January: Day 18: Saints Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria

January: Day 18:
Saints Athanasius and Cyril of Alexandria
 
(On the Means of Rebuking Those Who Are in Error)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Among the fearless confessors of the holy faith, who courageously denounced heretics, are the great saints Athanasius and Cyril, now being glorified.

Still young, not yet ordained as a priest, while deacon of the Alexandrian Church, Athanasius, at the First Ecumenical Synod in 325 A.D. denounced more strongly than others the godless Arius, who falsely taught about the Son of God. His bright mind, thorough knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, the irresistible power of his words surprised the unrighteous-minded and aroused the hatred of his enemies. At the Synod, Arius's teaching was refuted. Arius was then condemned and sent into exile. From that time on, the life of Saint Athanasius became a series of sufferings and severe sorrows. And something that the malice and hatred of his enemies, the Arians, did not bring upon him. Soon after the Synod, the Archbishop of Alexandria died, and Saint Athanasius was made his successor. He was accused of taking unfair income from churches, and the emperor was assured that Athanasius was helping his enemies, that he was cruel to the clergy, and had even killed one bishop. He was banished from Alexandria five times, but the Saint endured everything complacently, zealously continuing to affirm Orthodoxy in his exile. He died in 373 after forty-seven years of ruling his flock.

If Saint Athanasius showed so much courage and Christian confession of faith in the fight against the Arians, then Saint Cyril just as zealously, despite the persecution of enemies, defended the Church of God from other heretics - the Nestorians, who falsely taught about Jesus Christ and the Most Holy Virgin Mary. Saint Cyril wrote an admonishing letter to Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was infected with heresy, and thus wanted to lead him out of error. When this did not work on Nestorius, and the heresy continued to agitate the Church, then the Third Ecumenical Synod was convened, where the heresy was condemned, and Nestorius was deposed from the Patriarchal Throne. Then the heretics rose up against Saint Cyril and began to heap various slanders on him and make all sorts of insults towards him. But the innocence and firmness of the Saint triumphed over the enemies. Saint Cyril was bishop for thirty-two years and died in 444.

II. The Saints of Christ Athanasius and Cyril are zealous denouncers of heresy and fearless fighters for the truth of Orthodoxy.

What should guide reproof? To whose responsibility lies reproof? These are the questions we will now address.

a) The true denunciation of lawlessness and unrighteousness consists in shunning lawlessness and doing righteousness. The life of a virtuous Christian, even without a word of rebuke, serves as a real means for the correction of many of his brethren. In this respect, every Christian will undoubtedly be a denunciator of both those who call themselves only Christians and those who have completely renounced Christ, and will certainly follow the path of sorrows along which the holy shepherds of the Church and the saints of Christ who are now glorified walked. “Let us lie in wait for the righteous man,” say the unrighteous, “because he is inconvenient to us... The very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange” (Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-15).

b) Of the moral actions required in rebuke, the most important is prayer. The prayer of a righteous person sometimes brings forgiveness to sinners even before their sins are rebuked, in any case it brings down Divine grace upon the one who prays, revealing the true state of his fallen brethren, assisting him in the work of correcting them and preserving them during the dangers to which the rebuker may be exposed. When the Jews, after many benefits and miracles shown to them by God when they were led out of Egypt, made a golden calf and began to worship it, and when God, having revealed this to Moses on Mount Sinai, expressed to him His intention to consume this disobedient people and to bring forth from them another, then Moses, by his intercessory prayer for the people, saved them from consumption, and afterwards, coming down from the mountain, exposed and punished their error.

c) But with a virtuous life and prayer, a word of reproof is often required. Even to the sons of ancient Israel it was said: "You shall not hate your brother in your mind, but you shall surely rebuke your neighbor, and not bear sin because of him" (Lev. 19:17). What should one be guided by when reprimanding? Only by the law of love. Even Moses, giving the law on reproof, calls the one being reprimanded a "brother" and a "neighbor": You shall not hate your brother, but you shall reprove your neighbor with reproof. From this we see that this commandment was given to Israel not because of the hardness of their hearts, like some others.

How then can the law of love be preserved in rebuking? In various ways. True love, if it only notices a brother’s tendency to fall, will show him the danger of his position before he has fallen. “Reprove your friend,” says the wise Sirach, “when he has done nothing wrong” (19:13). But if a brother has fallen into a crime, then the first actions of rebuke must be mixed with the spirit of meekness: “Brethren,” says the Apostle, “even if a man be overtaken in some sin, you who are spiritual restore such a one with the spirit of meekness” (Gal. 6:1).

But when crimes against faith and morality, despite the gentle admonitions of true zealots of piety, begin to increase and serve as an obvious temptation for others, then Christian love, both for the curb of those who sin and for the prevention of temptation from others, commands us to make open and stern reproofs. “Those who sin,” wrote the Holy Apostle Paul to Bishop Timothy, “reprove them before all, that the rest also may fear” (Tim. 5:20). “Therefore rebuke them sharply,” that is, the Cretans, the same Apostle wrote to Titus, “that they may be sound in the faith, not giving heed to Jewish fables and commandments of men who turn from the truth" (1:13).

However, in this case the same love prescribes the rules of prudence in rebuke. “Be wise as serpents” (Matt. 10:16). Strong rebukes may not achieve their goal: they may arouse malice in those rebuked and endanger the very life of the rebuker. So the rebuker must carefully weigh his own circumstances and of those around him: is it not more useful for the greater good of his fellow men to avoid a decisive rebuke; for, in the words of the Wise One, “there is a time to keep silence, and there is a time to speak” (Eccles. 3:7). Thus acted the heavenly Wisdom Himself – our Lord Jesus Christ.

III. Whose responsibility is it to denounce?

a) First of all, on the shepherds of the Church. The defense of the high truths of Christianity is the direct responsibility of shepherds, who from their youth study the Holy Scriptures and various subjects of knowledge, so that they may be strong “to exhort in sound doctrine and to reprove those who contradict” (Tit. 1:9).

b) But crimes against moral laws, obvious sinful temptations must be exposed by all Christians. “Now we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly,” wrote the Holy Apostle to the whole Church of Thessaloniki (1 Thess. 5:14)

Blessed is the country in which righteous denouncers arise, like the Holy Hierarchs Athanasius and Cyril. But will it be blessed in that country in which legions of denouncers appear, who will turn their ears away from the truth and turn to fables, who will have zeal, but not according to reason, who will not heal wounds with denunciations, but will exacerbate them, not having a virtuous life themselves, not guided by prayer, nor by the spirit of Christian love, but placing all hope in the strength of the weak human mind. Let us pray to the Lord that this cup may pass us by! Amen. 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.