The following conversation was taken from Notes From the Underground (NFTU) website and reposted here, so that people could follow the discussion and the answers given. Mr. Tom Deretich (who subscribes to HOCNA’s view of Name Worshipping) is having a discussion with a person known as GeorgeT49 (who holds an Orthodox view, against Name Worshipping). Enjoy.
Table of Contents for this page:
[1] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU:
[2] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
[3] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
[4] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
[5] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
[6] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
[7] First reply to Tom Deretich:
[8] Tom Deretich writes reply to my post:
[9] Second reply to Tom Deretich:
[10] Tom Deretich writes again:
[11] Third reply to Tom Deretich:
Is HTM Changing Liturgical Texts to Correspond to Imyabozhist Teaching?
A longtime reader of NFTU brought to our attention that newer HTM liturgical texts have been changed from their original meaning as well as previous translations. The new translations reflect the Imyabozhie heresy, which caused a split in HYPERLINK “http://nftu.net/hocna-situation-timeline-fallout/” HOCNA which NFTU reported on last year.
We received an email which was out of concern for public safety in using newer HTM texts. The following was brought to our attention:
“So basically my choir and I came across something interesting during the Matins of the feast of Saints Joachim and Anna. Our choir uses the HTM translations of the Menaion books and came across an interesting translation of one of the stichera.” It reads:
PDF of image:English translation – 2005 version – O house of Ephratha:- editor
“Thanks to the Saviour’s Name (capitalized), Who careth for creation, Whose will was that beyond hope.”
Something about it felt odd. The reference to the Saviour’s name for one. The fact that the “Name’ was capitalized, and in the third verse that the “Name” had a “will”. For a moment I thought that if this indeed was correct, maybe the name-worshippers would have “some” validity. I then had the thought to cross reference it with the original greek text that it was translated from, and was stunned to find that they completely mistranslated the text. This new translation was completed in 2005. I couldn’t understand why they would do this. It was at this time, that a fellow chanter said that we should probably compare it to HTM’s original translation of the Menaion from 1985.
It reads like this:
“Thanks to the Saviour and Provider of all things, Who was well pleased that beyond hope…”
Greek – O house of Ephratha PDF Image:
English translation 1985 version – O house of Ephratha PDF Image:
This translation is pretty spot on as it pertains to the original Greek. The question then begs, why would HTM change their own translation that was completely in line with the Greek to say something that it clearly doesn’t? It was obvious to us that the spirit of name-worshipping has entered their mindset. This new translation shows a clear deception on their part. They claim that the Holy Fathers write these things about the name of God in their writings, when in fact, HTM is altering translations to include their idea of the “Name” of God. Who knows how many of their writings have been altered to reflect this idea of the name of God. They are considered to have of the best English translations in the Orthodox world. I’m not so sure anymore.
The author also included photo scans of the two differing texts as well as the Greek, which we have linked above. As I am not proficient in Greek, I leave that to our readers to determine the accuracy It may be that HTM’s more recent work within the past 10 years has to be reviewed for subtle change to reflect to their new teachings, in which case they may well be considered suspect.
[1] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU:
Tom Deretich writes:
In its liturgical translations, Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Boston has been consistently capitalizing the “Name” of God, “Name” of the Lord, etc., since the publication of A Prayer Book for Orthodox Christians (1st edition, 1987). See the Pentecostarion (1990), the Great Horologion (1997), the Menaion (12 vols.; 2005), Service of Preparation for Holy Communion (2006), Psalter (pocket-size edition, 2007) and Psalter (revised, full-size edition, 2008).
The “Name” of God has been consistently capitalized since 1987, whereas the “name-glorification controversy” began to be discussed within HOCNA only in December 2011. In June 6/19, 2012, Metropolitan Ephraim, in his first writing relating to this topic, wrote that if anybody was guilty of deifying letters and sounds then that person would be guilty of heresy (https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BzJKrDVZPwcvRzR5dlVzRThJSjg/edit?usp=sharing&pli=1) Countless statements subsequent to that first statement have consistently said that the material names (letters and sounds) are not God.
What HOCNA has said is that often in the Scriptures, Fathers, and prayers of the Church, the “name” of God means the uncreated energy of God, which is God Himself. This is not to say that the material names are the energy of God. Rather, as St. Gregory Palamas writes, God “dwells” in the sacred created words like He dwells in the sacred created icons, sacred relics, and other sacred material objects. That is the Orthodox patristic teaching. That is also what HOCNA teaches.
[2] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
Tom Deretich writes again:
The person who was given the task of checking the English translation of the Menaion against the original Greek (especially for theological accuracy) was none other than Father Haralampos. (Others had previously made revisions to improve meter.) No one who was involved was thinking about debates over name-glorification. The approval process was finished in 2003 and the Menaion published in 2005. The controversy began at the end of 2010. Father Haralampos became a staunch opponent of name-glorification and he has now transferred his allegiance to Holy Ascension Monastery in Bearsville (of HOTCA under Metropolitan Pavlos). Elementary facts in this case do not support conspiracy theories.
The New Testament itself equates Christian baptism, with baptism in the name of Jesus, with baptism in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the text is theologically accurate –as is the New Testament when it alternates between the three phrases above. On the issue of theological accuracy, we can all agree with your clergyman, Father Haralampos, who approved the translation.
How do ye all interpret this widely-known prayer from the Greek Menaion? Ἵνα καὶ διὰ στοιχείων, καὶ διὰ Ἀγγέλων, καὶ διὰ ἀνθρώπων, καὶ διὰ ὁρωμένων, καὶ διὰ ἀοράτων, δοξάζηταί σου τὸ πανάγιον ὄνομα, σὺν τῷ Πατρί, καὶ τῷ Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι, νῦν, καὶ ἀεί, καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.”
[3] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
Tom Deretich writes again:
Once again, a key to understanding this issue is to acknowledge the fact that “name” (in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Church Slavonic, etc.) can mean both “symbol” and “reality.” (See my earlier posting.) When St. Luke wrote of a “crowd of names” (ochlos onomaton) gathered for Pentecost, he was not writing about 120 “symbols” walking into the Upper Room. The 120 “names” that walked into that room were 120 persons. They were realities. The idea that “name” can only mean a “mere symbol” and can never mean “reality” is a distinctly modern prejudice. It is very foreign to how the Scriptures and the Fathers use the word “name.” (Look in the lexicons for biblical languages.)
Everyone agrees that the material names that designate God are not God’s uncreated power/energy. HOCNA teaches that material names are not God’s uncreated energies. Metropolitan Ephraim has written that equating sounds and letters with God is “heresy” (June 6/19, 2012) and he has repeatedly rejected, in writing, such equivalence. HOCNA has condemned such equivalence and no one in HOCNA is teaching that view. The question is this: Do the Scriptures, Saints, and prayers of the Orthodox Church sometimes call the uncreated power/energy of God the “name” of God? The answer is: Yes, the Scriptures, saints, and prayers of the Church do sometimes call the power/energy of God the “name” of God. In fact, Christ Himself calls the active power of God the “name” of God in John 17:1-26. In Christ’s words, the “name” of God is the active, uncreated power of God that guards and protects the disciples and keeps them united. John 17:11b-12a reads: “πάτερ ἅγιε, τήρησον αὐτοὺς ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί σου ᾧ δέδωκάς μοι, ἵνα ὦσιν ἓν καθὼς ἡμεῖς. ὅτε ἤμην μετ’ αὐτῶν ἐγὼ ἐτήρουν αὐτοὺς ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί σου ᾧ δέδωκάς μοι, καὶ ἐφύλαξα.” The New International Version gives this translation: “Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one. While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me” (New International Version). Notice that the NIV translates “onoma” with the word “power” not just the word “name.” This is completely consistent with patristic exegesis. St. Cyril of Alexandria St. Cyril on St. John spends many pages stating over and over again that the “name” of God is the “power” (exousia, dynamis, ischys) and “glory” (doxa) “of the Godhead” (tes Theotetos). St. Cyril then asks why Christ changes words (from power/glory/name) to saying that “truth” will protect the disciples. His answer: It indicates that God’s “energy” (energeia) is not uniform. God’s power, glory, name, and truth protect and keep the disciples safe because God’s power, name, and truth are God’s “energy.” God’s energy is not uniform. God’s energy is designated as the “truth” and “glory” and “power” and “name” of God. Those who would condemn the idea that “name” of God could ever mean “power/energy” of God are condemning how Holy Scripture speaks. Rather than condemning, it might be better to acknowledge that “name” in Scripture can mean both “designator” and “reality.” Scripture is not confusing the Creator with creatures. Rather, “name” is one word that can refer to both the Creator Himself and to material “designators” that designate Him. The problem is that some modern people do not understand how Scripture and the Fathers use the word “name.” St. John of Kronstadt did understand that “name” can have a double meaning. It can refer both to a symbol for God and to God Himself. That is why Orthodox Christians can never renounce St. John of Kronstadt’s teaching that: “the name of God is God Himself.” Orthodox Christians embrace that teaching and know that that great saint was not confusing the uncreated energies with created sounds and letters. Rather, he was teaching that God’s uncreated power (which is sometimes called God’s uncreated “name”) dwells in the created, material names for God, just as God’s uncreated power dwells in relics and icons. The name “Jesus” (and “Joshua”) is a sacred name –a sacred icon –and we would do best never to profane that name, never to commit sacrilege against that holy icon.
[4] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
Tom Deretich writes again:
The Russian “synodal” statement of 1913, which was actually written by Sergius of sorry memory himself and signed by a few other bishops (including, sadly, Archbishop Antony Khrapovitsky) claimed that the energies of God “may” be called “divine” (bozhestvo) if we speak like St. Gregory Palamas in a “sense that is more broad than normal”, but (the statement claimed) God’s energies are “not” God and “certainly not” God Himself! This is a grotesque perversion of Orthodox dogma, since St. Gregory Palamas taught that “every power or energy [of God] is God Himself”; and the synods of 1341, 1347, 1351, 1352, and 1368 upheld St. Gregory’s teaching and condemned his critics. The great synod of 1351, which some Orthodox call the Ninth Ecumenical Synod, says that the divine energy flows “without separation” from the divine essence. There is a distinction without a separation. The Synodicon of Orthodoxy states that “there is in God both essence and energy” and it anathematizes those who would deny this dogma of the Orthodox Faith. It anathematizes those who would deny or pervert the teachings of St. Gregory Palamas on essence and energy. Out of extreme ignorance, Sergius of sorry memory made a very serious dogmatic error. But it is not a total surprise, because of the great ignorance of that time about the Orthodox teaching on essence and energy. (By the way, I do not endorse the Sergianism of Vladimir Lossky and Serge Verhovskoy, but I do think that they were important scholars of patristics [Lossky attempted to correct Sergius] and that we should not ban all references to the parts of their writings that were genuinely Orthodox.) Yet, despite the serious errors of 1913, those who left HOCNA in September 2012 demanded “unreserved, unqualified, unconditional” official endorsement of the false 1913 decree. That condemnation of the Athonite name-glorifiers was extremely controversial among the Russian Orthodox people in 1913. The way they were hastily condemned and persecuted was widely rejected by the Faithful. The Tsar Martyr wrote that he feared the wrath of God would come on the Russian land because of the 1913 condemnation of the Athonite Fathers. St. Elizabeth the Grand Duchess was also a staunch supporter of the hastily-condemned monks. St. Elizabeth was more informed on this issue than some of the bishops were. The Russian bishops stepped back from the extremeness of the 1913 condemnation in various ways and in various decisions that permitted a reconciliation without adherence to the false 1913 decree. Archbishop Anastasy Gribanovsky (later primate of ROCOR) was on one of the commissions that made a reversal. During World War I, name-glorifying priest-monks served officially as army chaplains. In 1921, St. Tikhon concelebrated with Archimandrite David Mukhranov, who was the leading preacher of name-glorification, and who continued to openly preach that understanding in the Churches of Moscow around the same time he was concelebrating with St. Tikhon. There was a complete reconciliation because the name-glorifiers did not teach the heresy that some people said was taught in the writings of Fr. Antony Bulatovich, namely that created names are God Himself. The name-glorifiers in their official statement of beliefs (August 1, 1918) wrote of the “inseparable presence of God in His Name.” Note that, according to this statement, the presence of God is distinct from the created name, but present within it, which is what St. Gregory Palamas says about God “dwelling” in “God-given [created] words.” This is what I believe and, I think, what you believe also. What did the name glorifiers say about the energies? “His Name is … energy (as understood according to its inner, mystical aspect and not as mere letters and sounds or some abstract idea).” So, it appears they did distinguish the uncreated energies (which they correctly confessed to be “God Himself” from the created words (sounds and letters) which are not God, but which have God dwelling in them, as the Church teaches. No one is saying that they expressed everything perfectly. But it is undeniable that the name glorifiers, in their official statement, did make the proper distinction between the created names/letters/sounds and the uncreated name/power/energy. (I consider Fr. Antony Bulatovich and Bishop Gregory Lourie to be side issues, because the issue is what the Orthodox saints taught, but I have never seen proof that those two individuals confused the created names with the uncreated energy. I have read that they explicitly reject that confusion. If Fr. Antony Bulatovich made that confusion in some of his wording, then that false wording should be rejected. HOCNA has always clearly rejected such a confusion.) But the clearly-false wording of the 1913 decision, which said the opposite of what the Orthodox Church says, should also be rejected. HOCNA has rightly rejected the false 1913 decision, as St. Nicholas the Tsar Martyr did and St. Elizabeth the Grand Duchess did. Those who created a schism from HOCNA demanded an endorsement of that false decree “without reservation, without qualification, without conditions”! HOCNA accepts the reconciliation between St. Tikhon and the name-glorifying monks, because those monks rejected the heresy of making sounds and letters God. HOCNA has always rejected the heresy of making sounds and letters God. (I will leave it to others to make a final determination whether Fr. Antony Bulatovich really did teach that heresy. The All-Russia Council in 1917-1918 was set to investigate that issue, but the Communist persecutions prevented that from happening.) On the energies of God, the name glorifiers were correct to confess that the energies are God Himself, and Sergius and Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky (sadly) were wrong on that specific issue. No one is saying that the entire Russian Church completely lost grace because a group of bishops issued a botched decree. The Russian Church has never accepted the dogmatic errors of the 1913 decree into the mind and conscience of the Church. But, I would not want to be in the shoes of those today who demand total and absolute endorsement of the anti-Palamite decree of 1913, now that we all know how un-Orthodox it was. Rather, I will stick with the reconciliation of 1921 between St. Tikhon and the name glorifiers.
No one is saying that the name of God works mechanically or magically. Miracles are the result of God’s providence and our openness to God’s grace. There are, however, instances in the lives of the saints were God worked a miracle though an icon, or a relic, or a shrine, or a sacred name or ritual, for an unbeliever. The synergy from man can come after the act of grace, according to God’s determination. God’s created name is not magic, but God’s grace can overflow sacred, created objects and lead an unbeliever to belief. I think we all agree on that as well.
[5] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
Tom Deretich writes again:
These are my personal thoughts only, no one else’s:
The epistle of Patriarch Germanos to Athos (April 5, 1913) has little theological content. It accuses the monks of confusing that which cannot be confused because they allegedly said the name Jesus was hypostatically united with Him and that the monks claimed that the name Jesus is the self-same Jesus and God and this leads to pantheism. No quotations, no analysis, no exposition of the Orthodox teaching. Just accusations with no evidence whatsoever! The gist of the letter was that Athos should “expel” the monks. This was done quite brutally with bayonets and water cannons, a short while later. If you are aware of the history of the Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913, you know that Greek and Slavs were fighting over who would control Macedonia and Athos. Some Greeks wanted to expel all Slavs, and some Russians thought that if the Russian authorities removed the “rebels” from the Holy Mountain, then that would prevent a total expulsion of all Slavs. As it turns out the “Russians” who were expelled were disproportionately Ukrainian, and the “Great Russian” monastic authorities had already been very reluctant to ordain them because of ethnic differences. Russian/Ukrainian tensions were a very serious problem on Athos at least until the 1960s and possibly even to this day. There were military and ethnic conflicts that contributed to the immoral way the monks were condemned and persecuted. No wonder the Tsar-Martyr feared the wrath of God because of what the Russian state had done to these monastic fathers. The decision by the Halki “theologians” was written by academicians who had studied in Lutheran faculties of theology in Germany and who believed that biblical miracles were myths, St. Symeon the New Theologian was a monophysite because he believed in deification, the hesychasts were “navel-gazers,” and St. Gregory Palamas himself was a “pantheist.” They replicated what their Lutheran professors taught them. They might have been able to read St. Gregory Palamas, but they did not want to; they hated the hesychast tradition. They were also the ones who wrote the heretical encyclical of 1920 and changed the calendar in 1924. They were a very un-Orthodox lot.
Patriarch Germanos’s letter to Russia (December 11, 1912) uses epithets (“evil” and “name-theists”) and says that the Russians should use even *harsher* methods on those expelled to Russia (even after the previous bloodshed by the Russian Navy against the Athonites). The main point of the letter was that even repentant monks were banished from the Holy Mountain, FOREVER. The Slavic monks were reduced by about half. The Greek state consolidated control over Athos for the first time in centuries. (Greek troops had just barely entered Thessalonica in Fall 1912 ahead of the Bulgarian troops; and the Sephardic Jewish community together with other ethnic groups outnumbered the Greeks in Salonica at that time. But the Greek state took firm control of Athos; and Thessalonica became a thoroughly Greek city only after the Sephardim were sent to Auschwitz and gassed.) Severe restrictions were placed on new Slavic monks coming to Athos. These restrictions exist in various forms to this day. The above just scratches the surface of the anti-hesychast, ethnic, and political prejudices and rivalries that played significant roles in the hasty and immoral way the monks were condemned, expelled, and brutalized.
I ask: Exactly which parts of these synodal decisions should Orthodox Christians consider endorsing???
[6] Tom Deretich writes to NFTU, again:
Tom Deretich writes again:
HOCNA has pointed out-correctly-that “name of God” has a double meaning in the Orthodox Church. It can mean a material name that represents God and it can also mean “God Himself”. HOCNA believes that St. John of Kronstadt’s statement, “the name of God is God Himself”, can be understood in a completely Orthodox way. HOCNA’s critics sometimes seem to assume that “name” can only mean a symbol and they have issued condemnations of “heresy” against those who say (correctly) that “name” has a broader meaning in the Bible and the Orthodox Church. The difference between the simplistic and inaccurate attacks against HOCNA and the broader, completely Orthodox position of HOCNA should become evident by comparing the two approaches.
The bishops of HOCNA have written that, in the Orthodox Church, the “name of God” has both an inner meaning and an outer meaning. The outer meaning is the material sounds and letters that human beings create when they pronounce or write God’s name. This is the material (created) name of God. As such, it would be wrong to deify this created name. It would be wrong to say that it is God. Indeed, in his first writing on this subject (June 6/19, 2012), Metropolitan Ephraim called such a view heresy. In numerous writings since his first on this subject, Metropolitan Ephraim has consistently rejected the deification of the material names for God. Those who have accused HOCNA of teaching that created names are God have grossly misrepresenting the clearly and repeatedly articulated position of HOCNA that such a teaching would be wrong and indeed heresy if anyone did actually teach it.
What the bishops of HOCNA have also pointed out is that “name of God” also has a second meaning, an “inner” or non-material meaning. In the Bible, the writings of the Church Fathers, and the prayers of the Orthodox Church, the “name of God” frequently means the “power of God” or the glory of God or the “presence of God” or simply “God Himself.” Read 3 Kingdoms (1 Kings) chapter 8, where God tells David that Solomon will build a temple so that God’s name will dwell in it. What dwells in the temple that Solomon built? The “glory” of God shows itself in the temple, and this “glory” is called the “name” of God. Once again, the “name” of God is used to mean “uncreated energy” of God.
It is widely understood that in the Bible and the Church the “name” of something can mean a symbol for something, but it might also mean the thing itself, the reality or power of the thing. For example, St. Luke wrote that a “crowd of names” (ὄχλος ὀνομάτων, Acts 1:15) gathered in the Upper Room for Pentecost. He was not saying that 120 “designators” walked into that room, but 120 real people gathered there. “Name” in biblical language can mean “reality.” Dictionaries for the Old Testament, New Testament, and early Christian writings demonstrate this beyond dispute. As the leading Greek-English dictionary for the New Testament and other early Christian writings puts it, ὄνομα can mean something “real, a piece of the very nature of the personality whom it designates, expressing the person’s qualities and powers”; the ὄνομα of God can mean “a tangible manifestation of the divine nature” (BDAG, s.v. ὄνομα. This dictionary entry confirms what we know from the Holy Fathers of the Orthodox Church. The “name” of God in the Orthodox Church can mean the “glory” or “power” or “energy” of God. In the Gospel According to St. John (19:1-26), Christ uses “name” of God to mean the active power of God by which He guards and protects the disciples and keeps them united. In his commentary on Christ’s words, St. Cyril of Alexandria writes clearly that “name” of God means the “glory and power of Godhood” (δόξῃ καὶ δυνάμει θεότητος) and is the “energy” (ἐνέργεια) of God that existed before the creation of the world. St. Clement of Rome writes that God’s name is “almighty” (παντοκρατορικῷ, 1 Clement 60.4) and the “author of all creation” (ἀρχέγονον πάσης κτίσεως, 59.3) and that Christians are “obedient” (58.1) to God’s name and “worshipers” (λατεύοντες, 45.7) of His name. The Shepherd of Hermas 91.5, Similitude 9.14, states that God’s name “sustains the whole world” (τὸν κόσμον ὅλον βαστάζει). And the Didache 10.2-3 teaches that God’s name “dwells” in the hearts of Christians. This is the uncreated name/energy of God. The uncreated name is *not* the same as the created names; but, as St. Gregory Palamas affirms, God’s sanctifying grace, which is God Himself, “dwells” in created words, like grace dwells in created icons.
It is an undeniable fact that “name of God” as used in the Scriptures, patristic writings, and liturgical services of the Church can mean both a created symbol and the uncreated God Himself. Just because the phrase “name of God” can mean both created and uncreated, does not mean that when people in the Orthodox Church use the “name of God” in an ambiguous manner they are confusing the created with the uncreated. Rather, the uncreated name/energy “dwells in” the created names, and therefore the Church frequently uses “name of God” with a double sense. For example, when the Church venerates the “power of the Cross” there is a double reference, both to the created symbol and the uncreated grace that works through the created symbol. Similarly, there is a close connection between the created names for God and the uncreated name/grace that dwells in the created symbols. Therefore the Church frequently refers to “name of God” without always specifying the distinction between the uncreated grace and the created symbol. It is unfair to accuse Orthodox people, who may be simply using the traditional biblical and liturgical terminology, of blurring the Orthodox theological distinction, unless there is proof they actually intended to blur that distinction. In countless writings, HOCNA has always maintained the proper theological distinction. The uncreated name/grace/power/energy dwells in the created names, but the two are not identical. The created names are *not* God, they a type of holy icon. As St. Gregory Palamas summarizes, God dwells in both the created icons and the created words. As HOCNA has said, it would be heresy to claim the created words are God or are to be worshiped as God. It would also be heresy to deny that God dwells in the holy icons and holy words.
[7] First reply to Tom Deretich:
First reply to Tom Deretich:
Mr. Deretich repeats his arguments that HOCNA is not preaching the heresy of Name Worshipping, which arguments circle about the accusations without giving a sound, dogmatic answer, while making a complete hash of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, which only Name Worshippers would be so ignorant of Orthodoxy to believe. He also does not explain the physical proof of HOCNA’s distorting their translations to reflect Name Worshipper’s doctrine’s. Anthony Bulatovich was also proven to have done the same to patristic and biblical texts.
The Name Worshippers / Glorifiers claim: “All the Fathers say that the Name of God is an Energy of God”. But they never give the quotation or reference, because no Father has ever said that “the Name of God is an Energy of God”.
Nowhere in any of the Old or New Testament Scriptures, nowhere in the Prophets and Apostles, nowhere in any of the Fathers and Great Theologians of the Church is there any expression or doctrine of the existence of an uncreated name. God has no name; indeed He is unnamable for He cannot be limited or comprehended and is ineffable. He alone is uncreated. A name is an intellectual process obviously created in the material mind of man by bioelectrical energy and expressed either in writing or sound in the air. It has no other existence: it is the creation of a creation.
Names have been understood, described, and explained as being of a created nature by all the saints and great Fathers, especially by St. Dionysius the Areopagite, the Three Hierarchs, Ss. Gregory of Nyssa, Maximus the Confessor, John of Damascus and Gregory Palamas. God does not need words to communicate with man. The doctrine of uncreated names is found in Platonic, Gnostic, Cabalistic, Talmudic and Magic teachings, but has not only never been accepted or taught by the Church of God, it has been anathematized many times.
Another claim of theirs is that they alone really know and understand St. Gregory Palamas. In fact, they do not understand him, but also do not know his writings. If they quoted him, they would see that he overturns their doctrines, because he follows the Fathers of the Church.
St. Gregory Palamas concludes, along with St. Dionysius the Areopagite and St. Maximus the Confessor, whom he quotes, that God’s Energies are uncreated. St. Gregory proves this in his many works, with quotations from the Scriptures and the Fathers. He calls them “God’s inherent and essential energies, which are uncreated”. [St. Gregory, 150 Chapters in the Philokalia #92] How can a created name be an Energy of God?
The divine omnipresence is also an Energy of God. He sustains the creation, He is everywhere in it, yet not bound or limited by it, or identified with it. Creation and the uncreated divinity can never be confused. [Ibid, #104]
St. Gregory, quoting St. Dionysius: “‘The creative procession and energy whereby God creates individual essences’ [Divine Names, 5:1] loosely and inexactly named from all things since it contains all things in itself.” No name is an energy. [Ibid, #105]
“Grace, here distinguished from the Divine Nature, is not created, for no one would suppose a created thing to be the Nature of God”. Isn’t a name created? Here St. Gregory Palamas is commenting on a quote from St. John Chrysostom. [Ibid, #108].
St. Gregory the Theologian says, “He is ‘Christ’ the anointed on account of the Divinity; for it is the Divinity that anoints His human nature”. [Theological Oration, 4, 21]
St. Gregory Palamas says, “Creation is the single work of the Trinity, no hypostasis has His own particular effect. The Divine Energy is one and the same for all Three: One God: They do not possess an individual power or will or individual energy. There is one impersonal power”. [St. Gregory, 150 Chapters in the Philokalia #112] If the energy is personal or has a name, we introduce a fourth person into the Trinity. Since this newly named person must exist from eternity, as they do, and since it has a name, it has its own existence. What of the many Divine Names, as the Holy Fathers call them? Do we then have many gods as do the idolators? If this name has its own existence, it is equal to the Trinity, contrary to what Mr. Deretich declares.
“Divinity is also an appellation of the Divine Energy, according to the theologians”, says St. Gregory Palamas. Metropolitan Antony Khrapovitsky and the 1913 Russian Synod based their position on this quotation. Yet, Anthony Bulatovich’s followers declared this statement to be heretical.
If the name Jesus is uncreated, as the Name Worshippers say, then this name existed before creation. It is then a creation which God did not will to create, nor did create. God did not say, “I will create My Name, and it will make the world”.
If the existence of the Name is before all eternity in God’s foreknowledge, as the new Name Worshippers claim, then since He foreknew all things, all creation existed before eternity and before being created. The foreknowledge of God differs from His Will and His creative Energies. If He did not will this creation, then God is a creator in spite of Himself, unwillingly. In such a case creation is Divine since it is before all eternity, although unwilled, then there is no difference between created and uncreated, “for only God is uncreated”. This is clearly pantheism.
St. Dionysius the Areopagite declares, “…in Scripture, all the names appropriate to God are praised regarding the whole, entire, full, and complete Divinity, rather than any part of it. They all refer indivisibly, absolutely, unreservedly, and totally to God in His entirety Indeed, as I pointed out in my Theological Representations, anyone denying that such terminology refers to God in all that He is may be said to have blasphemed. He is profanely daring to sunder absolute unity”. [Divine Names, 2:1] The words, “all the names appropriate to God are praised regarding the whole, entire, full, and complete Divinity” and “they all refer…to God”, and “such terminology refers to God”, proves that the Fathers do not consider the Divine Names to be the Divine Energies, but human labels and names and terms for the Ineffable.
Name Worshippers / Glorifiers do not follow the doctrines of the Holy Fathers, and reject their doctrines and explications. Their “sainted” founder, Anthony Bulatovich declared that any one who did not accept his doctrines was a heretic, and outside the Orthodox Church. I am glad that I would be considered a heretic by them.
[8] Tom Deretich writes reply to my post:
Tom Deretich writes reply to my post:
Dear GeorgeT49,
You have stated some of your sincere beliefs very clearly, and you deserve a detailed response, based on the Scriptures and Fathers. You ask, “How can a created name be an Energy of God?” The answer: It cannot. A created name cannot be an uncreated energy of God. We all agree!
But there is another question: Does God’s uncreated grace “dwell” in the created names for God? The Orthodox Church says, “Yes!” We should all be able to agree on St. Gregory Palamas’s Confession of Faith in which he confesses that God’s sanctifying grace, which is the Creator himself, “dwells” in “God-given” (theoparádota) but created “sayings/oracles/words/scriptures” (logia) as He also dwells in the saints, relics, icons, church temples, sacred vessels, etc. Here is St. Gregory’s Confession of the Orthodox Faith:
“we worship relatively [προσκυνοῦμεν σχετικῶς] the holy icon of the Son of God Who has been depicted as made man for our sake, offering up the worship relatively to the prototype; and [we worship relatively] the honored wood of the Cross, and all the symbols of His sufferings, as being divine trophies of victory over the common enemy of our race; and [we worship relatively] the saving figure of the honored Cross, the divine temples and places and the sacred vessels and the God-given sayings [θεοπαράδοτα λόγια, oracles, words, Scriptures], because of the God Who dwells [ἐνοικοῦντα] in them. In the same manner, we worship also the icons of all the saints, because of our love for them and the God Whom these [saints] truly loved and served, in this worship of the icons we carry our thoughts to the forms [=the persons depicted] on the icons. We venerate also the very tombs of the saints, because the sanctifying grace [of God] did not depart from the most sacred bones [of the saints], just as death did not separate Godhood from the Master’s body during the three days (St. Gregory Palamas, Confession of the Orthodox Faith 4, ΔΣΜ 1:344, CCF 1:337).
St. Gregory’s Confession of the Orthodox Faith was submitted to the great Council of Constantinople of 1351, and approved by the council, and is usually attached to the long doctrinal definition issued by the council. This is the council that is so important for the consensus of the Orthodox Church that it is sometimes referred to as the Ninth Ecumenical Council. I hope we can all agree on the above: God’s grace/power/energy dwells in created words like in created saints or created icons.
That leaves another question: Is the phrase “name of God” sometimes used as a synonym of “power of God” or “energy of God” or “presence of God”? The answer: Yes, undeniably, it is sometimes used that way in the Orthodox Church. The Old Testament sometimes uses the phrase that way. In 3 Kingdoms in the Septuagint Old Testament (=1 Kings in Hebrew) it is God’s “name” and “glory” (=energy) that fills the newly-built Solomonic temple. In the Psalms, the “name” of God is equated with the “power” of God that can “defend” a person and “judge and vindicate” him or “do [him] justice” (Psalms 43, 53, etc., Septuagint). For example, Septuagint Psalm 53:1[3] (=Hebrew Psalm 54:1[3]): “O God, save me by your name, and judge [=vindicate] me by your power” (ὁ θεός ἐν τῷ ὀνόματί σου σῶσόν με καὶ ἐν τῇ δυνάμει σου κρῖνόν με). In this Psalm, “name” and “power” are synonyms. Christ also used “name” of God as synonymous with glory of God and “authority/power” of God in John 17. According to St. John Chrysostom the “name” of God (in Christ’s prayer in John 17) means the “help” that God gives the disciples. According to Blessed Theophylact of Ohrid, “name” (in Christ’s words) means the “help” from God and the “power” of God that protects the disciples. Christ also speaks of the “truth” of God doing what the “power” and “name” of God do: namely, guard and protect the disciples and keep them united. St. Cyril of Alexandria writes many pages (on John 17) about how the glory, authority, power, might, grace, name , and truth are the energy/activity/action of “Godhead” that the Father and the Son share from before the creation of the cosmos. He also comments that the Father and Son and Spirit communicate this energy to the disciples to guard them, protect them from the power of the Devil, and to keep them united. Over many pages, St. Cyril shows that keep them in Your name is equivalent to “guard/protect/safeguard the disciples by Your glory/power/name of Godhood.” St. Cyril also uses “energy words” like “acting in the action” and associates this “energy/activity” with “attributes” of Godhood and “exercise [of divine] power.” St. Cyril anticipates the language used by later Councils and Fathers, like St. Gregory Palamas, in remarkable ways for the early fifth century! Let me quote only one of many such passages from St. Cyril:
“We are bound, therefore, to think that, if He had protected them hitherto in the name given Him by the Father, that is, in the glory of Godhead, for He ‘gave unto Him the name which is above every name’; and if He wishes the Father Himself also to protect them in the name given unto Him, He will not be excluded from acting in the action; for the Father will keep those who are knit to Him by faith through the agency of the Only-begotten, Who is His power and might. For He will not exercise His power in any way save through Him. Then, if even in the flesh He protected them, by the power and glory of His Godhead, how can we think that He will fail to think His disciples worthy of the mercy which they need; and how can they ever lose His sure support while the Divine power of the Only-begotten abideth evermore, and the power which is His by Nature is for ever firmly established? For that which is Divine admits of no variance at all, or of any change into any evil agency, but shines forth for ever in those attributes which belong to it eternally.”
As we can see above, using “name of God” to mean “uncreated power/energy of Godhood” is not limited to St. Clement of Alexandria, who wrote of “the author-of-all-creation name” (τὸ ἀρχέγονον πάσης κτίσεως ὄνομα). The Old Testament, the New Testament, the Fathers, and the prayers of the Orthodox Church do sometimes use “name of God” to mean “energy of God.” This does not mean that Orthodox Christians are confusing the Creator with the creation. Rather, “name” in ancient Greek can mean both a “symbol” for something and it can also mean “the thing itself,” or the “glory” of the thing, or the “power” of the thing; in other words, the “reality” of something, like when St. Luke said a “crowd of names” (=real persons) gathered in the Upper Room. Like many words, “name” in ancient Greek has a range of meanings. The “name of God” can mean a created symbol and it can also mean the “uncreated power/energy” of God.
In summary: The created names for God are not the power of God, not the energy of God, not God, not God Himself. No one is claiming that the created names for God are God’s energy. (I know of no evidence that anyone who calls himself a traditional Orthodox Christian today “secretly” believes this either.) The Orthodox Church does teach that God fills and dwells in his created names. The created names are distinct from God, but God dwells in them. God is present everywhere and fills all created things. And God “dwells” especially in sacred, created things: in the saints, angels, relics, the Cross, the Gospel, icons, vestments and vessels, and “God-given [created] words/sayings” (θεοπαράδοτα λόγια). Additionally, in the Holy Scriptures, Fathers, and prayers of the Orthodox Church, the “name of God” sometimes can have a meaning different from mere created name. Sometimes in the Holy Scriptures, Fathers, and prayers of the Church “name of God” means “God’s uncreated power/energy,” or means “God the Son,” and or means “God Himself.” When Christ says that God’s name guards and protects the disciples and keeps them united and safe from the power of the Devil, He means God’s glory/power/name/energy does this. St. Cyril of Alexandria makes an explicit equation between energy and truth, glory, power, and name in his commentary on Christ’s words in John 17:1-26. St. Clement of Rome calls the name of God the “author of all creation” or “primal source of all creation” or “that which gave existence to all creation.” He is speaking about the uncreated power of God, which he calls “the author-of-all-creation name.” In other words, when he wants to refer to the uncreated power/energy of God, he calls it the “the author-of-all-creation name,” which means “uncreated name/power.” St. Clement says Christians are obedient to that name and are worshipers (λατρευόντες) of that name (meaning worshipers of God’s power/energy). He means Christians are obedient to and worship God Himself. The Shepherd of Hermas says Gods’ name “sustains the whole world.” The Didache says God’s name “dwells” in the hearts of Christians. It is-undeniably-God’s power that gave existence to all creation and sustains the whole world and dwells in the hearts of Christians. Therefore, “name of God” does sometimes mean uncreated power/energy of God. This is distinct from the material words (created names) which we use to designate God. But God dwells in and works through those created names. In other words: the uncreated power of God (which is sometimes called the [uncreated] name of God) dwells in the created, material names that symbolize God, and sometimes works miracles through those created names, as God’s power sometimes works miracles through the created holy icons. This is not mechanical or magical, but is based on God’s providence and man’s openness to God’s grace.
No Orthodox Christian should agree with Sergius of sorry memory’s false 1913 claim that the divine energies “may” be called God if we speak “more broadly than is normal” and that the divine energies are “not God, let alone God Himself.” (Under Lossky’s influence, even Sergius may have renounced his earlier error. Why should we, today, then perpetuate Sergius’s error, by defending his false statements of 1913?) Rather, we can all affirm, with St. Gregory Palamas, that “every power or energy [of God] is God Himself.” As far as the Greek decrees of 1912-1913 go, there was a widespread prejudice against hesychasm by the theologians of both Halki and Athens of that time period. The infamous ecumenist Germanos Strenopoulos and the infamous anti-hesychast Vasileios Stephanides were indeed authors of the Halki “Opinion.” [[See Germanos P. Strenopoulos (Dean of Halki Theological Academy), Ioannes Eustratios, Archimandrites Georgiades, Vasileios Stephanides, Vasileios Antoniades, and Panteleon Komnenos, «Γνωμοδοτησις του συλλογου των θεολογων καθηγητων περι της εσχατως εμφανισθεισης εν Αγιω Ορει παρα τοις ρωσσοις μοναχοις καινοφανους διδασκαλιας περι της θεοτητος του ονοματος “Ιησους.” Κατ’ εντολη της αγιοις και ιερας Συνοδου,» Εκκλησιαστικη Αληθεια, ετος λγʹ, αριθ. 16 (April 20, 1913): 123–125. Russian translation in Troitskii, Об Именах Божних iii–v; Khrapovitskii, Святое Православие 33–36; and Сборник документов 12–15.]]
By following what Christ and Christ’s saints say about the uncreated power of God, we have no reason to disagree on what “name of God” means. The “name of God” can sometimes mean “created symbol in which God dwells” and it can sometimes mean “uncreated power of God Himself.” Therefore, St. John of Kronstadt’s teaching, “the name of God is God Himself,” can be understood in an Orthodox sense. We would do best to accept this great saint’s teaching in accordance with those before him who used “name of God” as synonymous with “God Himself.” By anathematizing St. John of Kronstadt, we would also be anathematizing Christ Himself, Who, in the Gospel of St. John, used “name” of God to mean “power” of God. I, for one, do not want to anathematize Christ for using name in a way that is broader than how some modern people think name should be used. I will stick with the broad usage of the saints for 3,000 years.
[9] Second reply to Tom Deretich:
Second reply to Tom Deretich:
Name-worshippers love to quote St. John Kronstadt: “the name of God is God Himself” and you have in that name all the essence of the Lord (My Life In Christ, pg. 359, St. Petersburg, 2001). Later, however, St. John explains that his understanding of these expressions, is founded upon the patristic theology of the Church and not on the ravings of Anthony Bulatovich. The Saints’ words from ‘My Life In Christ’, pp. 467-468: “Since the Lord is everywhere present, His Cross works miracles, His name works miracles, His Icons are wonderworking.” “Since we are of flesh, the Lord attaches His presence, so to speak, and His very self with creation He attaches Himself to the Temple, to the Icons, to the sign of the Cross, to His name composed of articulated sounds, with holy water, with the sanctified bread, wheat and wine but there shall come a time when all the visible signs shall not be necessary, and we shall partake of Him more intensely then, ‘in the unwaning day of His Kingdom’, where as now only through the medium of the flesh and through Icons and signs”.
First, the Saint well comprehends the basic understanding of God, held for more than three thousand years by the Church: God is omnipresent. The invocation that begins Orthodox services of prayers is the proclamation of this doctrine: “Heavenly King, O Comforter, the Spirit of truth, Who art everywhere present and fillest all things, O Treasury of every good and Bestower of life: come and dwell in us, and cleanse us from every stain, and save, O Good One, our souls.” God is present everywhere, filling and interpenetrating all things, with no limit or bound, entirely free and unapproachable. He, God Himself, both the essence and the indivisible energy, operations, activity, and attributes, which are the uncreated glory in which He the uncreated God dwells; He is throughout us and in us: in the air we breathe and the food we eat and the raiment we wear and the blood that courses in our veins. He dwells in light unapproachable, i.e., we cannot touch or force Him: He is free and absolute and transcendent. Nothing can touch Him unless He will it. His will – one of His uncreated energies – can grant a grace to or effect a creature, but only at His volition. He is ‘ο ἐνεργών, (ho energon) while creation is τὸ ενεργούμενον, (to energoumenon), i.e. He is the energizer while creation is that which is energized. The energizer effects but is not affected by that which is energized; He remains inviolate, for He is uncreated and eternal, unchanging and ever the same. Only the creation is changeable, and never can the two ever be intermingled or confused.
St. John of Kronstadt makes this understanding clear by saying that God is everywhere, and He sanctifies them, who through various mediums, approach Him. This was the teaching of the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which stated that we do not deify the medium – Icons, names, the Cross, etc – but our worship passes over and reaches the Divinity to attract His grace. It is obvious that the Saint considers the mediums as means created by mankind, which direct our attention and prayers to the prototype, Who, if He desires, can respond with His grace. St. John lists “name” along with the Church building, Icons, holy water, the Cross, etc (all of which are creations of man), where God Himself is approached and His grace can be received; he follows the decisions of the Seventh Council. There is no mention or hint of an uncreated name or of pantheism. St. John did not preach name-worshipping. Another quote from St. John of Kronstadt, that the name-worshippers like to ignore is: “Let not the heart weak in faith think that the Cross or the name of Christ act of themselves, or that this Cross and this name of Christ produces miracles when I do not look with the eyes of my heart or with the faith of Christ.” (Sergieff, John I. (1897) My Life in Christ. (E.E. Goulaeff, Trans.). Jordanville, NY: Holy Trinity Monastery (1971). p. 23.
This quote from St. John of Kronstadt shakes the very foundation of the name-worshippers doctrine. It is clear that St. John was not a name-worshipper, but only said that “the name of God, is God Himself” in the context of prayer and not as an identity or in a literal sense.
Anthony Bulatovich’s writings clearly and explicitly preach that the letters of God’s name are God Himself, as is also the spoken word. His modern followers preach the same as their ‘sainted’ founder. But when they are challenged because they are preaching the ludicrous doctrines of an uncreated creation, or of pantheism, they speedily demur, saying, “No one could ever be so illogical” (and Bulatovich rolls over in his grave). Such a tactic is common among heretics; they deny anything which is pointed out as being senseless or foreign to the Faith. They then send up a smokescreen of obfuscations, and then invent an even worse heresy; in this instance, the uncreated name. Some facets of this error have been mentioned above, but this same error has been condemned in the Synodicon of Orthodoxy and by all the Fathers, who have condemned the Platonic, Gnostic, Talmudic, Cabalistic pagan teachings in their entirety.
The name-worshippers exhibited a very poor taste in saints when they canonized Anthony Bulatovich. He was an arrogant, ambitious man who used violence to take over monasteries, evict monks and plunder their goods (see the many contemporary reports in the newspapers of the time especially ‘Ekklesiastike Aletheia’ of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In order to forestall local authorities from dealing forcibly with the problems, the Patriarchate begged the Russian government to intervene so that there could be no doubt of injustice, since the Patriarchates were dependent on Russia for protection from the Turks and Mamelukes. Bulatovich, who used the sword of violence, died by the sword, according to our Saviour’s words. He was killed by robbers in 1919, (shortly after rejecting communion with the Church for the second time). In any case, when controversy arises, the name-worshippers publicly reject the extremes of their founder; but when on fresh ground or privately, they repeat the old Bulatovichian doctrines. He believed that the Mysteries of the Church are accomplished by the invocation of God’s name. Baptism was in the name of Christ; and the change of the elements in Holy Communion was already accomplished in the proskomide, when the Lamb is excised from the offered bread. Of course, the modern followers might try to deny it, but they are trapped in the chains of their tradition and their attempts to explain and cover up.
One question arises from reading their writings is that the modern name-worshippers never say what name is the divine name. Hilarion and Bulatovich were definite: Hilarion said the name was “Jesus”, while Bulatovich declared that every word in the Gospel was God Himself, even when spoken aloud; wherefore, he was accused of Pantheism. Their present day followers usually say the name of God is God Himself , but do not elaborate. Perhaps they fear that they will be accused of declaring created letters and sounds to be divine. In any case, they now are at odds with their purportedly sainted founders. What do they mean? The name of God is a name? The name of God is the name? The name God is name? This obscurantism allows them to deny any Orthodox objection and to confuse the issue with pages of ambiguous verbiage, like squids escaping in a cloud of ink.
After giving many quotations, declaring that the power, might, and glory of God protect and save mankind; then tacking on others wherein Mr. Deretich defines, that “in the name” means the same thing, he concludes that St. Cyril of Alexandria says that “the glory, authority, power, might, grace, name, and the truth are the ‘energy/activity/action’ of ‘Godhead that the Father and the Son share.” He then quotes a long passage from St. Cyril, as proof.
In the first part of this quotation, the Saint quotes the Scriptures, Philippians 2:9, “and gave Him a name which is above every name.” This signifies that He is given authority as the Son and Word of God: that Father and Son are of one essence. The Saint later on discusses Christ God’s protection of His disciples, in the “exercise [of] His power”, “by the power and glory of His Godhead”, etc. There is no identification of “name” and “power and glory”, except in Mr. Deretich’s mind. The Saint’s commentary on this scripture and the others, concerns the unity of the Father’s and Son’s essence and will. Mr. Deretich also mentions St. Clement of Rome, who when he wishes to refer to the uncreated power of God, he calls it the name of God. However, there is no statement that the name of God is an energy of God. In any case, these quotations are not from the only received genuine work of St. Clement: the Epistle to the Corinthians.
Mr. Deretich presents a passage in III Kings (no more exact reference is given), when Solomon consecrated the Temple, saying that it is God’s “name and glory (=energy) that fills the newly-built Solomonic Temple.” Here is the verse in question (8:10), “And it came to pass when the priests departed out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house. (8:11) And the priests could not stand to minister before the cloud, because the glory of the Lord filled the house.” There is no equivalence of glory and name mentioned or implied.
In III Kings 9:3 “to put my name there (the Temple) for ever”, is meant figuratively, which is proved as the sentence continues: “mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually.” If “name” is meant literally, then we must conclude that God has physical eyes and heart.
The tactic in these paragraphs is to present a number of Scriptural or patristic quotations mentioning “name” of God, with others, concerning “the glory, the power, activity, energy, operation, attributes of God”, and mixing them together so as to imply an equivalence which is simply not there; in fact most of their interpretations of the meaning of “name”, do not agree with that of most interpreters and translators. Proximity does not indicate equivalence, and even that is lacking here. We can only conclude that Mr. Deretich is, well, lying. Here, at least, he is showing himself to be a faithful follower of Bulatovich.
Again, this statement is introduced by Mr. Deretich, “name in ancient Greek can mean both a ‘symbol’ for something and it can also mean the thing itself” and it continues in a similar vein. True, a name can mean or signify or be a ‘symbol’ for something, that is, “the thing itself”. Since this is the definition for “name”, this is hardly a statement of great sagacity and even necessary. (Please explain how “something” or “the thing itself” differ?). It has never been believed, certainly not in the Church, that the name is the thing itself. We cannot drink out of the word “glass”. Nor eat the name “apple”. Nor will the word “lion” rip and tear us to pieces. Words which name something are not the thing named, as experience teaches us and as the Patriarchal decision of 1912 proclaimed. We can be starving but a grocery list will not feed us. A leopard will not change spots if we call him a panther. Names are human labels applied to physical objects or concepts so that we may communicate and understand our experience of creation. God did not name the animals, but Adam did. (Genesis 2:19, “The Lord God… brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof”). It is an illogical and false thesis and conclusion to say “the name of x is n, therefore n is x”. It is not a direct predication or equivalence. Rather we must understand that when we say “we are calling x by the name n”, (we are calling this beast (x) with the name lion (n) is what we mean. It is not a reversible predication nor equivalence. We are applying a conceptual generalization of a species, an abstraction, composed of thought and words of a rarefied matter as a label to a very concrete, material animal. Man has been called the creature, which abstracts, generalizes and names. Names are man made, and the lion couldn’t care less what we call it, just as long as we don’t shoot it.
Gregory Lourie has called such thinking “crassly nominalistic”. Unfortunately for him, it is the pragmatic doctrine of the Church and the way most of mankind thinks. However, he is the scion of Cabalistic ancestors, and appears to share in their magic mentality.
With all of their mixing of supposed quotations from the Fathers and Scriptures, which bear the word name and juxtaposing them with others which have the words “power or energy or activity”, etc., they declare an equivalence or identity upon no basis and with no hard references. We have seen, how they have misrepresented many of them, so that what they declare as fact cannot be trusted. They consistently violate logical and religious sense in their interpretations, so that their propositions and premises result in unfounded conclusions.
We later have some more juggling with history from Mr. Deretich. The name of the unfortunate Bishop Sergius (later Patriarchal locum tenens), is associated with the 1913 Synodal decision by insinuation, since the modern name-worshippers consistently refer to “the 1913 decision”. Sergius was not on the Synod and he certainly wrote against name-worshipping at other times besides 1913. This attempt to blacken the Synodal decision by association with Sergius, who broke much later under pressure by the communists is simply dishonest. Also, attempts to blacken Halki, thereby blackening the Ecumenical Patriarchate as being anti-Palamite, is pitiful. Certainly, the Encyclical of the Orthodox Patriarchs answering the Pope of Rome in 1895 was a model of Orthodoxy. In just a few years had everything changed? The Patriarchal decision of 1912, which is available on line in English and in the Synodal decision of 1913, praises the prayer of Jesus and hesychasm. Most had not attended western schools, but were instructed in the traditional Church schools where they read and learned Church Greek from reading the Fathers. They certainly knew of St. Gregory Palamas, for the Synodicon of Orthodoxy was read annually, and its history was part of the curriculum. In any case, calling “Infamous Germanos P. Strenopoulos”? It was after his repose in 1920 that ecumenistic statements were made. “Archimandrite Vasileios Stephanides”? He was a deacon then, from Athens, to which he returned and had probably not yet studied abroad. The last two names are not archimadrites, but laymen; Mr. Deretich is mixing his time periods and facts.
After the 1920′s, with the destruction of Asia Minor and its schools, and finally the closure of Halki in 1956, Patriarchal students were forced to study abroad. In any case, the decisions of Halki’s faculty, the Ecumenical Patriarchal Synod’s decree of 1912 by the saintly Patriarch Joachim, and the confirmation in 1913, by Patriarch Germanos are faultlessly Orthodox and in conformity with Patristic Theology, which is why the Russian Synod quoted them in accepting it as the official Theological statement for their decision, and then dealt with the practical portion. All the Orthodox have accepted them.
In the last paragraph, Mr. Deretich returns to the first position, “the name of God is God Himself”, as if all the intervening verbiage had proved it. We see that St. John of Kronstadt, understood it in the Orthodox way: “God is everywhere present” and in the manner in which the Seventh Ecumenical Council determined. The names are worshipped but not to be deified. The name cannot be God Himself. The Church has dogmatized for 3000 years, that no name is God Himself.
Another statement in a previous “summary” paragraph: “The Orthodox Church does teach that God fills and dwells in his created names”. We challenge this statement as entirely false; present us with a reference. It will not be found, neither in an official council nor in any of the Saints of the Church. The next statement is inarguably acceptable “God is present everywhere and fills all created things”. But then the statement which violates the former, as we explained earlier on, “God ‘dwells’ especially in sacred, created things”; then Mr. Deretich proceeds to return to all the errors of the name-worshippers: “the name can sometimes have a meaning different from ‘mere created names, “the uncreated power of God (which is sometimes called the [uncreated] name of God” (where? No where!) and so on and so forth. An incoherent spate of unsupported claims, and unconnected thoughts foreign to the theology of St. Gregory Palamas and all the great Fathers whom we faithfully follow.
Perhaps it is unfair to cast all the opprobrium of false teaching upon Mr. Deretich. He is apparently a spokesman – since he is an employee of HOCNA – for Gregory Babunashvili of HOCNA. He (Gregory Babunashvili) is a faithful disciple of Gregory Lourie, repeating his exact words. I have been told by many who have heard him preach his doctrines, that when someone presents facts or doctrines of the Church’s saints which refute his teachings, so that he cannot answer, he then resorts to shouted denials. For this reason most of the Clergy and people deserted HOCNA, people of the theological knowledge and stature as: Frs. Michael Azkoul, John Flesser, Christos Constantinou, Christos Patitsas and Andrew Snogren. It is evident that Gregory Babunashvili is ignorant of the doctrines of the Church’s saints, even of St. Gregory Palamas, whom he claimed he understood. Furthermore, he makes definite affirmations of facts and references, which upon investigation, are revealed to be false or non-existent. As someone said, “I wouldn’t accept anything he said, even if pearls and diamonds fell from his lips”. His writings also corroborate his ignorance of the fundamentals of the Church’s theology.
Returning to Mr. Deretich’s “In summary” paragraph, third before the end, he states, “The Orthodox Church does teach that God fills and dwells in his created names”. [a 'teaching' found nowhere, except in Anthony Bulatovich] God is everywhere present and fills all created things. And God “dwells” especially in sacred, created things: “in the saints, angels, relics, the Cross, icons…” etc. He repeats further on the word “dwells”, with quotation marks and without quotation marks. He states: “God’s power sometimes works miracles through created holy icons”. He is obviously attempting to return to the phrase “the name of God is God Himself”, the keystone of name-worshipping. The Orthodox Church recognizes God’s presence everywhere and in everything, as we have stated. Here, Mr. Deretich is attempting to make a special kind of presence with the word “dwells” or “fills”, although he repeats the Church’s teaching of God’s omnipresence, Who fills all things. What is he implying by these words and their repetition? By his return to the formula “the name of God is God Himself”, this intimates more than the usual divine omnipresence. If he is implying an “incarnation” of God, he would be condemned and anathematized by the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils. Various words are used by the Church for the presence of God in the Church: ‘overshadowing’, ‘presence’, ‘attached’, ‘abiding’, ‘to come upon’, ‘be present’, ‘sense’, ‘nearness’, ‘means’, but usually in a temporary or passing sense. This insistence on “dwells” and “fills” are words also used by many in the Church, but taken in conjunction with Deretich’s other statements, he is implying something more, but dares not say “incarnation”. It reminds one of the Hindu doctrine of Avatars. Rama and Krishna were avatars of Vishnu, in ancient Brahmanism. Throughout India, in the temples of Hanu-man, the mobs of monkeys scrambling about there, are his avatars, ‘God Himself’ as you would be told.
St. John Kronstadt avoids that trap because he obeyed the Church’s doctrine expressed in the Seventh Ecumenical Council. We can approach an Icon of Christ and pray before it, and Christ God can work miracles; for He is present since He is everywhere. But it is our volition, our will, which reaches Him through the created Icon, but the Icon is not deified, it is not God Himself, as the Seventh Ecumenical Council has dogmatized. Any other doctrine or Hindic avatar teaching is anathematized.
I repeat: No Father has ever said that the name of God is an energy of God. Nowhere does the Church teach of an uncreated name of God.
Names are created by man, and do not pertain to God. “…by the gift of God, it pertains to men alone both to make the invisible thought of the intellect audible by uniting it with the air and to write it down so that it may be seen with and through the body. God thus leads us to a steadfast faith in the abiding presence and manifestation of the supreme Logos in the flesh”. (#63 from the 150 Chapters of St. Gregory Palamas, in the Philokalia, vol. 4). Here the unique Incarnation of the Son of God is affirmed, where the hypostasis of the Word took upon Himself the human nature from the Ever-virgin Mary. There is one hypostasis with two natures, divine and human, inseparably united, undivided yet not confused, two separate and different natures in the one Person of the Word of God, perfect God and perfect man. This is proclaimed by the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils.
“There is no intermediate nature between the created and uncreated, neither is there any such operation (energy). Therefore, if it is created, it will show only a created nature, if it is uncreated, it will indicate an uncreated substance only. The natural properties must correspond with the nature absolutely, since the existence of a defective nature is impossible. The natural operations, moreover, does not come from anything outside the nature, and it is obvious that the nature can neither exist nor be known without its natural operation. For by remaining invariable, each thing gives of its own nature”. St. John Damascus Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, III, 15.
St. John of Damascus explains: “The Deity being incomprehensible is also assuredly nameless. Therefore since we know not His essence, let us not seek for a name for His essence. For names are explanations of actual things. But God, Who is good and brought us out of nothing into being that we might share in His goodness, and Who gave us the faculty of knowledge, not only did not impart to us His essence, but did not even grant us the knowledge of His essence. For it is impossible for nature to understand fully the super-natural. Moreover, if knowledge is of things that are, how can there be knowledge of the super-essential? Through His unspeakable goodness, then, it pleased Him to be called by names that we could understand, that we might not be altogether cut off from the knowledge of Him but should have some notion of Him, however vague. Inasmuch, then, as He is incomprehensible, He is also unnameable. But inasmuch as He is the cause of all and contains in Himself the reasons and causes of all that is, He receives names drawn from all that is, even from opposites: for example, He is called light and darkness, water and fire: in order that we may know that these are not of His essence but that He is super-essential and unnameable: but inasmuch as He is the cause of all, He receives names from all His effects”. St. John Damascus Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, I, 12.
There is no mixture or fusing of created and uncreated. Names are created, as the precious quotation from St. Gregory Palamas stated, who collated and summarized the Patristic teachings. An uncreated name is impossible according to St. John, as quoted, and to all the Fathers. There is no such thing as an uncreated name, as St. John Damascus says above.
“We apply all the names of these attributes to the supra-essential Being that is absolutely nameless”. St. Cyril, Treasuries, PG 14, 240A.
The fathers talk about three levels of prayer (such as St. Theophan the Recluse. What is Prayer). Oral, mental and spiritual. When one reaches spiritual prayer, the invocation of the name of God ceases. This is what St. Isaac the Syrian means by, “silence is the mystery of the age to come.” (St. Isaac the Syrian. Ascetical Homilies. Holy Transfiguration Monastery. Brookline, MA. (1984) Homily 65, p. 321).
The attributes are the energies of God, the things that pertain to God. We give the names, as is obvious from the above, and the name is not the energy, as is also obvious, for it is God and therefore nameless.
I prefer to follow the Third, Fourth and Seventh Ecumenical Councils, and all the Holy Fathers before and after. I will follow the Councils of 1912 and 1913, which are vilified by your Bulatovich, Gregory Lourie and Gregory Babunashvili, yet believed in by scores of saints and wise and holy men and of martyrs from then till now, whom you slander. I will follow the Apostle Peter who declares: “No prophecy of the Scripture is of any private interpretation. For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit”. (2 Peter, 1:20-21).
[10] Tom Deretich writes again:
Tom Deretich writes again:
GeorgeT49 claims, “There is no identification of ‘name’ and ‘power and glory’ [in Saint Cyril of Alexandria's Commentary on the Gospel of Saint John], except in Mr. Deretich’s mind.”
Saint Cyril of Alexandria teaches, “He [Christ] briefly besought His Father to protect the disciples in the name which had been given to Himself [John 17:11]. In this [other passage (John 17:17)], however, He desires His prayer on their behalf to be fulfilled in the truth of the Father. What, then, does this mean; or what does the change in the language signify? Is it meant to show that the energy [enérgeian] of the Father, shown through Him in mercy to the Saints, is not uniform? For in the first passage, when He says that His disciples ought to be protected in the name of the Father, that is to say, in the glory and power of Godhead, so that they should be out of the power of the enemy, He declares that aid is vouchsafed to the Saints in whatever happens to them.”
Did you catch that?
“He says that His disciples ought to be protected in the name of the Father, that is to say, in the glory and power of Godhead” («ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Πατρὸς χρῆναι λέγων τηρεῖσθαι τοὺς μαθητὰς, οἱονεὶ τὸ ἐν δόξῃ καὶ δυνάμει θεότητος»; Saint Cyril of Alexandria, Ἐξήγησις εἰς τὸ κατὰ Ἰωάννην Εὐαγγέλιον, bk. 11, ch. 9, in P.E. Pusey, ed., Sancti patris nostri Cyrilli archiepiscopi Alexandrini: In D. Joannis evangelium: accedunt fragmenta varia necnon tractatus ad Tiberium diaconum duo [Oxford: Typographeo Clarendοniano, 1872], vol. 2, pp. 714-715, HYPERLINK “http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.fig:002921833. (http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:h…)
Did you also catch that Saint Cyril equates both “protect[ing] them in Your name” (John 17:11) and “Sanctify[ing] them in the truth” (John 17:17) with the “energy of the Father” Πατρὸς ἐνέργειαν] which is “not uniform”? God protecting the disciples by the name of God, as well as God sanctifying the disciples by the truth, are both the “activity/energy” of the Father and the Son together.
Saint Cyril (Ἰωάννην, bk. 11, ch. 9, Pusey 2:696): “He says, then: ‘Holy Father, protect them in Your name which You have given Me; that they may be one, even as We are.’ He desires His disciples to be protected by the power [dynámei] and authority [exousía] of the ineffable divine nature.”
Saint Cyril (Ἰωάννην, bk. 11, ch. 9, Pusey 2:699): “Our Savior Himself said, in the foregoing passage: ‘Holy Father, protect them in Your name which You have given Me’; and here again: ‘While I was with them, I protected them in Your name which You have given Me’; almost pointing out this fact to His disciples: that the ability to save them suited rather the energy [energeía] of the Godhead [Theótētos] than His presence in the flesh: [...] We must not then attribute the whole of the divine energy [energeías] of Christ to the flesh by itself, but we shall be rather right if we ascribe them to the divine power of the Word. For does not ‘protecting the disciples in the name of the Father’ mean this, and nothing else? For they are protected by the glory of God.”
There, once again, you have the equivalence. “Protecting the disciples in the name of the Father” is equivalent to “protected by the glory of God.” In the Greek original, «ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Πατρὸς τηρεῖσθαι τοὺς μαθητὰς» is equivalent to«Θεοῦ γὰρ δόξῃ τε τήρηνται.» This is the “divine power of the Word” and the “divine energy of Christ.”
Saint Cyril writes over and over again that God protecting in God’s name means God protecting by God’s glory and authority and power. And all of this (glory/power/name) is the “energy/activity/working” of God. Conclusion: Christ Himself in the Gospel of Saint John uses “name” of God to mean “energy” of God.
None of this means that created names are the energy of God. Rather, it means that in Christian language, “name of God” can mean both “uncreated energy” and “created symbol”. This teaching is exactly what HOCNA has been saying when it says that there is both an “inner” meaning to “name of God” (uncreated grace) and an “outer” meaning (created, material word). This teaching is patristic, scriptural, and dominical.
P.S.: Next on the agenda will be my response concerning the authentic writing of Saint Clement of Rome.
[11] Third reply to Tom Deretich:
Third reply to Tom Deretich:
I must thank Mr. Deretich for even attempting to explain his position, lacking as it is in Orthodox legitimacy and apparently, even in name-worshipping legitimacy, as pointed out by the NFTU moderator. However, Mr. Deretich completely ignored our whole exposition on St. John of Kronstadt, whom Anthony Bulatovich quoted an hundred years ago in support of his beliefs, as do all name-worshippers to the present day, including Mr. Deretich. We quoted several passages from ‘My Life in Christ’, which demonstrated that the saint never, ever, advocated their doctrines, but was in harmony with patristic theology and the decisions of the Third, Fourth, and Seventh Ecumenical Councils. In all that they have written, Bulatovich, Lourie, Babunashvili, and Deretich have demonstrated their ignorance of patristic theology and the Conciliar decisions. How can they answer? They will have to admit that St. John does not preach their beliefs and so admit that he is a ‘name-fighter’, i.e., Orthodox. Their only course is to ignore the matter, since they cannot answer. Such is their customary course, when contrary proof is presented. It is a kind of ostrich argumentation. One sticks his head in the sand to ignore anything inimical or contrary, thus appearing infallible in one’s preaching. If one cannot answer, immediately attack or shift ground: this is their tactic.
Mr. Deretich returns to the attack with a passage from St. Cyril of Alexandria’s commentary on the Gospel of St. John. “Holy Father, keep in Thy name, those Whom Thou hast given Me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in Thy name.” (John 17:11,12). These verses cannot be understood in any name-worshipping sense, but clearly mean that while Christ was bodily present with the Apostles, He had kept them united in the confession and belief of the Father, through His divinity. Christ now prays and blesses them audibly so that they would learn that He and the Father are one, and is confirming that the same divine power through which He kept them united while present in the flesh, will continue to do so when He is absent. That such is the significance of the passage can be seen when we complete the entire Scriptural quote: “All mine are thine and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them. And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to Thee. Holy Father, keep in thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept, and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition; that the Scripture might be fulfilled. And now I am come to Thee; and these things I speak in the world that they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves…I have given them Thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world. They are not of the world, even as I am not. I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world, sanctify them in thy truth: thy word is truth.” (John 17:10-17)
When one reads St. Cyril’s interpretation of the above passage, which fills sixteen pages, in the ninth chapter of his commentary on St. John’s Gospel, it is obvious that the subject is the Incarnation of the Word, the Hypostasis in Two natures of God’s Son and Word, one of the Trinity; the purport of the interpretation is the unity of the Trinity, which unity of nature or essence is to be reflected in the unity of the Apostles – “that they may be one as we are” – united in the confession of the faith and in the truth. The truth and word is Christ Himself, the one of the Trinity, with which He repeatedly identifies Himself and proclaims His equality. He has taken them out of the world (for Christ is one of the Trinity) and, again identifying Himself with the Father’s nature and authority by natural right, “the name which is above every name”, He has also received, as man, the glory of the Divinity. This dual nature of the Hypostasis is constantly intimated in order to instruct the Apostles whose understanding was yet flawed.
“Sanctify them in Thy truth, Thy word is truth”. The Lord prayed audibly that they be kept by God’s power in the true doctrine and in holiness in Christ.
The entire discourse of sixteen pages is a closely reasoned exposition of the doctrine of the Incarnation and the logical difficulties of this economy for mankind. The power and glory of God is not identified with the name as a definition, but the name refers to the nature and identity of the Holy Trinity, as St. Cyril declares, and is not defined as any of the attributes of God, i.e., divine operations, activity, will, providence, and energies of God: an impossibility known to anyone who has but a smattering of patristic theology.
“And I have declared unto them Thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). St. Cyril consistently speaks of the fine distinction between the divine and human natures of Christ, and the nameless essence of God and the one, impersonal divinity.
Again we see Mr. Deretich taking the Scriptures or the words of the saints and wrenching them out of context, distorting them, for his own purpose.
St. John Chrysostom, in his commentary on these verses, says, “when He saith ‘keep them,’ he doth not speak merely of delivering from dangers, but also with regard to their continuance in the faith, wherefore He addeth, ‘sanctify them in Thy truth’. Make them holy by the gift of the Spirit and of right doctrines.” And his commentary on verse twenty-one also agrees. St. Chrysostom agrees with St. Cyril that Christ, in condescension to the Apostles’ weakness, is instructing them in both the unity of the divine nature and that He is God. His power and might, which is the same one, impersonal power of the three personed Trinity, which power has no name, since it is divinity, but which we name from our own perceptions and understandings of God’s operations acting upon us and all creation in multifarious ways. No matter how Mr. Deretich may cut, twist, and turn, there is no way that he can claim that St. Cyril teaches that the name of God is an energy of God. The moderator of NFTU stated it cogently.
Concerning the translation from St. Cyril, τηρείν (terein), Mr. Deretich has it translated as protect, but the authorized version translates it as “to keep”, which is more accurate and agrees with the sense of keeping them united, while Mr. Deretich, favors ‘to protect’, since it helps twist the meaning. The translation “to keep” agrees more with the words that follow. They are kept in unity and faith in the Word, i.e., in Christ and the doctrine by God’s grace. We cannot chop up the texts and move them about and attach them elsewhere. Mr. Deretich also shades the meaning of ὀιονεί which is usually translated, ‘as if’ or ‘as though’. The full passage from St. Cyril will be given: “For in the first passage when he says that his disciples ought to be kept in the name of the Father, as if to say, in the power and the glory of His Godhead, so that they should be out of the power of the enemy, He declares that aid is vouchsafed to the saints in whatever happens unto them… but here where he says, ‘Keep them in the truth’, He signifies clearly their being led by revelation of the truth to apprehend it”. Thus, when reading the full text of the actual words of St. Cyril, he in no way declares that the name of God is an energy of God. There is no definition that the name itself is the energy of God which as we shall see, would be considered madness by the Fathers, for a name or word is not the thing itself, but a human label, an identification, a signifier. “Name” here means, in the confession and belief of God, in the shelter of His grace and power.
Did you catch that Mr. Deretich? We are no longer surprised at mistranslations favouring name-worship coming out of Boston, alas.
The Blessed Theophylact’s commentary on the same verses, gives very similar explanations in his reference to the Incarnation of the Word and the economy of the Lord’s ministry. When Christ prays to the Father saying, “‘keep in thine own name’, means keeping them by the help and power that thou hast given Me. What kind of protection does the Father give? He bestows unity, ‘that they may be one’”.
(Explanation of the Holy Gospel according to St. John, chapter 17).
Statements issuing from Mr. Deretich, Gregory Babunashvili, and in general HOCNA, declaring that the Ecumenical Patriarchs, Mt. Athos, Halki, and the Russian Synod’s bishops, during 1912 and 1913, were all enemies of hesychasm and were untraditional are slanders and false. This is their generic slander for anyone who condemns name-worshippers.
I was informed of your (or at least of your mentor, Babunashvili’s) condemnation of Elder Callinicus of Mt. Athos. Elder Callinicus was the foremost and most renowned practitioner and teacher of hesychasm and the Jesus Prayer at that time. His fame as a spiritual Father had spread far, even to Russia, and he was known to the Czar. When the Elder’s name was mentioned, Babunashvili said, “Oh, he was nothing”. He proved that he was ignorant of the facts and speaking off the top of his head when he added, “and he didn’t even know Russian.” The Elder Callinicus had learnt Russian in order to help the hundreds, if not thousands, who came to him for confession and guidance. Upon his authority, the Athonite Community condemned name-worshipping as a heresy. He called it “that stupid heresy”.
Joachim III, the Ecumenical Patriarch, who issued the Patriarchal Tome condemning name-worshipping, has been slandered in many statements issuing from HOCNA, as being a heretic, or of no note, or of even remaining undecided as an excommunicate. However, the witness of so many contemporaries who called him holy, a great saint and man of prayer, by both Greeks and Russians alike, disproves these slanders. We even have the contemporary witness of a very well known clairvoyant hesychast, the Elder Ieronymos of Aegina. (This is the title of his biography by Peter Botsis, published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery, Boston, 2007). The Patriarch established Fr. Ieronymos in Constantinople, appointing him as preacher and was his patron, as was Joachim’s successor Germanos V, who valued him highly. Elder Ieronymos always spoke highly of Patriarch Joachim calling him “saint” or “holy”. Also, see the footnote on page seventy-seven of the Elder’s biography published by Holy Transfiguration Monastery.
Nor were the Russian bishops anti-hesychasts, according to the HOCNA accusations. Metropolitan Anthony wrote very favourably of the life of prayer and monasticism. He cultivated it among his students, and among the Diaspora. It was reported to me that he had wanted to retire to a monastery, but he was prevailed upon to remain presiding, since he was the only figure that had the stature to keep the Russians united. How many did he not affect, such as St. Justin Popovich, St. John of San Francisco, and St. Philaret of New York, who had him as their spiritual Father, and many more. They all supported or established monastic communities.
What can be said of the great exponents of name-worship? Their “saint” Bulatovich invaded monasteries – most notably St. Panteleimon’s and St. Andrew’s. He coerced or expelled abbots and monks violently and plundered their possessions and treasuries. Strange conduct for a lover of quiet prayer and monastic obedience. The fruits of Name Worshipping from the beginning was stubborn war and disunity, as we saw in HOCNA and HTM.
Gregory Lourie lives a secular life, even as do his so-called monastics. His prominent nun Cassia wears fashionable dresses and hats, and is involved in literature and society, saying that she would never enter a monastery, or anything that limited her freedom of action. Would St. Isaac approve?
I was shown a copy of a letter signed by most of the monks of Holy Transfiguration Monastery, petitioning HOCNA not to ordain Gregory Babunashvili. They stated that in his residence as novice and monk, he had never completed one monastic obedience, ignored all duties, and was disobedient. Not the conduct of an hesychast, to say the least.
Who, then, is the anti-hesychast? We are printing below the Patriarchal Tome issued in 1912, clarifying the doctrine of the Church, by Patriarch Joachim and His Synod, after consultation with the theological faculty of Halki. It was confirmed again in 1913 by Patriarch Germanos, and adopted by the Russian Synod of 1913 as their official dogmatic statement. It is full of respect for the Jesus Prayer and proclaims the Orthodox and patristic doctrines soundly and succinctly. In it there is nothing of heresy or innovation. Therefore, the entire Orthodox Church accepted it as fundamental truth and the voice of the Holy Spirit.
The Patriarchal Tome of 1912:
1. The name of God is holy, worshipful, and desirable, because it is useful to us as a verbal designation for the most desired and most Holy Being, God, the source of everything good. This name is of God, because it was revealed to us by God, it speaks to us of God, it refers our spirit towards God, etc. In prayer (especially the Jesus prayer) the name of God, and God Himself are inseparably in our consciousness, and it is as if they coincide, and indeed, they cannot and ought not be separated, opposing one to the other; but this only in prayer and only by our heart. Examined theologically and in reality, the name of God is only a name! It is not Himself nor an attribute (characteristic) of His. It is the name of an object not the object itself. Therefore, it is impossible for it to be considered or named either God (this would be mindless and blasphemous) or divinity, for it also is not an energy of God.
2. The name of God uttered in prayer with faith is able to perform miracles, but not by itself in itself, nor as a consequence of some divine power which, in a matter of speaking, is enclosed in it or attached to it, which would then work mechanically, but rather thus: the Lord seeing our faith, in the power of His unlying promise, He sends His grace, and through it He performs the miracle.
3. Each of the Holy Mysteries are accomplished neither by the faith of him who performs them nor by the faith of him who receives, but neither by the invoking or depiction of the name of God, but by the prayer and faith of the Holy Church, on whose behalf it is performed, with the power granted her by the Lord’s promise. Such is the Orthodox Faith, the patristic and Apostolic Faith.
“The name of God is God Himself” is the mantra of the name-worshippers. Some have asked, “well, what is that name?” The name-worshippers do not answer. Their pioneer, Hilarion was emphatic that it was “Jesus”. Bulatovich expanded the definition so widely, that even the Gospel’s words, printed or spoken, were “God Himself”. His definition became so tenuous and broad that he more than verged on Pantheism.
Modern revivers of the name-worshipping heresy, still quote St. John of Kronstadt out of context, as we pointed out in a previous response to Mr. Deretich. Yet they still cling to their mantra, even when they explain it away, saying, “no one would say that created words are divine”, which refutes their “sainted” founders’ doctrine.
When we consider the Church’s doctrine of God’s omnipresence, the question arises: since God is everywhere present, fills all things, permeates all things, separated from us only by the incomprehensibility of His nature dwelling in unapproachable light, how can He become more “Himself”? “He remains One, nothing less than Himself” (St. Dionysius Aeropagite, Divine Names II, 11, Pg. 3, 649B). How can He become more than He already is? Is He somehow half-existent or semi-conscious? Is God divided into parts or are there boundaries in Him that make Him different parts?
The Synodicon of Orthodoxy in the Chapters Against Barlaam and Acindynus, written by St. Gregory Palamas, declares: “To those same men who think and say that the name Godhead or Divinity (Θεότης) can be applied only to the essence of God, and who do not confess, in accord with the divinely-inspired theologies of the Saints and the pious mind of the Church, that this appellation is applied as well to the divine energy, and that by all means, the Saints thus still profess one Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, whether one apply the term Godhead (Θεότης) to their essence or to their operation since the divine expounders of the mysteries have so instructed us. Anathama (3)”.
Where is the advantage of pronouncing a name that is unknown or inexpressible? If the name Divinity (Θεότης) applies to both the essence and energy, as St. Gregory declares, and the essence is nameless, as every prophet, apostle, saint, hierarch, and theologian has agreed, then how can there be an “uncreated name” when nothing of the essence can be known, comprehended, or communicated, while the operations or attributes all defined by the fathers as “essential energy” are impersonal and have no name in themselves, but, as the operations and activities of God, are labelled by us from their effects on us and from what we perceive of His works. These operations or energies are the “formless logoi” of His will, to create, to provide, to foreknow, to love, etc. Such difficulties were never considered by the simplistic ignorance of the Name Worshippers, who are ignorant of the Orthodox patristic doctrines.
The modern name-worshippers, as we said, have responded to criticism of their founder’s doctrine by ostensibly denying that the created name is God Himself. However, they attempt to re-introduce their old doctrines by developing a Hindu-like doctrine of God “dwelling” in the material name, a sort of Avatar, as we saw in Mr. Deretich’s last answer. They also introduce a strange, new doctrine of an “uncreated name”, apparently influenced by the teachings of the ‘Sophiologists’ and Bulgakov and the occultism of Paul Florensky, which flourished in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries among the Russians. Yet when they attempt to initiate an innocent into their doctrines, they, “like a dog returning to his vomit” (Prov. 26:11), pronounce their mantra, “The name of God is God Himself”, distorting the quotation from St. John, and covertly falling back into their old doctrines and practices.
When the Church speaks of God, the Prophets, Apostles, and the Fathers of the Church use negatives: He has no beginning, is without end, has no limits, is undivided, has no equal, is unseen, unapproachable, unknowable, etc. This negative or apophatic way is the highest and truest theological manner of approaching or speaking of the Divinity. It liberates our mind from images and conceptions which mislead us and veil our inner vision, hindering God’s pure revelation in so far as we are capable. For this cause, God has been called nameless, since a name is a conception of man’s mind expressed in words or writing in an attempt to describe the indescribable and unnameable.
St. Justin the Martyr and philosopher (d. AD 150), in his First Apology, chapter 10, declares, “God, Who is called by no name”.
St. Gregory Palamas in his Theophanes or On the Divinity: “Absolutely everything which is understood to be an attribute of God, existed before the foundation of the world; but we state that it existed before it was named”. (Collected Works [Συγγράμματα] of St. Gregory Palamas, Vol. 3, pp 254-255 Π. Χρήστου, Thessalonica, 1966).
St. Anastasius of Sinai; “That name (of God) is incommunicable, which has never been heard or entered into the mind of either angels or men”. Viae Dux, PG 89, 53C.
St. Anastasius refers to the Scripture from the Wisdom of Solomon, 14:21, “For the name [of God] is incommunicable”.
The following quotations are from the works of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa in Against Eunomius’ Books I-XII and in Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book. These works, of St. Gregory of Nyssa, collect the arguments against Eunomius by St. Basil – whom St. Gregory calls his father and teacher – and organizes and expands them. They can be found in Eerdman’s PNFathers – Series Two, vol. 5, pp. 33-220, pp. 250-314 / Sage Digital Library, pp. 485-615.
“While, however, we strenuously avoid all concurrence with absurd notions in our thoughts of God, we allow ourselves the use of many diverse appellations in regard to Him, adapting them to our point of view. For whereas no suitable word has been found to express the Divine nature, we address God by many names, each by some distinctive touch adding something fresh to our notions respecting Him, -thus seeking by variety of nomenclature to gain some glimmerings, for the comprehension of what we seek. For when we question and examine ourselves as to what God is, we express our conclusions variously as that He is that which presides over the system and working of the things that are, that His existence is without cause, while to all else He is the cause of being; that He is that which has no generation or beginning, no corruption, no turning backward, no diminution of supremacy; that He is that in which evil finds no place, and from which no good is absent.” [PNFather - Series 2, vol. 5, pp. 264-265 / Sage Digital Library, PNFathers, Series 2, vol. 5, pp. 517-518]
“For God is not an expression, neither hath He His essence in voice or utterance, But God is of Himself what also He is believed to be, but He is named by those who call upon Him, not what He is essentially, (for the nature of Him Who alone is, is unspeakable), but He receives His appellations from what are believed to be His operations in regard to our life.” [Sage Digital Library, Ibid, pg. 518]
“…are we not clearly taught that the words which represent things are of later origin than the things themselves, and that the words which are framed to express the operations of things are reflections of the things?” [Ibid, pgs. 518-519]
“For whatsoever we conceive of God existed before the creation of the world. But we maintain that it received its name after the namer came into being. For if we use words for this purpose, that they may supply us with teaching about the things which they signify, while the Divine nature, as comprehending all knowledge, is above all teaching, it follows that names, were invented to denote the Supreme Being, not for His sake, but for our own… For He Who knoweth all things has no need of syllables and words to instruct Him as to His own nature and majesty. But that we might gain some sort of comprehension of what with reverence may be thought of Him, we have stamped our different ideas with certain words and syllables, labelling as it were, our mental processes by means of words attached to and expressive of our ideas.” [Ibid, pp. 520-522]
“…We do endeavour by words and names devised with due reverence, to give some notion of its attributes…For to be, and to be called are not convertible terms. God is by His nature what He is, but He is called by such names as the poverty of our nature will allow us to make use of, which is incapable of enunciating thought except by means of voice and words…the name is the result of the existence…, God was what He is before the creation of man…For whatsoever we conceive of God existed before the creation of the world. But it received its name after the namer came into being. Beside the divine nature there is nothing uncreated…while the Nature as comprehending all knowledge, is above all teaching, it follows that names were invented to denote the Supreme Being not for His sake, but for our own…and besides in the Divine nature there is nothing uncreate.” [Vol. 5, pg 265-271 + 273 = Eerdman's Post-Nicene 2nd Series, pg. 518-522 +525, 546 = Sage Digital Library Collection online.]
“But to God, all things are present, nor does He need memory, all things being within the range of His penetrating vision, what need, then, in His case for parts of speech? When His own wisdom and power embraces and holds the nature of all things distinct and unconfused? Wherefore, all things that exist substantially are from God; but for our guidance, all things that exist are provided with names to indicate them. And if anyone say that such names were imposed by the arbitrary usage of mankind, he will be guilty of no offense against that scheme of Divine Providence. For we do not say that the nature of things was of human invention, but only their names.” [Ibid, pg 546]
These are clear proofs that names are created and applied by men to the nameless attributes of God for our help. Accordingly, St. Gregory Palamas declares, as do also the other theologians, that the term divinity (Θεότης) is used both for the essence and also for the attributes or energies which are essentially nameless; the names are created by mankind. Even the theological term “attribute” used in English, well translates the Greek; we read from the dictionaries’ definition: “a quality ascribed to any person or thing”, “an appellation or epithet in which the quality is ascribed”, “strictly, an essential and permanent quality”. That attribute which exists is nameless – especially in the nameless deity. Mankind ascribes and applies the name. The name is not the attribute. The name is not the energy. The name is created by a creature, but the attribute is uncreated, an effect of the unnameable essence. The attribute is an “essential energy” of God, nameless from the unnameable essence, but perceived by man, who through his rational faculty from God, can form a conception of it, which man names.
St. Gregory Palamas, On Divinity, pg. 228-229; quoting St. Dionysius Areopogite, Divine Name 2,7; and St. Basil, Letter 189 “Certainly whatever is understood as the attribute, it existed before the foundation of the world, but we declare that it was named after it came into existence,” …The attribute or energy is named by man after perceiving or conceiving it: there is no uncreated name; nor is the name the energy, for it existed before the name.
“The meaning of all the names which are indicative of some attribution (affirmation) and of existence are not evidence of the divine essence, but of those things which are piously understood to be attributes of God.” St. Gregory Palamas, On the Divinity or Theophanes, Vol. 3, pg 253:15, Collected Works, Vol. 3, p. 253, 15, P. Chrestou, Thessalonica, 1966)
“We assert that the words ‘He said’ do not imply voice and words on the part of God; but the writer in showing the power of God to be concurrent with His will.” (Ibid, pg.\u8232 534)
When Jacob wrestled with a man all night, and held him so he could not escape, Jacob demanded a blessing before he would release him and then asked his name. God answered, “Wherefore dost thou ask my name?” and he blessed him there. Jacob called that place the Face of God, for said he, “I have seen God face to face and my life has been preserved.” (Gen. 32:24-30).
When Moses asked for God’s name, the Lord answered, “I am He Who is” [or Who exists] (Ex. 3:14). In the Old Testament when God vouchsafed a theophany, many would marvel that they yet lived. When the Lord spoke to Elias on Mt. Horeb, the prophet covered his face with his mantle.
When Manoe asked the name of the angel that visited him and his wife, the angel replied, “Why dost thou ask after my name, whereas it is wonderful?” (Judges 13:18). Manoe then said to his wife, “We shall surely die, because we have seen God.” (Judges 13:22).
St. Dionysius states the foregoing verses, signify, that is, refer to, that this is the wonderful “name which is above every name” (Phil. 2:9). It is surely the name established above every name that is named, either in this age or in that which is to come. (Eph. 1:2) and is therefore without a name. “The supra-essential Being is praised as the nameless One by the Theologians”, [by the authors of the Scriptures]. “‘He is all and He is no thing’. ‘He is all in all’” (I Cor. 15:28). The Scriptures give Him many names: light, life, God, truth, love, mind, wisdom, bread, door, axe, rock, lion, etc. He, the cause of all, and transcending all, is nameless, and yet has the names of everything that is. The names given to the Transcendent cause are derived from the sum total of creation, and from the undivided or uncreated acts of Providence. These are known as the attributes of God, or even His operations, activity, or energy. St. Dionysius also discusses many of the symbolic names given God. His explication is found primarily in the Divine Names I, 5-8 (PG. 3, 593A-597C), but really, all of the chapter is most illuminating.
It is obvious the Divine names are human conceptions and formulations, given by the “divinely wise” writers of the Scriptures so that we can perceive and conceive God’s attributes, which are called by Saint Dionysius “divine differentiations” or “benevolent processions” of the Supreme Godhead, “a gift to all things”. “It is multiple yet remains singular” and does not cease being a unity. From these teachings has arisen the commonplace of patristic theologians (including St. Gregory Palamas), God is One in His essence but multiple in His energies.
There is no such monstrosity as an “uncreated name”; nor is any name an uncreated energy, but only a description of a nameless, formless operation or attribute of the divinity, which of necessity is nameless, for it is common to the Holy Trinity, i.e., it is One, impersonal and has no separate hypostasis, but is the “essential energy” of God, i.e., “the energy of the essence”.
St. Gregory the Theologian clearly states that God is not composite, since only the energy is seen to be in God; but since God alone possesses a completely impassible energy, there is no composition in God for He alone acts without being acted upon. (Theological Oration Five: 6) The energy is an “essential activity which is a ‘natural outpouring of the essence’. The activity or energy of an essence cannot come from anything outside it, nor can the nature exist or be known without its natural operation”. (St. Gregory Palamas, loc. cit., Chapter 128) where he comments on St. Gregory’s statements.
Since the divine energy is the activity, operation, will of the One God, the Holy Trinity, as has been endlessly repeated in the credal statements of the Church, from Old Testament times and on, we believe in one God, one Kingdom, a God of one throne and one power. So the Church has endlessly proclaimed (but to which the Name worshippers have turned a deaf ear, if they have ever learned or studied the Church’s doctrines) that this singular power is common to the Trinity and is therefore impersonal, that is nameless, just as the Divine essence, which is ungraspable by any mind, and is never experienced, can never be named. However, since the energies can be experienced by mankind, we can label them. These labels (or names, called by our Fathers, “the divine names”) are not the energies themselves, but are human descriptions of how we perceive them and conceive them from their effect upon us and all creation. Since the names are not the energies themselves, the names are created; and while the energies are divinely eternal, the names came later after the creation was created by the creator, as we have previously quoted from St. Gregory Palamas, Cyril of Alexandria, and others. The divine names have no substantial existence, unless written, for they are intellectual constructs dependent upon the material mind of man and his speech. The divide of existence between created and uncreated nature is uncrossable, it is “a great chasm”, which prevents any fusion or coalescence of the two.
Therefore, what Bulatovitch and other Name worshippers claimed (and still do) that “the Name of God is God Himself” i.e., an actual identity, is impossible. Such a belief is idolatry, or magic and Cabalism.
The Name Worshippers have been publicly embarrassed when their original beliefs of the divinity of the created name has been ridiculed so publicly. Notice, they do not publicly reject the teachings of their “sainted” founder or of some modern proponents, they merely demur that no one would believe that the created name was God Himself. Yet, as we have pointed out, they return consistently to the old arguments and quotations, notably those of St. John of Kronstadt. Ambivalent is too kind a word for their duplicity. It is obvious they do not believe the saints of the Church, but are attempting to hoodwink people.
The most recent addition to their apologetic armoury is the blasphemous doctrine of an “uncreated name”. With what we have explained before, the following quotation from St. John Damascene should be sufficient to crush their arguments. “There is no intermediate nature between the created and uncreated, neither is there any such operation [energy]. Therefore, if it is created, it will show only a created nature; if it is uncreated, it will indicate an uncreated substance [essence, φύσις] only. The natural properties must correspond with the natures absolutely, since the existence of a defective nature is impossible. Anything outside the nature, and it is obvious that the nature can neither exist or be known without it natural operation. For by remaining invariable in its operations, each thing gives proof of its own nature.” (On the Orthodox Faith, III, 15). “The energy is the dynamic and essential activity of the nature. That which possesses the capacity to energize is the nature from which the energy proceeds. That which is energized is the effect [resulting in creation or the created effect] of the energy. That which energizes is what uses the energy, that is to say the hypostasis” (ibid). There is no name possible except that of an hypostasis of the Holy Trinity, for the essence is unnamable, and the energy is impersonal and is named from its effects and not itself, but as the action of the energizer.
St. John Damascene also says, “Christ sat at the right hand of God, divinely energizing universal providence.” (op. cit. IV, 1].
The Name Worshippers’ problem existed from their beginning, since Bulatovich claimed that the physical name of God (spoken or written) was God Himself. Such a belief is entirely contrary to what so many saints have declared, that the created and uncreated can never be confounded; and as we have just read St. John’s explication above, there can never be an intermediate nature between the two. This is besides the fact that Bulatovich’s doctrine in its development ends in making a name the very thing itself: a quasi-Platonism, or rather Cabalism or magic. Also, there was a hint of the divinity inhabiting or incarnating in the material, similar to the Hindu doctrine of Avatars. The Patriarchal Tome of 1912, as well as Halki’s Verdict detected these doctrinal taints and condemned them. The latter doctrine was termed by Halki’s professors as a kind of incarnation, an “innomination”.
This infatuation with a divine name continues to the present day with the Name Worshippers, who now attempt to escape the reasonable criticisms of their primitive doctrines with a new one which is entirely unsubstantiated by the theology of the Church and leads to the overthrow of fundamental doctrines and decisions of Ecumenical Councils; decisions accepted by all traditional bodies which claim the name of Christian.
This doctrine in the Name Worshippers new apologetics is that of an “uncreated name”. Something which harks back to the ancient Eunomian heresy, although Eunomius did not dare to speak so illogically. I do not know if even some of the extreme Gnostics made such a claim for the secret names imparted in their mysteries.
Such a doctrine is entirely contrary to the decisions of the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils, of which the Name Worshippers are obviously ignorant.
First, the divine essence is unnamable, therefore how can there be an uncreated name? Every Orthodox doctrine denies such a possibility.
Secondly, the divine energies are impersonal, being the common energy of the Holy Trinity, which is one God, of one throne, power, kingdom, and will. “God is one in His essence, yet multiple in His energies” (volitions and operations). This is a common place of Orthodox Theology. The energies can start or come into existence in time and then cease, depending upon what they effect and God’s will. What they effect, of course, is creation.
If there should be such a thing as an uncreated name, it would have to refer to the Trinity, since the divine essence has relations only with the Holy Trinity. This, of course, throws the entire doctrine of the Holy Trinity into confusion.
Oddly enough, these teachings of the Name Worshippers have a great similarity to those of the Sophioligists and Bulgakov: essentially a rejection of patristic theology – although a smattering is preserved – well mixed with philosophical, Gnostic, and political speculation having pantheistic and occult overtones. At least Bulgakov recognized that his doctrines of the divine Sophia (wisdom) distorted the Trinity, so that he called Sophia the fourth hypostasis, in his philosophical system; others advanced his theories of the feminine in God .
Yet as we have seen, St. Gregory Palamas, whom the Name Worshippers claim that they alone understand, although they clearly do no know his writings, states that the divine names are posterior to existence, in which case man has created the name, so what ontological significance can the name have, since it is a created label.
There is no possibility for anyone who lays claim to be an Orthodox Christian to preach a doctrine of an uncreated name, for as St. John Damascene declared such would be an intermediate nature between the created and uncreated natures , i.e., an impossibility.
“The great Basil had corrected this false opinion, and pointed out, in regard to the terms [names] that they have no existence in nature, but are attached as conceptions to the things signified,” [Answer to Eunomius' Second Book, Sage Collection, PNF - Series - 2, -Vol. 5, pg. 514]
“And so framing names for all other Divine attributes in accordance with reverent conceptions of Him, we designate them now by one name, now by another, according to our varying lines of thought.” [Ibid, pg 518]
“For the invisible things of Him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power, and Godhead”. Romans 1:20
“But we say that from His activities [energies] we know our God, but His substance [essence] itself we do not profess to approach…. But I do know that He exists, but what His substance is, I consider beyond understanding. How then am I saved? Through faith. And it is faith enough to know that God is [exists], not what He is…. Knowledge of His divine substance then, is the perception of His incomprehensibility; and that is to be worshipped which is comprehended, not as to what its substance is, but as to that its substance exists… We understand God from His power. Therefore we believe in Him whom we understand, and we worship Him in whom we believe”. St. Basil, Letter 234.
“But without faith it is impossible to please God. For he that cometh to God, must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6
Further on in that chapter eleven, St. Paul lists many circumstances how faith was engendered in the saints not by knowing God’s essence – an impossibility – but by perceiving His might, His call, His justice, His providence and great love for mankind, by perceiving Him as Creator, indeed by all those “divine names”, as they are called. These imageless, divine energies of the Creator are described and named by mankind. There is no mention of name or description of an essence, but we perceive and understand the divinity through His attributes, that is His actions and care for us, although we can never truly know what they are, but we name them by their effects upon us: so naming the unnamable. “No man hath seen God at any time; the only-begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him” (John 1:18). Has the only-begotten Son declared Him by defining His essence? Rather, He showed forth the great power of God, His divine energies, through His miracles, preaching, crucifixion and resurrection.
One demand made by Mr. Deretich is that we acknowledge the fact that “name” in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, Church Slavonic, etc. can mean both “symbol” and “reality”. I really do not know where he found such a “fact”, which he proclaims with solemnity; but this fact is entirely illogical, contrary to reason, and certainly is contrary to all the Church’s teaching and that of so many scholars throughout the ages. According to Mr. Deretich “some modern people do not understand that a name can have…a double meaning”. “It can refer both to a symbol for God and to God Himself”. But is not a name a symbol for God? And if the name refers to God, is that not a symbol for God? The verb “refers” or “means” indicates the activity or employment of a name, that it is a label for something as a mental referent or indicator. It is not and can never be the thing itself. The object is separate from the name, which is arbitrary, not only in different languages, but in English also. Then he baldly introduces the new Bulatovichian dogma that the name is God Himself, i.e., the uncreated name (unheard of and unknown in Patristic theology). He states: “God’s uncreated power (which is sometimes called God’s uncreated “name”).” Never have the divine energies, the divinity, been called “God’s uncreated name”. No wonder “modern people do not understand”, as he states, because such a doctrine is a modern lie introduced by the Name Worshippers. The ancient doctrine of the Church declares that God’s energy is the expression of the unnamable essence and is impersonal, i.e., has no proper name.
A name means, refers to, indicates, symbolizes, signifies, designates a reality, but it is not that reality. With such a teaching, they enter into the shadowy territory of a mysticism of an unhealthy sort, a magical Gnosticism, or occult Cabalism, or Hindu and Tantric doctrines, but not the pure air of Orthodox, patristic teachings. They attempt to establish their delusional doctrines on lies and unsound reasoning, which we shall disprove by many quotations from the fathers of the Church who deal with such heretical doctrines.
We will demand, as we did at the beginning, that they prove their claims, which they still have not done:
1. All the Fathers say that the name of God is an energy of God,
2. That the name of God is God Himself,
3. That there is an uncreated name of God,
4. God’s uncreated power is called the uncreated name of God.
Up to now, they have not succeeded in proving any of these points, showing that their claims are false and their doctrines groundless, without foundation in Orthodox and Patristic Christianity. It is interesting to observe the contradictions in their theologizing, First, they ostensibly claim that no one believes that the material names of God are God’s uncreated energy (however, see their first proclamations above as well as the doctrines of their “sainted” founder, Bulatovich). Notice how rejecting Orthodox doctrine without fanfare, they slyly introduce their delusive teachings. But then they say that the name is a reality, so it must be God Himself otherwise it will just designate God. This created name is a reality because it is inhabited by God’s uncreated power which is called sometimes (!?) God’s uncreated “name”. Therefore we should never “commit the sacrilege” of profaning that “name”.
A great deal of circular and false reasoning based on imaginary premises. Does not our doctrine declare that “God is everywhere present and filleth all things”? That He is nowhere absent? Then is the universe God, i.e., pantheism? Or is He variable, or divided or limited in power by matter? One can observe how their teachings deliver us into a multitude of absurdities.
St. Maximus declares, “There is a single energy of God and of the Saints; they are living icons of Christ, being the same as He is, by grace rather than assimilation”. (Philokalia, II. Pg. 240)
The saint describes a single glory, a single energy of deification by grace; there is no mention of a name with special power of assimilation or of an uncreated name. We believe in one godhead and one power, one kingdom. The same power or grace and energy grants us communion with God at His will.
The many passages we will quote from Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book, by St. Gregory of Nyssa, will have the page numbers from the on-line edition of the Post Nicene Fathers Series two, volume five, from the Sage Digital Collection of the same, as being the most convenient for our readers.
“The great Basil had corrected the false opinion, and pointed out, in regard to the terms [names], that they have no existence in nature, but are attached as conceptions to the things signified”. (Sage PNF, Series 2, vol. 5, pg. 514)
“For to be, and to be called, are not convertible terms. But God is by His nature what He is, but He is called by us, by such names as the poverty of our nature will allow us to make use of, which is incapable of enunciating thought, except by means of voice and words… For whatever we conceive of God, existed before the creation of the world. But we maintain that it received its name after the namer came into being”. (Ibid, pp. 520-521)
“The Supreme Being is what He is, before the creation of all things….while the use of words and names was not devised till after the creation of man, endowed by God with the faculty of reason and speech.” (Ibid, pg. 521)
“For we do not say that the nature of things was of human invention, but only their names.” (Ibid, pg. 546)
“When we gather, as it were, unto the form of a name the conception of any subject that arises in us, we declare our concept by words that vary at different times, not making but signifying the thing by the name we give. For the things remain in themselves as they naturally are, while the mind touching on existing things reveals its thought by such words as are available…it is allowable to speak of [God] as “Unbegotten” [as] to call Him the “First Cause” or “Father of the Unbegotten” or to speak of Him as “existing without cause” and many other such appellations which lead to the same thought…because we know no name significant of the Divine Nature. We are taught the fact of its existence, while we assert that an appellation of such force as to include the unspeakable and infinite, either does not exist at all, or, at any rate, is unknown to us. But as the Scripture is true that Abraham and Moses were not capable of the knowledge of the name and that “no man hath seen God at any time”, and that the light around Him is unapproachable and that ‘there is no end of His greatness’ – so long as we say and believe these things, how like is an argument that promises any comprehension and expression of the infinite Nature, by means of the significance of names”. (Against Eunomius, Book VII, 4, pp. 389-390: Sage Collection, vol. 5)
“When we say that ‘He is a judge’ we conceive concerning Him some operation of judgement…we do not learn the Divine essence, but one of the attributes which are contemplated in it”. (Ibid, pg 391)
“For the creation was not in the beginning, and was not with God, and was not God, nor life, nor light, nor resurrection, nor the rest of the divine names, as truth, righteousness, sanctification, judge, just, maker of all things, existing before the ages, forever and ever; the creation is not the brightness of the glory, nor the express image of the Person, nor the likeness of goodness, nor grace, nor power, nor truth, nor salvation, nor redemption; nor do we find any one at all of those names which are employed by Scripture for the glory of the Only-begotten either belonging to the creation or employed concerning it, [-not to speak of those more exalted words, 'I am in the Father, and the Father in Me' and 'He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father', and 'None hath seen the Son, save the Father'.]…The ultimate division of all that exists is made by the line between ‘created’ and ‘uncreated’, the one being regarded cause of what has come into being, the other as coming into being thereby. Now the created nature and the Divine essence being thus, and admitting no intermixture in respect of their distinguishing properties, we must by no means conceive of both by means of similar terms, nor seek in the idea of their nature for the same distinguishing marks in things that are thus separated.” (Ibid, Book VIII, 4, pg. 411)
“But as I am so taught by the inspired Scripture, I boldly affirm that He Who is above every name has for us many names, receiving them with the variety of His gracious dealings with us, being called the Light when He disperses the gloom of ignorance, and the Life when He grants the boon of immortality, and the Way when He guides us from error to the truth; so also He is termed a ‘tower of strength’ and a ‘city of encompassing’, and a fountain, and a rock, and a vine, and a physician, and resurrection, and all the like, with reference to us, imparting Himself under various aspects by virtue of His benefits to us-ward”. (Ibid, Book X, 1, ppl 435-436)
“The Son being termed ‘Angel’ as the exponent of His Father’s will, and as the ‘Existent’ as having no name that could possibly give a knowledge of His essence, but transcending all the power of names to express. Wherefore also His name is testified by the writing of the Apostle ‘a name which is above every name’, [Phil 2:9] not as though it were some one name preferred above all others, though still comparable with them, but rather in the sense that He Who verily is, is above every name”. (Ibid, Book XI, 3, pg. 462)
“Thus much, then, is known to us about the names in any form whatever in reference to the Deity…for it is plain to every one that there is no single name that has in itself any substantial reality, but that every name is but a recognizing mark placed on some reality or some idea, having of itself no existence either as a fact or a thought”. (Ibid, pg. 606-607)
All the above quotations that we mentioned, prove that the patristic theology of the saints of the Church from the Old and the New Testaments, that names are from man, which he needs to use so that he can order his observations and thought and deposit them into his memory. Names are all created by mankind – as proven by the great variety of languages and dialects. Even in Genesis, God had Adam give names to the animals: “and whatsoever Adam called them, that was their name”. We have read above how man is called “the namer”.
A corollary of the above is that God does not use language, as it is written in Scripture. The words there are written for our understanding. God has no need of words; He reveals Himself and He who receives the revelation expresses it with human words as best he can. We are not idolatrous fundamentalists, or Jews who maintain that the Bible is the Word of God; rather, it is about the word of God. Revelation is greater than words; it is God’s grace and presence. God did not have vocal chords. He did not need names to identify His creation; He Who was everywhere present and filled all things knew every creature and is beside it and in it. He had no vocal chords to command the elements and angels. What language would He use?
Therefore, since He used no names for they are absolutely unnecessary for Him, there can be no question of the existence of an “uncreated name”, an impossibility. A name is created, created by man, a creature. The divide between created and uncreated can never be crossed; there can never be a third, mixed nature between the two, as St. John Damascene has declared, along with many others. Fore-knowledge is an attribute of God, not an operation of God, which has an effect on creation with a beginning and end. If these two terms become confused in our thinking, we will decline into Pantheism.
I have challenged the Name Worshippers several times to give evidence of their absolute statement that all the fathers believe and preach that the name of God is an energy of God and that there is an “uncreated name of God”. None of them has produced any quotations or patristic authority supporting their assertion. In addition to all the patristic authorities that have been quoted by so many (Vladimir Moss, the letter of Holy Transfiguration Monastery dated August 5 / July 23, 2012, Fr. Michael Azhoul, Fr. John Fleser, my Answers I and II to Mr. Deretich, and too many others to mention), in addition to those I have quoted, I shall add these next few from the Saint whom they exalt as their authority: St. Gregory Palamas. These quotations prove that he does not support their doctrines, but unquestionably refutes them. Not only have they not understood the Saint – contrary to their claims – they obviously have never read him, for he stands in the same patristic tradition as do the saints and councils whom they accuse of making mistakes. The Halki Verdict of 1912 – which they accuse of being “Barlaamite” is completely in agreement with St. Gregory. His work, Against Gregoras condemns the Name Worshippers as being Barlaamite since they follow the same unorthodox reasoning which the saint condemns.
“(For God) there is no name named, either in this or the future world, no word formed in the soul or uttered by the tongue; there can be no contact with Him, either sensible or intellectual. There is not even a semblance of an imaginative representation of God, unless it be that of total inapprehensibility which is obtained by denial, and which denies (by transcending it) anything which exists or can be named. It is not even permissible to call Him a substance or a nature if these terms are used in their proper sense”. (St. Gregory Palamas, Theopanes or On the Divinity, PG 150, 937 A)
“He promulgated an insane doctrine that the names are the divine energies” (St. Gregory Palamas, Against Gregoras, Discourse II, 17; 1-4, Collected Works, ed. P. Chrestou, Thessalonica, Vol. IV, 28, 5-6, p. 286)
“Now concerning that [divine] nature – indeed, the divine Maximus declares ‘that not even the slightest trace of its apprehension by the mind was relinquished to them who came after’ – no proper name exists for those things which we piously understand to be names that from eternity pertain to God, but which were named by us afterwards’”. (Ibid, Discourses II, 17, 1-4, pp. 276-277)
Further on, St. Gregory quotes St. Cyril of Alexandria, “There is no natural name for anything; how much more so for God”. (Ibid, 21, 22-23, pg. 281)
“The divine manifestations, even if they be symbolic, are transcendently unknowable; for they are evidently of a different order from both the divine and human natures, for, so to speak, they are in us, yet beyond us, since there is no name that properly signifies them”. (St. Gregory Palamas, Triads, I, 3, ed. Chrestou, Collected Works, Vol. I, pg. 413, 7-11)
“For none of such energies as these are en-hypostatic, i.e., self-subsistent, according to Basil the Great”. (St. Gregory Palamas, Theophanes or On the Divinity, Chrestou, Vol. 2, pg. 235, 2:10-11)
The Holy Trinity, being the manifestation of the divine essence, has, therefore only one, common energy, nameless and impersonal. If there were proper names for the energies, there would be a multiplicity of energizing entities, that is hypostases; there would no longer be a Trinity, but a multiplicity of divine hypostases or Gods, like paganism or Hinduism, for it involves a difference of will and time in the hypostases and not just a characteristic of inter-relation and differentiation.
The fathers speak of the “divine names”, meaning the divine energies or attributes; however they are not giving a definition of the energy or attribute, nor is it an identity or an equivalence, nor is it the thing itself. The energy, being an “expression of the essence or nature” is equally as nameless as the essence. Just as “essence” or “nature” is our name or label or symbol for the ungraspable and unnameable and uncommunicable essence, so are the “divine names” labels or symbols created by man after our perception, and conception of the divinity after it has communed with and affected us with its power which surpasses all categories and understanding. It is not limited by a human name, therefore the name cannot be the thing itself.
In any case, they are unable to validate their assertions. Perhaps when they say “the fathers”, they mean their fathers: Hilarion, Bulatovich, Losev, Flurensky, Bulgakov, Lurye; all within the past hundred years or so, and not the prophets and fathers of the three millennia of the Church. Their fathers are the only ones who declare that names are energies and that an uncreated name exists.
The Name Worshippers, because they do not respect and accept Orthodox doctrines, but only repeat their own delusions, ignoring every Orthodox proof, are not worthy of any further response. Their eyes are closed and their ears stopped to every godly word and admonition as they walk on to their destruction. Lord have mercy upon us.
