and are ever present from among all these peoples.

Let the empty-voiced and novelty-seeking heretics, then, be silent, and let them not attempt, stealing certain little phrases, sophistically, out of Scripture and the fathers against us, to establish their falsehood — as all apostates and heretics have done from of old — but let them say one thing only: that, making excuses for their sins, they have chosen to speak unjust things against God and blasphemies against the saints. These few things, out of many, are set down for the overthrow of the falsehood of our adversaries, which they have devised against the Eastern Church, putting forward, in the midst of their onslaught of falsehood, the incoherent and godless chapters of the so-called Cyril. May they be, not for a sign of contradiction to those who unjustly indeed misrepresent us as heretics, but for a sign to be believed — that is, for the correction of the innovations they have introduced, and for their conversion to the catholic and apostolic Church, in which their own forefathers once were, and in whose councils against heretics — which they now impiously scorn and insult — they too were once present, and took part in the struggles. For it is absurd for them to be persuaded — especially while boasting themselves wise — by men who are self-loving and profane, and who speak not from the Holy Spirit but from the prince of lies, and yet to abandon and leap away from the holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, which God acquired with the blood of His own Son.

For otherwise, those cut off from the Church will receive, in that place, the same judgment as the heathen and the publicans; but the catholic Church, which the Lord has to this day preserved from all her adversaries, He will not forsake — to whom be glory and dominion unto ages of ages. Amen. In the year of salvation 1672, the sixteenth day of March, at the holy city of Jerusalem. Dositheus, by the mercy of God Patriarch of the holy city of Jerusalem and of all Palestine, declare and confess that this is the faith of the Eastern Church. [There follow, in the printed editions, the names of sixty-eight others; then Dositheus's own attestation that the autograph itself, with these genuine signatures and in due order, was entered on the twentieth of March, 1672, into the great register of his apostolic throne. After this comes the name of Nectarius, formerly Patriarch of Jerusalem, and, after the place of the seal, the seal both of the Patriarch — consisting of twelve hieroglyphic characters — and of the Emperor of the East, with the device of the double-headed eagle, as may be read in the plates inserted in the Amsterdam edition, in which the signatures are reproduced in facsimile; together with the attestation of the monk Nectarius concerning himself — so that, in sum, seventy-one men gave their names, among them eight archbishops, bishops, and metropolitans.

Azarias, Archdeacon of Jerusalem, signed not only in his own name but also in the name of the deacons; likewise Agapius, priest and steward of the church of Gaza. Present also, from Great Russia, was the monk Timothy, who confessed this to be the faith of the Russian Church as well as of the Eastern; and the envoy of the most serene Emperor of Muscovy, Alexis — Josaphat, hieromonk and archimandrite of the Holy Sepulchre — likewise gave his assent, with his name subscribed. Nine signed in Arabic characters in the Paris edition; in the Amsterdam edition and in the Bodleian, a tenth is Chaleles, the Patriarch's Grand Protonotary, who served him as secretary.]