The Synod of Jerusalem and the Confession of Dositheus

In March 1672 bishops and clergy came together for the dedication of the rebuilt church of the Nativity at Bethlehem (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts preamble, pp. 6–7) (Confession of Dositheus subscription, p. 174). Dositheus II, patriarch of Jerusalem, used the meeting to answer Western writers who claimed that the Eastern church thought as the Calvinists did (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts preamble, pp. 6–7).

Those writers, the synod says, brought forward a confession in eighteen chapters and four questions as the work of Cyril Lucaris, who had been patriarch of Constantinople forty years before (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts preamble, pp. 16–17). That confession teaches that the witness of Scripture is of higher authority than that of the church (Confession of Cyril Lucaris ch. 2), that God chose the elect “without having in any wise regard to their works” (Confession of Cyril Lucaris ch. 3), and that a man is justified by faith, not by works (Confession of Cyril Lucaris ch. 13). It confesses a true presence of Christ in the Eucharist received by faith and rejects transubstantiation (Confession of Cyril Lucaris ch. 17).

The synod denied that the chapters were Cyril’s. He never taught such things in synod or church, it says, no work undisputedly his contains them, and it quotes sermons he preached at Constantinople that say the opposite (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts ch. 1, pp. 18–20). Even if he wrote them, it adds, he did so in secret, and they are not the confession of the Eastern church (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts preamble, pp. 16–17). It reprints the acts of two earlier synods, at Constantinople and at Jassy, and explains that the first anathematised Cyril by name because he lived six years after the chapters were printed and would not write against them, while the second condemned their author without naming him (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts pp. 106–108).

The synod’s own confession follows Cyril’s chapter by chapter (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts ch. 6, p. 110). Scripture is to be believed “not otherwise than as the Catholic Church hath interpreted and delivered the same”, and the witness of the church is “not of inferior authority” to it (Confession of Dositheus Decree 2). God predestined those whom he foreknew would use their free will rightly, and to say that he had no regard to works is called profane and impious (Confession of Dositheus Decree 3). A man is “not simply justified through faith alone, but through faith which worketh through love, that is to say, through faith and works” (Confession of Dositheus Decree 13). In the Eucharist the bread is “transmuted, transubstantiated, converted and transformed” into the true body of the Lord and the wine into his blood, and the teaching of “the followers of Luther” on the presence is rejected as well (Confession of Dositheus Decree 17). The questions that close the document say that Scripture should not be read by all without preparation (Confession of Dositheus Question 1) and count the Wisdom of Solomon, Judith, Tobit, the History of the Dragon, the History of Susanna, the Maccabees and the Wisdom of Sirach as Scripture (Confession of Dositheus Question 3).

The acts call themselves the work of “the Local Synod” held in Jerusalem under Dositheus (Synod of Jerusalem, Acts heading, p. 3). The confession was signed at Jerusalem by Dositheus and by the bishops and clergy present (Confession of Dositheus subscription, p. 174).