Letter 80: Severus distinguishes ordinary kindness from liturgical communion with people he regards as heretics.

Caesaria asks whether orthodox believers do well when they refuse to communicate with people Severus regards as heretics. Severus answers that they are right to be careful. If the apostles tell Christians not even to greet someone who brings another teaching, he says, then sharing prayer, readings, or other religious acts with such people cannot be treated as harmless courtesy. Communion is not a social formality. It is a public confession of shared faith. He then draws a sharp distinction. Ordinary human kindness, necessary dealings, and efforts to persuade people back to the truth are one thing. Liturgical fellowship is another. A believer may speak, admonish, and serve where charity requires it, but must not blur the church's witness by joining in prayer with those who teach against its confession. Severus' concern is not social purity for its own sake; it is that mixed worship teaches onlookers that doctrine no longer matters. The letter is also pastoral. Caesaria's question shows zeal joined to caution, and Severus praises the powers displayed in her God-loving letters. He wants her to continue in this firmness without cruelty, holding fast to the rule while still acting from a desire for instruction and salvation. The result is a practical guide for life among divided Christians: show love, speak truth, avoid contempt, but do not let prayer itself become a sign of false agreement.

Out of piety that loves instruction you ask whether some of the orthodox are doing well in not communi- cating with the heretics, but listening to the reading of the holy Gospel, or even staying during the time of the mysterious prayers, but not communicating in the rites that are being performed. To those who are not igrnorant of the divine laws the answer is manifest. John the Evangelist, the speaker of divine things, wrote: [Here follows the citation given on ]. If then it is not right to offer even a bare greeting to those who bring another teaching and do not teach IV. lO. the orthodox faith, how can one communicate in prayers and in lessons or in any other such things with such men as these? And Paul the wise commands us to turn away even the very face from those who are in servitude to heresy, writing thus to Titus: [Here follows the citation given on ]. He therefore who joins in assembly with the guilty renders himself subject to the same judgment. Nay even the holy canons of the Church have manifestly repudiated the principle of a man praying with heretics. For the hundred and thirty-fifth canon says; " It is not right to receive the blessings ^ of heretics, which are rather no- blessings and not blessings." And there immediately follows the hundred and thirty-sixth also, which says; " It is not right to pray with heretics or schismatics." - These statements g-ive the strict rule. But, when I the mean one, as far as my mean knowledge extends, consider the broadness of the God-inspired scripture, I find that men who hold ministerial posts or high offices, and are obliged to accompany and attend upon rulers, receive an indulgence, if, when they go in with them and hear a lesson and prayers, they keep themselves per- fect: I mean if they do not communicate in the com- munion from which they are divided. For instance in the fourth Book of Kingdoms there is something like this written. A certain captain of the host of the King of Syria of Damascus, by name Naaman, who was a leper, went to the prophet Elisha, and received ^ I.e. cvXoyiai, presents. ^ Mansi ii. 570. IV. lO. cleansing from his affliction. And through his healing he recognised the one and only true God of Israel, the Maker and Creator of all, and spurned the falsely- named gods and his fathers' worship and error. And, when he was about to return to his own country, he said to the prophet that he would no more look upon the strange gods and vain demons. " But," he says, " although the King of Syria go into the temple of the demon in their country who is called Rimmon, and I also go in with him to do him honour and to support him with my hand, I will worship the true God in my heart, and I will recognise Him only, but I will not communicate with the king in the error and worship the demon with him. Only" (he says) "pray for me, that God may be gracious to me in this thing also on account of necessity." And the prophet was silent and did not praise or blame: but by silence he followed a middle line and gave him indulgence: and, having invoked peace upon him, he sent him away. But it is well that we cite also the actual words of the divine scripture, which Naaman spoke to the prophet himself, which run as follows: " ' Thy slave will no more perform a burnt-offering or a sacrifice unto other gods, but unto the Lord only. And in this thing the Lord will be gracious to thy slave, when my lord goeth into the house of Rimmon to worship him there, because he leaneth upon my hands. And, when he worshippeth in the house of Rimmon, I, being with him. will worship the Lord God. And the Lord will be gracious to thy slave in this thinof,' And Elisha said to Naaman, 'Go in peace.' "^ Therefore, seeing that your glorious devoutness knows these things, I pray that with pure and sincere faith you may walk in the Lord's paths both in deed and in word. For besides your other excellencies I admire also your practice of reading and meditating on the divine words, the fruits and flowers of which are displayed in your God-loving letters, which gladden those before whom they come.