Anathema

Anathema is a Greek word, of which the first component, “ana,” means “far,” and “tien” means “standing.” In the Church's definition, anathema expresses the casting out, the removal, the cutting off of one of the members of the Church from the Church. We should note that anathema is performed only: 1) upon members of the Church, and not upon persons foreign to the Church (upon non-Christian revilers of the Church); 2) upon those who corrupt the teaching of the Church; 3) upon those who actively preach their own false views, and not simply upon those in error;

By anathema is meant not a curse: it certifies the fact that a person has fallen away from the Church.

The canons of the Ecumenical and the Local Councils, and the holy fathers too, often mention this term and speak of the possibility of its use. At the Second Ecumenical Council (Constantinople, the year 381) every heresy was given over to anathema, in particular Eunomianism, Arianism and so on.

In 842, after the death of the last iconoclast emperor Theophilus, the holy empress Theodora and the Patriarch of Constantinople, St Methodius, finally restored the veneration of icons, which had been confirmed already at the Seventh Ecumenical Council (787). At the festal Liturgy in the church of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, on 19 February 843, on the first Sunday of Great Lent, the victory of Orthodoxy over iconoclasm was solemnly celebrated. It was then that the anathema of all heresies and heretics was pronounced. Little by little the liturgical rite of that day was enlarged, and at the service celebrated on today's Sunday of the Triumph of Orthodoxy practically every heresy is named.

The world, which, in the words of St John the Theologian, lieth in wickedness (1 John 5:19), goes on tempting people with “new and newer” false teachings, but all of this is only the old heresies under a new mask.

Anathema has two sides: the formal and disciplinary (a person is deprived of the right to be considered a member of the Church) and the spiritual and mystical (the real loss of the grace of God, despite formal participation in the life of the Church). Those given over to anathema are no longer in communion with the mystical body of Christ.

The path of those under anathema toward restoration to the unity of the Church leads only to the mystery of repentance.