What is an Anathema? - St. Theophan the Recluse

Every year during the first Sunday of Great Lent, the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy, the questions arise: "Why are we anathematizing people? Is the Church really sending them to hell? What is an anathema?" In his homily on the Sunday of Orthodoxy, St. Theophan the Recluse provides as answer to such questions, raising our theologoical consciences higher and guarding the faithful against seculization of the Church increasingly present today.
-READ the text here:
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-WATCH the Rite of the Triumph Orthodoxy (Anathema Service, or Synodikon) in English and Church Slavonic:
• Triumph of Orthodoxy (...
-WATCH a short, powerful video of the Proclomation of Anathemas:
• Orthodox Church - Proc...
-READ St. John Maximovitch addressing the same topic:
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-FIND an Orthodox parish and monastery near you:
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Audio of singing "Anathema!" at the beginning of this recording:
• Triumph of Orthodoxy (...
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St. Theophan teaches:
To some people our anathemas seem inhumane, to others constricting. Such charges might be valid in other situations, but there is no way they can apply to our Rite of Orthodoxy.
Let us take, for example, a temperance society. It has rules which every member must fulfill. And each of its members is a member precisely because he accepts and abides by its rules. Now suppose that some member not only refuses to abide by the rules but also holds many views completely opposed to those of the society and even rises up against its very goal. He not only does not himself observe temperance but even reviles temperance itself and disseminates notions which might tempt others and deflect them from temperance. What does the society ordinarily do with such people? First it admonishes them, and then it expels them. There you have an anathema! No one protests this, no one reproaches the society for being inhuman. Everyone acknowledges that the society is acting in a perfectly legitimate manner and that if it were to act otherwise, it could not exist.
Do you not see with what wisdom and foresight the holy Church acts when she makes us perform the present proclamation and listen to it? And yet they say, "This is outdated." It is precisely now that it is relevant. Perhaps 100 years ago it was not relevant. But one must say concerning our time, that if a Rite of Orthodoxy did not as yet exist, it would be needful to introduce one, and to perform it not only in the capital cities but in all places and in all churches: in order to collect all the evil teachings opposed to the Word of God, and to make them known to all, in order that all might know what they need to beware of and what kind of teachings to avoid. Many are corrupted in mind solely due to ignorance, whereas a public condemnation of ruinous teachings would save them from perdition.
Whether your teaching and your name are pronounced as being under anathema or not, you already fall under it when your opinions are opposed to those of the Church, and when you persist in them. Fearful is the anathema. Leave off your evil opinions. Amen.
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Orthodox Wisdom is dedicated to sharing the writings and lives of the Saints of the Orthodox Church. Glory to Jesus Christ!

[@BondServants]

May God have mercy on us, and save us. ☦️

[@mik569]

Lord Jesus Christ Son of God Have Mercy on me a sinner. ☦️🕊️🕯️🙏

[@Seeker12x12]

Amen 🙏 🙏 🙏

[@walterdreiberg]

I appriciate so much that you share the wisdom of Saint Theofan, my patron saint. I hope there will be many more videos of his Godly wisdom for us.

[@andresgalindo7682]

Thanks you brothers

[@krasihristov1066]

My spiritual teacher has Anathema from orthodox church

[@Chapsu911]

and you think this is a good thing?

[@blockpartyvintage1568]

What do you mean?

[@stingra8]

It also seems to me that the anathema against Oriental Orthodoxy is over such a fine point no one can actually explain it in a way that can be understood by anyone holding less than a PhD in theology. Is this right? I feel very uncertain

[@acekoala457]

Yet it was Anathematized. Just because you don't understand the why and how doesn't mean you can pass judgment. There is also the Issue of the Monophysites not having Bishops for 2 Centuries post Council. So they aren't Apostolic.

[@mariorizkallah5383]

the beauty of it all, is that we do not go by your "it seems to me"

[@stingra8]

@@mariorizkallah5383 accepted

[@stingra8]

@@acekoala457 what happened to their Bishops?

[@orthodoxphronesis]

I'm curious what this service sounds like in the Byzantine chant, or do the Greeks do it the same way?

[@jeremyfirth]

As far as I know, the anathemas are read in the Greek church only at cathedrals (where the bishop serves) and in the monasteries. They don't read them at the local parish level.

[@stingra8]

I'm an Orthodox Catechumen and the thing i can't understand is this: Churches that lay an exclusive claim to relationship with Christ seem to me to have made exactly the same mistake as the Jews of Jesus time who thought they could be saved because of their religious association. Salvation so far as scripture is concerned has zero relationship to human structures and everything to do with our relationship with Christ himself.

[@helovesmankind]

Is there one Church, Holy and Apostolic you believe in or are there many?

[@George-ur8ow]

Need to discuss with your Priest. No reason to go to Church at all under your paradigm. No reason to participate in the body and blood of Christ himself under your paradigm, or you would have said so. There is no closer relationship to Christ one can have during his life than in this. "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me." Rev. 3:20 You have Protestant presuppositions you are still holding onto. The path is narrow. Lord Jesus Christ, son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.

[@OrthodoxWisdom]

The Church, the Orthodox Church, is the only society that is divine and human. Christ established this society and He saves men not by belonging to it in an external or magical sense, but by incorporating them into His divine life that is lived on earth today and always through the Church. Saying “there is no salvation outside the Church” is really no different than saying “there is no salvation outside Christ” because the Church is Christ’s Body. As an Orthodox catechumen, I strongly encourage you: go deeper and in your learning and experience of the Church. Learn to love the Church deeply, for as St. Paisios said, “The Church is Christ.” If the foundation you’re setting for your life in the Church includes some kind of ecclesiological branch theory or a semi-Nestorian ecclesiology, the devil will whisper sweet nothings in your ear to keep you in a false peace or if he can, tempt you to leave the Church for another so-called church altogether. I know we don’t know each other and I’m speaking plainly here, but I believe you’re playing with fire being a catechumen and holding such beliefs.

[@iamthatguytheonlyone]

You got to get out of the protestant mind. Don't let those demons trick you. Let the pride go

[@huntermunro5003]

I think it’s healthy to remember that Christ himself anathematized the Pharisees. The anathema is not a “We’re better than you because XYZ” it’s “We cannot forsake that which has been Divinely revealed truth to implore strange doctrines or false beliefs”

[@KyrieEleison3]

As a Protestant-minded Christian in-between denominations at the moment and learning more about the Eastern Orthodox church, anathematizing someone for not affirming that Mary never had sex after Christ had already been born seems to have nothing to do with being a true follower of Christ. When you try to keep someone out of God’s kingdom over such matters and declare separation from a true follower of Christ over an intellectual view about something that doesn’t directly affect our salvation and our proper understanding of God, YOU are separating YOURSELF from the church, breaking unity and communion of the Church AGAINST CHRIST’S WILL. I feel like the anathematizing is a key red flag that keeps Protestants from becoming EO or RC. It’s fine to condemn heretical views, but anathematizing over icons and Mary is wrong.

[@shiningdiamond5046]

Views against icons stem from Bad theology which is to expunged from the Church and anyone who holds that the mary was not a perpetual virgin is absolutely no nicene Christian for the womb of God belongs to her alone protestants are a blasphemous group who have no magnitude of the incarnation

[@nevadaprecision3399]

Almost got first comment 🎉

[@TranslatedAssumption]

People that make first comment posts are ANATHEMA

[@Ettoredipugnar]

Blessing same sex couples .

[@No-Name-f8p]

Yes, it’s anathema!

[@BabylonianCaptivity]

Anathema is preaching another Gospel that is no Gospel says St Paul in Galatians 1. Singing hymns anatgematising souls seems a far cry from Romans 10 and a world away from charity. Most converts i think dobt realise just how exclusive orthodoxy is. Scripture is my first rule, always. We are the church say the Catholics. No, we are retort the EOs. No, thats us, say the Copts!! And on and on it rolls. They hurl anathemas at each other and box Christ into to their visible structures and "infallible" councils...even when they plainly contradict scripture.

[@OrthodoxWisdom]

Was Christ being uncharitable when he said “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man you have no life in you”? Was He being overly exclusive and keeping people away from salvation?

[@nim831]

Orthodoxy is exclusive because the truth is exclusive. And truth is not something to take lightly, that is why in the Orthodox Church they have such a thing as anathematization. Don't misunderstand me though. I don't know if Orthodoxy "is" true. It is it something I have been attempting to discern with God's grace--may He lead me correctly. Pray for me: that God lead me to the truth, and to love, in Christ our Lord and God.

[@AlexanderP901]

How do you account for the canon of scripture? If only scripture is infallible, and the only account you can give of the canon of scripture is that given in either a) councils or b) church fathers (Athanasius, Jerome etc) {all of which are thought of as fallible by protestants} then you hold to a fallible collection of infallible books... Sola scriptura is an impossible position because of an ahistorical understanding of the coming about of the biblical canon. Please consider this!

[@josiahalexander5697]

@@AlexanderP901 I want to preface this and say I have a tremendous respect for Orthodoxy and my intent is not to be an apologetic for Protestantism. That being said, my problem with that argument is that it seems a-spiritual. That is, that an emphasis upon history is an emphasis upon this world. No one group nor person can claim precedence over the scripture because scripture is the work of the Holy Spirit and each particular generation was given what was needed for them at their time. Scripture came about organically and in some sense, it’s a holy mystery to us all. To emphasize any one point in history as the arbiter for divine revelation is to conceptually dis-associate the spirit from the present moment. Yet the spirit of God is in no way limited, out of the abundance of his grace he uses history to reveal deeper truths of himself but history is not the arbiter to deeper truth. We are in this world but we are not from this world. Christ can make a church out of the rocks if he willed. It is only by grace that we have anything. “..do not think you can say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham.” The church is Israel, and all of the warnings, all of the broken history, the redemptive use of Israel is all a reflection of the church.

[@shiningdiamond5046]

That's the reason I became Orthodox was that it's exclusive. The new testament was very exclusive especially in acts