Synodicon of Orthodoxy - Part 1

I'm not sure I will have time to complete this project but this is my goal: To read and understand the entire Synodicon of the 7th Ecumenical Council prior to the Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy (1st Sunday of Lent, which is March 10 this year). It is a much longer document than the tiny portion we recite in our temples on that Sunday.

Procedure: I will post a section of the text of the Synodicon, immediately following it with comments and explanations.

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We have received from the Church of God, that upon this day we owe yearly thanksgiving to God along with an exposition of the dogmas of piety and the overturning of the impieties of evil. Following therefore the sayings of the prophets, honoring the exhortations of the apostles, and being instructed by the histories of the Gospels, we celebrate this day of consecration. For Esaias says: "Be consecrated to God, ye islands, " intimating the churches from the nations. The churches being not simply the edifices and the embellishments of the temples, but rather the congregation of the pious, therein and those who there serve the Divinity with hymns and doxologies. The Apostle advises the same thing, exhorting us, "to walk in newness of life" and that the "new creation in Christ" be renewed. So too, the oracles of the Lord prophesied our condition. "The consecration," they say, "was in Jerusalem, and it was winter"; that is, either a spiritual winter because of the storms of bloody murder and tumult which the nation of the Jews raised against our common Saviour, or that winter which troubles the bodily senses by making the air colder. For indeed, there came upon us a winter, not an ordinary one, but one of truly great evil, brimming over with harshness; but there blossomed forth the first season, the spring of God's grace, in which we have come together to give thanks for the harvest of good things, or as we would. say from the psalms, "Summer and spring hast Thou fashioned, be mindful of this Thy creation," For verily, those enemies who reproached the Lord and utterly dishonored His holy worship in the holy icons, were both arrogant and high-minded in impieties, and were cast down by the God of marvels, and He leveled to the ground their insolent apostasy.


On November 20, 1583 a document called "SYNODICON OF THE HOLY AND ECUMENICAL SEVENTH COUNCIL FOR ORTHODOXY" was signed by three Patriarchs of the Orthodox Church, Jeremiah of Constantinople, Sylvester of Alexandria, and Sophronius of Jerusalem, in the presence of a council of Orthodox bishops. It seems that they were reitterating the tradition that had been passed down, that the teaching of the 7th Ecumenical Council be reviewed every year. This does not seem to be an innovation, rather a regularization, to keep the practice alive and to make sure all Orthodox everywhere were rembering to do it each year. This raises the question, were Orthodox forgetting to do this, like the Jews who forgot how to perform the Temple rituals during the exile?


Dogmas of piety and Impieties of evil: Truth and worship/holiness are not seperate things. Notice that the opposite of the dogma of piety is not, as i would have expected, the dogma of impiety. Rather it is the impieties of evil. Failure to worship and failure to be holy is evil. Not worshiping is evil. No neutral ground.

Islands: This is the first time I have heard this interpretation. Makes since given that the seas is often a prophetic representation of the nations.

Winter: Itseems that the immediate controversy that was settled by the 7th Council is being called winter. It should be remembered that even today, in America, as rich as she is many many people freeze to death every winter. The Iconoclasm likewise killed many.

Enemies, reprached, dishonored, arrogant, high-minded, insolent apostasy: There is no room given for excuses. The Iconoclasts chose to be hate-filled enemies of God.

Cast down by the God of marvels: Though the Iconoclasts seem to have been defeated by the state (the empire) and the Church (the council) it was really God who defeated them.