Monday, 22 August 2022

An Error in the Confession of Peter Mogila Concerning the Sabbath

In 1642 Peter Mogila wrote a Confession of Faith which has stood the test of time and is used to this day for instruction in the Eastern Orthodox Church

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petro_Mohyla

However this confession has an error in it.

In part 3 question 60 Peter writes that in the 91st canon of the sixth ecumenical council we are told how to worship on the Lord's Day.

The Orthodox Confession of St Peter Mogila
Now, after what manner the Lord’s day ought to be observed the sixth General Council teacheth in the ninety-first canon. Moreover, another cause of transferring the Sabbath to the Lord’s Day is this, namely, that Christ is Lord of the Sabbath, according to the Scripture (Matt. 12.8), For the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day. If, therefore, Christ be Lord of the Sabbath, then surely the Sabbath is with great reason transferred to the Lord’s Day, both because Christ might not seem to be in any subjection thereunto, and also because on that day, and none other, did Christ arise from the dead: Whereby the World, as to its eternal salvation, was renewed and restored.
There are two problems here. The first, for the causal reader who may not be familiar with the ecumenical councils, is that neither the fifth nor the sixth councils promulgated any canons. Instead the Quinisext council filled that gap. 
The Quinisext Council, i.e. the Fifth-Sixth Council, often called the Council in TrulloTrullan Council, or the Penthekte Synod, was a church council held in 692 at Constantinople under Justinian II. It is known as the "Council in Trullo" because, like the Sixth Ecumenical Council, it was held in a domed hall in the Imperial Palace (τρούλος meaning a cup or dome). Both the Fifth and the Sixth Ecumenical Councils had omitted to draw up disciplinary canons, and as this council was intended to complete both in this respect, it took the name of Quinisext.
That may not be an error per se but it does need clarification.

The second error is that the correct reference is not to the 91st canon but to the 90th.
Canon 91:

As for women who furnish drugs for the purpose of procuring abortion, and those who take foetus-killing poisons, they are made subject to the penalty prescribed for murderers.


Canon 90:

We have received it canonically from our God-bearing Fathers not to bend the knee on Sundays when honoring the Resurrection of Christ, since this observation may not be clear to some of us, we are making it plain to the faithful, so that after the entrance of those in holy orders into the sacrificial altar on the evening of the Saturday in question, let none of them bend a knee until the evening of the following Sunday, when, after the entrance during the Lychnic, again bending knees, we thus begin offering our prayers to the Lord. For inasmuch as we hare received it that the night succeeding Saturday was the precursor of our Savior’s rising, we commence our hymns at this point spiritually, ending the festival by passing out of darkness into light, in order that we may hence celebrate en masse the Resurrection for a whole day and a whole night.

Canon 91 forbids the procurement of drugs for an abortion while canon 90 discusses how  the Lord's Day is to be observed. How has this error gone overlooked for 380 years? 

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