St Vladimir's 'theological Quarterly 57:1 (2013) 89—98

S t Sy m e o n t h e N e w T h e o l o g i a n
o n B in d in g a n d Lo o sin g

Robert John Beeson

In this paper, I will examine the reasons for St Symeon the New
Theologians belief that lay m onks had the authority not only to
hear confessions, but to pronounce absolution. I will briefly explore
Symeons views on ordination as the context for his argument,
and the sacramental status o f confession in his day. This will entail
reference to an opposition that has historically been seen to stand
between what Liviu Barbu has term ed the “ascetico-charismatic”
and “institutional” forms o f spiritual leadership in the Eastern
C hurch.1 I will argue that, through the lens o f twenty-first century
historical theology, St Symeon the New Theologians advocacy o f
the authority o f some lay monks to hear confessions and pronounce
absolution was misguided, but that the inchoate sacramental
status o f confession in the eleventh century made the practice less
clearly wrong. I will conclude w ith what I believe to be the chief
problem for St Symeons argument, and any who would appeal to
an indwelling o f the Holy Spirit and its evidence in a purity o f life
as the source o f sacramental authority.
St Symeon the New Theologian (hereafter St Symeon) presented
his argum ent for the power o f lay monks to “bind and loose” in
what has become known as Epistle 1, an open letter “to someone
who had asked Symeon whether it was legitimate to confess ones
sins to m onks who had not been ordained priests.”2 The power
to bind and loose, according to St Symeon, was given by G od the
1 Liviu Barbu, “‘Charisma vs. ‘Institution’? The Ascetics and the Church,” Studia Pa-
tristica 44-49; Proceedings of the Fifteenth International Patristics Conference (Leuven,
2010).
2 H. J. M. Turner, ed., T he Epistles of St Symeon the New Theologian (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2009), 14.

89
90 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

Father through Christ Jesus who bestowed it upon the apostles in

John 20: 2 2 -2 3 when H e breathed on them and they received the
Holy Spirit. From there the power was transferred to the apostles’
successors, the bishops who, according to St Symeon, variously
became corrupt.
... with the passing of time the unworthy were mixed and
mingled with the worthy ... Indeed, after the occupants of
the apostles’ thrones showed themselves to be carnal men,
lovers of pleasure and glory, and after they fell away into
heresies, the divine grace abandoned them as well, and this
authority was withdrawn from such men.3
These God-forsaken bishops, in turn, ordained unworthy candidates
to the priesthood, and whereas apostolic authority became codified
in ordination, w ithout regard to personal credibility, “as a result o f
this ... the priests became good for nothing ... became worse than
the people, and the people worse than the priests.”4 St Symeons
argum ent then extends to the observed fact that, despite this general
decadence— which certainly did not extend to all o f the ordained
or, for that matter, to all o f the n o n ‫־‬ordained— “some o f the people
were even revealed as better than [the priests].”5
A m ong these uncorrupt individuals were pious monks, holy
men, marked by dispassion and the purity o f heart, including St
Symeon s own spiritual father, Symeon the Pious (sometimes called
“Symeon the Elder” or “Symeon the Studite” to distinguish the two
Symeons), from w hom he received the Spirit and the directive to
accept ordination.6 It is such men, hum ble and spirit-filled, that St
Symeon had in m ind when he argued for the authority o f certain
lay monks to bind and loose. Like many theologians, Bishop
Alexander Golitzin interprets St Symeons views on ordination as
demarking a position on an historical continuum , rooted in the

3 Ibid., Epistle /, 354-60.

4 Ibid., Epistle I, 377-82.
5 Ibid., Epistle 1, 382-83.
6 Ibid., Epistle 1, 478-83. See esp. St Symeon the New Theologian, Ethical Discourses,
Vol. 2: On Virtue and Christian Life, tr. and introduced by Alexander Golitzin
(Crestwood, NY: SYS Press, 1995), 120.
St Symeon the New Theologian on Binding and Loosing 91

prophetic office o f Judaism, that opposes the ascetico-charismatic

view o f apostolic authority to the institutional and official view,
the latter position perhaps best represented by St Cyprian, in
which the Church, through its identity w ith the Body o f Christ
and its sacramental ministry, is the wellspring o f all spiritual gifts
and authority. However, Golitizin agrees w ith Barbu, that “an
overemphasis on the charismatic,” toward which Symeon clearly
leans, “at the expense o f the C hurch does not do justice to Symeons
overall theology.”7 After all, St Symeon subm itted to ordination,
and never denied the agency o f the Spirit through the m edium o f
the C hurch’s sacramental ministry.
... [T]he power [to bind and loose] belongs to the priests ...
I know it too, for it is true. But not simply to priests as such,
but to those who serve the priestly ministry of the Gospel
in a spirit of humility and who live a blameless life. [Such
priests] first present themselves to the Lord and offer them-
selves as a perfect, holy and well-pleasing sacrifice, as their
own pure act of worship in the temple of their own bodies,
inwardly and spiritually. They are accepted and appear on
the altar that is on high, offered by Christ the High Priest
as a perfect sacrifice, changed and transformed by the Holy
Sprit. They have been transformed into Christ, who died for
us and rose in the glory of His Godhead.8
Moreover, as the late Archbishop Basil Krivocheine noted, “we
can find no statement about the invalidity o f the sacraments
administered by unworthy priests or any rejection o f the hierarchy
whose way o f life was far from perfect.”9
The com m on denom inator in the two overlapping strains in St
Symeons sacramental theology is the indwelling o f the Holy Spirit
as evidenced in the pure hearts and blameless lives o f those who

7 Liviu Barbu, “‘Charisma vs. ‘Institution’? The Ascetics and the Church,” 4.
8 Symeon the New Theologian, The Discourses, tr. C. J. deCatanzaro (Mahwah, NJ:
Paulist Press, 1980), 302. Also quoted by Archbishop Basil Krivocheine in St Symeon
the New Theologian: In the Light o f Christ (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 1986), 129.
9 Basil Krivocheine, St Symeon the New Theologian: In the Light o f Christ (Crestwood,
NY: SVS Press, 1986), 128.
92 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

would presume to offer themselves as mediators. “O rdination by a

bishop,” on the one hand, “conferred a prophetic charism, that is,
a gift o f the Holy Spirit.”10 O n the other hand, as G olitzin is quick
to note, in Symeon’s view, ordination by itself is not a sufficient
condition for the authority to pronounce absolution.
For it is only the performance of sacred rites which has been
conceded to [the clergy], and I think not even that to most
of them, in order thereby they may not be burnt up, being
grass, but [the right to forgive belongs] only to those amongst
the priests, bishops, and monks who can be numbered with
the companies of Christs disciples because of their purity.11
In the case o f the authority to absolve sins, St Symeon’s argum ent
appears to be that monastic profession operates m uch as ordination;
both ordination and monastic profession serve to forgive sins and to
bestow a charismatic gift.12 In all instances, it is clear that the power
to bind and loose is a gift o f the Paraclete that is bestowed only
upon candidates who have presented themselves as w orthy through
virtuous living, or who have been made blameless by ordination or
monastic profession. In both the case o f ordination, and the case o f
monastic profession, only some candidates are counted w orthy to
receive the charism.
The two strains that are evident in St Symeon’s view o f the power
to bind and loose— the one derived from an ascetico-charismatic
view o f this authority, the other owing to an institutional view that
is sacramentally rooted in ordination— have, as we have stated, the
com m on denom inator that this authority finds its source in Christ,
who breathed the power o f the Holy Spirit upon the apostles. Some
scholars, however, like H . J. M. Turner, see a basic inconsistency
in Symeon’s theology that results from a com m itm ent to the two
incompatible views o f apostolic succession, and from Symeons

10 Ibid., 125.
11 H. J. M. Turner, Ihe Epistles of St Symeon the New Theologian, Epistle 1. 405-10,
quoted by Golitzin, in a slightly different translation, in St Symeon the New Theolo-
gian, On the Mystical Life. vol. 3, written, tr. & ed. Alexander Golitzin (Crestwood,
NY: SVS Press j 1997), 42.
12 Krivocheine, St Symeon the New Theologian: In the Light of Christ, 131.
St Symeon the New Theologian on Binding and Loosing 93

failure to clearly distinguish between the two kinds o f succession.13

M etropolitan Hilarión Alfeyev carefully traces the historical
development o f the two views o f succession that are evident in
O rthodoxy and that, he argues, result in some measure from the
iconoclastic controversies in the centuries leading up to the tenth
century, during which time the institutional churchs hierarchy was
corrupted by heresy and “people turned to the monks, in w hom
they saw the defenders o f Orthodoxy.”14 Though the charismatic
model o f succession, vis à vis the authority to bind and loose, is
evident much earlier in the nascent monasticism o f the fourth and
fifth centuries, it became more prevalent because o f iconoclasm. All
this is merely to state that the charismatic model o f succession, with
respect to the power to bind and loose, seems certainly not to have
been original with St Symeon, or w ith Studite monasticism, but
evolved along side the institutional model, w ith the two peacefully
coexisting and often merging together.15
It is im portant to m ention that the degree o f compatibility o f the
two views o f apostolic succession is lim ited to the scope o f binding
and loosing. N othing is to be found in the writings o f St Symeon
himself, or in the tradition o f Studite monasticism that is Symeon s
point o f reference, which would imply an extension o f sacramental
authority beyond the authority to hear confessions and pronounce
absolution. There are several reasons for this being the case.
First, as Bishop Alexander Golitizin points out, “the distinction
between spiritual counsel and the act o f sacramental absolution had
not really been made in the N ew Theologian s day.”16 G olitzin states
that the distinction between the two aspects o f auricular confession
did not take root in the East until the failed attem pt at reunion w ith
Rome at the Council at Lyons in 1274. H e adds that only

13 See Turner’s concluding note to Epistle 1, The Epistles of St Symeon the New Theolo-
gian, 65f.
14 Hilarión Alfeyev, St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition (Oxford;
Oxford University Press, 2000), 17.
15 Ibid.
16 St Symeon the New Tfjeologian, On the Mystical Life, Vol. 3, written, tr. & ed.
Alexander Golitzin (Crestwood, NY: SYS Press, 1997), 46.
94 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

in the century following Symeon some, such as the canon-

ist Theodore Balsamon, would begin to draw sharp lines
distinguishing spiritual counsel from the authoritative word
of priestly absolution ... yet this came much later, long years
after the New Theologians own lifetime.17
Tomas Spidlik expands on this notion by describing how
supplication for the forgiveness o f sins in the Christian East is not
lim ited merely to sacramental confession:
Spiritual direction normally concluded with a prayer asking
for forgiveness. Because the spiritual father was not necessar-
ily a priest, a certain confusion in the documents may easily
have created the impression that laypersons heard confes-
sions. The uncertainty is increased because of the fact that
in the East (except among the Armenians), the sacramental
absolution was in the deprecatory form. All this, however,
merely indicates one thing: that it was clearly recognized
that the sacrament of penance and repentance in the general
sense go hand in hand.18
This lack o f distinction between spiritual counsel and sacramental
absolution seems to point to the rather late development o f
confession as a universally recognized and formulaic sacrament.
Symeon never extends the logic of his thinking on confession to
the other sacraments, and we should recall that confession itself
did not enjoy any official status as a sacrament until centuries
after his time.19
The result, as Golitzin states, is that criticism o f St Symeon s position
through the theological lens o f the twenty-first century is apt to be
exaggerated as well as unfair.
Symeons interpreters and critics have pointed to the various
dangers in his position on the power to bind and loose and his
charismatic view o f apostolic authority. Some have seen in his

17 Ibid., 45.
18 Tomas Spidlik, The Spirituality o f the Christian East (Kalamazoo, MI: Cistercian
Publications, 2005), 64.
19 St Symeon the New TPjeologian, On the Mystical Life, Vol. 3, written, tr. & ed.
Alexander Golitzin, 49.
St Symeon the New Theologian on Binding and Loosing 95

emphasis on the confessors purity o f heart the h in t o f Donatism .

Certainly, as G olitzin affirms in quoting Bishop Kallistos Ware,
Symeons intense personalism, his insistence ... on the
necessity of sanctity for the celebrant of the Eucharist and
for the other leaders of the Christian people does seem to
bring him “perilously close to Donatism.20‫״‬
George Maloney finds a flirtation w ith the same heresy when he
writes that
authority in the Church, for Symeon, comes dangerously
close to being a private stronghold only for the saintly who
are gifted with extraordinary mystical gifts, to the break-
down of the hierarchical authority.21
This is a point to which I will return below.
Because o f his strong stance against the official hierarchy in the
Church in his time, his adm onitions against the corruption o f the
clergy, his advocacy o f the sacramental authority o f lay monks, and
his championing o f charismatic gifts as the outw ard and visible
sign o f inner purity, some critics and scholars have perceived in the
writings o f St Symeon a w hiff o f Messalianism.22 However, it is to
be noted that both Krivocheine and G olitzin underscore the fact
that Symeon “was never, or almost never, accused o f heresy, even
less o f Messalianism or any other know n heresy,” even in a period
in which heresy trials were not infrequent events.23 As Golitzin
explains, this heresy arose as a monastic m ovement during the latter
part o f the fourth century and rested, in part, on the contention
that the Holy Spirit may be know n physically and that, given this
experience, one would be forever free from the tem ptation to sin.
“Emphasis, it seems, was thereby placed on personal prayer to the
exclusion o f the sacraments.”24

20 Ibid., 48.
21 George A. Maloney, S.J., The Mystic of Fire and Light (Denville, NJ: Dimension
Books, 1975), 35.
22 Ibid., 15.
23 St Symeon the New Theologian, On the Mystical Life, Vol. 3, written, tr. & ed.
Alexander Golitzin, 35, and n. 103.
24 Ibid., n. 103.
96 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

That it is abundantly clear that St Symeon never disparaged the

sacraments, and in fact advocated daily reception o f the eucharist
in his own monastery, seems enough to dispel the charge o f
Messalianism, but apparently the allegation was repeated often
enough in the centuries after his death that scholars feel obliged to
m ention it.
The allegation o f Donatist-like tendencies in Symeon s theology
seems to me, at first blush, m uch more credible and more difficult
to refute than the more frivolous charge o f Messalianism, despite
the fact that evidence o f the latter gets m uch more notice among
scholars. The fourth-century controversy o f D onatism was centered
on the question o f the validity o f sacraments administered by
unworthy clerics.
This culminated in the Latin Church with the Blessed
Augustine’s response to the Donatists: the duly ordained
administer the sacraments and that administration has
nothing to do with the personal worth, or lack of it, of the
minister.25
The parallels between Symeon’s dogmatic insistence on the
worthiness o f the confessor and the D onatist position seem
striking. Golitzin responds to the charge that Symeon came, in
the words o f Bishop Kallistos, “perilously close” to D onatism 26 by
noting that Symeon was in good company in the Christian East,
where Alexandrian theologians Clem ent and Origen, and later the
Areopagite, expressed similar views. In arguing against Symeons
affinity with a loosely D onatist position, Alfeyev reminds us
that in Eastern tradition the view that the validity of the
sacraments does not depend on the personal qualities of the
priest has never been expressed as definitely as in the West
(from Augustine’s anti-Donatist polemics onwards).27
Alfeyev adds,

25 Ibid., 43.
26 See Alfeyev, St Symeon the New Theologian and Orthodox Tradition, 199, n.58 for
source of Ware’s assertion.
27 Ibid., 200.
St Symeon the New Theologian on Binding and Loosing 97

In the Greek Orthodox Church even up to the present time

not all priests are allowed to hear confessions, but only those
who, upon reaching a certain age, receive the blessing of a
bishop to become spiritual fathers.28
W hether Symeons position on the spiritual gifts requisite to
hearing confession, and his advocacy o f a prophetic charism giving
some lay m onks the authority to do so, takes him perilously close
to heterodoxy, remains an open question. W h a t is more immediate
to the purpose o f this paper, however, is n o t so m uch the doctrinal
danger o f his position, but the very practical problem o f discernment.
This is the problem that I alluded to in the first paragraph that I
believe threatens to underm ine not only Symeons theological
position, but any authority that is vested in special claimed charisms
o f the mystic when they are asserted against the C hurchs self-
understanding as inheritor and arbiter o f the apostolic ministry
bestowed by Jesus upon his disciples. The tem ptation to heed only
conscience at the expense o f the institution is often overwhelmingly
seductive, and is often accompanied by the self-deceptive fallacy
that the mystic is obeying G od over and against man. The grace o f
G od upon the institutional C hurch and the O rder o f its ministry
makes o f it more than the mere sum o f its parts, even in times when
it has suffered the widespread corruption o f its clergy.
W ho, then, discerns which claims o f extraordinary revelations
and gifts o f the Holy Spirit are genuine, and which are mere
pretensions? Bishop Kallistos Ware contends that there are
outward and visible signs that are evidenced by the spiritual father
who is genuinely in possession o f the charisms o f the Spirit. They
are insight and discernment, the ability to use words w ith power,
and the willingness to listen with attention and eagerness.29 That
all three gifts are in employed in the act o f hearing confessions is
obvious, but just as obvious is the fact that the annals o f ecclesiastical
history are fraught with examples o f charlatans who apparently

28 Ibid., 200, n. 63.

29 Kallistos Ware, “The Spiritual Guide in Orthodox Christianity,” in Tije Inner King-
dom: Volume 1 of the Collected Works (Crestwood, NY: SYS Press, 2000), 13 5 ff.
98 ST VLADIMIR’S THEOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

exhibited all three “gifts” while wreaking havoc on the C hurch and
her members. W hile the seal o f ordination is no panacea against
such blasphemers o f the Holy Spirit who occasionally find their way
into holy orders, the grounding o f tradition and discipline provide
a certain measure o f protection w ithout proscribing the vital role o f
the spiritual father. It is for this reason that I believe that St Symeon’s
advocacy o f lay monks assuming the authority to bind and loose
was not well-advised.
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