| HOMEPAGE |[ CONTENTS ]

[ Part 1 ] - [ Part 2 ] - [ Part 3 ] - [ Part 4 ]

THE CURE OF THE NEUROBIOLOGICAL SICKNESS OF RELIGION
THE HELLENIC CIVILIZATION OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE,
CHARLEMAGNE'S LIE OF 794, AND HIS LIE TODAY

© John S. Romanides
TABLE OF CONTENTS
|Part-1||Part-2| — |Part-3|
  1. Roman and Franco-Latin Popes of Rome
  2. Local and Ecumenical Councils
  3. The method underlying this part of the paper
  4. Historical Context
  5. Robin Hood — Orthodox Martyr?
  6. Roman Christians and Roman Greeks
  7. The West Romans in bondage to the Franco-Latins. What happened to Apostolic Succession?
  8. What is Western Civilization?
  9. The Sickness of Religion
  10. Modification of the usual understanding of human nature
  11. The Council Of Orange 529 Condemned Augustine's Interpretation of Romans 5:12
|Part-4|

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21. Roman and Franco-Latin Popes of Rome

The key to the transition of the Orthodox Catholic Tradition from an illegal to legal religion and then to an established Church lies in the fact that the Roman Nation realized that it was not confronted simply by another form of religion, but by a well organized system of neurobiological clinics which cured the noetic energy in one's heart and its happiness-seeking sickness. It is this cure which produced normal citizens with selfless love dedicated to the radical cure of personal and social ills.

In sharp contrast the Carolingian Franco-Latin tradition incorporated Augustine's Neo-Platonic search for happiness as the core of its civilization. The incorporation of the military into the episcopate of Carolingian Francia, whose duty was to pacify the revolutionary Gallo-Roman population, is the key to understanding the so-called Great Schism between Roman and Latin Christendoms. These Frankish bishops and their successors never understood the meaning of apostolic tradition and succession which they reduced to Episcopal power over a system of sacramental magic which sends people either to heaven or hell. This they transferred to the papacy when they forcefully took it over.

This break in apostolic tradition and succession was provoked and sustained for centuries by military and political power as a normal function within Latin Christendom. Considered just as normal was the distortion of both the reality of the East Roman Empire and its Church and Civilization which continues today under modified "Byzantine" guise. Following a weak Gothic lead Charlemagne was the first to generally impose the names "Greek" and "heretical" on the free parts of the Roman Empire.

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22. Local and Ecumenical Councils

Canon Law makes specific provisions for the regular convocation of the Synods of bishops presided over by a Metropolitan, Archbishop, or Patriarch at regular intervals for dealing with the proper execution of the Church's mission of cure within society. There are no such provisions for Ecumenical Councils. The reason for this is that the local synods were part of the original structure of the Church, whereas the Ecumenical Synod was of an extraordinary and imperial nature. One may draw a parallel between Ecumenical Councils and the Apostolic Council convoked in Jerusalem (Acts 15, 6:6-29). Ecumenical Councils, however, were convoked by the Roman Emperor for the purpose of signing into Roman Law what the synods of Autocephalous and Autonomous Churches believed and practiced in common.

Arius, Nestorius and Eutyches were first condemned by local Councils and then by Ecumenical Councils. Paul of Samosata was condemned by a local council whose decision was accepted by all other synods. The same was the case with Sabbelius. Even at Ecumenical Councils bishops participated as members of their own synods whose spokesmen were their Metropolitans, Archbishops, and Patriarchs, or their legates. It should be clear that neither can an Ecumenical Council become a substitute for local synods, nor can local synods take precedence over an Ecumenical Council, unless the one or the other strays from the faith. The reason for this is that authority resides neither in the Ecumenical nor Local Council, but in the glorified prophets, apostles and Fathers who participate in Councils or whose teachings the Councils follow. The reason for this is that the only thing which is at stake is the cure of a neurobiological sickness and not metaphysical concepts about God. The Fathers used the metaphysical terms of heretics in order to make clear the teaching of the prophetic tradition as opposed to them, not as part of an effort to understand intellectually or philosophically the uncreated. We repeat that for the Fathers who condemned heretics at Roman Ecumenical and local Councils, as opposed to Augustinian Franco-Latin Councils, there is no similarity whatsoever between the created and the uncreated and therefore "it is not possible to express God and even more impossible to conceive God."

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23. The method underlying this part of the paper

The difference between the cure of the neurobiological sickness of religion and the resulting Neo-Hellenic civilization of the Roman Empire, and the return to this sickness of religion by Augustine of Hippo and all his followers, is the underlying outline of this study. The difference is between the cure of a neurobiological sickness residing in a short-circuit between the heart and the brain and no cure. Since this sickness and its cure is an historical reality and not part of the histories of philosophy and religion, this study, in intention at least, is part of history and in this sense part of tradition. For this reason nominal "Orthodox" belong to the history of religion.

The New Testament writers and the Fathers read back into history their own experience of purification and illumination of the heart and glorification which they identify with that of both the Old and New Testament prophets beginning at least with Abraham. One begins with the current sickness of religion steming from the short-circuit between the heart and the brain and its cure. Then one reads its cure back into the past as the key to understanding the Old and New Testament prophets and the Fathers and into the future. This is parallel to repetition of the cure of sickness in medical science passed on from doctors to doctors. In this case Christ, the Lord (Yahweh) of Glory Himself is the doctor who personally cures and perfects his doctors in both the Old and New Testaments by the unceasing prayer in the hearts which repairs the short-circuit between the heart and the brain. This historical succession of cure and perfection in the Lord of Glory, both before and after his incarnation, is the heart and core of the Biblical and Patristic Tradition and the Synodical System.

We divide the remainder of this study into 1) Historical Context, 2) the sickness of religion, 3) Synods as Associations of Neurological Clinics, 4) Synods and Civilizations and 5) Conclusions.

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24. Historical Context

Biblical Faith is one's cooperation/operation with the Holy Spirit Who initiates the cure of the sickness of possessive love caused by the short-circuit in the heart and transforms it into love which does not seek its own. This cure is consummated in glorification (theosis) and constitutes the heart of the Orthodox Catholic Church which replaced paganism as the core of the Hellenic Civilization of the Roman Empire.

Noble Architects, whose historians report history within the context of their plans for the future, claim that the world is being Westernized by means of technology and economics. Orthodox Civilization is listed among those which are supposed to be in a state of arrested development.

Their claim that the Hellenic Civilization of the Roman Empire disappeared in the 8th century[ 87 ] and was replaced in the East by a "Byzantine Civilization and Empire" and in the West by a "European Civilization" is a Franco-Latin, i.e. noble modification of Charlemagne's theory of history. Charlemagne (768-814) fabricated this disappearance of the Roman Empire and its Civilization in order to solve a family problem. His grandfather, Charles Martel (715-741), had finally suppressed Gallo-Roman Revolutions in the battles of Poitiers[ 88 ] and Provence in 732 and 739 which were supported by Arabs and Numidian Romans who, together with the Spanish Romans, had recently overthrown the Goths in Spain (711-719). The Numidian Romans were under the command of Constantinople's governor of Mauritania in Ceuta. Another Gallo-Roman Revolution was suppressed by Charlemagne's father and uncle the year he was born in 742.

Charlemagne had to find a way to break the religious and cultural unity between his own enslaved Romans and the Roman Empire which now extended from parts of Italy to the frontiers of Persia. Led by their great father the Franks decided at their Council of Frankfurt (794) to give the names Graeci to the free Romans and Graecia to free Romania. This became Franco-Latin customary law.

The modern guardians of this law replaced "Greek" with "Byzantine," and "heresy" with "change of Civilization." Following Napoleon's plans for the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and of the ecclesiastical remains of the Roman Empire within it, these same guardians destroyed the legal identity of the citizens of Greece with the Romans of Constantinople by presenting them as having been under the yoke of this so-called "Byzantine Empire." They used this fabrication as the core for Balkanizing the "Roman Milet"[ 89 ] and destroy its Ecumenical Patriarchate of New Rome Constantinople in the process.

Turning to 8th century Western Europe we are indeed confronted by real and radical changes. Europe is dominated in its center by the Empire of Charlemagne. Gothic Spain is overrun by Arabs and Numidian Romans who together had fought as liberators of the Spanish Romans but ended up as their masters. These Numidians were converted to Islam several times according to Ibn Khaldoun.

The birth of Frankish Civilization is described in a letter of St. Boniface to Pope Zacharias (Natione Graecus[ 90 ]) in 741. The Franks had rid the Church in Francia of all Roman bishops by 661 AD and had made themselves its bishops and clerical administrators. They had divided up the Church's property into fiefs which had been doled out as benefices according to rank within the pyramid of military vassalage. These Frankish bishops had no Archbishop and had not met in Synod for eighty years. They had been meeting as army officers with their fellow war-lords. They are, in the words of St. Boniface, "voracious laymen, adulterous clergy and drunkards, who fight in the army fully armed and who with their own hands kill both Christians and pagans."[ 91 ]

Fifty three years later the successors to these illiterate barbarians condemned the East Roman Empire as "heretical" and "Greek" on Icons at their Council of Frankfurt in 794 and then on the Filioque at their Council of Aachen in 809. For 215 years the Roman Popes refused to conform to their Frankish masters on Icons and the Filioque.

These Frankish bishops were neither familiar with the Fathers of the Seven Ecumenical Councils, nor were they aware of nor interested in learning anything about the cure of illumination and glorification which were the presuppositions of these Councils. Between the end of the 8th and the 12th centuries the Franks were familiar only with Augustine who was not a Father of an Ecumenical Council, nor did he understand Biblical illumination and glorification which he confounded with Neo-Platonic mysticism. He therefore did not understand apostolic tradition and succession and deviated sharply from St. Ambrose who had baptized him. What the Franks finally accepted from the Eastern and Western fathers they forced into Augustinian categories and so created the myth of Platonising Eastern fathers which is still dominant.

The Frankish bishops encountered by St. Boniface understood apostolic succession as a magical power which allowed them to make it the property of their race and use it as the prime means of keeping their subjugated populations pacified by fear of their religious and military powers. Augustine's theories about original sin and predestination helped them in this direction.

This schism between Franks and Romans expanded into a schism between Franco-Latin and Roman Christendom with their diametrically opposed understandings of the mission of bishops and their synods within the Church and in society. The Franks literally captured a medical association and transformed it into a quack medical association. The East Franks completed the job when they took over the Papacy definitively between 1012-1046.

While the Norman Franks were in the process of expelling the Roman army from Southern Italy and of helping the Italo-Franks wrest the papacy from the Franconian emperors, their Duke William of Normandy, invaded England with Pope Alexander's II blessing in 1066. He had his Lombard friend the "Blessed Saint" Lanfranc, the pope's teacher, installed as the first non Roman/Saxon Archbishop of Canterbury in 1070 and together they replaced all native bishops with Franco-Latins. All Celtic and Saxon bishops and abbots were dismissed en masse[ 92 ] and sentenced to prison to die premature deaths by torture and starvation.[ 93 ] The new noblemen bishops from the Frankish Empire were in turn killed by the people whenever opportunity presented itself.[ 94 ] Indeed the Saxons and Celts celebrated the death of Lanfranc in 1089 by launching a third and most severe revolt against the foreign intruders.[ 95 ] These revolts continued until the 13th century.

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25. Robin Hood — Orthodox Martyr?

The most famous of the Saxon revolutionary leaders against the Normans was Robin Hood. He had become ill and was taken by Little John to a nunnery where someone recognized him. The Norman nun who was curing him by bloodletting converted this cure into an assassination by letting him bleed to death. Little John and his men escaped to Ireland to continue their war against the Normans.[ 96 ]

So many Saxons made their way to Constantinople New Rome after the Norman conquest to join the Roman Emperor's Varangian army that they displaced the Scandinavians as the majority.[ 97 ] One of the great generals of this Varangian army had been King Harald III Hadrada of Norway (1015-1066). This means that Norway was still Orthodox. He had become the head of the Varangian army under Emperor[ 98 ] Zoe (1042-1056). General Harald led his Varangians "to frequent victory in Italy, Sicily and North Africa, also penetrating to Jerusalem. In Italy and Sicily he was fighting Franks and Normans at the time they were getting ready to rid themselves of the facade of Tusculan Roman Popes (1014-1056) in favor of real Franco-Latin Popes. It is very probable that his attention had been turned for some time to the beginnings of the penetration of the Carolingian heresy into Scandinavia which may explain his frequent attempts to subjugate Denmark. In 1064 he gave up this attempt and made peace with Denmark. His invasion of England in 1066 at Eburacum was evidently an attempt to defeat the Pro-Franco-Norman party which was trying to get the upper hand among the Saxons. Evidently it was not only at the instigation of the Pro-Roman Orthodox Saxon Earl of Tostig that he undertook the invasion of England since he also had Orthodox Scots, Irish and Ebor (Yorkshire in Norman) allies who supported his invasion of England.

There can be no doubt that the Orthodox Christians of England knew very well that their Roman Papacy had been struggling against a Frankish takeover in 983-984, in 996-999, in 999-1003 and finally in 1009-1046 when turncoat Tusculanum Romans were forced upon the Papacy by the German Emperors until it became finally Franco-Latin by 1046. It is within this context that the Norman invasion of England took place with the blessings of the Lombard Pope Alexander II (1061-1073).

In any case the Saxon King Harold of West Essex met the Norwegian army at Eburacum (the Norman York) and in the ensuing battle the King of Norway was killed. However, while celebrating his victory Saxon King Harold learned that an Norman army had just landed. Without waiting for his observers to get a good look at this Norman foe, King Harold rushed with his army, fresh from his victory over the Norwegians, to meet the Normans only to be confronted with the new type of heavily armored horse and men. A phenomenon which they had yet not heard of nor could imagine.

William landed on the shores of Britain carrying the papal banner at the head of what was essentially the army of the first Crusade. Francophile Harold was quite stunned when he learned that the Lombard Pope Alexander II had given his papal blessing to William's invasion. He took very little and very poor defensive action in the field at Hastings that day and he and his men were completely crushed.[ 99 ]

Surely Norwegian Harald was never aware that he was fighting for a so-called "Greek" or "Byzantine" emperor. He had been living and working for the Roman Empire and its Roman Emperor Zoe knowing that she and her people were Romans. With the battle of Hastings it was the turn of the Saxon, Welsh, Irish and Scot Romans to become the slaves of the Franco-Latin noblemen who were now plundering their land. All these real "Roman Catholic" Christians of England had still been praying in their Churches for the Imperium Romanum whose Roman Emperor and capital were in Constantinople-New Rome which was also the headquarters of the Varangian Army in which their boys were serving.

The name "Greek" for the Eastern part of the Roman empire was inaugurated by Charlemagne in 794, as already noted. But the term "Byzantine" was established by Great Britain, France and Russia as part of their plans to break up and divide up the Ottoman Empire among them. The first plan was evidently drawn up during the meeting between Emperors Napoleon I and Alexander I floating on a raft in the river at Tilsit, Germany in 1806. The core of Napoleon's plan was the liberation of the ancient Hellenes, now called Romans, from both their Roman conquerors and from their Turkish conquerors with one cannon shot. In other words the Neo-Hellenes will end up being slaves from the time they were conquered by the Romans and liberated by the Turks. The very same plan would be multiplied to convert all Balkan peoples who called themselves Romans.

Part of this same plan was to convince Orthodox peasants that the ancient Romans did not speak Greek, like the Romans of Patriarchate of Constantinople, but Latin. Therefore the Church of New Rome cannot be Roman. So it is in reality a Greek Church and nation just like Great Father Charlemagne always said.

In this way the agents of Russia, Britain and France swarmed over the European part of the Ottoman Empire, called the "Land of the Romans" (the Balkans), telling all who for centuries have been calling themselves Romans and getting their education in Greek, that their ethnic enemies are those from the Phanar who also call themselves Romans, but are in reality a bunch of Greeks.

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26. Roman Christians and Roman Greeks

Many or most of the people now occupying the area of ancient Greece were Roman citizens since before the time of Christ. With the arrival of Christianity Roman citizens began to be divided into Roman Christians and Roman Greeks. The term "Greek" here simply meant pagan. Charlemagne's so-called "Greek Empire" continued to call itself the Roman Empire right down to 1453 when New Rome fell to the Ottoman Turks in spite of the so-called "Greek Empire" of the illiterate Franco-Latin barbarians. So the inhabitants of Greece, as well as most Orthodox Christians of the Balkans, still were calling themselves Romans.

What is especially interesting is the fact that the Ottoman Empire continued to call the whole European part of itself Romania/Roumeli, i.e. the land of the Romans. Between 1821-36 the British, French and Russian Empires caused a small Southern tip of this Ottoman Romania to revolt and become the State of Hellas. The most basic condition for helping these Romans to revolt against the Turks was that they must also legally revolt against the Romans, i.e. against themselves and become only ancient Greeks still enslaved to Romans. In this way these Neo-Hellenes legally liberated themselves not only from the Turks but also from their Roman selves. The same was caused to happen to the rest of the Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire during the process of their Balkanization. British, French and Russian propaganda caused Charlemagne's imaginary "Greek Empire" to replace the "Roman Empire" in each linguistic identity which was obliged to accept that it had been enslaved to a "Greek Empire." This worked fine in the case of Serbs, Bulgarians and Romanians, but not in the case of the "Neo-Hellenes." How could one explain how "Hellenes" could be enslaved to "Greeks" when these names historically mean the same thing since they are Latin and Greek terms for the same Greek speaking people. So the problem was solved by inventing a "Byzantine Empire" and a "Byzantine people" which never existed and to which "Neo-Hellenes" had been enslaved "until liberated by the Turks."

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27. The West Romans in bondage to the Franco-Latins.
What happened to Apostolic Succession?

(a) Killer Bishops

We have already seen the tradition of Killer Bishops which had made its appearance with the rise of the Carolingian Franks as described in the letter of St. Boniface to Pope Zacharias written in A.D. 741. Evidently this tradition seems to have remained dormant, as far as this writer knows, until it was awakened again in the aftermath of the results which the Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals produced.

At about 850 AD the so-called Pseudo-Isidorean Decretals appeared. These forged documents very quickly became popular, not only among the Romans, but also among the Franks. These Decretals gave the Roman Pope the power to intervene at any point of the Feudal pyramidal system to place Frankish society under the rule of law and order. They were used by the Franks even to sabotage each other. We have described the situation elsewhere.[ 100 ] This Roman attempt to put Frankish society under the rule of law and order by giving the Roman Pope the power of accepting appeals from all levels of Frankish society and even to intervene by bringing cases before his court for judgement backfired. It created a reaction from Frankish leaders which obliged them to take over the Papacy in order to save their feudal social structures. Archbishop Hincmar of Rheims (845-882) warned Pope Hadrian II (867-872) not to try "to make slaves of us Franks," since the pope's "predecessors laid no such yoke on our predecessors, and we could not bear it...so we must fight to the death for our freedom and birthright."[ 101 ]

The Decretals were an attack on the very heart of the Frankish feudal system, since they uprooted its most important administrative officials, i.e., the bishops responsible for the "piety" of the Roman population, and put them under the direct control, of all things, of a Roman head of State, the Pope of Rome. The Frankish counterattack was decisive and reached its climax between 1009 and 1046 with the complete takeover of the Papacy by the Franco-Latins.

It is no accident that the rise of the power of the castellani coincided with the fall of the Roman Papacy. The castellani were the heads of fighting men who lived in castles with their families. Usually in the tradition of walled towns and cities the military families lived in homes within the city walls while the soldiers were quartered on the wall while on duty. In sharp contrast the castellani who appear in the 10th century lived in their castles with their families. The obvious reason for this was the fact that the castellani were now supervising an immense Roman population of slaves. So their families could not live among these Roman slaves. At the time of the French Revolution in 1789 there were 40,000 castles guarding 85% of the population of France organized into slave camps isolated from each other. After so many centuries of isolation each group's language, called patois, developed differently so that they could no longer understand each other. There are 32 patois recorded. At this time 13% of France's population were the bourgeois living within walled towns since about the 12th century. The nobility constituted only 2% of the population and lived mostly in castles. These Francois were almost all descendants of the Frankish conquerors of the Gallo-Romans.

Francis I, King of France (1494-1547), caused Latin to be replaced by the French language in government administration. Rex Francorum became Roy des Francois and Francos/Franci became Francois. The Legislative Assembly of 1789 dropped these titles together with Roy de France. All citizens whatever their origin became Francais and King became Roi des Francais. All this happened over the vigorous protest of Louis XVI who became "Citizen King Mr. Capet." In French dictionaries Francois is now simply a name of a boy or girl. Also the name Francos/Franci in Frankish sources are translated interchangeably one time Franc then next time Francais. This is all part of an effort to change the real history of France. This is evidently part of a frantic effort to create the impression that all Frenchman were always equal.

In any case these Franco-Latin reforms by military might became crusades in both East and West. They ultimately provoked the Protestant Reformation and met with little success among the East Romans and some among the Slavs.

This tradition of killer bishops, clergy and monks was given its near final theological foundation by "Saint" Bernard of Clairvaux in his sermons "De Laude novae militiae ad milites Templi"[ 102 ] in which he argues that the religious Knight Templer "who kills for religion commits no evil but rather does good, for his people and himself. If he dies in battle, he gains heaven; if he kills his opponents, he avenges Christ. Either way, God is pleased."[ 103 ] Its final form was given by the Episcopal courts and the Inquisition wherein the bishops passed death sentences executed by their soldiers. The fear of the bishops' confessor priests and the machines of torture of the Episcopal castle indeed provoked piety among the serfs and villains. But most reacted violently against the king's clergy and nobility who did not have the sense to emigrate in time during the French revolution.

(b) What happened to Apostolic Succession?

In no way can apostolic succession mean that one receives this gift by participating in the murder of one's Orthodox predecessors. The usual Biblical way to receive apostolic succession is to arrive at the cure of glorification after passing through purification and being on the way to or having tasted the state of glorification. That the charisma of the presbyterate presupposed the state of prophecy, i.e. glorification, is stated clearly by St. Paul: "...do not neglect the charisma within you which was given to you by means of prophecy with the laying on of hands of the presbyterate" (I Tim. 4:14).

One can see current examples of how Orthodox scholars deal with Anglican apostolic succession. They are generally in the dark about Western Medieval history and even more so about this writer's publications about said killer bishops since 1992. In a book first published in 1982 with several reprints since because it is a university text book, the Orthodox scholar in question takes a positive position on the question of whether or not Archbishop of Canterbury Parker has Apostolic Succession which the Vatican had been denying and which has been resulting in its rejection of Anglican Orders.[ 104 ] The position of this professor in question has been quite correct had Anglican ordinations derived from the Synod of Augustine, the first Archbishop of Canterbury, appointed by Pope Gregory the Great, and if the Anglicans accept ordination as one of the traditional seven sacraments. Then they would have apostolic succession. If not, then no!

But this otherwise very correct position would presuppose that the Norman bishops of 1070 and the Vatican itself would have apostolic succession in spite of the fact that they sentenced all Saxon, Welsh, Irish and Scottish Orthodox bishops of England in 1070 to life in prison for schism and heresy, where they died by torture and starvation. Hardly the usual way that one receives apostolic succession.

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28. What is Western Civilization?

Is the Franco-Latin tradition of the enslavement of the West and East Romans part of what is now being called Western Civilization? If one is not a member of Franco-Latin royalty and nobility then one is descended from Roman ancestors. This means that the United States of Europe is essentially and overwhelmingly a Roman reality.

Orthodox Civilization may indeed become arrested, not, however, because of Westernization, but because of strong doses of Franco-Latinisation introduced by Peter the Great (1682-1725) whose religious policies became the law of the Neo-Hellenic Nation in 1827.

Western Europe had been in a long process of de-Franco-Latinisation by means of powerful elements of Re-Greco-Romanization, but not in its apostolic form. Its embryo appeared in the 12th century with the rise of the middle class and went into labor during the Renaissance and the Protestant Reformation. It was born in the Enlightenment and matured during the American and French Revolutions. American and French Democracies, based on human rights and the equality of all citizens, began the progressive destruction of the class distinctions which had been imposed by the Franks and their allies who had brought Latin Christendom into existence on the ruins of those parts of Roman Christendom they conquered, including the Papacy. Franco-Latin metaphysics, cosmology and psychology were made past history by parallel developments in modern science.

But this has neither all happened everywhere, nor all at the same time. Royalties, nobilities, the Papacy, and those Reformation Churches which still serve as props for the remnants of Teutonic royalty and nobility, badly need the identification of Franco-Latin and Western Civilizations for their own survival.

It is exactly this identity which parts of the Reformation and the American and French Revolutions rejected.

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29. The Sickness of Religion

The patriarchs and prophets of the Old Testaments, the apostles and prophets of the New Testaments and their successors know well this sickness of religion and the Doctor Who cures it, that is the Lord (Yahweh) of Glory. He is the Doctor of our souls and bodies. He cured this sickness in His friends and faithful before His incarnation and continues to cure it as the God-man.

The sickness in question consists of a short-circuit between the spirit of man in the heart (the patristic noetic faculty) and the brain. In its natural state this noetic faculty spins in a circle within the heart praying. In its sick state it does not spin in a circle, but still anchored in the heart it unfolds itself and it sticks itself to the brain causing a short-circuit between the brain and the heart. In this way the thoughts in the brain, which are all from the environment, become thoughts of the noetic faculty anchored always in the heart. It is in this way that the patient becomes a slave to his environment. One of the results of this is that he confuses certain thoughts from his environment with his god or gods.

By the term religion we mean each identification of the uncreated with the created and indeed each identification of representations of the uncreated with thoughts and words of human thought, which is the basis of idol worship. These thoughts and words may simply be thoughts and words or else also representations with statues and icons taken from a supposedly inspired text. In other words the identification of even Biblical thoughts and words about God with the uncreated also belongs to the world of idolatry and is the basis of all heresies to date. Biblical thoughts and words when properly used lead to glorification but are not themselves glorification.

In the curative tradition of the Old and New Testament proper thoughts and words are used as means during the period of purification and illumination of the heart and which are abolished during the time of one's glorification when the indescribable, incomprehensible and uncreated glory of God which saturates all things is revealed to have as its natural source the body of Christ. Upon the termination of glorification the thoughts and words of noetic prayer in the heart return. He who has thus suffered glorification has now seen for himself that there is no similarity whatsoever between the uncreated and the created and that "It is impossible to express God and even more impossible to conceive Him."

The foundation stone of the fallacies of the Vaticanists and the Protestants is the fact that they followed Augustine who construed the glory of God revealed in both the Old and New Testament to be indeed a creature, being indeed brought into existence and passed out of existence with each revelation. Not only this, and what is worse, he construed the Angel of Great Counsel and His glory, Who appeared to the prophets and to Moses in the burning bush, as creatures, which God brings into existence from non-being to be seen and heard and returned back into non-existence after their mission is accomplished. He expounds these imbecilities is his De Trinitate.[ 105 ]

But in order to have correct guidance in the cure of one's noetic faculty one must have as guide the experience of those who know by their own glorification (OT patriarchs and prophets and NT apostles and prophets and fathers) three basic axioms: 1) Between the uncreated God and his uncreated glory and His creation there is no similarity whatsoever. 2) "It is impossible to express God and even more impossible to conceive God" (St. Gregory the Theologian). 3) Everything in the Holy Trinity is either common to the Three Persons (the common essence and energies) or else belongs to only One Person alone, called the "incommunicable" characteristics. It is only by using these three axioms that one may avoid the plight of acquiring the devil as a guide by means of so-called theologians who speculate about God and things divine.

In its natural state the noetic faculty spins in the heart praying regulated by its communion with the glory of God so that the passions (hunger, thirst, sleep, bearing children, the instinct to self-preservation (fear of death) are blameless. These same passions, detached from a spinning noetic faculty in the heart and attached to the brain, cause the brain to create imaginary magical religions for controlling nature and destiny or to achieve the salvation of the soul from matter in a state of happiness or else of the happiness of the soul and the body.

We are obliged to have a clear picture of the context within which the Church and the State viewed the contribution of the glorified to the cure of the sickness of religion which warps the human personality by means of its search for happiness both in this life and after the death of the body. It is within this context that the Roman Empire legally incorporated the Orthodox Church into its administrative structure. Neither the State nor the Church saw the mission of the Church as the simple forgiveness of sins of the faithful for their entrance into heaven in the next life. This would be equivalent to a doctor's forgiveness of his patients for being sick for their cure in the next life. Both the Church and the State knew well that the forgiveness of sins was only the beginning of the cure of the happiness seeking sickness of humanity. This cure begins by the purification of the heart, it arrives at the restoration of the heart to its natural state of illumination and the whole person begins to be perfected beyond one's natural capacities by the glorification of body and soul by God's uncreated glory (shekina). The result of this cure and perfection was not only the proper preparation for life after the death of one's body, but also the transformation of society here and now from a collection of selfish and self-centered individuals to a society of persons with selfless love "which does not seek its own."

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30. Modification of the usual understanding of human nature

Those not engaged in the cure of the short-circuit between the brain and the heart are not aware that according to the OT the spirit of man has the ability to pray. So the Fathers of the Church took three Greek words related to intellectual functions, i.e. nous, logos and dianoia, and used nous to designate the faculty which prays in the heart when the short circuit is repaired, and kept logos and dianoia for activities of the brain or intellect. By identifying the Old and New Testament "spirit of man" with the Greek term "nous-intellect" the Fathers gave this human spirit praying in the heart, when restored to normal, a reality and importance equivalent and parallel to the brain in the development of the human personality.

It is only within this context that we may understand the worship and theological terminology of the Orthodox tradition. It is thus that one may appreciate the distinction between "logical worship" (logike latria Rom. 12:1) conducted by the "royal priesthood" (the illumined and the glorified) in which the private individuals participate with their "amen", and worship by tongues with the human spirit (1 Cor. 14:1ff.) called noetic worship conducted in the heart wherein infants of illumination who see in a mirror dimly pass on to glorification wherein they see the "perfect face to face" and come back as men (1 Cor. 13:10-12), i.e. prophets. Paul writes that "now (in illumination) I know in part, then I will be known as I was known" (1 Cor. 13:12). By this phrase "as I was known" Paul is referring to his glorification(s) by which he realized that he was persecuting Yahweh Himself. To be glorified is to be known by the Lord (Yahweh) of Glory (1 Cor. 2:8) both before and in His incarnation.

It is to be noticed that during unceasing prayer in the heart the brain continues to function normally within one's environment. The same happens also during one's inward glorification by Christ. This can be of momentary, short, or long duration. Having been a child of illumination one returns from glorification a man (1 Cor. 13:11), i.e. a prophet or an apostle as in the case of Paul. During illumination one sees Christ in a mirror dimly, during glorification one sees "face to face (1 Cor. 13:12)." "Now" during illumination writes Paul "I know in part, then (when I will be glorified again) I will be known as I was known (1 Cor. 13:12)." In glorification one does not know, but is known by Christ the Lord (Yahweh) of Glory. To see or know the Lord of Glory in glorification is to see or know above one' s power of seeing or knowing. Therefore, one does not see or know, but is seen or known by the Lord of Glory. This is why the Fathers call the experience of glorification the becoming God by grace.

Within the above context the victims of Neo-Platonic mysticism of Augustine, i.e. the Carolingian Franks, their theological descendants and allies and certain so-called "Orthodox", seek ecstasies of their intellect from the confines of matter and their bodies in order to have contact or union with immaterial reality or archetypes. Summarizing the Patristic tradition on such endeavors St. Gregory Palamas calls this an "invention of demons."

It was this heresy of Barlaam the Calabrian which the Ninth Ecumenical Council (1341) condemned together with his so-called divine ideas. Unfortunately the Fathers of this Council never dreamed that this was the teaching and practice of Augustine which began capturing what became the Franco-Latin world in the latter part of the 8th century.

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31. The Council Of Orange 529 Condemned Augustine's Interpretation of Romans 5:12

The Merovingian Franks abided by the Orthodoxy of their Roman Church which supported St. John Cassian against Augustine on grace and original sin. That the Council of Orange (529) was supposed to be a compromise between Cassian and Augustine is simply a figment of the Franco-Latin and Protestant imagination.[ 106 ] Canon 2 of this Council completely contradicts Augustine's interpretation of Rom. 5:12. Augustine claims that all humans have sinned in Adam. The Council, however, interprets Rom. 5:12 as saying that, "By one man sin entered the world , and by sin death, and thus to all men [death] passed, in which all have sinned." In other words all sin because of the spiritual death which each one suffers by not being in communion with the glory of God. "All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)."[ 107 ] One can see the correct approach to the Council of Orange from Gregory of Tours who mentioned that the monasticism within Merovingian Gaul is that of St. Basil the Great and St. John Cassian. Not one word about Augustine either in his history or in his lives (miracles) of saints.

Up to the 12th century the Carolingian Franks had a thorough knowledge of only the works of Augustine. In the 9th century they acquired the works of St. Dionysius the Areopagite which were translated by John Scotus Eriugena. This translator wrote books of his own which should be investigated by the Orthodox. In any case the Franks enslaved Dionysius to Augustine's Neo-Platonic mysticism. In the 12th century the Franks acquired the "The Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith" of St. John of Damascus and enslaved it to Augustine. In the mean time the Franks had been collecting sentences of the Fathers quoted in various collections of canons and scholia on the Bible. Under the leadership of Peter Lombard the Franks began the peculiar tradition of writing "patristic" theology quoting these sentences out of context. They assumed that all these sentences from the Fathers came from the same contextual tradition as that of Augustine. These Franks and their theological descendants, both the Franco-Latins, who captured the papacy between 1012-1246 and hold it since, and the Protestants still do not know that Augustine never became aware of even the context of the theology of St. Ambrose of Milan who had baptized him.

St. Gregory Palamas (1296-14 ) summarizes the patristic tradition against mysticism as follows: "The practice of making the nous[ 108 ] abandon, not the physical thoughts,[ 109 ] but the body itself in order to come upon rational spectacles, is the strongest of the Greek delusions and the root and source of every erroneous opinion, the invention of demons and the punishment which gives birth to despair and is the offspring of madness."[ 110 ]

An inseparable part of the cure in question is that the glorified have become specialists on the thoughts of Satan since "we are not ignorant of his thoughts."[ 111 ] The invincible weapon against the devil is the repair of the short-circuit between the noetic faculty in the heart and the brain. This cure consists of confining all thoughts, good and bad, to the brain which is brought about only when the noetic faculty in the heart returns to its natural circular motion by means of unceasing prayer. Naive are those who think it is possible to keep only good thoughts in the brain by getting rid of bad thoughts. Not only is this impossible but one is obliged to know exactly how the devil manipulates human thoughts from the environment in order to defeat him at his own game.

Success in this contest against the devil is guaranteed by means of the circular motion of the noetic faculty in the heart. St. Gregory Palamas summarizes the patristic tradition as follows: "For indeed it did not escape their attention that the act of vision sees other things visible, but it does not see itself. So it is with the noetic faculty. It acts on the one hand upon other things, surveying what it needs, which the Great Dionysius calls motion in a straight line. When it returns to itself and acts upon itself the noetic faculty sees itself. This again the same one (Dionysius) calls circular motion. This again is the best and special motion of the noetic faculty by which it transcends itself and finds itself with God. "For the noetic faculty," he says, "not scattered outside of itself", you see that it is outside? since outside, it needs to return, so therefore he continues saying "it returns to itself, therefore by means of itself it finds itself with God" i.e. it ascends by means of the way without error. For also it is impossible for such a motion of the noetic faculty to fall into error."[ 112 ] During this state of either illumination or glorification the brain is functioning normally in communion with the environment and adding no kind of metaphysics or ontology to this experience of "seeing (Christ) in a mirror dimly" or "or face to face" (1 Cor. 13:12). The only ecstasy involved in one's first glorification is a loss of orientation until one gets used to seeing everything saturated by Christ's uncreated glory of the Father which has no similarity whatsoever to anything created.

The uncreated glory of God is everywhere present saturating creation and therefore in each person and his heart. This uncreated glory's ruling, creative, providential and even purifying energy is already at work in each individual and in one's heart. However, not all respond in the same way to the uncreated purifying energy of God because of the short-circuit in the heart and one's environment. That one searches like Augustine for God outside of oneself in some kind of mystical experience by sending a supposedly immaterial soul into a world of immaterial archetypes is of course nonsense and according to the Fathers demonic.

Dionysius the Areopagite was never understood by Orthodox Fathers as a mystic. He did not write a book on Mystical Theology, but on Secret Theology, so called because there is no similarity between the created and the uncreated and therefore it is "impossible to express God and even more impossible to conceive God." In other words Dionysius has nothing to do with Neo-Platonism and nothing to do with the Franco-Latins and pseudo-Orthodox who imagine that they are his disciples.

The reason why there is no speculative theology in the Orthodox Church is the fact that the sickness of religion is neurobiological and its cure is a tested fact. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God."

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FOOTNOTES

[ 87 ] The exact date has been shifting from time to time.

[ 88 ] This is what the Franks themselves report in their own source as follows: "...when Duke Eudo saw that he was beaten and an object of scorn, he summoned to his assistance against Prince Charles and his Franks the unbelieving Saracen people. So they rose up... and crossed the Garonne... From thence they advanced on Poitiers..." Fredegarii, Chronica Continuationes 13, trans. J.M. Wallace Hadril (London ,1960), page 90. That Eudo was a Roman and not a Frank is clear from the fact this same Frankish source calls his son Chunoald "a beaten Roman." Ibid., chapter 25.

[ 89 ] Islamic Law provided for the self rule of each of the Jewish and Christian societies called a Milet.

[ 90 ] I.e. a native of the Roman province Magna Graecia in Southern Italy.

[ 91 ] Migne P L, 89, 744; Mansi 12, 313-314.

[ 92 ] For documented sources of the details of murder of the Celtic and Saxon bishops and abbots and their replacement by nobles from the Frankish realms of Francia, i.e. Gallia, Germany and Italia see August Thierry ®Histoire de la conquˆte de l' Angleterre par les Normandes¯ Paris 1843, vol 2 p 147 (1071-1072), 215-219 (1075-1076), 284, 313-314, 318, (1087-1094); vol. 3. p. 35, (1110-1138), 214-215 (1203).

[ 93 ] Ibid., vol. 2, pp.55, 66 (1068), 111, 145, 184 (1070-1072), 215 (1075-1076), 240-242 (1082), 313-316 (1088-1089); vol. 3, pp. 35, 44, 47 (1110-1140).

[ 94 ] Ibid., vol. 2, pp. 232, 236 (1080); vol. 3, pp. 27, 36-37, 39 (1110-1138), 55 (1141-1142); vol. 4, p. 349 (1387).

[ 95 ] Ibid., vol. 2, p. 315.

[ 96 ] 1189-1194. Accuse des ballades qui nous ont été conservées ne raconte la mort de Robin Hood; la tradition vulgaire est qu'il périt dans un convent de femmes; où un jour, se sentant malade, il était allé demander des secours. On devait lui tirer du sang, et la nonne qui savait faire cette opération, ayant reconnu Robin Hood, la pratiqua sur lui de manière à le tuer. (Percy's Reliquides of Ancient English Poetry, vol. I, p.198, 6e cdd.)
Ce récit, qu'on ne peut ni affirmer ni contester, est assez conforme aux moeurs du XIIe siècle; beaucoup de femmes dans les riches monastères, s'occupaient alors à étudier la médicine, et à composer des remèdes qu'elles offraient gratuitement aux pauvres. De plus, en Angleterre, depuis la conquête, les supérieures des abbayes et la plus grande partie des religieuses étaient d'extraction normande, ainsi que le prouvent leurs statuts, rédigés en vieux français (Regula monialium Beatae Mariae de Sopwell, in auctuario, additamentor, ad Matth. Paris, t I,p. 261): cette circonstance explique peut-être comment le chef des bandits saxons, que les ordonnances royals avait mis hors la loi, trouva des ennemis dans le couvent où il était allé chercher assistance. Après sa mort, la troupe dont il était le chef et l'âme se dispersa; et Petit-Jean, son fidèle compagnon, désespérant de se maintenir en Angleterre, et poussé par l'envie de continuer la guerre contre les Normands, se rendit en Irlande, où il prit part aux révoltes des indigènes Ainsi fut dissoute la dernière troupe de brigands anglais qui ait eu un objet et un caractère politique, et qui mèrite par là une mention dans l'histoire.

[ 97 ] See G. Ostrogorsky, "History of the Byzantine State," New Brunswick, New Jersey, 1957, p. 293.

[ 98 ] Roman women rulers bore the title "Emperor" never Empress.

[ 99 ] David Howarth, "1066 The Year Of Conquest," 1978 Viking Press.

[ 100 ] John S. Romanides, "Franks, Romans, Feudalism and Doctrine, an interplay between Theology and Society," Holy Cross Orthodox Press, 1981, pp. 20-25.

[ 101 ] "...nos Francos non jubeat servire, quia istud jugam sui antecessores nostris antecessoribus non imposuerunt, et nos illud portare non possumus, qui scriptum esse in sanctis libris audimus, ut pro libertate et haereditate nostra usque ad mortatem certare debeamus." Migne, PL 126:181.

[ 102 ] Migne, P.L. 182, 921-940. Preached between 1128 and May 1136.

[ 103 ] As summarized in "The History of Feudalism," edited by David Herlihy, 1970, pp. 282-283.

[ 104 ] Constantine Scouteris, "The 39 Articles of the Anglican Church under the light of Orthodox Symbolic Theology (in Greek)," Athens, 1982. Reprinted without change since then as a university textbook. See pp. 419-423.

[ 105 ] Books B and C.

[ 106 ] Canon 2 quotes Rom. 5:12 as follows: "Per unum hominem peccatum intravit in mundum [mundo], et per peccatum mors, et ita in omnes homines [mors] pertransiit, in quo omnes peccaverunt." It is clear that it is not Adam's sin which is passed on, but death in which all sin. In the original Greek text of Paul it is "because of which [death] all have sinned." In other words the Council rejected Augustine's unique position that all sinned in and with Adam and therefore all inherit his guilt. See my work "Original Sin According to St. Paul," in St. Vladimir's Seminary Quarterly, NY, 1955, vol. IV, nos. 1-2 (according to the older numbering). "The Ancestral Sin" (in Greek) Athens 1957, second edition published by Domos 1987, chapter 6.

[ 107 ] Compare the Council's original Latin text with the following English translation of this Council's Canon 2 found on the Web at: http://www.fordham.edu\halsall\basis\orange.txt which reads, "Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned." (Rom. 5:12)

[ 108 ] The noetic faculty in the heart.

[ 109 ] Which are all from one's environment.

[ 110 ] On Behalf of the Hesychasts, I,B,11.

[ 111 ] II Cor. 2:11.

[ 112 ] On Behalf of the Hesychasts, I,B,5.

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