Stylite Nous wrote: ↑Fri 13 September 2024 11:01 pmThese issues are difficult and I suspect that there is at least a grain of truth to the line of thought that Augustine did plant many erroneous seeds that would later germinate into western heresies. Is the healthiest balance precisely the one posited by Fr. Seraphim Rose in "The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church"?
Certainly valid.
Fr Joseph Suaidan (Suaiden, same guy)
Revisionism is calling the Lord a liar.
The Holy Fathers had the power to bind and loose. These were entire synods fulled with many saintly bishops over centuries. If they were calling someone a saint consistently, and not just one small mistake by a bishop speaking incorrectly on something he heard or such, and they were calling another a heretic, they were right.
If they were wrong about who the saints are then we have no basis for a consensus of the fathers at all, nor any idea of who the fathers even were. If they were wrong about who the saints were and who the heretics were, then the Lord did not give the Church the power to bind and loose. What power would this be that He gave, if it cannot even be exercised? If the saints they proclaimed were not saints but heretics, were the heretics they proclaimed not then saints?
I for one have no desire to debate or even read through this attempted MDiv. Show it to St. Vladimir's; I'm sure they'll love it.
BALANCED ORTHODOX PATRISTIC SOTERIOLOGY
AND AUGUSTINIAN OPPOSITES
The Orthodox teaching on God’s loving will and man’s free will is found in the writings of numerous saints, including Saint Gregory of Nyssa, Saint John Chrysostom, Saint John Cassian, Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Saint Mark the Ascetic, Saint Maximus the Confessor, and especially Saint John of Damascus (who devotes many pages to these doctrines).
The Orthodox Church teaches that God desires all human beings to be saved, but He forces no one to be saved. God brings light and offers grace to all human beings, but many refuse to cooperate with that light and grace. God calls all human beings, but many freely choose not to obey the call, and many are not saved — because of their own free choices. Saint John Chrysostom (Homily on “Saul, Saul, Why Are You Persecuting Me?” [PG 51:144]), explains: “God never compels anyone by necessity or by force. Rather, He wills [=desires, wants] all to be saved, but He forces no one; just as the Apostle Paul says: ‘He wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth’ [1 Tim. 2:4]. So: How is it that not all are saved when God wills all to be saved? The answer is that not all have the will to follow His will, and He forces no one” (ἀνάγκῃ καὶ βίᾳ οὐδένα προσάγεταί ποτε ὁ Θεός· ἀλλὰ θέλει μὲν ἅπαντας σωθῆναι, οὐκ ἀναγκάζει δὲ οὐδένα· καθὼς καὶ Παῦλός φησιν, « Ὁ θέλων πάντας ἀνθρώπους σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν » [1 Tim. 2:4]. Πῶς οὖν οὐχ ἅπαντες σώζονται, εἰ θέλει πάντας σωθῆναι; Ἐπειδὴ οὐχ ἁπάντων τὸ θέλημα τῷ θελήματι αὐτοῦ ἕπεται, αὐτὸς δὲ οὐδένα βιάζεται).
Saint John Chrysostom (Homilies on Romans, Homily 15 [on Rom. 8:28–39]), states clearly that both the divine will and the human will are necessary: “it is not the calling [by God] alone, but also the purpose [πρόθεσις, will, desire] of those who are called” by God that leads to salvation. Saint Cyril of Alexandria (Commentary on Romans 8 [PG 74:829A]), teaches the same: “The elect are chosen according to purpose, the purpose of Him Who called them and their own.” Patriarch Dositheus II of Jerusalem (Shield of Orthodoxy, Confession of Faith) states unambiguously that God loves all human beings “without partiality” (without respect-of-persons) and wants to save all human beings “equally.” God’s “election” before the foundation of the world of some human souls for salvation is not inscrutable and arbitrary (as in Augustinianism) but is based on God’s foreknowledge of which souls will desire to accept His election and grace. The process is entirely voluntary on the part of the individual human being. God’s salvific grace is never coercive or irresistible as in Augustinianism and Calvinism. When six important Orthodox synods rejected the Protestant Confession of Faith attributed to Cyril Lucaris (which he never officially repudiated in writing), these synods simultaneously rejected Augustinian and Calvinist arbitrary double predestination as “madness” and as a slander against the loving God known by Orthodox Christians.
The Holy Fathers go into great detail about God’s will to save and humans’ free will. These patristic teachings are worlds apart from Augustinianism and Calvinism, which Orthodox synods have rejected numerous times. Saint John of Damascus (Exposition of the Orthodox Faith 2.29.43 [SJD 2: (PTS) 102; FOTC 37:263]) explains that God, in His “antecedent will and pleasure/good will” (προηγούμενον θέλημα καὶ εὐδοκία) desires all human beings to obey the good and to be saved, but in His “consequent will and permission” (ἑπόμενον θέλημα καὶ παραχώρησις), He permits human beings to choose evil and punishment if they so choose. In simpler English, these two concepts can also be called God’s “perfect will” (that all be saved) and His “permissive will” (He permits all men who desire to reject God to do so). God’s “perfect will” is equivalent to his “antecedent will and approval” (προηγούμενον θέλημα καὶ εὐδοκία). God’s “permissive will” is equivalent to “consequent will and permission” (ἑπόμενον θέλημα καὶ παραχώρησις). God calls all to salvation, but He forces no one. Many reject God, His grace, and His commandments, and they will suffer the consequences that they themselves chose, but that result is a consequence of their own evil use (misuse) of the free will that God gave them — it was not God’s perfect will for them.
As an act of grace, God gives free will and self-determination (αὐτεξουσία, αὐτεξούσιον, αὐτεξουσιότης) to all human beings. As an act of grace, God has made free will and self-determination a fundamental part of human nature — something that cannot be destroyed, even by the Fall of man. Our ancestors (Adam and Eve) misused their free will and self-determination and fell into sin and death. They chose to disobey God, and, as a result, their human nature was made mortal, passionate, selfish, and corrupt. We all inherit a human nature that has been damaged by sin, but human nature has not been destroyed. This fallen human nature still retains free will. Our free will is damaged and warped, but it is not destroyed. In our fallen state, we have passions that can incline us to sin — but, because of God’s grace, we also have a natural inclination towards God and towards good choices. We have an ability to choose evil (because God does not force us to do good). We also, because of God’s grace, have the ability to accept God’s grace and cooperate with it.
There is a difference between God’s “foreknowledge” or “prescience” (God’s knowing all things beforehand), and God’s “predestination” (determining some things before hand, but not our fundamental choices). God does not determine beforehand what our choices will be (but He does know beforehand). The Holy Scriptures speak of God “electing” or “choosing” or “predestining” some for salvation — but this is based on God’s foreknowledge of the free choices that we will make (as Dositheus and the saints before him state explicitly). God does not “chose” those whom He knows ahead of time will “merit” salvation — because none of us “merit” salvation. Salvation is an unmerited gift of God’s grace. Salvation is God’s accomplishment, not our accomplishment. (Bishop Augustine of Hippo Regius was correct that election and salvation is an act of God’s grace and that we do not merit it by good works that God foresees). At the same time, God’s “choosing” some for salvation is not arbitrary or “inscrutable” (without any rational explanation). God “choses” those whom He knows beforehand will accept God’s grace with their own free will. In other words, God “foreknows” (knows beforehand) that some souls will accept Him, and He therefore “predestines” (determines beforehand) that these souls will have every grace necessary to attain salvation up to the Final Judgment. God gives grace to those who are willing; and those who want to resist God’s grace are allowed by the loving God to resist, and to experience the consequences. The unfortunate aspect is that so many human beings choose to resist the truth, to resist the Gospel, to resist God, to resist obedience, and to resist God’s grace. This is why so many human beings do not obtain salvation. They chose the opposite of salvation. God, in His love, permits this, but He does not desire it (according to His perfect will for us). As Saint John Cassian states: “those who perish, perish against His will” (Saint John Cassian, Conferences 13.7.2 [CSEL 13:369; ACW 57:472]). At the Final Judgment, God “judges” by ratifying what individuals have already chosen through the use of their individual free will. God respects human beings’ free will, even when a human being rejects God. This doctrine of human free-will is supported by over 50 pre-Augustinian patristic texts in Greek and Latin and it has always been believed in the Orthodox Church, as stated by Dositheus.
Scripture itself states clearly that God “wills/wishes/desires/wants all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (πάντας ἀνθρώπους θέλει σωθῆναι καὶ εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας ἐλθεῖν, 1 Tim.) and that the God-Man is “the true light, Which brings light to every human being” (φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν, ὃ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον, John 1:9). Saint Irenaeus of Lyons (Against Heresies 5.27) expressed it this way: “God gives His communion to all who love Him. Communion with God is life and light and sweetness with all the good things that He has. But those who of their own will forsake Him He rewards with separation from Him, which they themselves have chosen. As separation from light is darkness, so also alienation from God is deprivation of all good things which He has. But the good things of God are eternal and without end, so that the loss of them is eternal and without end. Thus sinners shall be the cause of their own torments, just as the blind do not see the light, although it is shining on them.”
Several ancient and medieval Latin synods rejected aspects of Augustinian hamartiology (doctrine of sin) and soteriology (doctrine of salvation). Six important synods of the Orthodox Church rejected the Augustinian-Calvinistic soteriology (arbitrary double predestination) of Cyril Lucaris’s Confession of Faith (1629/1631, chapter 3). Patriarch Dositheus II of Jerusalem and the Synod of 1672 in Jerusalem (Dositheus II, Shield of Orthodoxy, Confession of Faith [1672/1690]}, declares that such a doctrine is the greatest slander against God, Who “without partiality” (ἀπροσωπολήπτῃ, without respect-of-persons) “equally [ἐξ ἴσου] wills the salvation of all” human beings (πάντων ἐξ ἴσου ἐθέλον τὴν σωτηρίαν, Dositheus II, Confession 3).
Dositheus and the Synod of 1672 declared, “We believe the most good God to have from eternity predestinated [προορίσαι] unto glory those whom He has chosen, and to have consigned unto condemnation those whom He has rejected; but not so that He wills/desires [ἠβουλήθη] to justify the one, and consign and condemn the other without cause [ἀναιτίως]. For that would be contrary to [the character of] the common Father of all, who is impartial [ἀπροσωπολήπτῃ, no respecter of persons], and wills all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth [1 Tim. 2:4]. But since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will [αὐτεξουσίῳ], and the other a wrong [use], He predestinated the one, or condemned the other. ¶And we understand the use of free-will [αὐτεξουσίου] thus, that the divine and illuminating grace, and which we call antecedent [προκαταρκτικὴν] grace, being, as a light to those in darkness, by the divine goodness imparted to all, to those that are willing to obey this — for it is of use only to the willing, not to the unwilling — and co-operate with it, in what it requires as necessary to salvation, there is consequently granted particular [ἰδικὴν] grace. This grace co-operates with us, and enables us, and makes us to persevere in the love of God, that is to say, in performing those good things that God would have us to do, and which His antecedent [προκαταρκτικὴ] grace admonishes us that we should do, justifies us, and makes us predestinated. But those who will not obey, and co-operate with grace; and, therefore, will not observe those things that God wills us to perform, and that abuse in the service of Satan the free-will [αὐτεξουσιότητα], which they have received of God to perform willingly [ἑκουσίως, voluntarily] what is good, are consigned to eternal condemnation. ¶But to say, as the most wicked heretics do and as is contained in the Chapter [of Cyril’s Confession] to which this answers — that God, in predestinating, or condemning, did not consider in any way the works of those predestinated, or condemned, we know to be profane and impious. For thus Scripture would be opposed to itself, since it promises the believer salvation through works, yet supposes God to be its sole author, by His sole illuminating grace, which He bestows without preceding works, to show to man the truth of divine things, and to teach him how he may co-operate with it, if he wills, and do what is good and acceptable, and so obtain salvation. He takes not away the power to will — to will to obey, or not obey him. ¶But than to affirm that the Divine Will is thus solely and without cause the author of their condemnation, what greater defamation can be fixed upon God? and what greater injury and blasphemy can be offered to the Most High? We do know that the Divinity [τὸ θεῖον] is not tempted with evils [Jas. 1:13], and that He equally wills the salvation of all, since there is no partiality [προσωποληψίας, respect of persons] with Him. We do confess that for those who through their own wicked choice, and their impenitent heart, have become vessels of dishonor, there is justly decreed condemnation. But of eternal punishment, of cruelty, of pitilessness, and of inhumanity [μισανθρωπίας, hatred of humanity], we never, never say God is the author, Who tells us that there is joy in heaven over one sinner that repents [Luke 15:7].”
Augustine accepted some of the above patristic doctrines (especially in his first years as a Christian and bishop), but he vehemently and stubbornly rejected some (especially in his final years as a bishop). Augustine was correct to teach that no one can come to God unless the grace of God leads him. Augustine was also correct that God does not give His grace to people because He sees beforehand that the person will do good works that will save himself, or good works that will merit salvation. Humans do not merit salvation. God’s grace is necessary and human works do not accomplish our salvation — God’s grace accomplishes our salvation. However, Augustine left out (or even denied) much of the full Orthodox teaching on this. The Orthodox Church also teaches that God’s grace is “present everywhere and fills all things.” Man is an “icon” of God and thus human nature has the capacity to accept God’s grace and to work with (cooperate with) God’s grace. Human beings, despite the fallen and sinful nature that we inherit from our ancestors, still have free-will and self-determination (autexousía) in the sense that we can chose to accept God’s grace or to reject God’s grace. God “chooses” those whom He knows will accept Him by faith through their free-will and self-determination (see Dositheus of Jerusalem, Confession 3). And this faith allows our cooperation with God’s grace, which produces good works. We are expected to do good works in preparation for the Final Judgment, where we will be judged on our faith, works, and repentance (or lack thereof). So, God does not “choose” people based on their own merit (as some Pelagians might assert), but neither does God “choose” people arbitrarily, based on some “inscrutable” reason or no reason at all (as Augustine seems to indicate). Dositheus states clearly that, in Orthodox teaching, God “chooses” those whom He knows beforehand will be willing to accept His grace. We are expected to work for our salvation, but it is God’s grace that accomplishes our salvation, not our works. Our works themselves are a result of God’s grace and our willingness to cooperate with God’s saving grace.
Augustine did not accept the balanced Orthodox teaching. Augustine (Contra Julianum [PL 44:258 / FOTC 35:256–259; PL 44:791–793 / FOTC 35:792–793]), often leaves human free will unmentioned and emphasized his claim that God chooses a few people for salvation, arbitrarily, for no reason, and He chooses not to give grace to other people (chooses to abandon them) for no reason. Augustine quotes many passages of Scripture about God choosing people for His grace, but his interpretation is very much at odds with what the Orthodox Fathers say about the role of human free-will, and God’s foreknowledge, in God’s choice. Augustine essentially has God abandon the majority of humanity as a “mass of perdition and damnation” (massa perditionis et damnationis) deserving eternal hell, even though He has not offered them any grace to prompt them to repent. For Augustine, this horrible process of double predestination is completely inexplicable, even arbitrary. “God through His merciful goodness leads some of them to repentance, and according to His judgment does not lead others” (“Deus tamen alios inde per misericordem bonitatem adducit ad poenitentiam, alios secumdum iustum iudicium non adducit”). Orthodox Scripture, synods, and saints, in contrast, speak about God’s love for all, God’s desire to save all, and God’s bringing light to all. Orthodox Scripture, synods, and saints, in contrast to Augustinianism, teach that those who will end up being condemned will be those who freely rejected God’s grace by exercising their free will and choosing sin, choosing to reject God, and choosing that God reject them. God’s process of saving and judging is not “inscrutable” (essentially irrational and arbitrary), as in Augustinianism. Rather, Scripture, synods, and saints teach that God is just and righteous in giving grace and in judging.
Augustine taught that babies who die unbaptized will be tormented for eternity because all human beings (including those babies) “were” Adam when he sinned and these babies are guilty of an eternal sin and must be given eternal punishment. (Augustine did concede that the babies would receive torments that were less than the torments given to adults who had added to their sin in Adam by continuing to sin in their own lifetimes.) Contrary to the Bible, Augustine taught that God does not want all people to come to the knowledge of the truth and to be saved. Augustine further taught that God selects only a select few to whom to give His grace. Why God chooses some and not others is, for Augustine, totally “inscrutable,” which means there can be no rational explanation for why God supposedly does this. These teachings of Augustine are simply not what the Orthodox Church teaches. In fact, several of his teachings have been rejected by important church councils, without condemning Augustine by name. What is undeniable is that the teachings of Orthodox Christianity and her acknowledged Church Fathers and Teachers on the loving God are worlds apart from the extreme, personal views of Augustine.
Some Orthodox Christians believe that Bishop Augustine of Hippo Regius (354–430) was an Orthodox Saint and Church Father who wrote some un-balanced and exaggerated things; some believe Augustine was an Orthodox bishop (not necessarily a saint) who made some very serious errors; some believe Augustine’s writings contain “heresies.”[1] Saint John Cassian referred to a distorted view of predestination as a “grievous blasphemy” — and he was almost certainly directing that comment at Augustine and his strict followers. Other saints have referred to Augustine as “Blessed,” while acknowledging that his writings contain errors. The Orthodox Church has tolerated different approaches to Augustine. Somewhat different approaches towards Augustine as a man should not divide traditional Orthodox Christians today, provided that no one advocates the actual errors in Augustine’s writings. However, there are two facts here that are undeniable: First, there have been countless Orthodox councils, saints, and church writers that have rejected false teachings that claimed support from Augustine’s writings. It is this Orthodox consensus (which rejects Augustine’s errors) that has authority in the Church, whereas Augustine’s writings that contain the errors do not have any authority for Orthodox Christians. Second, historically and traditionally, the Orthodox Churches of the East have not honored Augustine of Hippo as a saint in official church calendars or in the Menaion (monthly book of hymns). There were a few small steps in that direction, which had some effect starting in the 1950s, but such steps have been highly controversial. These modern steps were contrary to settled Eastern Orthodox practice, which included veneration of many Latin saints, but not Augustine.
There are many reasons today why traditional Orthodox Christians should be warned about the errors of Augustine. One reason is that extreme Augustinian teachings have had a revival in the West in recent years, especially under the guise of Calvinism, which the Orthodox Church has denounced as “madness” and “heresy.” Another reason is that ecumenists today are using Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to try to erode Orthodox resistance to the deviations from Orthodoxy in late mediaeval Latin theology. Finally, a distorting influence from Augustine can be seen even among traditional Orthodox Christians and this can prevent them from understanding certain Orthodox teachings, such as the Church’s teaching about Christ’s preaching in Hades. For these reasons, it is necessary to focus on the problems with Augustine’s influence, not to focus on the good, Orthodox things that he wrote. All Orthodox Christians agree that Augustine wrote some very good things, but they cannot be the focus at this time, since it is the errors that are causing problems.
It is universally acknowledged that Augustine’s writings deviate in significant ways from the teachings of the great Fathers and Teachers of the Orthodox Church on several issues. Augustine has not been condemned — as a person and by name — by a major Orthodox synod; yet it is a fact that several Orthodox synods have rejected (and sometimes condemned) several un-Orthodox doctrines that can be found in his writings: on human free will and God’s predestination,[2] heretical baptisms,[3] divine grace/energy,[4] and the Holy Spirit.[5] Augustine also differed greatly with Orthodox Fathers on the Ancestral Sin (Fall of Adam) and on the role of secular and pagan philosophy.
An American scholar named Ken Wilson wrote a major study at Oxford, with quotations in Greek and Latin from 51 Church Fathers (and also from the earlier [as opposed to the later] writings of Augustine) that show a consensus of the ancient Christians, East and West, in affirming autexoúsion (αὐτεξούσιον, the God-given human ability to reject God if a person so chooses). In contrast to this consensus, Augustine affirmed in his final, more extreme writings against Pelagianism in his final nine years (especially his final four years) that God’s grace was (essentially) coercive, irresistible (“indeclinabiliter et insuperabiliter,” Augustine, On Admonition and Grace 14). Saint John Cassian, a bridge between East and West, represented the consensus teaching when he said that it was a “great sacrilege” (“ingenti sacrilegio,” Cassian, Conferences 13.7.2) to deny the Biblical teaching that “God desires all human beings to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Tim. 2:4).
Saint Hilarion Troitskii, once he came to understand these issues, did not refer to Augustine as “Saint” or even “Blessed.” Even the common Russian practice of calling him “Blessed” should be considered as similar to calling Theodoret of Cyrrhus “Blessed,” some of whose writings and actions were condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Synod, even though Theodoret had been preliminarily accepted by the Fourth Ecumenical Synod. Personally, I believe that Bishop Augustine of Hippo Regius lacked the key aspect of sainthood: a willingness to be obedient to the teachings of Christ and the consensus-teachings of Christ’s Body, the Church. His soteriology had to be condemned by holy monastics of his time and so many of his other teachings had to be condemned by later synods of West and East. I also personally believe that it is not a historical accident (but rather by divine providence) that Augustine, possibly the most famous and influential bishop in world history, was never commemorated in official Eastern Orthodox calendars or venerated in the Menaion until the baby steps by some bishops of the 1950s in that direction. So, I am not dissenting from the judgment of the Church. Rather, I am trying to follow the actual, detailed, and balanced judgment of the Church on Augustine’s false teachings that were condemned by so many councils. I am following the traditional Eastern Orthodox practice of not including Augustine of Hippo in official Eastern Orthodox church calendars and Menaia.
ENDNOTES
[1] See Michael Azkoul, The Influence of Augustine of Hippo on the Orthodox Church (Texts and Studies in Religion 56; Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990); Father Panteleimon (Metropoulos) of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, Letter [on Christ’s preaching in Hades], pt. 1 (October 8/21, 2010), pt. 2 (February 2/15, 2011).
[2] Synod of Arles (AD 473; Synodal Statement written by Bishop Faustus of Riez), Synod of Lyon (circa AD 474), Second Synod of Orange (begun July 3, AD 529, under the presidency of Archbishop Caesarius of Arles), Synod of Mainz (AD 848), [First] Synod of Quiercy (AD 849), [Second] Synod of Quiercy (May, AD 853, under the presidency of Archbishop Hincmar of Reims), Synod of Valence (January 8, AD 855, presided over by Bishop Remegius of Lyon), Synod of Langres (AD 859), and Synod of Toul (AD 860). None of these synods condemned Augustine by name, and some were even influenced by his writings, but they all rejected some of his extreme notions on predestination. See Heinrich Denzinger, Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum de Rebus Fidei et Morum = Compendium of Creeds, Definitions, and Declarations on Matters of Faith and Morals (43d edn.; ed. Helmut Hoping, Peter Hünermann, Robert Fastiggi, and Anne Englund Nash; San Francisco, CA: Ignatius Press, 2012).
[3] Several synods, before and after Augustine, rejected his view that all heretical baptisms in the name of the Trinity are valid: Councils of Carthage (AD 255 and 256), Second Ecumenical Council (AD 381/382), Fifth-Sixth Council (AD 692), which approved the Apostolic Canons, and Synod of Constantinople (1756). See Denver Cummings, ed., The Rudder (Pedalion) of the Metaphorical Ship of the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of the Orthodox Christians (tr. from the 5th Greek edn., 1908; Chicago: Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957; repr. edn.; New York: Luna, 1983); and George D. Metallinos, I Confess One Baptism: Interpretation and Application of Canon VII of the Second Ecumenical Council by the Kollyvades and Constantine Oikonomos (tr. Priestmonk Seraphim; Holy Mountain Athos: Holy Cenobitic Monastery of Saint Paul; Resaca, GA: Ascension Monastery, 1994).
[4] Several synods condemned the notion that God’s grace is created: Synods of Constantinople (AD 1341, 1347, 1351, 1352, 1368). See Ioannes N. Karmires, ed., Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Μνημεῖα τῆς Ὀρθοδόξου Καθολικῆς Ἐκκλησίας: Dogmatica et Symbolica Monumenta Orthodoxae Catholicae Ecclesiae ([1st edn.]; 2 vols.; Athens, 1952–1953).
[5] Several synods condemned the Filioque (“and from the Son”) phrase: Synods of Constantinople (AD 879–880, 1054, 1285, and numerous others). See Karmires, Τὰ Δογματικὰ καὶ Συμβολικὰ Μνημεῖα.
SEE ALSO
Peter Galadza, “The Liturgical Commemoration of Augustine in the Orthodox Church: An Ambiguous Lex Orandi for an Ambiguous Lex Credendi,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 52.1 (2008): 111–130.
David Weaver, “From Paul to Augustine: Romans 5:12 in Early Christian Exegesis,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 27. 3 (1983): 187–206.
David Weaver, “The Exegesis of Romans 5:12 Among the Greek Fathers and Its Implication for the Doctrine of Original Sin: The 5th–12th Centuries,” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 29.2 (1985): 133–159; 29.3 (1985): 231–257.