Phil D.
ὁ βαπτιστὴς
The Council of Trent (1545–63) is fairly well-known amongst the Reformed as a watershed event in history where the Roman Catholic Church officially confirmed its opposition to the true Gospel.
What may not be so well-known is that the Eastern Orthodox churches had a similar seminal moment at the Synod of Jerusalem, in 1672. The council was called and led by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dositheus II, in order to denounce a confession of faith that a late Patriarch of Alexandria, and then Constantinople, Cyril Lucaris, had apparently written in c.1629. Although it was never successfully implemented as an ecclesiastical document, Cyril’s confession was heavily influenced by Reformed theology, and was largely Calvinistic in its soteriology. While many Orthodox scholars have insisted it was a forgery, including at the Synod, there is ample, verifiable correspondence from Cyril that makes most modern historians deem its authenticity as beyond reasonable doubt.
In any event, the Synod adopted a counter-confession that Dositheus had written, which addressed and often refuted Cyril’s 18 articles, point-by-point. In the process they formally denied Sola Scriptura, Predestination, and Justification by Faith Alone, while affirming Baptismal Regeneration, Works Righteousness, Transubstantiation (μετουσίωσις), the canonicity of the Apocrypha, the use and veneration of Icons, and praying to the saints.
The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia states:
Philip Schaff characterized the Synod thusly:
What may not be so well-known is that the Eastern Orthodox churches had a similar seminal moment at the Synod of Jerusalem, in 1672. The council was called and led by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Dositheus II, in order to denounce a confession of faith that a late Patriarch of Alexandria, and then Constantinople, Cyril Lucaris, had apparently written in c.1629. Although it was never successfully implemented as an ecclesiastical document, Cyril’s confession was heavily influenced by Reformed theology, and was largely Calvinistic in its soteriology. While many Orthodox scholars have insisted it was a forgery, including at the Synod, there is ample, verifiable correspondence from Cyril that makes most modern historians deem its authenticity as beyond reasonable doubt.
In any event, the Synod adopted a counter-confession that Dositheus had written, which addressed and often refuted Cyril’s 18 articles, point-by-point. In the process they formally denied Sola Scriptura, Predestination, and Justification by Faith Alone, while affirming Baptismal Regeneration, Works Righteousness, Transubstantiation (μετουσίωσις), the canonicity of the Apocrypha, the use and veneration of Icons, and praying to the saints.
The 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia states:
[The decrees of the Synod] have been accepted unreservedly by the whole Orthodox Church. They were at once approved by the other patriarchs, the Church of Russia, etc.; they are always printed in full among the symbolic books of the Orthodox Church, and form an official creed or declaration in the strictest sense, which every Orthodox Christian is bound to accept. (Vol. 8, p.367)
Philip Schaff characterized the Synod thusly:
This Synod is the most important in the modern history of the Eastern Church, and may be compared to the Council of Trent. Both fixed the doctrinal status of the Churches they represent, and both condemned the evangelical doctrines of Protestantism. Both were equally hierarchical and intolerant, and present a strange contrast to the first Synod held in Jerusalem, when 'the apostles and elders,' in the presence of 'the brethren,' freely discussed and adjusted, in a spirit of love, without anathemas, the great controversy between the Gentile and the Jewish Christians. (Creeds of Christendom, Vol. 1 § 17)
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