I would welcome correction, but I am under the impression from consulting both Coptic and Chalcedonian sources that the eventual condemnation of 'Origenism' and Origen by name by the Chalcedonians had more to do with what some of his disciples made of his ideas after his passing than about him personally (sort of like Pelagius, in that way). From the Coptic point of view (which I don't only bring up because it's the one I'm more familiar with; we should remember here that Origen was a son of Alexandria in particular), our stance can seem a bit more ambiguous if only because he did teach at the Catechetical School (which says something about his theological acumen, which I don't know that anyone would doubt that he certainly had), but eventually ran afoul of the leaders of the Church at that location in his own day (NB: not later, as with the Chalcedonians) after being ordained in Palestine while teaching there, without the consultation or approval of his actual bishop back in Alexandria. So he was condemned for canonical reasons such as these, rather than what was known (again, at the time) of his theology (sort of like St. Dioscorus, if you read the original minutes of Chalcedon itself). Having said all this, it is important and instructive to note that we do not venerate him in the Coptic Orthodox Church, and never have. His soteriology, if that's what Universalism falls under, is faulty, but we also recognize that he is one of the greatest theological minds of the early Church. He just did not respect proper boundaries, in more ways than one.
I feel all heresies can be thought of similarly: even if they're 'mostly orthodox' (whatever that means to you, in the context you are in), they transgress some boundary at some point by which they cannot be accepted.
Regarding Origen, I share the view of yourself, which is also shared by Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, memory eternal, and many scholars from Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, that he probably should be venerated, or at least not anathematized, because he did not support any heretical movements while he was alive, but rather died in the peace of the Church. The phenomenon of Origenist monks that were so offensive to St. Epiphanius of Salamis and St. Jerome appear only after his death, and while we tragically lost his Hexapla (one of the great intellectual tragedies of the Middle Ages was the loss of the Hexapla and three or four of the Old Testament versions and translations it contained in parallel), his best writing was anthologized by the Cappadocians in the Philocalia with a C*. Now, he did of course have some problematic ideas, but he didn’t really push any of these on the Churcfh; this was the problem with Origenism but not with Origen. I also think the argument that Arius was inspired by Origen to be absurd; in a letter of Arius to Eusebius of Nicomedia he refers to his sinister advocate at the court of Emperor St. Constantine (who set in motion the chain of events leading to St. Athanasius being exiled to Trier for two years and also managed to convert the future Emperor Constantius to Arianism) as ”a fellow Lucianist” referring to Lucian of Antioch, who was associated with the infamous Paul of Samosata, who basically invented Unitarianism, and who was also corrupt and engaged in simony, according to Eusebius of Caesarea (who himself had sympathies for Arianism, famously saying at Nicaea “I sign this decree with my hand but not my heart”), and this is probably why Eusebius of Caesarea is not venerated as a saint. But Lucian of Antioch is, except in the Syriac Orthodox, Coptic Orthodox and Ethiopian Orthodox churches (and also as far as I am aware, the Assyrian Church of the East); however the Armenians do venerate him, as do the Eastern Orthodox, and the Roman Catholics, because he was martyred. In the case of Origen, although he is accused of self-castration, the fact is that he was a confessor, and his manhood was about to have been burned off by the Imperial persecutors for his refusal to sacrifice to the Pagan gods, but he pre-emptied them so as to deny them the sadistic pleasure. So given that we venerate Lucian of Antioch, who excommunicated for a time after Paul of Samosata was deposed, as a martyr, surely there is case for venerating Origen as a confessor.
Indeed there was a beautiful icon of him painted in the Byzantine tradition, albeit by an Anglican (but one who followed the Byzantine procedure of not depicting him with a nimbus since he has not been officially glorified).
I feel the same way about Theodore of Mopsuestia, since he was best friends with St. John Chrysostom and did not attempt to start a heretical movement or schism; rather, he simply had an idea that was exploited by the heresiarch Nestorius in an effort to compensate for the Christological defect his heresy introduced, but Diodore of Tarsus if I recall also held such a view, but Theodore of Mopsuestia did quite a lot more, for example, compiling a careful exegesis of scripture and presenting one of the more interesting theories of the real presence I have heard of (not one I agree with, but basically, his thought was that when the priest blesses the bread and wine to be consecrated in the Liturgy of Preparation, which in the Coptic Orthodox Church I believe happens when the choir chants “Kylie eleison” several times to a memorable tomb, during or immediately following the Morning Raising of Incense, perhaps you can clarify that
@dzheremi, and in the Syriac, Armenian and Byzantine Rites happens behind a curtain or the iconostasis), that at that time, the bread and wine become the mortal body and blood of our Lord, and at the Epiclesis the Holy Spirit descends and causes them to become His resurrected body and blood. I don’t agree with it, but it is interesting. Furthermore, Theodore of Mopsuestia’s anathema, issued at the same time as that of Origen by Emperor Justinian, in his Three Chapters, caused a schism in Spain, where he was widely venerated. And the idea of Justinian that anathematizing Theodore of Mopsuestia would fix the schism with the Oriental Orthodox was naive, and following the failure of this and his other initiatives, he engaged in a brutal persecution of the Syriac Orthodox bishops, with only St. Jacob Bar Addai remaining alive and out of prison, thanks, it is believed, to being warned in advance of an Imperial plan to arrest him by Empress Theodora, who was herself Oriental Orthodox. Fortunately, he ordained a large number of bishops, over a hundred I believe, acting solus, which has historically been allowed in extreme circumstances, which this was, and this ensured the continuity of the Syriac Orthodox Church.
This takes us to St. Discourse and St. Severus of Antioch, and all other Oriental Orthodox saints, who all deserve to be universally venerated. None of them are guilty of Monophysitism; Monophysitism was the heresy of Eutyches, who lied to St. Discords about having moved away from it, but had been found out and was anathematized by him before he in turn was deposed at the Council of Chalcedon, which was problematic, not just because of the confusion caused by the Tome of Leo among the Eastern bishops, but also because of the actions of the sinister crypto-Nestorian Ibas. And since Chalcedon anathematized the wrong man, Eutyches and his followers continued, degenerating into Tritheism by the time their last well known apologist, John Philoponus, was active in Egypt. And St. John of Damascus made a mistake here, the only really serious error in his Fount of Knowledge, because he thought John Philoponus was a part of the Coptic Orthodox Church, when he never was.
St. Severus of Antioch meanwhile is the most likely author of the hymn Ho Monogenes, which is by far the best confession of Orthodox Christology that I know of. It is used at the beginning of the Syriac Orthodox liturgy (and presumably the liturgy of the Greek-speaking Oriental Orthodox in Antioch), and is also used in the Coptic Orthodox liturgy on Good Friday. In the Byzantine Rite, it was added to the second antiphon by Emperor Justinian, in the only thing Justinian did which I agree with (and this causes some people to believe Justinian wrote it, but this is absurd; the idea that the Syriac Orthodox would start their liturgy with a hymn written by one of their worst persecutors, who tried to make them extinct by killing off their bishops**, is frankly absurd). Since the Armenian Orthodox Church adopted the Byzantine Synaxis, or Liturgy of the Catechumens, during a span of time when it at different times was influenced by both the Eastern Orthodox and the Roman Catholics (perhaps this was during the period when the Syriac Orthodox broke off communion with them), they sing the Ho Monogenes in their liturgy at the same point where the Eastern Orthodox sing it. In addition, the work done by St. Severus of Antioch on Theopaschitism and Communicatio Idiomatum had an enormous influence on Eastern Orthodox and even Roman Catholic and Lutheran theology, making him probably the most important theologian not venerated as a saint in those churches, but he clearly should be, because the whole premise for regarding him as a heretic, that he was a Monophysite, is baseless.
More recently we have the prominent Ethiopian Orthodox martyr, Emperor St. Haile Selassie, who was, like the Russian czar and his family, killed by communists, in this case the Derg, for being Orthodox. Before being killed however, St. Haile Selassie set in motion efforts that greatly expanded the Ethiopian church, by working to evangelize the Jamaicans and other West Indies people, including the Rastafarians who were to his chagrin worshipping him. And this initiative has been highly successful, although unfortunately a few Rastas continue to remain outside the Ethiopian Orthodox Church despite believing that Emperor Haile Selassie is not dead but hiding in an Ethiopian Orthodox Monastery (since they believe him to be God, and thus invincible, but why he would go into hiding when his people were suffering under the Derg, and remain there after the Derg was overthrown, they can’t explain, probably due to excessive use of marijuana, which I also fear is what is keeping them out of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, which regards consumption of marijuana to be sinful). This has also resulted in a weird church which calls itself Coptic Orthodox but has nothing to do with the Coptic Orthodox Church of Alexandria of which you
@dzheremi my friend are a member; they doubtless call themselves Coptic because before St. Haile Selassie persuaded the Pope of Alexandria to grant autocephaly to the Ethiopian Orthodox Church they were an autonomous part of the Coptic Church, which, like other autonomous but not autocephalous Orthodox churches, was led by a bishop, the Abune, appointed by the Coptic Orthodox Church (I can’t recall the exact process of how the Holy Synod and the Pope made the decision on who would be Abune, but I believe it was the same process used by the Eastern Orthodox, where the Holy Synod led by the Patriarch makes the appointment).
I would also highlight another Syriac Orthodox bishop, St. Jacob of Sarugh, who like the Nestorian Narsai, followed in the footsteps of Ephraim the Syrian, but unlike Narsai, who wrote an unbearable hymn commemorating those things our Lord did as a man vs. those things he did as God, which was clearly designed to run roughshod over the Orthodox doctrinal principle of Communicatio Idiomatum, shared by both Oriental Orthodox and Chalcedonians, St. Jacob of Sarugh wrote beautiful, doctrinally Orthodox hymns and metrical homilies, which enrich the Syriac Orthodox liturgy and are entirely compatible with Eastern Orthodox doctrine, for example, Haw Nurone, a beautiful metrical homily that I regard as one of the most important confessional hymns and canticles that one should use alongside the Nicene Creed***.
And there is also the wonderful Armenian poet St. Gregory of Narek, who wrote many beautiful hymns; I have an English translation of his work but have not had sufficient time to explore it. And St. Vartan, St. Nerses and St. Leon. And there are several Coptic saints I have not mentioned, as I thought I would leave that to you
@dzheremi .
However, all of these Oriental Orthodox saints should be venerated by the Chalcedonian churches, because the only reason for not venerating them is the false belief that they are Monophysites, which is simply untrue. They, like Chalcedonians, and the modern day Assyrian Church of the East, believe that the humanity and divinity of our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ are united in His incarnation without confusion, change, separation or division, and furthermore St. Severus was instrumental in advancing the principles of Communicatio Idiomatum and Theopaschitism (not to be confused with the heresy of Patripassianism; rather Theopaschitism represents the only viable alternative to Nestorianism or the confused Apthartodocetism which was later embraced by Emperor Justinian when it comes to understanding the Crucifixion). And insofar as they do not use the Chalcedonian formula, that is only because they adhere to the original wording used by St. Cyril the Great, which is frankly simpler and more elegant than the Tome of Leo, but Chalcedonian and Oriental Orthodox theology are fully compatible because both stress that with regards to the humanity and divinity of our Lord, he is fully God and fully Man, with no change or confusion, as Monophysites taught, and no separation or division, as the Nestorians taught, and indeed the Coptic Orthodox priest even intones this fundamental principle of Christological Orthodoxy in a confiteor ante communionem (“Amen, amen, amen, I believe and confess until the last breath…)
* The Cappadocians, for those who do not know, consisted of St. Gregory Nazianzus, his best friend St. Basil the Great, and St. Basil’s immediate family, especially his brother St. Gregory of Nnot to be confused with the Philokalia with a K, which was likewise an anthology, albeit of writings on monasticism, mystical theology, prayer and hesychasm by various predominantly Eastern Orthodox saints (although it has a few who predate the schism, and I think it has St. Isaac of Nineveh, who was an Assyrian bishop), and was compiled by St. Nicodemus the Hagiorite and St. Macarius of Corinth.
** A policy also pursued by Czar Peter against the Russian Old Rite Orthodox, which resulted in some of them unfortunately becoming members of the priestless Old Believer communities, but the more sensible Old Rite Orthodox went under the omophorion of Georgian and Romanian bishops and some of these later returned to Russia and established the two Old Believer hierarchies, while another group of them were received back into communion with the canonical church in the early 19th century, the Edinovertsy)
*** The others being the hymn Ho Monogenes, mentioned previously, and the canticle Te Deum Laudamus, and also the ancient baptismal liturgy known as the Apostles’ Creed, which I think is overused as a creed but which I think would be fine to use as a canticle, and likewise the canticle Quincunque Vult, commonly referred to as the Athanasian Creed, although St. Athanasius did not write it, but it does paraphrase a panygeric homily about him, homily no. 21 of St. Gregory Nazianzus, in which St. Gregory famously declares the name Athanasius to have become synomous with virtue, and it also paraphrases one of the writings of St. Athanasius against Arianism, so it can be called Athanasian not in the sense of authorship but in the sense of honor, and which again makes a fine canticle, and which exists in an Orthodox version which lacks any hint of the filioque, which was historically printed in Russian psalters and Greek editions of the Horologion, and an English translation of which Is included in A Psalter for Prayer, the well-known adaptation of the Coverdale Psalter to be compatible with Septuagint versification, by Holy Trinity Monastery in Jordanville, New York.
