Venerable Maximus the Confessor – Father Gavril Galev
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DIVINELY-WISE PHILOSOPHER OF ORTHODOXY
Through the Spirit you poured out streams of teaching about the Church;
you explained the exhaustion of God the Word,
and shined in your struggle as a confessor of the faith;
Holy Father Maximus, pray to Christ God
to grant us His great mercy.
(troparion of St. Maximus the Confessor)
In order to gain authority before the people and have them follow you, it is not necessary to have a high church rank, to carry the favour of the worldly authorities and to think that the Church was given to you as your grandfather’s inheritance, so you can do what you want in it, and others must subjugate themselves and listen to you. True authority is acquired only through personal example and loving sacrifice in the illumination and imprinting of the image of God in the purified heart. In the fight against passions and demons, and their subjugation. In the zeal of the service of God. In not returning with evil to the evil. In the gift of the grace of the Holy Spirit. In the love towards God and man.
Living in this way, we become light, a living lamp that cannot be put under a basket, but is set on top of a hill and others see it, and it illuminates and directs their way, and they follow the path.[1]
Such a luminary of the 7th century was Venerable Maximus the Confessor, who was an ordinary, “simple” monk, without rank, who opposed the Patriarch and the emperor, and was not afraid to testify his true and pure faith before almost the entire Church of that time, which had fallen into heresy. Saint Maximus the Confessor was a luminary and an authority of the Church at that time, the one who shines and illuminates the Orthodox path even unto this present time.
Confessors are holy men who testified and preached about Christ, they were tortured and subjected to all kinds of persecution and oppression, but according to the providence of God, God preserves their lives and they do not perish as martyrs. Such is the struggle of Saint Maximus the Confessor.
In the Emperor’s court
Venerable Maximus the Confessor was born in Constantinople around 580 AD, into a noble and pious Christian family. His parents enabled him to get a broad education: he studied philosophy, grammar, rhetoric, was well-read in the ancient authors and he perfectly mastered theological dialectics. He was a deep connoisseur of Plato, Aristotle and the Neo-Platonists. Due to his exceptional personality as a learned, wise and virtuous man, he was highly respected by the emperor Heraclius (610 – 641), who, despite Saint Maximus’s opposition, made him the chief secretary of the court and his adviser. Because of his piety and shrewdness, he helped to improve the life in the city, which is why he was highly respected and celebrated by everyone.
At that time, the Monothelite heresy appeared, which is actually a cunning modification of the previously condemned Monophysite heresy, and which corrupted a large part of the kingdom, even the emperor himself. The worldly life became more and more difficult for him, and because of the tribulation he suffered from the heretical king, he renounced worldly glory and moved away from the court, according to the words of the psalmist: “I prefer to live at the threshold of the house of God, than in the tents of wickedness.” (Psalm 83, 10), and went to a monastery.
In the monastery
He moved away from the life of the court around 613-614 AD, in the Philippic monastery, in Chrysopolis (near Chalcedon), where he received monastic tonsure. He did not stay there very long due to the attack of the Persian armies, so he moved to the monastery dedicated to Saint George, in the city of Cyzicus, Hellespont, where piety flourished, and which at that time was known for the ascetic and charitable life of the monks. The venerable stayed in this monastery for several years and with his humility, courage and love, he soon gained the love and trust of the brothers, and was elected abbot of the monastery. But because of his unusual modesty, he refused, remaining a “simple monk”.
In 626, Constantinople was fiercely attacked by the Avarites and Persians, due to which the entire fraternity was forced to leave the monastery. Then, Saint Maximus, together with his disciple Anastasius, who from then until the end of his life stayed with him and underwent martyrdom for Christ, left for Crete. There Saint Maxim had theological disputes with adherents of the Monophysite heresy. He clashed with the local episcopate, which adhered to the heretical views of Severus and Nestorius, and exposed their erroneous teaching with his piety. From that time, until the end of his life, he was in a constant struggle with heretics, for the preservation of God-revealed truths about the Lord Jesus Christ.
The fight against Monothelitism
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.
I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.
I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.
For thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.
(Psalm. 17, 36–39)
Saint Maximus’s main struggle was against the heresy of Monothelitism, that is, the erroneous teaching about the two wills of Christ. The originators of this heresy were Emperor Heraclius and Patriarch Sergius of Constantinople (634-639).
Through this heresy, the emperor Heraclius and the Alexandrian Patriarch Cyrus (630-640) wanted to please the already condemned, heretic Monophysites, who recognized only one nature in Christ, as opposed to the Orthodox confession which believes and claims that in our Lord, God incarnate, there are two natures – Divine, which He has from eternity, and, human, which He took from the Most-Holy Mother of God when He became a Man. These two natures are in the one Hypostasis of Christ, because Christ God is not divided into two persons, but He is discerned in both natures without the two natures being mingled in one nature.
From the Monophysite heresy, a new heresy appeared at that time, monenergetic or monothelite, which teaches that in Christ the Lord there are two natures, but only one will and one volition, and one action or energy – Divine will and Divine action[2]. The Orthodox belief and teaching about this is that the God-Man Jesus Christ, as He has two natures, so those two natures also have two actions and two wills. In fact, monothelitism was a failed historical attempt to unite the Orthodox and Monophysites.
Almost all Christianity in the East was infected with this heresy, and it had numerous followers in Armenia, Syria and Egypt. The heresy, reinforced by nationalistic hatred, became a serious danger to the ecclesiastical unity of the East. Orthodoxy’s struggle with heresies was especially complicated by the fact that in the year 630 three patriarchal chairs (thrones) of the Orthodox East were occupied by Monothelites: Sergius of Constantinople, Athanasius of Antioch, and Cyrus of Alexandria.
This heresy was most vehemently opposed by the venerable monks Maximus and Sophronius. Sophronius later became the Patriarch of Jerusalem (634 – 638) and convened a local council, at which the new heresy was condemned, and sent a letter to all the patriarchs with an orthodox confession, explaining the two natures and two wills of Christ.
At the request of Saint Sophronius, Venerable Maxim went to Egypt and Alexandria, and stayed there until the end of the thirties of the 7th century, tirelessly preaching the Orthodox faith.
Venerable Maximus spent about six years in Alexandria and its surroundings. In the year 638, the Emperor Heraclius, together with the Patriarch Sergius, striving to reduce religious differences, issued a decree, the so-called “Ekthesis”, or “Exposition of the Faith”, which categorically forbids disputes about one will or two wills of Christ , but at the same time he declared the teaching about the one will of the Saviour to be correct. Protecting Orthodoxy, Venerable Maximus addressed people of various professions and positions. Those conversations were successful, so that he gained authority not only among the clergy and all the bishops, but also among the people, and all the world leaders were inclined towards him.
At the end of the year 638, Patriarch Sergius died, and Pyrrhus came to the patriarchal throne (639). In 641 the emperor Heraclius also died. The imperial throne was taken by his son Constantine, who ruled for only four months, because he was poisoned, and Heraclius II (626 – 641) came in his place. He, on the other hand, was overthrown from the throne by the people themselves, because they were dissatisfied with the way in which he became king, so that in the end, the fierce Constans II (641-668) came in his place. When Constansbecame king, Patriarch Pyrrhus(638 – 641), as a supporter of the previous emperor, was afraid and fled to Africa, and in his place came Paul (641 – 654), who was also a heretic, by which the attacks of the heretics intensified.
In the meantime, Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem, passed away, and Venerable Maximus was left alone to fight against the heretics. He left for Carthage and there he preached for another five years. He developed great activity in protecting the true faith from heretical teaching, gaining great authority among the people, who respected him as their teacher and listened to him with attention. He constantly travelled to villages and towns in the so-called Latin Africa, he was in contact with the bishops, he corresponded with them and organized counter-actions.
When the renegade Patriarch Pyrrhus arrived in Africa, he began to infect the pure field of God with weeds, misleading the people with the heresy of monothelitism. Therefore, between him and Venerable Maximus, in July, year 645, open polemics arose about the faith, for which reason the patrician Gregory convened a local Council of Carthage, at which the two theologians had to prove whose teaching was correct. At that Council, in front of all those present, the erudite Maximus, with a calm and chaste reasoning, referring to the Holy Scriptures and the dogmas of the Holy Fathers, proved that the Lord Jesus Christ is a God-Man with two natures, in which there are two wills, two free wills and two actions, inseparable in one Hypostasis.
In the year 647 Venerable Maximus returned to Africa. There, at the councils of bishops, Monothelitism was condemned as a heresy. In the year 648, at the persuasion of Patriarch Paul, Emperor Constans wrote a new decree: “Tipos”, i.e. “Outline of the Faith”, which forbade all discussions on this topic. This decree was also sent to the Roman pope Martin (649 – 654), who in the meantime became the new pope instead of Theodore of Rome. Saint Maximus was ordered to accept the emperor’s “Tipos”, but he resolutely refused, saying: “Even if the whole world wishes to receive this new teaching, contrary to Orthodoxy, I will not receive it and I will not deviate from the evangelical and apostolic teaching, as well as from the Tradition of the Holy Fathers, even if they threaten me with death.”
Lateran Council
Saint Maximus arrived in Rome towards the end of the year 647, after previously being in Sicily, where he presented the true faith to the bishops there and protected them from the heretical teachings of the East. Then Venerable Maximus made a plea to Pope Martin I, with a request to bring the question of monothelitism to a conciliar consideration by the whole Church. In October 649, the Lateran Council was convened, and was attended by one hundred and five bishops, Venerable Maximus the Confessor was also present. The council condemned monothelitism; in addition, its protectors, the Patriarchs of Constantinople Sergius, Paul and Pyrrhus, were handed over to anathema.
When Constans II received the decision from the Council, he became very angry and ordered that Pope Martin and Venerable Maximus be brought to him. That order was fulfilled in 653, when the imperial governor Theodore Calliope arrived in Rome. Pope Martin and Venerable Maximus were taken by force and in chains to Constantinople, where they were to be tried.
Frst, Pope Martin was tried, who was accused of complicity with the Saracens against the Roman Empire, as well as of disrespecting the Most-Holy Theotokos. Such accusations were not true and the Pope refuted them, but the imperial envoy did not accept his testimony. Therefore he ordered that Pope Martin be secretly captured at night and exiled to Kherson, where after two years, in 655, tormented by hunger, he died. Two years earlier, Patriarch Paul also died in repentance. Yet again Pyrrhus came to take up his position, but he also died after four months. After him, Peter (655 – 666), also a heretic like his predecessors, came on the patriarchal throne.
Confession
Because of the words of Your mouth, I have walked in difficult ways.
(Psal. 16, 4)
The same tormentors, who called themselves Christians and zealous for the faith, who brought to death the hieromartyr Martin, Pope of Rome, also treated Venerable Maximus very cruelly. They dragged him naked, barefoot and in chains through the streets of Constantinople, followed by his disciple Anastasius, who was also brought from Rome. Then they locked him in a solitary cell, without his student.
They accused him of being a traitor of the state, who was destroying civil and ecclesiastical peace. The Elder, in short, with humility and love, but bravely and with a sober-mindedness, and with divinely-wise syllogism, answered the accusations. They accused him of organizing a coup d’état and of betraying the emperor and the kingdom to foreign barbarian nations.
“What is it to me, a monk, to conquer cities, and what have I, as a Christian, to do with the Saracens?” On the contrary, I have always wanted only what is useful for the Christian cities” – answered the Venerable Maximus.
Furthermore, the foolish accuser did not stop with the blasphemous and false accusations, to which, finally, the humble Maximus replied: “I pray to God, by granting me this suffering, to forgive me what I have done, violating His holy commandments.” Then they wanted to insidiously set him up as a heretic and a destroyer of the Church’s universality (Catholicity), but he answered them: “Christ the Lord called the Church – ecumenical, that holds the true and salvific confession of faith. That is why he calls Peter blessed, who uttered such a confession, and promises that He will build the ecumenical Church on such a confession.”
“We confess Christ as having two acts (energies)”
Let us the faithful fittingly praise the lover of the Trinity, the great Maximus who taught the God-inspired faith, that Christ is to be glorified in His two natures, wills, and energies; and let us cry to him: “Rejoice, herald of the faith.”
(Kontakion of Ven. Maxim the Confessor)
Furthermore, Saint Maximus refuted the heresy and proved that the Catholic (Universal) Church is not in the number, but in the correctness of the dogmas and its creed. He asked them to present their creed (statement of belief) to him, “Because, I do not want to fall away either, if that creed is good.” The adversaries answered him: “We confess that in Christ there are two actions (operations) due to the difference in natures, and one action due to the union of the two natures in one Hypostasis.”
The saint answered them: “You say that the two actions turned into one action due to the union of the two natures in one Hypostasis. In that way, apart from those two actions, you also introduce a third action, mingled.”
“No – they answered – but we say two actions, but speak of them as one action, because of their union.”
The Saint told them: “You yourselves make your faith unstable and confess that God does not have a being. For if in one action you combine the two actions, because of the union of the two natures in one Hypostasis, and again in the two actions you separate the one action because of the distinction between the natures, then there will be neither unity nor duality in the actions that mutually exclude themselves, and they render ineffectual that in which they dwell, and utterly non-existent, not having a one motion of the nature, which cannot be taken from, or changed to, the nature. For nature would be deprived of its being, having no effect by nature.”
He gave them an answer for each of their false accusations, but their intention was to condemn and persecute him, and that is exactly what they did. Realizing that reason does not prevail among them and that the truth means nothing to them, but they persistently try to impose on him words that are not his, he finally told them: “I cannot accept this, nor have I learned from the Holy Fathers that I confess my faith in this way. And you have the power, so do with me what you want. What God has prepared for me beforehand, with his grace, may it now be fulfilled for the glory of His holy name!”
The interrogations lasted not just one, but several days, and his disciple Anastasius was also examined, thinking that with the intimidation and cunning questions they asked him, they would make him renounce his Elder. However, Anastasius, who diligently and calmly obeyed him for thirty-seven years, did not allow the evil-one to shake his love and respect for his spiritual father, even at the cost of his life, so he bravely and in dignified manner, testified to the innocence and righteousness of his Elder, and his Orthodox confession of faith.
In exile
– How do you live, Abba Maximus?
– The way God foresaw centuries ago, and
determined to be the act of my life, for which He is planning.
In the year 656, he was exiled to the small Thracian town of Vize (Vizia), and his disciple was exiled to the most remote province of the kingdom, to the infamous place of Pervera. His other disciple, also named Anastasius, from Rome (the author of his hagiography), who was exiled to the coastal Thracian city of Mesembria, had the similar honour of being persecuted for Christ’s sake.
Some time passed, and again the emperor and Patriarch Peter sent envoys to Saint Maximus and his disciples, to persuade them to renounce the Orthodox faith and accept their heretical confession. Saint Maximus was fearless and unwavering, and with his Divinely-wise and gracious mouth he refuted them, whereby Bishop Theodosius and the other two envoys repented and accepted the Orthodox faith. They returned to the king, informing him that they found no fault with the Venerable one. At that, the king became very angry, and they again returned to heresy out of fear.
He was then brought to Constantinople, but now with honours, and was allowed to reside in the Monastery of Stoudios. Here they interrogated him, and beat him mercilessly, and then took him to Selembria where he stayed for two days.
Because of him many did not want to enter the Church, which was living in heresy, and due to this, this the heretics were persistent, and again and again they subjected the Venerable and his two disciples to the most fervent interrogations. The Holy Elder told them: “Even if the whole universe were to receive communion together with the Patriarch, I will not receive communion. Because I know from the Epistles of the Holy Apostle Paul that the Holy Spirit hands over even the angels to anathema if they evangelize (preach) differently and introduce something new.”
Then the Elder fell on his knees and with tears in his eyes, calmly and with Divinely-wise words, indicated to them that his fight was not against the king and the Church, but that he was against their erroneous teaching about Christ and was fighting for the purity of the faith, taught from the Holy Scripture, from the scripts of the holy teachers and from the conciliar decrees.
After a week, Saint Maximus and his two disciples were again brought up for questioning making slanderous accusations against them: that they were opponents of the emperor; but again they failed in this. Then they beat them once more. The sight was terrifying. The Holy Elder, covered with wounds from head to toe, covered in blood, barely remained alive, but even that did not move the heartless tormentors, so they went even further in their wickedness and tore out the tongues of each of them, but there the Lord performed an indescribable miracle: they all got the ability to speak, and even better and more clearly than before. But the heretics, even more enraged because of this, also cut off their right hand and dragged them through the city for everyone to see. After such inhuman torture and shameless mockery, all three were sent to different places in exile, in the most distant provinces. They sent them with nothing, without food or clothing, naked and barefoot, and they encountered many hardships and troubles on the way. The soldiers carried Venerable Maximus on a stretcher and with great difficulty brought him to the place of confinement. That place was in the city of Shimar, under the Caucasus region, and here they locked him up him in gaol. And Venerable Anastasius, his disciple, who also had his tongue torn out and his hand cut off, died on the road from his much-suffering body, completely covered with wounds. His holy soul passed to God in eternal life.
Venerable Maximus lived for some time in captivity, but in great suffering. And when the much-desired day and hour came for him to present himself to the Lord, on August 13(26), 662, he joyfully surrendered his soul to the Lord Jesus Christ, whom he loved strongly from his youth and for whom he suffered so much. And God gave him what He promises to those who will follow Him and who will endure to the end, and that is eternal bliss in the Kingdom of Heaven.
Theological works
Venerable Maximus the Confessor is one of the top theologians and the most educated of the Holy Fathers, not only in the time in which he lived and created (worked), but in the entire history of the Orthodox Church. Imbued with the worldly philosophy of Plato, Aristotle and the Neo-Platonist, as an experienced ascetic and a student of the depth of the mysticism of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and other Holy Fathers before him, he left a great theological heritage to the Church, on which the later Holy Fathers, the Hesychasts and teachers of the Church would build upon.
The views of Venerable Maximus are the true confession of faith, and with his enlightened mind and gift of reasoning, he managed in his works to make a synthesis of different directions and currents, creating a unique theological and philosophical system, in which he sublimates Christian thought from Origen to Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite. His theological creative oeuvre covers several areas, and is due to the tireless and energetic struggle against the Monothelite heresy and the establishment of the Orthodox faith.
In exegesis, he courageously deals with explanations of parts of the Holy Scriptures, interpretations of the Lord’s Prayer and the 59th Psalm, “scholias” to the works of the hieromartyr Dionysius Areopagite (Pseudo-Dionysius) and Saint Gregory the Theologian. Exegesis also includes the explanation of worship, entitled “Mystagogy” (“Introduction into mystery”).
The dogmatic works of the Venerable Maximus include: his exposition of the debate with Pyrrhus, several treatises and letters to various people. They contain an explanation of the orthodox teaching about the Divine Essence and the Divine Hypostases, about the incarnation of God the Word and about the deification of human nature.
“Nothing in deification is a product of human nature – Saint Maximus writes in a letter addressed to his friend Thalassius – because nature cannot conceive God, only the mercy of God has the ability to bestow deification onto the being… In deification, man, who is the image of God, becomes likeness of God, he rejoices in all the abundance that does not belong to him by his nature, because the grace of the Spirit triumphs within him, and because God acts in him” (Letter 22).
Venerable Maxim’s works also include anthropological works. He considers the nature of the soul and its conscious existence after the death of man. Of his ethical works, “Four hundred chapters on love” are especially important. Venerable Maxim also wrote three hymns in the finest traditions of church hymnography, following the example of St. Gregory the Theologian.
The theology of Venerable Maxim the Confessor, which is based on the spiritual experience of the knowledge of the great desert fathers and uses the skill of dialectics, worked out from pre-Christian philosophy, was continued and developed in the works of Saint Simeon the New Theologian and Saint Gregory Palamas.
The Church highly respects this philosopher of Orthodoxy, and his holy memory is celebrated on January 21/February 3, and the transfer of his holy relics on August 13/26.
Through his holy prayers, Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on us!
Fr. Gavril Galev
Abbot of the monastery “St. Clement of Ohrid”,
Kinglake, Melbourne, Australia
[1] See: Matthew 5, 14–16.
[2] In this way, the monothelites violated the dogma of the incarnation of God the Word. According to orthodox teaching, the will belongs to nature, not to the person. The person only uses the will found in nature, that is, the person moves and makes effective the will of nature. That is why the Lord Jesus Christ, both by nature God and by nature Man, has both a Divine and a human will. Without human will, He would not be perfect by nature Man (Ven. Justin Popovich).
