Refuting Oriental Orthodoxy Part 2 with Orthodox Shahada & David Erhan

part one. We don't think we're going to completely finish part one tonight, so remember this will be an ongoing series. I'll try to eventually put it into a playlist. It'll be its own kind of again, sort of college course on the topic. Now, we haven't really gotten into the specifics of everything yet. We really only touched on some of the introductory issues with the Syrian Church of the

East and the Storian positions last time. So please be patient and don't expect that every question must immediately be dealt with on tonight's stream or the next stream or whatever. I guarante to you every question that you have because of the exhaustive thoroughness of this lecture series. Whatever your questions are, they will eventually come up. So please be patient.

Also to the Orientals so called mods. If they spam the chat like they did last time, in act ridiculous as they are wonted to do, please just immediately boot them. We are looking for honest, extensive discussions on these topics. We're not trying to play the gotcha game where you clip something that's thirty seconds. That's what all the low tier Muslims, the low tier Roman Catholics, the load tier Orientals do is look for low tier thirty second clips.

That's not what we do. We do the extensive, thorough college course model here. And so Kai is going to pick back up where we left off last time. And Kai, if there's anything else you want to say before you kick us off, or David as well, feel free to interject.

we discussed some stuff on ecumenism. I did a community post asking for a vote if you guys would like to see something of that, and I think there is

definitely some interest there. So I think at some point, I don't know where in the series I want to put it in, but we'll have a topic dedicated specifically to ecumenism and to discuss this whole notion that is starting to kind of make some grounds of so called Apostolic Christianity, as if to imply that the Oriental Churches, the Assyrian Church of the East, the Roman Catholics, as if these are Appostolic churches. So we vehemently deny any

Apostolicity to them. It's not just about tracing a particular lineage to the Apostles that makes you apostolic. And I think this is a very dangerous push by certain people in the online sphere that are trying to make it as if all of these churches have some kind of

validity to them. It's very important to emphasize as Orthodox that the Orthodox Church, or if you want to call it the Eastern Orthodox Church, we just refer to it as the Orthodox Church really is the only church that you can belong to to say that you are in the body of Christ, that it is really the only church where you will find valid sacraments, and outside of that you cannot be guaranteed salvation. So that's just one point there that I wanted to bring up, and I

may have Father Michael join us for that. He's a very big proponent to speak against ecumenism. He's very knowledgeable in the top topic. So I look forward in doing that stream.

correlate to the faith that one holds. One of the big differences there is that Orthodox theology believes that not only is a succession necessary for the church, but also the Orthodox faith is necessary, and so both things are needed, and there's no such thing as a kind of a Roman Catholic mechanistic model where everybody has the Orthodox faith

just by virtue of being ordained in some line of people. No, you can have succession and depart from the faith, and so then you are no longer in the succession because you're not teaching the faith of the apostles. It's that simple. And also I would add that on that topic of a humanism, Tim Honeycutt has posted a audio version of a publication from the Athos Monastery of Grigoriu and it has a statement which is the orthodox, fully orthodox statement

on what Christology is. I'll put that in the links there as well if you want another sort of just a backup topic discussion from you know, prominent I guess monastics on Athos making all the points you hear us make today.

what exists in the literature. And the problem is this literature has been you know, kept away, and it was kind of hidden, the kind of obscure to find for quite some time.

form of generic Christianity. It's it's just completely unacceptable, right, It's completely it's not part of the experiential theology that you see that is preserved within the your stock church. Right, So at start succession, the point is it is to preserve the meaning of what has been handed down to the apostles from Christ themselves.

they're that they're putting out. So don't worry. At some point we will address all the stuff that they're that they're talking about. We're just gonna do it on our terms. Okay, we have the upper hand in this, right. We will take the time and we will do a thorough treatment, and we will demonstrate the absolute stupidity of the Oriental position, the Oriental argumentation, and just really drive the point home that these people are idiots. They don't know metaphysics, they

just quote mine. They have no idea what they are talking about.

kind of building it up. We ended the last stream with basically looking at Saint Cyril of Alexandria in his letter to Empitheodosius, and this was some those were these are some key statements that he makes where he's not relying on specific terms to set up the paradigm. He's telling you in concepts to understand what exactly is being communicated by him, how to understand Christ. And so this is very important because we're not building our paradigm based

on certain terms. We're building our paradigm based on ideas, and then these terms that we use are meant to reflect these ideas. And now when we continue building up this paradigm, we're going to look at some of the key texts that really make it very clear what the

Orthodox position is. And one of these documents it is Canon five of the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the Council in five point fifty three, and this ties into one of the early slides from part from the first Stream that I was saying how the Fifth Ecumenical Council is basically like a litmus test whether or not you subscribe to a Nestorian reading of Chalcidon of the Fourth Council or not, because at issue here is the Church of the East.

The Assyrian Church, whati we call is the Historian Church, and we rightly call it the Historian Church because it is a historian. It does teach historianism. Well, what the Orientals will do is they will say that, okay, you see these Nestorians. They agree with Chalcedon, and therefore CalCon is an historian. And so this first dream really kind of put to bed how stupid that kind of reasoning is. You can agree on wording but have completely different understandings

of the details of those wordings. And so when we look at the Fifth Ecumenical Council, it starts making things a lot more clear how Calcedon should be properly understood and how you avoid Nestorianism from the Council of Calcedon. And so in this canon, it's very clear that to hold the Orthodox position, you cannot in any way subscribe

to this notion that in Christ are many hypostasies. And this is very important because this idea of having multi hypostasis in Christ is found in both the Oriental position and the Nestorian position. The main differentiator between these two is that the Nestorians maintain that these hypostases are juxtaposed, they maintain their complete identities, whereas the Orientals allow a combination of the hypostasis to result in a tertium quid,

a new hypostasis. And so this is something that we reject. This is something that can in five makes absolutely clear. You cannot hold to any notion of multiple hypostasies in Christ. And you must profess that there is only one hypostasis, one person of Christ. And this hypostasis is what is in fleshed. It's not that you have some kind of a hypostasis that takes on accidents of human nature and somehow conjoins with the divine hypostasis. That hypostasis of Christ

is divine only. And there is no way you can get around that. If you speak of any other kind of epostasis in Christ, then you are not Orthodox. Is there anything either of you want to add to that.

be able to read the text quite nicely. But I am thinking at some point in the future I will make the slides publicly available, so then you guys can have direct access to that. So I'll just read the highlighted portions because those are the ones that are more

that are more relevant. So Saint Justinian, he's saying the hypostatic union means that the divine logos, that is to say, one hypostasis of the three divine hypostasis is not united to a man who has his own hypostasis before the union, but that in the womb of the Holy Virgin, the Divine Logos made for himself in his own hypostasis flesh that was taken from her, and that was endowed with

the reasonable and intellectual soul i e. Human nature. So this is really important because what it's saying here is this understanding of hypostatic union, or using the term hypostatic union, is something that we share in common with the Orientals, but we understand it completely differently. So what Saint Justinian is saying here is the hypostatus, that the hypostatus, that hypostasis, that is, Christ is the subject for his infleshment, and it's in that where the union occurs of the natures

in that one hypostasis. The Orientals understand hypostatic union to mean that you have two hypostases, one that is particular to the divine nature, another one that is particular to the human nature, that combine in such a way to give you a single hypostasis. Though the properties of the divine and human do not intermingle, according to them, but nevertheless you do result in one hypostasis coming together, and that is where they find quote unquote a union.

make sense. It doesn't follow from the metaphysics. You can't avoid having a mixture. So I'm just saying this is the way. They're just trying to play the word games by saying, well, we're going to combine these hypostasies, but we don't really actually have a mingling, but we can only talk about one. It's like you can't have it both ways. So what you're saying doesn't actually follow from

the metaphysics right that you're professing. It's exactly the same way how we critique the historians, where they say, well, no we don't believe in two persons, we believe in one person. Well, first of all, what do you mean by one person? But no, you guys want to have a certain result. But your metaphysics doesn't allow it, and so you're actually holding to an inconsistent position. Absolutely, okay, And so now Saint Justinian, he just ends this portion.

He says, for the fact of the matter is that whenever this father said one nature of the logos incarnate, so here he's referring to Saint Athanasius, who would use that phrase one nature of the logos incarnate. He used the term quote unquote nature in this formula for hypostasis, meaning that the way we understand one nature of the logos incarnate, we mean that Christ is a single subject,

that divine hypostasis is the subject for his infleshment. In the writings in which he makes use of this formula, he frequently follows it by adding either the terms sun or logos or only begotten, which are not names that indicate nature, but the hypostasis or prosopon. So this is really beautiful that you see in Saint Cyril is Saint Cyril goes out of his way to supplement what he says. Additionally, with two, three, four.

to be qualifications. And the point that Saint Justin is making we know that the term one nature here does not refer to nature in the sense that we use it as you know, essence or substance. It means you know, a person because the terms sun logos only begots in. These are names. These are terms that refer to the hypostasis.

particular nature. However, in the case that we're looking at, that particular is nature is particularized by the person of the word. So it's it's it's not an either or in the sense of like, well, you only have one way that you could use the word hyposthasis. Sometimes it's used in this more nuanced specific sense to refer to a particular the person that has the nature. And that's the whole point here.

And the reason the reason why he does this is to emphasize is that what he means by the divine nature of being his own nature, he's actually referring to the fact that the Word of God is a divine person. Right, That's kind of what he's trying to point hope, you know, point towards in relation to you know, the partner Storman position and even the Pulinarian position.

that attribution in that sense of the word. Though we do need to recognize it's a Pollinarian origin, and though it hasn't a Pollinarian origin, there is a very clear Orthodox way of understanding that, and the supplementation by terms additional to its usage really kind of drives the point

home how we're supposed to be understanding this. So we look at another another instance from Saint Justinian, and this is actually made by a footnote by Russia, who was the one to translate on the person of Christ, and he's encapsulating the way the Christology is understood, and he's saying, the hypostatsis of Christ is the divine Logos, who is himself Jesus. So that we see that when we're talking about the hypostasis of Christ. We're talking of a divine

only hypostasis. There is no additional hypostatic component, if you will, or element to Christ. And the term composite Christ moreover refers to the divine logos, not to the divine nature, and is simply a way of saying that the divine Logos becomes incarnate by adding to his previously divine mode of existence a human mode of existence, taking on himself on his hypostasis all the attributes and properties of human

nature without becoming a human hypostasis. So this is going to lead into a future stream where we're going to go into understanding the appellation composite Christ and fleshing that out how we can make a proper Orthodox understanding of that.

that we do not accept. Composite hypistasis means that what he possesses is two what's to Nature's hence, it's just a restatement of the meaning of diophysite. Diophysite means two natures, that's all it means.

that's the reference to. But we need to understand from the orthodox perspective, right, it is completely heretical to refer to, for example, the Virgin Mary as anthropotokos, right, the mother of the man. Well, why is that wrong? Because isn't Christ man?

divine only person, and so I have it listed. There are the specific sections the paragraphs where you can find these, but you have statements from the Roman Catholics that say stuff like Christ humanity has no other subject than the divine person of the Son of God. We confess that one in the same Christ, Lord and only begotten Son is to be acknowledged in two natures without confusion, change, division,

or separation. The distinction between the natures was never abolished by their union, but rather the character property each of the two natures was preserved as they came together in one person prosopone and one hypostasis. Everything in Christ's human nature is to be attributed to his divine person as its proper subject. Christ's human nature belongs as his own to the divine person of the Son of God who assumed it. The Son of God therefore communicates to his

humanity his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. Now, the reason why I'm bringing in the Roman Catholic points here is not because we need the Roman Catholics to substantiate the Orthodox position. I'm bringing these in to show how the Roman Catholic Church is setting itself up in a contradiction when it says that it professes the same Christology as other churches, for example, the Orientals or the

Church of the East. And I'll get to the point where there was the joint agreement signed between Theman Catholics and the Assyrian Church that says, well, basically, we're professing the same faith. No, we are not professing the same faith. The Assyrian Church of the East, that is a Nestorian, will not permit this kind of language. It is absolutely against the Christology to use this kind of expressions and apply that to Christ. It just does not work.

and so this stuff is played down. When even the Orientals will not agree to these positions, as Kai is pointing out again showing that only the Orthodox position has been consistent, and Rome admitting classically the Orthodox position, confirms that point.

his own personal mode of existence in the Trinity. So seeing Carola, I think something says something very similar, but says it in a different way, and I think it's very relevant to the Orthodox view. He says this in his Scholia on the Incarnation, he says, and he communicates as to his own flesh the operation that is the energy of his own divine powers. This was how he was able to give life to the dead and to

heal the sick. This statement from Saint Curle that you know, the Roman Catholic Catholicism is making a reference, is actually making I will say a stronger point that the divine energies of God, right yeah, and consistent, Yeah yeah, fully interpreenetrate his humanity in a very strong way. Right, And this is a model to our salvation essentially.

a nature like human nature. And so though hypostasis was used by Hellenic philosophers as well as in scripture and some of the Church fathers in that antiquated sense and the most immediate references in Hebrews one three. The Christological application of hypostasis, indicating a concrete ontological existent, is an extension of Origins usage with regards to the Holy Trinity. Now, I want to be careful here because that does not mean what we that we are using hypostasis in the

way Origin himself understood it in a complete sense. It's just more of this idea to avoid modalism, so that you have a real distinction between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And so for Origin, hypostasis is what gives the Son as well as the Holy Spirit a truly real ontological existence distinct from the Father and not just a distinction in thought only, so it staves off modalism, whereas for modalist, a persona does not have ontological status or person, but making person identical to hypostasis, thereby making both points to the same underlying ontology is Cappadocian. And this is very important, and essentially what it's saying is is that the individuated

is the individual. You can't separate that. And when you talk to the Church of the East and historians they play this three tier onto logical game where they'll say the hypostasis that they will in a way equate it with knuma, but at the same time say, well, it's not really an equivalence. They will say the pnuma is what individuates a kiana or a nature, but then to get the individual that's the function of the parasupa or

the prosopon. So it would be like if you would think the knuma is like a mannequin, you have a row of mannequins that you can enumerate, but you can't really distinguish them, and so for them that that's what individuated means. It's something that is concretized that acts as a substrate to concretize an abstract, But there still needs to be some kind of individualizing of each of these

things that are individuated. So you think of like multiple mannequins, you dress them up in different garb, and now you can enumerate them and distinguish them.

of geopolitical benefit for coming into union. But the Cappadocian sense is very clear that you can't individuate without at the same time individualizing, So the individual is what is individuated. So a subject then is a hypostasis or person in the sense of a concrete ontological existent in other words, So for the Cappadocians, if you have a hypostasis, then you have a subject. And it is from this basic premise that two hypostasis means you have two subjects or

two persons in capitaltionmenclature. So anyone who believes that Christ to be two hypostasis in the Cappadocian sense makes of Christ two subjects or two persons, and maintaining two subjects in Christ is fundamentally and unavoidably Nestorian. And it doesn't matter how much one professes Christ to be quote unquote one person, as the Nestorians do. And one thing that I think needs to be made clear is that Nestorianism

is properly speaking to profess two subjects in Christ. And so the reason the Orthodox will say that Nostorianism is too quote unquote person is because for us person equals the subject. And that's following the Cappadocians.

constitutes Nestorianism, and in a similar vein the Oriental churches are also to be considered a historian since the incarnation adds another concrete ontological existent, the human hypostasis, to Christ. Though the combining of the hypostasis in their scheme results in a form of monophysitism, it doesn't matter that they will say that the human hypostatic component in Christ is

never separate from the divine. Nevertheless, the fact that it's added as a concrete means that you still have some kind of two subjects that in some form reduces to a one subject, So it would be a etertium quid subsc.

of Okay, how do we understand crisis one person? The monopaid answer is, well, it has to be one substance. Then the historian answer is, well, we have to protect the quality of the natures. So two substances, and within the certain view you get two self subsistent things. With the monoposide, you get one self subsistent you know. Think

but both of these views lead to incorrect paths. And the reason or that that being the case is because they actually share the same pre suppositions that the Orthodox do not hold to.

say twice, you know, on the Orthodox faith. I'm pretty sure twice he says that the failure to distinguish nature and person is in fact the root of all heresies, and so this confusion is central here to avoid we absolutely have to avoid the confusion collapsing nature into person or making person nature. I just put up a thing about the Tomas that do this very thing when they

talk about a saiety as the divine essence. I'm not going to get into all that tonight, but Kai, I did have a question for you, because it's David actually touched on it indirectly, which is this confusing usage of pros upon by the Nestorians. Nestorians will talk about a prosopic union. I think you did touch on a last time, but I think somebody in the chat made a comment

to this effect. Is that because in other words, it's not that there's a problem with the word pros upon, but the Nestorian understanding of pros upon is not the same thing as what we mean by pros upon. And that's why that terminology might be utilized by the Coptics, for example, because they would say, oh, you're using the Nestorian idea because you're using the word pros on, so you just mean it's a mask, no no by for us. As the Fifth Council says, prosopon refers to the hypostasis of the word.

I will get into greater until explain exactly what this whole system entails.

argue against this. But when they use the term person, it is not as weak as the Greek term prosopon right, because the Latin understanding of person already incorporates some kind of substantiality to it by nature of the way it's used in the Latin language.

in order to understand exactly what they're saying. If you don't do that, we're just going to be we're not going to be able to go beyond just making you know, ten second clips and just trying to own the opponent and score.

the double consubstantiality. So, given that double consubstantiality requires speaking of two distinct natures, we can speak of Christ in two distinct natures because he is consubstantial with others in those natures. In those natures. If you cannot speak of Christ in two distinct natures, then you cannot speak of

Christ consubstantial with others in those natures. This is important because it's precisely because consubstanti is at the level of nature and not hypostasis, that Christ does not require a human hypostasis in order to become substantial with us according to human nature. This is why we deny that metaphysical move that says we must first have some kind of a human substrate that can individuate or particularize a human nature, and that substrate has to be particular to that human nature.

We deny that metaphysical move and this is why we can say that Christ is a divine only hypostasis. Now, to be consubstantial is to be of the same essence or homousios, as stipulated by the Nicene Creed, which, as Saint Anthonasius reminds us, is to be of the same nature. And he's using the word feces here, for we believe that there is one Godhead and that it has one nature feasin, and not that there is one nature of the Father from which that of the Son of the

Holy Spirit are distinct. So the First Documenical Council mandates that Christians profess the Father and Son to be of the same essence homo ussios, meaning consubstantial, which means to exist in the same nature. But now, if we look at what the Orientals will say, that Christ can only be spoken of as being in one nature. So they will say he's of two natures, but they will not say that he is in two natures. The Oriental position is crystal clear that you can only ever speak of

Christ in one nature incarnating. So if he's only in one nature. The oriental metaphysics has two possibilities. Either Christ retains only his divine nature and as a result he is not consubstantial with us, and that means that is a form of gnosticism. Or Christ's nature changes and as a result he is no longer consubstantial with the Father, and that would be a form of arianism. So that

is a metaphysical consequence of the oriental positions. You cannot have it both ways to say Christ is in one nature, but say he's doubly consubstantial and saying that he has human properties and divine properties and that is what makes him consubstantial and leave it at that. That does not work if you guys want to contribute anything to that.

is made of. But again, if you're going to use the language of consubstantiality and say that this is real and this is applicable to Christ after the hypostatic union, I really fail to see how you can affirm double consubstantiality, but not two natures, right, especially when nature and substance in disregard that the av use, it is pretty much the same.

anticipating the Third Ecumenical Council to combat Nestorianism. But what's really important about this letter is Saint Cyril is distancing himself from various prior heresies, and in so doing he's establishing single subject metaphysics. So when we talked about the metaphysics earlier, what makes a subject, it's very important. This letter goes to great length to demonstrate in Saint Cyril's

thought he has a single subject Christ in mind. Now, some of the things that he distances himself from is dough Cticism or doceticism, theomorphism arianism or Sellianism or pollinarianism, and then the diophysitism, which is a direct front two Nesto orientism. I'm not going to go into detail of these heresies. I'm just giving you an overview of what to expect if you're going to read that letter.

that Cyril is a single subject Christological proponent. That single subject is identical to the subject prior to the incarnation, namely the second person of the Godhead. And so that means that in the incarnate state, the only subject for all the incarnate action is the divine person of the word. Yeah.

to see. This is where the cracks start falling for the Orientals that they really do not understand Saint Cyril.

In letter thirty nine, right, he says this very clearly, you know, right, he says, some theologians, you know, they refer all the sayings to you know, some you know, we refer to all the sayings of Christ to the one person, and there are some theologians that refer to the sayings of Christ, you know, dividing the sayings. No, it's not dividing the natures, but dividing the sayings to the two natures.

to understand. But never does he say, oh, yeah, you know these people are heretics or anything like that, which is what you see you know, monopsized later on, do is I accuse this language of being a heretical language and seeing curl of Alexandria at his own time accepted it. And the main point that I'm trying to make is that for Saint Carol, it is consistent to be able to speak of one Christ, one divine person of the logos, while being able to speak of you know, divine and

human things in Christ. And this is you know what you see trout Saint Curle's writings. You know, he consistently applies this these principles, right, this is not just the concession that he made like this is actually what monopsized, like service police, like he pretended to agree with what they said, but he actually didn't agree with anything they said. He was just trying to keep peace in the church. And this is kind of problematic to say, but we'll

look at it in the future presentations. But what I'm trying to get at here is what you're going to see in this letter is again it's important to understand Saint Curle and his own terms, the way he speaks, and to understand what he's actually trying to say. And this is why for us, seeing Curle is a teacher of the two natures of Christ. It's not just that, oh, he says one nature and that's that's the end of the story, or he says two natures and that stated story.

His writings as a whole is what's preserved and what's explicated, what's taught in the ecumenical councils, or rather, what Saint Curle is teaching is he's actually teaching the Orthodox faith.

two after the union, or thinking of each separately. It is appropriate for one's mind to sense a distinction between the natures, after all, human and divine natures are not identical. But at the same time as this acknowledgment, the mind must also accept the concurrence of the two into a unity.

So it was as God that he issued from God to Father, and as man that he issued from the Virgin the Word who shone out from God the Father in a manner that can be neither described nor imagined, is said to have also been born of a woman, descending into humanity and entering into what was not his own, not with the aim of remaining thus emptied, but rather so that he might be believed to be God and appear on earth in human form, not just as if

he were dwelling inside someone, but by himself, becoming a man by nature, while simultaneously preserving his own glory. So God's mouthpiece, Paul Come binds these two things into a unity, namely the divinity and the humanity, which would otherwise be so far from being consubstantial with each other, and which are so utterly distinct. And he makes this combination in the context of salvation history. And then he demonstrates that there is one single Christ out of the two elements,

one Son, one God. Here we see single subject christology. We see that Saint Cyril allows for speaking of two after the union. But he's telling you how you must understand the speaking of two and what exactly is one. This is completely in line with Canon five of the Fifth Ecumenical Council. We don't necess necessarily have to express

our theology in this hippostatic language. But what Saint cyril Is writing is exactly what our Christology reflects, and it is completely contrary to the Orientals continuing on from the same letter. So the Son, who was co eternal with the one from whom he issued, and who exists prior to every age, descended into human nature, taking up humanity

to himself, rather than slipping away from being God. And hence he may legitimately be thought of as being born of David's seed, and of experiencing a wholly new human birth. What he took up into himself was not foreign to him, but is truly his very own. It is therefore to be reckoned as being one with him, just as one might naturally think of how a person is constituted a person whose nature is woven from unlike parts, namely soul and body, but the combined person is still reckoned as

a single individual. One sometimes names an entire animal on the basis of just its physical body, but at the other times the combined being is meant when the soul is explicitly mentioned. We ought to accept just the same way of talking about Christ, for there is only one son and one Lord Jesus Christ, both before his taking

flesh and when he appeared as a man. So this here is important because now he's what Saint Cyril is doing is he's elaborating what he said prior to this and really enforce, reiterating and enforcing the point that we're talking about one ontology, and he's not saying that you can have a soul and a body come together and then you get a result. That's not what Christ is, the one soul and one body coming together. You don't have the person without the soul without the body. It's

talking about. These are fundamental to what makes the ontology in the first place, and that is the unity that Christ is that he possesses. It's ontologically. Christ is one, He is divine who in fleshes I still have just a couple more quotes here, but I'm sure there will be people who ask who is Jesus Christ really? Is he a man born of a woman, or is he God's Word? It is a waste of effort even to

bother repudiating such stuff and nonsense. I would say, though, that splitting man and word into two separates the arts is dangerous and will cause damage. It is excluded by souteriology, while the Holy scriptures pronounced that Christ is one. I would myself assert that neither God's word, while separate from the humanity, nor the temple born of a woman, when not united to the Word, can be called quote unquote

Jesus Christ. For what we think of as Christ is God's Word, after it has been ineffably brought together with the humanity in accordance with the Saving Union. He is above humanity, since he is by nature God and Son. But at the same time, the fact that he saw fit to bring himself down to the human level does him no dishonor. At one time he said, whoever has

seen me has seen the Father. I and the Father are one, but then at another that the Father is greater than I. It was for humanity's sake that he called himself in fear, even though he was not actually lesser than the Father, since he is the same in terms of substance and in every way his equal. And then the last part from the letter, so then the same individual is at once both the only begotten and the firstborn. He is the former in so far as he is God, and he is the firstborn in so

far as he is one of us. In the way the Saving Union requires it one among many brothers, a man. The point of this was that we two, both in Him and through Him naturally and also by grace, might become God's children. So just the side comment this is now getting into discussing this idea that Christ is a mediator. We become so naturally because we exist in Him and in Him alone, whereas we become so through Him by

the spirit by participating in his grace. Just as the condition of being the only begotten, which belongs especially to Christ, became a property of his humanity when the latter was united to the Word, a conjunction that occurred in accordance with the plan of salvation. So also, in turn to the conditions of being quote unquote one among many brothers and of being the firstborn, become properties of the Word

after being united to the flesh. Because his being God and his eternal changelessness were firmly established, he remained just what he was even when he became a man who

was crowned with the highest glory and transcendence. This is why the most sacred and blessed army of heavenly spirits has been commanded to worship Him, just as we do where in any of this do you hear speaking of hypostass But you hear quite clearly in explanatory terms, single subject christology that is completely reflected when we as Orthodox say that Christ is divine only who has become and fleshed. We don't have a mixing of hypostasis or any of that sort. I don't know if any if you guys

want to contribute to that. It's a bit of a lengthy quote.

of his humanity by becoming members of his Church, which is his body, are able to ex experience this right. This is the basis of right salvation, experiencial theology in the Orthodock's faith.

So for us, this hypostatic union really meaning that we're not separating Christ's divine in human existences, whereas the Orientals when they're talking about hypostatic union and the logos and fleshing, what they're talking about is not that Christ assumes another mode of existence per se, but really that he assumes another human hypostasis, sorry, assumes a human hypostasis into his mode of existence upon in fleshing and so that you see this substantial change. But for us, there is no

substantive change in Christ. He just comes in his incarnation to exist in a separate mode or not a separate modes or an additional mode in addition to being God as well as a human. The prosopic union. So now though we can understand the prosopic union in the Orthodox sense, the prosopic union becomes relevant in the context of Nestorianism because by separating the prosopic ontology from the hypostatic ontology, the Nestorians, the Church of the East, they deny a

hypostatic union, but they profess a prosopic union. And this is understood as a voluntary or an impassable unit union because passibility cannot become part of the divine nature of the logos. And so in Nestorius's thought, prosopon and will are used synonymously. So to have the procipone of God it means to will what God wills. To have the prospone of God means to act as God acts revelation of God to the world. Every nature must have a prosopone which arises out of it as its natural expression,

which unquote reveals the nature or Usiah. And so the union in Christ is to utilize the flesh in order to express the divine and this expression is realized in the quote unquote one person of Christ. So this is now we're unfolding the metaphysics of the Nestorian position to really understand what they mean by one person or what they mean person in general. And you will now see that it's going to be drastically different to the Cappadocian understanding.

This was something that I posted as a community post and made the rounds and made the Oriental zol kind of I don't know, have a melt down in pictorial representation. If you have a human hypostatic component to Christ, then while this can be thought of as a meme, it really does accurately represent what is happening ontologically the Church of the East. Having two subjects means that you really do have two different centers that can be attributed to

Christ's activities. And this is very prominent when you read somebody like Theodore of Mopsuestia in his commentaries, where he will attribute divine activity specifically to the Logos and he will attribute human activity specifically to the human component of Christ. So there is a distinction between the activities of Christ with the Orientals. With this tertian quid. You speak of Christ, but now it becomes some kind of a combination of

the divine no human that acts. And that's kind of like you can see in the in the picture, a fair representation of what their metaphysics entails. Because if they say you can only have one nay, that Christ is in one nature, well, if you're talking about one nature, it has to it can't be the divine only, it can't be the human only. It is some tertian quid. You cannot get around that orthodoxy if we speak of Christ the way he is.

Though we the Orthodox can also talk about a prosopic union, it's going to be in the same sense as a hypostatic union. But what we have at play here is when we look at the hypostatic union for the Orthodox position, we are looking at Christ being a subject, and so in this Christ has one hypostasis that exists in two modes simultaneously, and the logos unites within himself to natures because he exists in those to natures. But the metaphysical system at play here is that a single hypostasis can

an hypostatize multiple natures. And that's the metaphysical move that we as Orthodox make that differentiates us from the Orientals and from the Nestorians. And then it's also important to understand that in our system there are two wills in Christ, and that will is a property of nature, it's not a property of the hypostasis. And this is going to be important in future slides when we get into discussing

will in a little bit more detail. For the Orientals, the hypostatic union is that Christ is kind of both a subject and an object kind of at the same time. So essentially what you have is the hypostasis of the logos assuming into itself a nonsense, self subsistent human hypostasis, and that gives you that tertion quid hypostasis of Christ, because you can only talk of one hypostasis after the incarnation, and so this individuated human hypostasis cannot exist apart from Him.

And the metaphysical move that we deny that the Orientals and the Church of the East make is that a nature can only ever be individuated by a hypostasis of its corresponding kind. So if you're going to talk about Christ having a human nature or having a human mode of existence, then there must be a human hypostasis. You cannot avoid it. That's the metaphysical constraint that they're imposing. The Orientals are just saying that this human hypostatic existence

cannot be a part from the logos. It is always a part of the logos, and the logos is a subject of it. For them, will Christ has only one will, and that will is a property of the hypostasis. And this is really important because in this particular case, this is going to get the Orientals into a tritheistic problem, because for them to try and be consistent in their triadology with their Christology is going to necessitate that you have basically three wills in the Godhead for Father, Son,

and Holy Spirit. If the will is a property of hypostasis. With regards to the Nestorians who take the prospic union, Christ is an object. So you have two hypostases that come together to give you Christ. Christ doesn't exist before the incarnation, and you have the human hypostasis being self subsistent.

where the union is happening to hypostatic level. In terms of the individuation, it's happening merely through some kind of a giftable property. And again they make the same metaphysical move as the Orientals to say that a nature is only ever individuated by a hypostasis of its corresponding kind. So the kruma kiana, the knuma individual individuates a kiana according to kind. The divine Logos enters into a voluntary conjunction with the human Jesus. And their position is that

there is only one will. It's a confluence of the divine and human wills. So the human will is in effect the divine will. I will show you from the Nestorian writings where they profess one will. And though you will have Nestorians who will say that no, they do you agree that Christ has two wills, but that in effect what is expressed is one will. This is going to become very problematic for them because then that is an admission to full blown Nestorianism. And I'm going to

show you why that is the case. But now let's look at what are some things that Nestorius himself says, and Thestorius is venerated in the Church of the East. The suddeness spoken of in the Divine Scriptures in a double manner in hypostasis, as relating to God the Word, and in honor, as relating to him who was taken. For in the honor of the union which he has

with God the Word, he is called son. He is not son because of himself, nor in himself, nor through grace, like those who are baptized, these being sons through grace. The sonship therefore of the god Head and of the manhood is not one in a composition of one hypostasis, but in honor. If we say that, as in the composition of a hypostasis, is there the form of a servant who was taken and of him who takes united together, he who was taken would be found to be derived

from the Father. If it is not by union or by conjunction that he is called son. Okay, now, let's contrast that to how we understand one person. When Saint Justinian writes of one person and also of the fifty humenical council. Nor do we believe that the divine logos in Christ are different persons. But we confess that the Lord Jesus Christ and the divine Logos are one and

the same. And so although we say there are two different natures in one and the same only be God and Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, we do not propose two sons, or hypostasis or prosopa. And at the same time we confess his one hypostasis despising the division of Nestorius, and then the other one from the fifth. A communical council is one that I already talked about. But this is again really important because Rome would agree with Saint Justinian. Saint Justinian is a saint under Rome,

they would agree with his Christology. And when you look at what Nestorius himself says and what we hold to a ar theology, they are irreconcilable. They're one hundred percent irreconcilable. So now where do we get that Christ is a mediator? So in the Orthodox position, Christ is consubstantial with the Father and his divinity. Christ is consubstantial with us in his humanity. So Christ is the mediator between us and the Father because he is perfectly consubstantial with both the

Father and us. So we see here that Christ incarnating is salvific. But for the Orientals, well, you don't have consubstantiality with the Father, you don't have consubstantiality with us, and so you can't have Christ being a mediator if he is some unique tertium quid. So Christ incarnating is not sealvific. There's no metaphysics to explain why Christ incarnating would be salvific if he's not consubstantial to us. And in the Church of the East a historian position, Christ

is not consubstantial with the Father. The logos in Christ is what's consubstantial or who is consistential with the Father. Likewise, Christ is not consubstantial to us. Only Jesus or the human component in Christ, is consubstantial with us. So then Christ cannot be the mediator between us and the Father because he has no real ontological.

human nature that he assumed. This is pretty consistent throughout the Church Fathers, but it really gets explicated especially in John Damascus in book three about chapter fifteen onwards, where he talks about the energies in Christ. It's restated at the six Ecumenical Council where it says that the human nature that he assumed he fully deified. How does this

deification occur? Well, two Letters to six Census and many other texts of Saint Cyril, as David mentioned earlier, talk about the uncreated energy in Christ deifying the human nature that he assumed. So you have to keep in mind that it is first of all rooted in this hypostatic union as we're talking about. But what that hyposthetic union affects is a synergy and a deification of the human nature at the level of natures. So you understand that it is a real raising of the human nature, a

real union. Otherwise there wouldn't there would not be a real deification were it not a real union. And this is so crucial to understand, not just for Christology, but

also for soteriology. So I know we're not specifically on the point of the energies yet, but the two energies, which is a necessary corollary of the two wills doctrine of diophysitism, right, is bound up with the deification of the human nature by the uncreated in energies of Christ, not by the divine essence of Christ, but by the divine energies of Christ, interpenetrating and fully suffusing the human nature without destroying, without diminution, without division, without any destruction

to the properties of those natures. So even though the human nature gets deified, and that's the root of our steriology, it never ceases to create to retain his created properties, so it never sees as being a creature, but it's

a deified creature. And again this is the two Letters of Cerial to six Census, where he specifically talks about even after the Resurrection, when Christ was no longer susceptible to the blameless passions, right, he could still eat because he willed to, even though he has this transfigured flesh.

And Cyril says that that transfigured flesh comes about not by the divine essence communicating anything to the humanity, but by the uncreated energies communicating to the humanity in Christ that destroys Roman Catholicism and Tomism.

But what they mean by consubstantial, for example, in this case is Christ has a human body, because they think the soul is the human you know, is the person that is the human person. So it's important, Okay, what do we mean by consubstantial and this is the question that we should be asking ourselves.

very similar, They're very close. And that's why, No, there is a real ontological similarity with Christ's humanity and or humanity, namely that or nature is the same. It's it's identical. And this identical nature is something again, as I said, it's a real ontological reality. This is why Christ's activities in his humanity affects us.

you actually mean by consubstantial? And if you mean consistantial with the sense that you know, as we say that Christ and human beings and Christ with the Father, there is this realantological sameness, right, and he's not just some kind of a nominal like same set, but a genuine sameness. Then you have to confess to natures. You have to

acknowledge that Christ is in two natures. In order to make that convention, you have to be able to say that if you think that Christ is consistential with us in the sense that he has he is some kind of you know, particular human existence that is in the same set as this universal of all human particulars and universal of all divine particulars, and he's part.

that Christ doesn't suffer or anything like that. That he kind of denies that Christ as human properties. He kind of service kind of makes the point that you know, Christ does not have a have two natures, but he has properties, natural properties proper to human nature. Okay, So does that not mean that he has human nature? I mean does that mean that, of course he denies that being the case, right, he denies that there is a human nature and divine nature in Christ in order to

protect his old crystological projects, so to speak. So the point here what you see with this slide is not what orients and in the store.

order to understand how Christ has human activities. How Christ as a human will and how the union of sativity and humanity in the one person. You know, how there is an interaction between the two. There's a lot of expansive power in that regard. So that's all I wanted to say.

a doubt. So in the Marganita, it segments the Orientals, the Orthodox, and then the Church of the East, basically identifying in the whole Kiana Knuma language what each respectively believes, and so they the Margantha identifies the Orientals to hold to one kana one kanuma basically one nature, one hypostasis. With regards to the Orthodox, it basically says that we profess two kiane, two natures, and one kanuma or one hypostasis.

And then it immediately follows and discusses the Nestorian or the Church of the East position as consisting of two kiane and two kume, so two natures and two hypostasis. Now what's very interesting here is immediately following their statement of what the Orthodox believe the Church of the East, the Morganita, it does not redefine what cnuma means, so

its understanding of cnuma is functionally the same. And what that then entails from a metaphysical perspective is the Marganita the Church of the East correctly identifies metaphysically that the Orthodox are saying that you can have one cnuma and hipposthetizing to Kane, one hypostasis and hipposthetizing to natures. That is correct, That is them clearly understanding the Orthodox position.

So then when they say to Knuma and Tukiane, they are saying that metaphysically, each nature must have its own particular individuating substrate, if you will, its own particular numa. And then what the Marghanita says is they explicitly name Nestorius. But they make a very big mistake that they probably didn't even realize. And this is something what the Assyrian speakers are perhaps ignorant of when they keep saying, oh,

it's a language issue, you don't know Syriac. There's a specific meaning to Knuma all of that garbage, because they say clearly that though Nestorius basically follows the position that the Church of the East espouses, they say that Nestorius held the same faith, but he didn't understand their language. He didn't understand Syriac. So that means that if you are telling us that Nestorius held the same faith, we don't need to understand Syriac to understand what you believe.

We can understand Nestorius in the original Greek. We know what Thestori has professed in the original Greek. That means we do correctly understand what the Church of the East is teaching, and we are correct in charging you with Nestorianism. Okay, we don't need your kluma garbage. We don't need your Oh, you don't understand what we're saying, because Syriac is a

mystical language that only us Assyrians can understand. No, we understand what you're saying, and you are expressing specifically the metaphysical move that you require to have a particular hippostatic kind to individuate your nature, and that sets up a double subject christology. And moreover, in your Marganita, you are saying that you have two kluma, two subjects, but one will. And you think that because you say that Christ has one will or one son ship or one authority, that

this now is your one person, that is Christ. And so now you're professing the the the Orthodox faith or the true faith if you will. Well, it's clear that when you're saying one person, you're not saying it in the same way that we are saying one person, because when you identify that we profess one cluma, that means we profess one person. But when you say you have two kluma, and then you're saying one person, well, if you're going to deny that person equates with cnuma, So

then where what does person equate to? In your scheme? You have no other ontology to point to but to will. So for those who want to analyzer, who can understand the Syriac, that's just the slide there that shows the exact Syriac of the Marganita, that makes it crystal clear exactly those terms being used. So the Margnita correctly identifies the Orthodox Oriental and Church of the East positions with

regards to hypostasis and nature. It does not redefine nature or person or like Keana or Knuma when elaborating the Church of these positions for not person but hypostasis. So there is no misunderstanding in Syriac between the Orthodox, Orientals and Church of the East. The Morganita explicitly affirms that the Church of the East professes the correct faith to

the exclusion of the Orthodox and Orientals. So this is now setting up a problem for the Church of the East to say that they profess the same theology as Rome, because it clearly says that they don't, and it accepts Nestorius as having correct theology, despite Mystorius not speaking or writing in Syriac. And that is an admission that we can understand the Church of the East theology in Greek via Mystorius and by extension, Theodore of Mopsuestia. So Syriac

is not necessary to understand the Church of the Easts theology. Nevertheless, we do understand your Syriac terminology. And so the modern day proponents of the Church of the East are playing word games when they insist that we as Orthodox do not understand this Knuma nonsense. Okay, the issue is not about Knuma. It is not about the Syriac language. You guys can cry day and night about these terms. We understand your metaphysics, We understand what you mean with your individuations.

We understand what you mean by your individuals and how it pertains to universals in particulars. What is that play here is that proponents of the Church of the East are not competent in metaphysics to understand what their three tier ontology actually entails, and they're being arrogant in their claims by just simply relegating it as some Syriac terminology issue. Now, this one, I don't think I need to really read.

All of what's quoted here is just put as a reference just to establish the point that Christ has two wills and not one one. One of the quotes is from the letter of Pope Agatho. Then I'm quoting the Catechism of the Orthodox Church, Catechism of the Catholic Church, just to demonstrate that metaphysically, we believe that Christ has two wills. So if you are going to enter into union, then you have to press the same This is another one.

The definition of faith ratified at the sixth Ecumenical Council, that makes it very clear that you must profess two wills, and the Marganita it clearly says one will. And it doesn't really matter all that much that you would have other writings within the Church of the East that will say two wills. In effect, you do have only one one will. The importance of two wills is going to come apparent when we have the stream on the energies

and wills being a property of nature. Now to unpack the Nestorian monothelitism or this idea that Christ is one will. So you have both the Church of the East and the Orientals professing Christ to have one will. So then you ask the question, well, is will a property of nature, hypostasis or person? So the Orientals they'll take the position that it's a property of the hypostasis. The Church of the East must take will to be a property of person in order to maintain and I'm going to use

this term loosely, a coherent metaphysics. I don't believe that their metaphysics is coherent, but it's kind of like they have certain premisses and in order to kind of maintain the conclusions of those premisses and a coherent way they're forced into a certain line of thinking. Will can't be a property of nature because there is no union of natures in Nestorian theology. In Church of the East theology, will cannot be a property of hypostasis or kanuma because

there is no union of hypostasis or kanuma. So simply by process of elimination, will must be a property of person, wherein two wills come together in a prosopic union to result in one will. However, this one will is a will of unison and not unity, because the divine and human subjects in Christ must maintain distinct personhood in order for there to be a quote unquote prosopic union, i e. A mixing of concrete ontological existence is not allowed. So

a prosopic union necessitates to prosopa to persons. Otherwise there is no union because the natures and the hypostasis or

the kiana and the krume are not what unite. So if the Logos gifts his person his parsupa to the humanity, and it is in that where the union is realized, then that is admission that there are two subjects in Christ, because if the humanity requires a parsupa, a person wherever it comes from divinity or elsewhere, then it demonstrates that the humanity in Christ is comprised of nature, hypostasis, and person.

So then to what ontology does will refer process of elimination forced it to refer to the ontology of person, and in order to maintain a coherent quote unquote coherent metaphysics, the ontology has to be real. It can't be an aggregate, meaning that there must be two persons. So now this whole thing that Nestorius really was a Nestorian, because there have been some articles, some pseudo scholarship, and some bullship

being presented that Nestorius really wasn't a Nestorian. So when we unpack this, the Nestorian three tier ontology is nature, hypostasis, person, kiana, knuma, persupa. The kiana is your abstract common or your universal, your knuma is your individuated, nature is your individual. So now we remember that will. We have to take will as a property of person of parsupa. So if Christ has two wills, you see, because this is what the Nestorians are gonna do they're gonna say, no, we deny that

Christ is one will. Christ will have two wills. Well, you've got two natures, you've got two hypostases, you've got two wills. That means you have two persons. And if Nestorius's prosopic union is a quote unquote union of divine and human wills, that's how you get your one will. So the divine Logos gives his will to human Jesus in order to quote unquote unite the two persons into one person. And so the Nestorian incarnation is not an ontological incarnation of the Logos. It is a gifting of

the divine will to a human subject. And so that means that, in effect, the prosopic union is not a real union. It is an illusion. What you have are two subjects in unison.

Like where's the difference? And I think like logically speaking, there doesn't seem to be any difference. It's just kind of like instead of just like speaking like at a point in time, like Christ is only just speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit within this picture, and that's like what makes him different amongst other things as well in this in this scheme.

Jesus is thirty three years old. Because that being thirty three years old is what's going to distinguish that kunuma from a different knuma that is, let's say twenty five years old. There's some differentiating property that individualizes that knuma to set it apart from all other instances of human. Well, if you look at the divine aspect, so you have the nature is divine, the knuma is the logos. So it's not the Father, it's not the Holy Spirit, it

is the logos. But then what's the parsupa. It's that it's eternal or it's quote unquote son. And so in the prosopic union, sonship is given by the external divine logo, the eternal divine logos to the thirty three year old man Jesus, and this gifting of sonship. So remember that quote from the fore from Nestorius of saying son by honor. So Jesus is son basically by honor. The gifting of sonship by the logos results in the quote unquote person of Christ. And so then Christ just becomes a name

indicating the gifting of sonship to Jesus. And so Christ in this metaphysical system does not have a distinct hypostasis, does not have a distinct curuma. There is no one to one hypostasis or cnuma two person part super relationship for Christ. So the two subject christology is the result of the prosopic union. And this is vehemently opposed by Orthodox It is an ereconcilable difference.

But Earlierians like Theodore, the story is they're pretty much yeah, this kind of like communication of names. Even they didn't even accept that. So that's kind of where that comes from.

And so when we look at what Nestorius writes and his first letter to the Bishop of Rome san Celestine, so this is leading up basically there are a bunch of letters being communicated between Rome between Alexandria leading up to the Third Ecumenical Council, and so Nestorius is writing, we reject applying the term theotokos to the Virgin Mary, for properly, the nativity was consubstantial with the one giving birth, while his manifestation in a human being resulted from the

creation of the Lord's manhood joined to the Godhead from the Virgin through the Spirit. Okay, So this is rejection of the term deo tokus, and it's going to be

important in a moment. Nestorius in his second letter Christ tokos, so this is the preferred term for this expression uses a name that signifies both natures, namely Christ, and it conjoins Godhead and manhood in one adoration, since the Godhead of the son is consistential with the Godhead of the Father, while the manhood was born at a later time from the Holy Virgin, and because of its conjunction with the Godhead,

is worshiped together with it by men and angels. So basically, what he's saying here is the only reason why you can worship Christ in his humanity is because of its association to the Divinity, and it's a conjunction, and that is what makes the adoration possible. And this is why he wants that term riso tolkus. Now Saint Cyril in his second letter to Nestorius, he's basically responding to this understanding.

He's saying, we do not worship a man together with the word, lest a semblance of division might creep in through the use of the word quote unquote with But we worship him as one and the same, because the body with which he is enthroned with the Father is not alien to the Word. So Saint Cyril is talking metaphysics here, he's talking ontology. He's saying, we are worshiping the same ontology that is the Word. And this is why we call the Virgin Mary Theotokos, in understanding of

the ontology that she is giving birth to. And then Nestorius in his second letter to Saint Cyril, for I do not understand how it meaning the hypostatic union could introduce the one declared earlier to be impassable and incapable of a second birth as again passable and newly created, as if the natural properties of God the Word are destroyed by conjunction with a temple, or as if it is thought a trivial thing by men that the sinless temple,

inseparable from the divine nature, should undergo birth and death on behalf of sinners. So Nestorius is crystal clear the ontology, that is the logos, is not incarnating. That's not what's happening. The logos is not in fleshing. It is not the ontology, that is the logos that is in fleshing. And he's making it crystal clear. And the Marganitha is saying that this is the position of the Church of the East, because this is what Nestorians believe. Nestorius in the Church

of the East belief in the exact same thing. Well, this is what Nestorius believes. Let's look at what the Metropolitan of Malabar and India of the Assyrian Church of the East says. So this is now an official cleric, high ranking cleric in the Church of the East. The necessity for a Nestorian Christology becomes inevitable when we think of the greatest position ascribed to Virgin Mary in the Roman Catholic Church. The fear expressed by Nestorius against the

use of theotokos should not be ignored. It is one of the positive contributions of Nestorius to have exposed the potential danger of this title. As far back as our records of history go, there was nobody to speak against this title before four to twenty eight AD, though it was used by certain individuals. Perhaps it would have become the standard expression of all Christians if Nestorius did not wage such a crusade against this title.

Oh but wait a minute, aren't you part of this whole apostolic Christianity movement? Apparently not. The christological formula of this church is that the prosopic union, rejecting the formula of hypostatic union accepted by both Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox churches. This prosopic union is a three tier Christology where the union is not at the first level of natures, nor at the second level of the hypostasis, but at

the third level of the prosopon. To the members of this church, the idea of perfect God and Man is understood only if Christ has both natures and plume of both God and Man, and the union has taken place only at the level of prosopon.

this is what you kind of get. And like in this scheme the one person is kind of just again a union of the two prosopa, and you have the hypostasis.

dwells like God dwelt in the tabernacle. And of course this is scriptural, right, But the meaning of the scriptural understanding is just the distinction of the two natures. In fact, in the skull of the incarnation. That's what saying curl for Alexandrosiys. That's to say that the two natures are distinct after the indwelling, which is kind of curious but.

own human hype stations or even his human personhood. So when the Nestorian says that CHRISTI is a composite hype stasis, and when the Orthodox says Christ composite type stasis, and when the Monopasas says this says the same, there are three different meanings, three radically different meanings from the Orthodox perspective's union of the two natures.

but that doesn't make them Orthodox. And so it's very clear that the Metropolitan, who is quite well understanding in the three tier ontology to make the distinctions that he does, to basically lay out for you that these are irreconcilable christologies. We are not talking about the same thing. When we say that Christ is one person, we are not saying the same thing. We are not professing the same faith. And will get to the agreement between Rome in a

moment Theotokus versus Cristo tocus. So Theodora of Mopsuestia allowed the use of theotokos, but only in combination with Anthropotochus, and the two terms expressed different yet complementary perspectives of

the incarnation. So Nestorius claimed to have reconciled proponents of both alternative usages by proposing Christo tokos instead has recently been doubted, But that Nestorius attempted in its theology to bridge the divide in that one term is essentially what Theodora of Mopsuestia tried to achieve by using those two terms side by side. And so Nistorius has an open hostility towards the usage of theotokos in its own.

saying in a different term. Right again, this story is the term Christ indicates the two natures, right, certain terms like Jesus in case only the humanity, word of God indicates.

There's nothing indicating that with crystal tokos. It's at best doesn't really indicate anything special. At worst, it serves to it serves a historian christology, right. But theotokos, that's a confession that Christ is God and also a divine person. He's the divine logos, right, and so there's a specific aspect in Christ that we can speak of him again as divine person. He's fully human, right, but he is a divine person, and as Saint Maximums the Confessor says, right,

Christ is divine by hypostasis, but human by nature. So it's a confession of the full reality of the human nature of Christ. But being fully human does not mean being a human person. And in fact, this proposition, this idea that being fully human means being a human person as well, is the proposition of Apollinarius that was denied by Saint Atonatius, Saint Grigord's theologian, Saint Grigors Nizza.

not like generation et cetera, et cetera. But the you know, we for example, when we speak of a human being dying, the death is the separation of the soul body, right, the body dies, but we still say the whole of man died right, so no one uses language in the way of separating the nature is when we're supposed to refer to the one person.

body that Christ hyposthetically assumed. Hyposthetic union again means that Christ, that the Word of God, in his divine personhood, assumed a full human nature to himself, right, And and it's ontologically united to himself, right, It's it's taken up on himself.

It's not just an external kind of a union. He really did ontologically become man, even in its limitations, right though these limitations are not absolute, because Christ is still God right, but rather he genuinely experienced these kinds of genuine human experience, of course without sin, and this experience was again revealed in the transfiguration right fully, and this is kind of what we are being called to.

faith that we profess in the mystery of Christ. The controversies of the past led to anathemas bearing on persons and on sort in formulas. The Lord's Spirit permits us to understand better today that the division brought about in this way we're due in large part to misunderstandings. So that's just a bunch of nonsense. We clearly see there

is no misunderstanding. But in this common Christological declaration, it is said that both the Rome and the Church of the East the Assyrians profess that there is one person that is Christ. But you read this declaration and you ask yourself the question, what is meant by one person? And nowhere will you see this defined. Nowhere will you see this understanding explicated by either party. This is quite literally word concept fallacy, because we see that we do

not profess the same faith. And when I say we, in this particular case, Rome would profess a one hippostatic, divine only appolition for Christ. And this is not reconcilable with a three tier ontology of the Church of the East, and even the that hierarchy. The metropolitan for the Church of the East, he is telling you, look, we don't believe the same thing. The Matagantha is telling you, look, we don't believe the same thing. So this is a false union. This is a false union through and through.

And you cannot look at these declarations and then start speaking about oh, Apostolic Christianity. No, it's not Apostolic Christianity. You have churches that have deviated that they're not professing the faith.

beliefs if you wish to share our fellowship. If you are to demonstrate agreement with this brother, condemning everything you have held here, there too, we require you to preach

at once what you see him to preach. Therefore, be fully aware of this our sentence, unless you preach about Christ, our God, that which is held by both the Roman and Alexandrian and the Universal Catholic Church, and what was also most firmly held by the Holy Church of the City of Constantinople, until you, and by a public and written profession, condemn the perfidious novelty that tries to divide what venerable scripture unites by the tenth day counting from

the first day of this indictment becoming known to you. You are to be aware that you are expelled from the communion of the Universal Catholic Church. And then you have the Ecumenical Council, guided by Holy Spirit, did it

get it wrong? The Holy Council assembled at Ephesus, by the grace of God, according to the decree of our most pious and Christ loving Emperors to Nestorius, the New Judas, be informed that because of your impious preaching and violation of the canons, you have been deposed by the Holy Council in accordance with the laws of the Church, on the twenty second of the present month of June, and that you are stripped of every ecclesiastical rank. So no,

the Ecumenical Council didn't get it wrong. Saint Cyril didn't get it wrong. Saint Celestine didn't get it wrong. They got it right. Nestorius taught Nestorianism. The Church of the East is nestorian, It teaches Nestorianism. It is not an Apostolic church. So anybody who promotes the Church of the East as apostolic is promoting garbage, is promoting heresy. We

are not in communion with that church. We will never be in communion with that church insofar as it holds to what it does as professed by the madiganthan Yuah and likewise the Orientals. Anybody who holds that the Oriental churches ow are Apostolic is preaching garbage. They are not apostolic, and we will not hold into a union with them, because we are clear in understanding the issues that divide us. It is not just a matter of incorrect language or misunderstandings.

The misunderstandings are by idiots who don't understand the metaphysics, thereby people who are illiterate and don't actually understand what the discussion is about. If you take the time to learn, if you take the time to study your faith seriously, then you will see that the only apostolic church is the Orthodox Church, and we will not compromise. We stand firm in the faith, and we preach the faith. We uphold what the councils have taught. Nomenclature alone is insufficient, Okay.

You cannot just simply do keyword searches and say, oh, look at what this person said. What is the theology behind those words? What is the underlying metaphysical paradigm? Do you actually understand what these historic people taught? Do you understand what the ecumenical councils taught? Do you accept that the Ecumenical councils were guided by the Holy Spirit? How are you certain that you're not committing word concept fallacies

or equivocating on certain words? Okay? Are you willing to recognize that these issues are not just word games or that you can just say that they're because of certain political circumstances. Are you willing to recognize that there are fundamentally irreconcilable differences theologically and metaphysically. Okay? Can you recognize when being able to profess a particular doctrine actually precludes is precluded due to your underlying theology and metaphysics, despite

that you want to profess that doctrine. By this, I mean you'll say, no, we don't profess Nestorianism, for example in the Church of the East. Well, no, look at

your metaphysics. Understand your metaphysics and understand how the logical entailment of what your system is set up to hold to it is actually it precludes for you concluding what you want to conclude, Okay, have you developed a paradigm that is consistent, that has meaningful explanatory power, or are you just putting random quote minds in together and taking

ideas out of context. So all of these questions, this is the whole point of why we want to do this extended series of streams, is to really flesh out the Orthodox positions, the Oriental and the Church of the East positions and demonstrate to you that we are not teaching the same thing, We are not compatible with each other, and if we're not teaching the same thing, then not everyone can be apostolic. It's not just a mechanical thing.

Like Jay said at the beginning. To be apostolic, you have to uphold the correct faith, and this is not about having just some kind of sophisticated system that is irrelevant. Those people who can understand these things have an obligation to understand them and to explain it to other people to understand that they can better understand it. You cannot

just relegate these as unnecessary details. When you look at the ecumenical councils, they went to great detail to explain what's happening theologically