Meletian schism
Meletian schism
On vague pretexts the emperor banished Meletius to his native Armenia. He had occupied his see less than a month. This exile was the immediate cause of a long and deplorable schism between the Catholics of Antioch, henceforth divided into Meletians and Eustathians.
The point on which they "broke with the larger Catholic church" was the same as that of the contemporary Donatists[1] in the province of Africa: the ease with which lapsed Christians were received back into communion. The resultant division in the church of Egypt is known as the Melitian schism.
Meletius was born at Melitene in Lesser Armenia of wealthy and noble parents. He first appears around 357 as a supporter of Acacius, bishop of Caesarea, the leader of that local faction that supported the Homoean formula by which the emperor Constantius II sought for a compromise between the Homoiousians[2] and the Homoousians.[3]
He retained his episcopal title, but the ecclesiastics ordained by him were to receive again the imposition of hands, the ordinations performed by Meletius being therefore regarded as invalid.
This was a division in the church established by Constantine.
- ↑ Donatism was a Christian sect leading to a schism in the Church, in the region of the Church of Carthage, from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Donatists argued that Christian clergy must be faultless for their ministry to be effective and their prayers and sacraments to be valid. He was a popular minister and an effective leader, considered a successor to Cyprian of Carthage by both friend and foe (see Aug. Serm. 33.3). Even Augustine of Hippo, who opposed the Donatist faction throughout his life, named Donatus one of the “precious stones” of the African church. This was the rallying cry with which they harangued Catholics. One distinctive characteristic of the Donatists was their desire for martyrdom. Donatus taught that death for the “cause,” even death by suicide, was holy and merited a martyr's crown and eternal life.
- ↑ Homoiousios is a Christian theological term, coined in the 4th century to identify a distinct group of Christian theologians who held the belief that God the Son was of a similar, but not identical, essence with God the Father.
- ↑ Homoousian. noun. a Christian who believes that the Son is of the same substance as the Father: The Greek term ὁμοούσιος means “having the same ousia/substance/essence.” This compound adjective, which denotes the essential identity of origin and emanation, is found in Gnostic texts and also in philosophical usage after the time of Plotinus and was probably adopted from Manichaeism.