Western Bishops Break Communion over Deposition of St. John Chrysostom

 

So upset were the Orthodox Bishops of the West at the pseudo-deposition of St. John Chrysostom at the "Synod of the Oak", and his death in such a state in exile, that they broke communion with the Bishops of the East.  St. Theodoret records the following:

"I think it needless to prolong my narrative by relating how many Bishops were expelled from the Church on Chrysostom's account, and sent to live in the ends of the Earth, or how many ascetic philosophers were involved in the same calamities, and all the more because I think it needful to curtail these hideous details, and to throw a veil over the ill deeds of men of the same Faith as our own.  Punishment however did fall on most of the guilty, and their sufferings were a means of good to the rest.  This great wrong was regarded with special detestation by the Bishops of Europe, who separated themselves from Communion with the guilty parties.  In this action they were joined by all the Bishops of Illyria.  In the East most of the cities shrank from participation in the wrong, but did not make a rent in the Body of the Church.

"On the death of the great teacher of the world [St. John Chrysostom], the Bishops of the West refused to embrace the Communion of the Bishops of Egypt, of the East, of the Bosphorus, and in Thrace, until the name of that holy man had been inserted among those of deceased Bishops.  Arsacius his immediate successor they declined to acknowledge, but Atticus the successor of Arsacius, after he had frequently solicited the boon of peace, was after a time received when he had inserted the name in the role."

[Book V, Ch. 34, Ecclesiastical History of St. Theodoret of Cyrrhus]

It was only around 415 that Patriarch Alexander of Antioch first restored St. Chrysostom's name to the Diptychs to commemorate the reposed Patriarchs of Constantinople; Patriarch Atticus of Constantinople then did the same; Patriarch St. Cyril of Alexandria followed suit in 417.  

Additional material that causes schisms among the Churches, the separation of 40 Bishops who took up Communion with the Orthodox West in the name of St. Chrysostom (with these Canonical Bishops being driven from their Sees, and replaced by Uncanonical Interlopers by Uncanonical "Officialdom" in the East) can be learned by reading Palladius "Dialogue on the Life of St. John Chrysosomt".

Cadalus of Parma's Support for Slavonic Liturgical Usage

 

Anti-Hildebrandian counter-Pope Honorius II [i.e. Cadalus of Parma] (+1072) supported the usage of Slavonic in liturgical services:

 "Incidentally, the particular ecclesiastical political climate in the eleventh century allowed the Slavonic rite to flourish in the Kvarner region. In the 1060s, the schism between the 'legitimate' [i.e. Hildebrandian--ed] 'reform'-minded Pope Alexander II and the 'Anti'-Pope Honorius II, who found support in Northern Italy, brought unexpected benefits to the Glagolites. Seeking the support of the Dalmatian Dioceses, Honorius granted the Kvarner islands Krk, Osor, and Rab the right to use Slavonic. The dioceses of lower southern Dalmatia (Zada, Split, and Trogir) remained loyal to Alexander and therefore did not enjoy this privilege. (Klaie 1965)" [page 46]

 It would interesting to further study the issue of the opposition to the Hildebrandian Reforms and their position on local customs. As the Anti-Hildebrandians [Old Western] party opposed the basics of the so-called "Reform" [as exemplified in the crazed "Dictatus Papae"], they more represented, at least in part, an anti-centralizing tendency, and a less internationalist understanding of ecclesiology.

St. Paul's Outside the Wall's in the 16th Century

  The 19th century architect and archaeologist H. W. Brewer's sketch showing many features of the 4th century Theodosian Basilica of St. Paul's Outside the Walls as it existed even up until the 16th century. Like at Old St. Peter's the confessio, sanctuary, and Altar was surrounded by not just low balustrades, but by magnificent columns with a transenna, with various sacred images [I believe it may have also had an inner 'gate'-screen of sorts, as was found in Old St. Peter's].

Sometime after in the later 16th century the old 4th century columns were taken down, as well as the transenna, and other features, to conform to the new RC notions of 'opening up' the sanctuary. As soon as the church had its open freedom to build as it desired, it was always directed in this direction; and it was only with the greatest difficult and much resistance that these ideas of distinction were broken down in the minds of peoples. When one hears the word 'chancel' today, it has come to be largely divorced from it's originally meaning of either a lattice work screen, or something similar.

[Sketch by the architect and archaeology H W Brewer; when the sketch says 'Time of St. Ignatius', they are referring to the RC saint Ignatius of Loyola, which would place this as depicting the basilica in the 16th century.]

Pope Sylvester II Against Papal Error

 "I boldly affirm that if the Bishop of Rome shall have offended against his brother, and after often admonition shall have refused to hear the Church, that Roman Pontiff, by the command of God, is to be regarded as an heathen man and a publican."---Pope Sylvester II ( 946 – 12 May 1003)

Old Papal Profession Required Condemnation of Pope Honorius

Patrologia Latina, Volume 105, fol. 52, Liber Diurnus, Excerpt from the Profession of Faith required upon the Consecration of a new Bishop of Old Rome, used from the late 7th century until sometime in the 11th century:

"Auctores vero novi haeretici dogmatis Sergium, Pyrrhum, Paulum, et Petrum Constantinopolitanae, una cum Honorio, qui pravis eorum assertionibus, fomentum impendit."

"Also the authors of the new heretical dogmas: Sergius, Pyrrhus, Paul, and Peter of Constantinople, together with Honorius, who paid incentive to their depraved assertions."
https://books.google.com/books?id=sH_YAAAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

Additionally, Pope St. Leo II (+683), in a letter to the Emperor states:

"Anathematizamus--nec non et Honorium, qui hanc apostolicam ecclesiam non apostolicae traditionis doctrina lustravit, sed profana proditione immaculatam subvertere conatus est."

"We anathematize also even Honorius, who did not purify this Apostolic Church with the Doctrine of the Apostolic Tradition, but by wicked betrayal sought to subvert the Immaculate [Faith]." (Letter to Emperor Constantine IV, Patrologia Latina Volume 96, fol. 408)
https://books.google.com/books?id=Ij18R__FCysC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false