Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (Anathema Sunday)

Today is the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy! Today we define the true faith by rejecting what is false. Today we enshrine the victory of Holy icons and against the presuppositions or hellenism. For those interested, here are all the Anathemas of the Synodikion in a summarised form:

Anathema to:

• Those who accept the economy of salvation but deny it when it comes to icons
• Those who reject Christ came in the circumscribable Flesh, like the Docetists, and deny we can therefore make icons of Him
• Those who accept the visions of the prophets but think they saw an unseeable Essence, and therefore reject icons
• Those who accept Christ and the Prophets but reject the representation of their visible grace and actions just as they were seen
• Those who reject icons because they reject that the type connects to the prototype (The Hellenes did it with icons and the Jews with Christ Himself)
• Anastasios, Constantine, Nicetas for being the source of iconoclasm
• Theodotus, Anthony, John for following them
• Paul, Theodore Gastes, Stephan Molytes, Theodore Crithinus, Leon Lalouditus and anyone who shares with them in any way
• Gerontios of Crete, his doctrines and those who agree with him

11 Chapters against John Italus:

Anathema to:

• Those who try to explain the incarnation which is a mystery and use dialectics to do so.
• Those who adopt Hellenic cosmology and ideas of the soul and creation
• Those who believe in annihilationism when it comes to the soul
• Those who believe that matter and ideas are unoriginate or co-eternal with God
• Those who follow “the wise men of the Greeks” other heresiarchs and doubt the holiness and truth of the councils
• Those who reject miracles or try to use rationalism against them
• Those who studied philosophy (Greek studies), not just for education but who also follow the opinions of the philosophers
• Those who think of creation as a myth or adhere to the Platonic account of creation
• Those who deny the resurrection in flesh of our own bodies (not others)
• Those who adhere to the pre-existence of the soul
• All the other pagan and heterodox doctrines espoused by John Italus and his disciples

Against Nilos

• Anathema to all the impious doctrines of Nilos

Against the Bogomils:

Anathema to:

• Those who deny each person of the Trinity is equal in nature, those who teach an essential hierarchy between the persons of the Trinity
• Those who deny God is the creator of all things
• Those who deny the divinity of the Son, His Incarnation, His Sacrifice and therefore reject the efficacy and reality of the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments)
• Those who hold the Cross to not be a venerable instrument of Salvation

Against Eustratios and Leo of Chalcedon:

Anathema to:

• Those who say Christ’s human nature was submitted in eternal worship to his inapprochable Divine nature
• Those who employ “division in pure thought” to promote Nestorianism rather than distinction within ineffable union

Against Basilaki, Soterichos and Others

Anathema to:

• Those who say that the sacrifice of the Son is offered only to God the Father and not to the whole Trinity
• Those who reject that the eucharistic sacrifice practiced daily is offered to the Holy Trinity
• Those who say the eucharistic sacrifice of the liturgies is only symbolic, non effectual and different from the one of Christ on the Cross
• Those who say that humanity is only redeemed in the Incarnation or in the Crucifixion rather than the entire Mystery of Economy
• Those who misrepresent the Church Fathers and their inspired teachings
• Those who think deification means a change in nature
• Those who do not adhere to the teachings of Athanasius, Cyril, Ambrose, Amphilochios, Leo and reject the acts of the holy councils.
• Those who read John 14:28 as referring to the flesh of Christ separated from the Godhead rather than the eternal generation or the natural properties of the Flesh

Against Constantine the Bulgarian:

Anathema to:

• Those who read defacto Nestorianism into John 14:28
• Those who follow Constantine the Bulgarian or lament his deposition

Against John Irenicus:

Anathema to:

• John Irenicus for reading into John 14:28 the same Nestorian error, and therefore teaching Christ was not perfect man
• The Iconoclast Synod of Hieria
• Those who apply the verses concerning idolatry to icons
• Those who knowingly are in communion with iconoclasts
• Those who say Christian worship icons as gods
• Those who say that Christ is not the only one who delivered us from idols
• Those who say the Church at any time accepted idols
• Those who defend any heresy or defend those who died in that heresy
• Those who refuse to worship Christ depicted in the icons according to his human nature
• All the Heretics
• Barlaam and Acindynus, their followers and their successors

Against Barlaam and Acindynus:

Anathema to:

• Those who say the light of Transfiguration is created and at other times that it is the very Essence of God, who like the Messalians say we can see the Essence of God.
• Those who say God has no Energy and that His Energy and His Essence are one and the same, Those who collapse God like the Sabbelians and reject the Theology of the 6th Council which enshrines God as having Two Energies and Two Wills.
• Those who say that all of God’s powers and energies are created, therefore evidencing created nature in the Godhead and leading to Atheism
• Those who say that the distinction between Essence and Energie creates a compounding in God and reject the Energies unity with Essence
• Those who refuse the terms “Divinity” and “Godhead” being applied to the Energies.
• Those who think the ineffable Essence of God is directly communicable to men.
• All the impious writings of these men
• Isaac Argyros who taught so and refused repentance
• Arius, for Arianism
• Peter the Fuller, for Patropaschism
• Nestorius and Valentinus, for teaching that the Trinity suffered
• Paul of Samosata and Theodotion
• Peter Lycopetrus, Eutychius, Sabellius
• James Santralus, Dioscorus of Alexandria, Severus of Antioch, Sergius, Paul and Pyrrhus and another Sergius, for Monophysitism and Monothelitism
• All the followers of Eutyches, the monothelites, the Jacobites, the Artzivurites and all the heretics

From the Council of 1583:

The following are under anathema:

• Those who do not confess their orthodoxy and belonging to the Orthodox Church, those who adhere to the Filioque doctrine, those who reject the custom of the Eucharistic Communion under both kinds (species)
• Those who say the mystical supper was done with unleavened bread, and those who follow in the practice of the jews and gnostics in that regard.
• Those who say that it not our soul and bodies that will be judged by Christ but our bodies alone.
• Those who believe in purgatory, that is that postmortem penance and purification is achieved by physical fire and those who hold lake Origen that the flames of hell are not everlasting.
• Those who believe the Pope is the ultimate head of the Church and believe in indulgences, that is to pay money to remove sins and believe that the Pope has authority to admit people to Paradise
• Those who follow Gregorian Menologion and Calendar