Alexander Schmemann

2. The Triumph Of Christianity (27 pages)

From Schmemann's A History of the Orthodox Church

Page 12

The Arian dispute was an important step in the history of this gradual divergence. Athanasius appealed to Rome because he had no one left to appeal to in the East. The Eusebians wrote to Rome to make their condemnation of Athanasius universal. Both appeals were in accordance with the concept of the universal unity of the Church as a universal communion, a unity of life such as we have already observed in the second and third centuries. But Pope Julius interpreted them in his own way, in the light of the gradually developing, specifically Roman tradition. He conceived his role as that of an arbitrator of Eastern matters, and wrote the East demanding that the whole problem be decided at a council in Rome — even appointing the date of the council. It was almost an ultimatum.

In Antioch the pope’s letter caused dismay. One must not forget that, at this time, for the overwhelming majority of Eastern bishops the problem was Athanasius, not the Nicene faith. Athanasius, to their minds, had been deposed by a legitimate council and a review of this decision, not in the East but in Rome, seemed an unprecedented defiance of all the canonical norms accepted by the Church from ancient times. The Eusebian leaders began to play on this dismay. Only a year after receiving the papal epistle, in January 341 an answer came to Rome signed by Eusebius of Nicomedia (who by this time had managed to transfer across the Propontis to the new Eastern capital, Constantinople) and by two other senior Eastern bishops. In it the pope was respectfully but somewhat ironically put in his place. It should be noted that Julius had put himself in a difficult position by accepting into communion, along with Athanasius, Marcellus of Ancyra. The latter really did interpret the Nicene definition incorrectly, with clearly Sabellian overtones. He had undoubtedly been rightly condemned in the East. But theological refinements were poorly understood in the West, and Nicaea had been accepted in a purely formal way. They saw in Marcellus only a martyr to the truth. Meanwhile, from the East Julius was offered a choice between two condemned fugitives and the whole Eastern Church, which was united in condemning them.

On receiving this answer, Julius immediately summoned a council of Italian bishops in Rome, where he solemnly proclaimed his agreement with Athanasius and Marcellus. In a new epistle to the Eastern bishops, he expressed the Roman point of view in plain terms: “Do you not know that the custom is that we should be written to first, and that judgment is rendered here? What I write you and what I say we received from the blessed Apostle Peter.” Julius was completely sincere, as well as morally superior to the Eusebians. The Catholic West rightly took pride in his dignified epistle.
But there is irony in the fact that, in defending the truth, he really did break with the tradition of the Eastern Church and in effect forced it to unite against him; while in its opposition it was at the same time repudiating Athanasius and the Nicene faith and defending the original concept of the Church, which it was not to reject even when it finally returned both to Nicaea and to Athanasius.

 

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