The Christian Vanguard

The Tome of Leo is a letter written in AD 449 by Pope St. Leo to St. Flavian, who was Bishop of Constantinople. Why was this letter sent? After the Council of Ephesus, there arose a new heresy spewed by a monk named Eutyches who taught that after the incarnation, Christ only had one nature, and not two natures (divine and human). Eutyches was condemned by the Bishop, but another "council" was held in defense of Eutyches' teaching and condemned Bishop St. Flavian. This council became known as the Robber Council, which is an invalid council . So, St. Flavian appealed to his brother bishop Pope St. Leo and the letter is the reply. You can read it here .  The letter is significant for a few reasons. First, it is significant because it is a defense of orthodox teaching on the two natures of Christ. It was so profound, that this letter was appealed to in the next Ecumenical Council, the Council of Chalcedon, which did finally and authoritatively lay to rest the teaching of...

The other day, I shared a quotation from a saint recognized in the East, St. Maximos the Confessor (about 649 AD). It read,  For the extremities of the earth and all in every part of it who purely and rightly confess the Lord, look directly towards the most holy Roman Church and its confession and faith, as it were to a sun of unfailing light, awaiting from it the bright radiance of the sacred dogmas of our fathers, according to what the six inspired and holy councils have purely and piously decreed, declaring most expressly the symbol of faith. For from the coming down of the incarnate Word among us, all the Churches in every part of the world have possessed that greatest Church along as their base and foundation, seeing that, according to the promise of Christ our Savior, the gates of hell do never prevail against it , that it possesses the keys of a right confession and faith in Him, that it opens the true and only religion to such as approach with piety, and shuts up and ...

In my previous post, I talked about a disagreement I had with a Coptic Orthodox fellow. The topic may seem a bit out of context if you don't know who they are and how they relate to the rest of Christendom. So I will talk a little bit about that here.  The Coptic people are essentially Egyptian people. It's like an ethnicity, from what I gather. Historically, they are associated with the Orthodox Church(es), though, the exact nature of this relationship is what distinguishes them. You might be tempted to think that because they call themselves Coptic Orthodox, that they are Orthodox in the same way someone might be Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox. But many other Orthodox people will insist that the Coptic Orthodox aren't really Orthodox, and or even properly Christian. This is because they deny one of the ecumenical councils, the Council of Chalcedon.  One of the defining pillars or standards of Orthodoxy are the ecumenical councils, that is, the councils that e...