Pearls from the Pedalion: Schism is Worse than Heresy

Read the two-part introduction to the "Pearls from the Pedalion" series here.

From The Orthodox Ethos: Canon 31 of the Holy Apostles calls for the deposition of priests and excommunication of laymen who condemn their bishop and wrongly depart from him. In footnote 44 of the Rudder, St. Nikodemos elaborates on the seriousness of the sin of schism as being worse than heresy.

Canon 31 of the Holy Apostles

If any Priest, condemning his own bishop, draws people aside, and sets up another altar, without finding anything wrong with the Bishop in point of piety and justice, let him be deposed, on the ground that he is desirous of power. For he is a tyrant; and let the rest of the clergymen and all those who abet him be treated in the same manner. But let the laymen be excommunicated. Let these things be done after one, and a second, and a third request of the Bishop.

From St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite:

44. CRIME OF SCHISM

Divine Chrysostom says (in his eleventh sermon on the Epistle to the Ephesians¹) that a certain saintly man said that not even the blood of martyrdom can wipe out the sin of separating from the Church and dividing it; and that for one to divide the Church (i.e., create a schism) is a worse evil than that of falling into a heresy. Dionysios the Confessor of Alexandria wrote in his epistle to Bishop Nauatus [Novatian] that one ought to suffer any evil whatever rather than divide the Church; and that the martyrdom is more glorious which one would have to undergo in order to avoid dividing the Church, than the martyrdom which one would have to undergo in order to avoid becoming an idolater, since in the case of martyrdom to avoid becoming an idolater one becomes a martyr for the benefit of his own soul, whereas in martyrdom, to avoid dividing the Church, one becomes a martyr for the benefit and union of the whole Church.^{2, 3}

 ENDNOTES:

1. St. John Chrysostom, Epistle to the Ephesians: “Therefore I assert and protest, that to make a schism in the Church is no less an evil than to fall into heresy” [source]. [Διὰ τοῦτο λέγω καὶ διαμαρτύρομαι, ὅτι τοῦ εἰς αἵρεσιν ᾿ἐμπεσεῖν τὸ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν σχίσαι οὐκ ἔλαττόν ἐστι κακόν.]

2. St. Dionysius of Alexandria, Letter to Novatian: “It were good to suffer anything and everything so to escape dividing the Church of God. And martyrdom to avoid schism is no less glorious than martyrdom to avoid idolatry. Nay, it is to my mind greater. In one case a man is a martyr for his own single soul's sake. But this is for the whole Church” [source].

3. Saint Nikodemos the Hagiorite and Monk Agapios, translated by Denver Cummings, edited by Ralph Masterjohn. The Rudder, (Chicago, IL: The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1957), p. 286