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Who has St. Photios on their liturgical calendar/typikon provided by their archdiocese?

St. Photios pray for us!

We do in the Ruthenian Metropolia! Saint Photios the Pillar of Orthodoxy, pray to God for us!

anastasios

Even though he is one of those Chalcedonians :p , I wish you all a happy feast day of Saint Photios [oca.org] , and invoke his prayers with you and for you. And, if I may, since I find these texts beautiful, I will "sing" (translation, type them out) the following, which I looked up:

Troparion of St Photios the Great Tone 5

As a radiant beacon of wisdom hidden in God, and a defender of Orthodoxy revealed from on high, O great Photios, adornment of Patriarchs, thou dost refute the innovations of boastful heresy, O light of the holy Church, preserve her from all error, O luminary of the East.

Kontakion of St Photios the Great Tone 8

With garlands of chant let us crown the Church's far-shining star, the God-inspired guide of the Orthodox, the divinely sounded harp of the Spirit and steadfast adversary of heresy and let us cry to him: Rejoice, O most venerable Photios.

How's that for ecumenical?

[ 02-06-2002: Message edited by: Mor Ephrem ]

Dear Catholicos,

Well, after all, St Photios was the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople!

I daresay that if I mentioned this to some of our priests up here, I would get an excommunication (or something more physical, bodily) hurled at me.

And, unlike Michael Caerularios, I wouldn't need to get a translation of the message . . .

However, I did know a Ukrainian Catholic priest who wanted to establish a brotherhood in honour of St Mark of Ephesus.

Does anyone remember him?

Alex

I'd be interested to hear what the Catholics here think about these troparia to St. Photios - are they acceptable, from the Catholic point of view, given what Photios was referring to in terms of "heresy"?

Brendan

Dear Brendan,

You are in fine form this morning, Servant of God, in fine form!

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but could you possibly be referring to the Filioque controversy, the Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit by St Photios and other matters of That Ilk?

And how could Eastern Catholics pray those prayers when they are in communion with a Rome whose Filique openly contradicts what St Photios was all about?

Feel free to jump in any time and set me straight here, Big Guy!

Now that I'm done with my Preface . . .

As you know, Pope John VIII did restore communion with St Photios and affirmed Photios' Orthodox faith with respect to the procession of the Holy Spirit as identical to his own. He said that he, the pope, himself always regarded the Filioque in the Creed as heretical.

Later on, of course, the Filioque (Am I putting you to sleep? Can you at least stay awake and humour me for two minutes?), the Filioque, as I was saying, became part of the Western version of the Nicene and Athanasian Creeds. This led to the nastiness of schism and separation of the Churches - and you know the rest of the story.

Byzantine Catholics can and do honour St Photios (I have the icon of all Three Pillars of Orthodoxy - do you?).

They do so because they (and that includes me)adhere to the Orthodox confession of faith that the Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son. And they know that the West has always believed that the Spirit proceeds ACTIVELY from the Father as the Source or Monarch of the Trinity, but only PASSIVELY from the Son, which is best explained with "From the Father through the Son."

This really leaves only the fact of the presence of the Filioque in the universal Creed, something which the Pope and other RC theologians believe should be and eventually will be dropped from the Creed.

Both sides accept the teaching with respect to this of St John of Damascus. St Photios was also in agreement with him as well.

I don't see a problem here, since both East and West were expressing the same truth using different means.

That is where our Churches disagree.

But I hope you don't mind us venerating one of your saints.

We consider him "ours" as well.

God bless y'a, Big Guy!

Alex

Brendan:

Is this St. Photios the same as Photius (spelled with a "U"), the "schismatic " Patriarch of Constantinople of the IXth century?

Just wondering...

AmdG

Amado,

Yes, that is who we are writing of.

Dear Friends,

Yes, but St Photios is spelled with an "o" in Greek which would be proper for a Greek Patriarch!

Also, he was not "schismatic" since he and Pope John VIII reconciled.

The Pope acknowledged the orthodoxy of Photios and himself said that he (the Pope) had never believed in the Filioque.

When they reconciled, the Pope had his throne on an equal level with that of St Photios of New Rome.

When Pope John Paul II meets with the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, this rule of chairs on an equal level still applies.

It is also interesting that the cult of St Photios was introduced among the Italo-Greeks of Southern Italy where one may sometimes still find an icon of St Photios in their Churches!

Alex

How could St.Photios be a schismatic?

He wasn't a member of the Latin Church.

FG

Dear Free Greek,

I want to apologise for this unfortunate word coming into the discussion here.

But St Photios lived at a time when there was only one Church. And if one accepts, as certain people do, that he was in "schism" this means, from this perspective that I don't accept, that he was in schism from the one Church, just as in AD 1054, Cardinal Humbertus and Patriarch Michael excommunicated one another from the "One Church."

In any event, St Photios was affirmed by Pope John VIII to have been in the right all along.

By the words of this Orthodox Pope himself, St Photios was never in schism.

Alex

Kyrie Alexios,

Pardonme, parakalo!

My use of "schismatic" was a bit tongue in cheek.

In other words: Speaking from the perspective of a cradle Orthodox Christian, I am sometimes...well,not just "sometimes"...I am appalled at being referred to as "ene schismaticos" (a schismatic) from members of the Latin and Greek Catholic churches. For a Greek, it is a personal insult, as belittling as being called the "son of a Turk" or having one's mother referred to as a whore. "'Thems fighting words, y'all!'"

So, for once, I wanted the satisfaction of turning the table on the other 'feller' just to see how he might feel under the same circumstances.

Tongue in cheek, old chap. (OK! I'm in a passive/aggressive mood. How's that for honesty?)

FG

Dear Free Greek!

You're the man! Elantheria Athanatos! (Do I have that right?).

I haven't heard an Eastern Catholic use the word "schismatic" in years.

When Latins use it, they are often of the Tridentine Rite or are those who think that "Vatican II" refers to the second in a series of some very large containers . . .

An interesting side note here.

During the time of the Union of Brest in Ukraine and Belarus, the Orthodox Archbishop of Mogilev in Belarus, St George Konissky and the Greek Catholic Bishop Boretsky corresponded with each other.

The Greek Catholic Boretsky told Konissky that "When the Poles get really angry in theological or other discussion, they call both of us (Orthodox and Greek Catholics) 'schismatics.'"

The Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko often portrays Poles referrring to Ukrainians as a whole not as such, but as "Schismatics" (e.g. "They (the Poles) came together to consider how to finally conquer the Schismatic (Ukrainian)."

In another place in his poem "The Heretic," Shevchenko portrays the death of Jan Hus at the stake.

He praises Hus as a great Slavic leader and then says this, "And I will pray that all Slavs may become as 'heretical' as the Great Heretic of Constance!"

This poem is read out each year during a concert to honour Hus by the Ukrainian Embassy in Prague. My father in law, Nestor, attended a number of these when he worked there.

Alex

[ 02-07-2002: Message edited by: Orthodox Catholic ]

It was not Photios who was restored by John VIII, it was John VIII who restored himself to Orthodoxy.

Pope John VIII, as well as Leo III, was Orthodox all his life, The intransigent Latins hated this Pope so much for his Orthodoxy that they slandered him as being effeminate, and from this, the myth of Pope Joan was fabricated. Indeed this Pope of Rome, John VIII, sent three legates to Constantinople as his representatives at the Ecumenical Council of 879, and he signed to the decisions made under that Council. That Council which convened under the presidency of Photius anathematized anyone who would dare to add anything to the Symbol of Faith, and, therefore, anathematized all those Latins who advocated the Filioque heresy, that is, the enemies of Photius and John.

Besides this, this Council, along with the legates of Pope John, not only made Photius equal to the Pope, but in the acclamations placed Photius first and the Pope second. When Procopius, the Bishop of Caesarea referred to Saint Photius and exclaimed, "Truly, such a man is he to whom has fallen the charge of the whole world!" the legates of the Pope not only did not protest, but confirmed the statement saying, "and we who dwell in the ends of the earth hearken unto this." In other words, they accepted Photius as higher than their own Pope. Thus, Papal Supremacy, as much as the Filioque, were condemned by the Council, and Pope John ratified the decisions of the Council.

Therefore, since Pope John officially condemned the false teachings of Nicholas I through the Council of 879, the condemnation of the Council of 867 could not possibly be applied to him. Nicholas on the other hand did not uphold the Orthodox Confession of Faith.

Is it any wonder why the Latins always considered the Council of 879 as their Eighth OEcumenical Synod and not the false Lateran Council of 863. That is of course until the 11th century when they changed it back to that of 863.

[ 02-07-2002: Message edited by: OrthodoxyOrDeath ]

Dear OOD,

O.K., O.K., but do you not contradict yourself in your opening sentences when you say that "Pope John VIII" restored himself to Orthodoxy." But you then write that John was always Orthodox!

So I take it you mean something else?

Just wondering . . .

Alex