AKAKIOS OF MELITENE

On the last day of April, churches that follow the Julian calendar celebrate the memory of St. Akakios of Melitene (370–438). He was a great dogmatic Father of the Church and a participant in the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus (431). The Fathers of the Council of Mytilene in 458, held twenty years after Akakios’ death, considered him their “Father and Teacher.” Saint Akakios should be distinguished from another Akakios of Melitene (+251), who lived in the third century and became a confessor of the faith during pagan times. Akakios’ younger contemporary was Euthymius the Great (377-473), one of the founding fathers of Palestinian monasticism. Both were educated by the local bishop at the time, who was once one of the 150 participants in the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople (381). Euthymius and his hagiography have provided us with very important information about Akakios.

Akakios, or Akacius, as his Greek name is otherwise transcribed, meaning “without malice” in translation, was one of the Church Fathers, that is, one of the ancient authors whose dogmatic and moral authority was reinforced by personal holiness, and therefore, in the eyes of the Church, made them authentic expressions of apostolic tradition. But that’s not all. He was also one of the Fathers of the Ecumenical Councils. And in this dual capacity, he was very rare. After all, most of the Church Fathers, neither Basil the Great, nor John Chrysostom, nor Augustine of Hippo, participated in the Ecumenical Councils. For some unknown reason, the dates of their biographies did not coincide with the dates of the Seven Councils. This is divine predestination. Apparently, the Fathers of the Councils were not supposed to possess too strong a personal intellectual and creative charisma, so that the council’s decisions would be a collective opinion and mutually balanced.

Perhaps the only exception was St. Cyril of Alexandria (376-444), who prepared and conducted the Third Council of Ephesus, which condemned Nestorius and his teachings on Christology. Nestorius believed that in Christ, the divine and human personalities were united, and that the personality of the God-man was an additional third “construction” built in the process of salvation history. Therefore, Nestorius called Mary the “Christ-bearer” (Christotokos) and denied the possibility of calling her the “Mother of God” (Theotokos). St. Cyril was right, but his power as the primate of the most important Eastern apostolic see, Alexandria, and his personal authority as a holy and extraordinary bishop and ascetic, led to schisms in the Church after the Third Council. He died too early, and at the Fourth Council in Chalcedon (451), there was no one who could match him in the combination of these two qualities, power and authority, and continue his work. To understand who Akakios was, it is necessary to emphasize that he was a staunch supporter of Cyril. For the sake of dogmatic correctness, he disregarded his personal friendship with Nestorius, spoke out against him, and subsequently did not fear to oppose the power of another apostolic primate of the time, John of Antioch (+441), who in retaliation even deposed him from the See of Melitene. But Akakios was not broken.

To this exceptional quality, being both the Father of the Church and the Father of the Ecumenical Councils, a third, even more remarkable quality is added. Like another great representative of Eastern Christianity, James of Nisibis (+350), Acacius was a miracle worker. Like the biblical righteous men Abraham, Samuel, and John the Baptist, he was the fruit of the prayers of his parents, who had been childless for a long time. The Life recounts three miracles of Acacius on a biblical scale: During a drought, he deliberately performed the Eucharist in a field. Since, according to the Gospel and ancient tradition, the Chalice requires not only wine but also water, rain fell from Heaven upon it during the prayer. It was as if he “forced” God to do this in order to observe the discipline of the sacrament. During a flood, he placed a stone on the riverbank and stopped the threatening flow of water. In our time, when we put sandbags everywhere in case of a flood, let us remember Akakios and his stone. Finally, during the Eucharist, an earthquake occurred, and the basilica began to tremble. Akakios stopped the panic among the faithfull, completed the Eucharist, and after communing himself and the people, left the temple. Only then did the vault literally collapse.

Perhaps this last miracle was also a great prophecy. Shortly after the departure of Akakios, Cyril, and other Fathers from this world, after the Council of Chalcedon, there was “dogmatic earthquake” in the Churches, with great disagreements in the field of Christology. The Church of Egypt separated from the Church of Alexandria, forming two opposing Patriarchates (537), and the Church of Antioch also split in two parallel hierarchies (519). This mutual Christian strife, staggering in its intensity and scale, contributed to the rapid spread of Islam a century later. The division between the Greek and Coptic Patriarchates in Alexandria and the Syrian and Greek (and Arab) Patriarchates in Antioch continues to this day and is unlikely to be overcome before the end of history. Thus, like a postmodern novel with its story within a story, Akakios’ prophecy about the unity of the Church in Eucharistic prayer and its destruction by an earthquake after its end turned out to be a prophecy within a prophecy. After all, what was happening to Eastern Christianity at that time is what will happen in the West a thousand years later: a mutual division into two parts, two different versions of Christianity, which for centuries will deny each other’s authenticity, thereby raising doubts in the outside world about the right of Christians to speak on behalf of Christ, who commanded his disciples to be united (John 17:21). Perhaps this last prophetic miracle and sign, like no other, reveals the universal dimension of the personality of Saint Acacius and his holiness.