Fr. Dorotheos retweetledi
Does the Orthodox Church Anathematize All Protestants?
The Church certainly condemns Protestant heresies, but we do not pass judgment on individuals who are outside of the Church. Furthermore, when an anathema is proclaimed, unless it names specific people, it is not a judgment on any individual. There are many people in the Church who hold opinions that are heretical, but in most cases, this would simply be due to ignorance. If an Orthodox laymen stated something that was a condemned heresy, they would only be subject to an anathema, if they refused to be corrected. Anathemas and canons do not work like landmines, which go off on their own accord when someone tramples on them. Similarly, when you have a speed limit sign, the sign does not write you a ticket -- a police officer has to write you a ticket, and then you have an opportunity to dispute the ticket in court. Likewise, if someone says or does something contrary to a canon or an anathema, there are things that the authorities in the Church have to do to make the respective penalty apply to an individual.
This is made very clear in the most authoritative compilation of the Ecumenical Canons:
"We must know that the penalties provided by the Canons, such as deposition, ex- communication, and anathematization, are imposed in the third person according, to grammatical usage, there being no imperative available. In such cases in order to express a command, the second person would be necessary. I am going to explain the matter better. The Canons command the council of living bishops to depose the priests, or to excommunicate them, or to anathematize laymen who violate the canons. Yet, if the council does not actually effect the deposition of the priests, or the excommunication, or the anathematization of laymen, these priests and laymen, are neither actually deposed, nor excommunicated, nor anathematized. They are liable to stand trial, however, judicially, here as touching deposition, excommunication, or anathematization, but there as touching divine vengeance. Just as when a king commands his slave to whip another who did something that offended him, if the slave in question fail to execute the king’s command, he will nevertheless be liable to trial for the whipping. So those silly men make a great mistake who say that at the present time all those in holy orders who have been ordained contrary to canons are actually deposed from office. It is an inquisitional tongue that foolishly twaddles thus without understanding that the command of canons, without the practical activity of the second person, or, more plainly speaking, of the council, remains unexecuted, since it does not act of itself and by itself immediately and before judgment. The Apostles themselves explain themselves in their c. XLVI unmistakably, since they do not say that any bishop or presbyter who accepts a baptism performed by heretics is already and at once actually in the state of having been deposed, but that they command that he be deposed, or, at any rate, that he stand trial, and, if it be proved that he did so, then “we command that he be stripped of holy orders by your decision,” they say" (D. Cummings, trans., The Rudder of the Orthodox Catholic Church: The Compilation of the Holy Canons, Saints Nicodemus and Agapius (West Brookfield, MA: The Orthodox Christian Educational Society, 1983), p. 5f [emphasis added]).
Of course if someone is guilty of sin, either in terms of moral failures or of intentionally harboring heretical views and refusing the correction of the Church, even if the authorities in the Church never take any action either because they are kept hidden, or the authorities neglect their duties, this does not mean that the person will not go to hell as a result, if they refuse to repent. But this does mean, contrary to Donatism, that even if a bishop or priest is secretly living a double life for which they should be removed from the clergy, so long as the Church allows them to continue to function in their role, the sacraments they perform continue to have the grace of God, because the grace of God is not dependent on the worthiness of those performing them. Otherwise, one could never be sure that they ever received any sacrament.
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