Blessed Augustine

Augustine is a saint of the Orthodox Church. He is commemorated on 15 June, listed in the calendars and synaxaria, honored as a Father of the undivided pre-Schism West — and yet, in much of the Orthodox tradition, he is titled not “Saint” but “Blessed (makarios, blazhennyi) Augustine,” a usage that both affirms his sanctity and registers a certain reserve about parts of his theology. This file establishes the fact of his veneration, examines the meaning and history of the title “Blessed,” and introduces the spectrum of Orthodox attitudes — from Photios’s ninth-century critique to Fr Seraphim Rose’s twentieth-century defense — presented from both sides.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (pre-Schism West; “Blessed Augustine”)

Augustine Is a Venerated Saint

The first and most important thing to say is the plainest: Augustine is venerated in the Orthodox Church. He belongs to the undivided Church of the first millennium, a bishop and Father of the Latin West before the schism, and he has never been condemned or anathematized by any Orthodox council. He is commemorated liturgically on 15 June (the date of his feast in the Eastern calendars; the West keeps 28 August, the day of his death) — a commemoration he shares in some calendars with his mother, St. Monica (Rose 1983/2007). He is found in Orthodox synaxaria and menologia, icons of him are written and venerated, and parishes and individuals bear his name. The Russian Orthodox tradition in particular has consistently honored him as “Blessed Augustine” (Blazhennyi Avgustin), and his Confessions and devotional works have been read with profit in Orthodox monasteries and households for centuries (Rose 1983/2007; Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou 2008, introduction). Whatever the reservations examined in this collection, they are reservations held about a saint, not arguments that Augustine is no saint.

The Title “Blessed”

The most visible feature of Augustine’s Eastern reception is the title under which he is most often venerated: not hagios / svyatoi (“Saint”) in the simplest usage but makarios / blazhennyi — “Blessed.” The meaning of this distinction is itself a matter of some discussion, and care is needed.

On the one hand, “Blessed” (makarios, blazhennyi) is a fully honorific title of sanctity in the Orthodox tradition, not a lesser or probationary grade as the Latin beatus became in the Roman canonization process. It is borne by indisputable saints and Fathers of the highest rank: Blessed Jerome (Blazhennyi Ieronim), Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus, Blessed Augustine — and the “fools for Christ” (yurodivye) are titled “Blessed” as a mark of a particular and exalted form of holiness (Rose 1983/2007). On this reading “Blessed Augustine” simply names a saint, with no diminution implied; the Eastern tradition has historically used “Blessed” for a number of the great teachers, especially some of Western or non-Greek background.

On the other hand, the persistence of “Blessed” rather than the simple “Saint” for Augustine — like the title borne by Jerome and Theodoret, both of whom were criticized on particular points (Jerome for asperity, Theodoret for his role in the Nestorian controversy) — is widely felt to carry, in Augustine’s case, a real if gentle reserve: an acknowledgment that this is a holy Father whose teaching is not on every point to be received as the Church’s own [Disputed: the force of the title "Blessed" for Augustine is interpreted differently. (1) One view (held by some who wish to stress Augustine's full sanctity, including aspects of Seraphim Rose's argument) holds that "Blessed" is simply an honorific of sanctity equal to "Saint," with no theological diminution, and that the East has always venerated Augustine without qualification of his holiness. (2) Another view holds that, while "Blessed" is a genuine title of sanctity, its consistent application to Augustine (as to Jerome and Theodoret) reflects an awareness that these are holy Fathers whose doctrine on particular points was not wholly received, so that the title honors the man while quietly marking that not all his theology is the Church's. The two readings are not always sharply separable, and both are held; the historical usage supports calling him a saint while explaining why "Blessed" rather than "Saint" became customary.]. The customary Orthodox formula — venerating the man, receiving what accords with the consensus of the Fathers, holding back from what does not — is precisely the posture the title “Blessed Augustine” expresses.

The Spectrum: Photios to Seraphim Rose

The Orthodox attitude toward Augustine has never been monolithic, and it spans a wide and ancient spectrum, which the next file maps in detail. At one pole stands the critical tradition, reaching back to St. Photios the Great (ninth century), who criticized the Augustinian doctrine of the Filioque (without, it should be said, condemning Augustine personally), and forward to the sharp twentieth-century critique of Fr John Romanides, who held Augustine’s theology of grace, the Fall, and the Spirit to mark a genuine and damaging departure from the patristic mind (see The Spectrum of Orthodox Opinion). At the other pole stands the appreciative tradition, which receives Augustine warmly as a Father whose errors are real but limited and whose holiness and spiritual depth are beyond question.

The classic modern Orthodox statement of this appreciative-but-careful position is Fr Seraphim Rose’s The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church (1983), written expressly to counter what Rose saw as an unjust and un-Orthodox tendency among some converts and zealots to disparage or even reject Augustine outright. Rose argued that Augustine is a saint of the Orthodox Church, that he must be venerated as such, and that his errors — which Rose did not deny, treating his doctrine of grace and predestination as real mistakes — are to be handled as the Church has always handled the errors of holy Fathers: by gently correcting the error while honoring the man, “venerating the saint and avoiding his mistakes,” after the manner in which the Church received Gregory of Nyssa or others whose particular opinions it did not wholly follow (Rose 1983/2007). Rose’s book, written partly in response to the harsher line associated with the school of Romanides, remains the most widely read Orthodox treatment of Augustine’s status and set the terms — “the place of Blessed Augustine” — in which the question is now usually discussed.

The Company of the “Blessed”

It clarifies Augustine’s title to see the company he keeps in it. The Eastern tradition’s most prominent “Blessed” teachers — Blessed Jerome and Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus — are, like Augustine, Fathers of unquestioned holiness and immense learning whose doctrine the Church received with a particular reservation on some point. Jerome, the great translator of the Vulgate and a monastic master, was famous for the asperity of his controversies and was never simply “Saint Jerome” in the Greek manner. Theodoret, a profound exegete and historian, had taken the Antiochene side against Cyril of Alexandria in the Nestorian controversy and had written against Cyril’s Anathemas; though he was reconciled to the Church and vindicated at Chalcedon (451), the memory of that conflict attached to his name, and he is venerated as “Blessed Theodoret.” In each case the title honors a genuine saint while quietly registering that here is a teacher to be read with discernment. Augustine stands in exactly this company: a holy Father whose doctrine the Church does not receive without weighing. The title “Blessed,” far from being an anomaly, places him among the most learned and most carefully-read of the Fathers (Rose 1983/2007).

This is also why the title should not be heard as a demotion in the Latin sense. In the Roman canonization process “Blessed” (beatus) is a distinct and lower grade than “Saint” (sanctus), a step on the way to full canonization. The Orthodox usage is not this. Makarios and blazhennyi are not a probationary rank but an honorific borne by saints of the first order, including the fools-for-Christ whose hidden sanctity the Church holds in the highest regard. To call Augustine “Blessed” is not to rank him below the saints but to name him among a particular kind of them — the holy teachers received with discernment — and the distinction is one of nuance, not of degree of holiness (Rose 1983/2007; Demacopoulos and Papanikolaou 2008).

How the Tradition Holds Him

The settled Orthodox practice, across the spectrum, can be stated fairly. Augustine is venerated as a holy Father and saint of the pre-Schism West, commemorated 15 June, most often under the title “Blessed.” His spiritual writings — above all the Confessions — are received with love and profit. His defense of grace against Pelagius is honored. And his particular doctrines that diverge from the patristic consensus — original sin as inherited guilt, unconditional predestination, the Filioque his Trinitarian theology fed — are received with reserve, corrected against the consensus of the Fathers, and not made the Church’s own. This is not a contradiction but the Church’s ordinary way with its great teachers: no single Father, however eminent, is the rule of faith; the consensus is the rule, and a Father is honored as a saint while his individual opinions are weighed against it (the Vincentian principle; see Predestination and the Eastern Objection). How sharply the reserve should be pressed — whether Augustine’s errors are limited blemishes on a great Father or symptoms of a deep theological deviation — is the live question of the modern debate, to which the next file turns.

References

Rose, Seraphim. The Place of Blessed Augustine in the Orthodox Church. Platina, CA: St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood, 1983; rev. ed. 2007. (The fact of veneration; the title “Blessed”; “venerating the saint and avoiding his mistakes.”)
Demacopoulos, George E., and Aristotle Papanikolaou, eds. Orthodox Readings of Augustine. Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2008. (Introduction on the spectrum of Orthodox reception.)
Photios of Constantinople. Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit. (The early critique of Augustinian Filioque theology, without personal condemnation.)