Heresy?

[Theophrastus]

Is there an Orthodox definition of heresy? Do Orthodox see heresy differently than the Catholics do?

[Herman Blaydoe]

If a member of the Orthodox Church teaches something he knows to be different from what the Orthodox Church teaches, he teaches heresy.

Heresy come from the Greek (of course!) haíresis, lit., act of choosing, deriv. of haireǐn to choose.

Someone who CHOOSES to teach differently from what the Church teaches, is guilty of teaching heresy, and may be subject to ecclessiastic censure which may include being excommunicated.

If I am in error, I stand ready and happy to be corrected by those who know better.

[Mourad Mankarios]

I believe heresy could include both heterodox dogma and praxis. Perhaps someone can better elaborate on how the two are distinguished in the given context...

[Olga]

Sin is a transgression of God's law, heresy is the alteration of God's law. Hope this helps.

[Mourad Mankarios]

Here are some things that I've found that might be helpful:

"People usually say that a heretic is someone who holds false and wrong views, but also I say a heretic is someone who doesn't live what they preach." (Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh)

Hetero-praxis is any practice that a person or a group does or could do which implies that one or more Catholic doctrines are not true. For example, we know by the solemn definitions of the Council of Trent that God guarantees to us that the consecrated Host is indeed His Real Presence — that is, the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, together with His Soul and Divinity. Now, the Protestant revolters wanted to deny this article of the Faith and they wanted to influence others to do the same. So they reintroduced the practice of Communion in the hand (it had been originally introduced as a widespread practice by the Arian heretics of the Fourth Century to deny that Jesus is God). So that by this symbolic action, their denial would be clear to all.

[John Charmley]

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

From Tetullian's The Prescription Against Heretics


our faith owes deference to the apostle, who forbids us to enter on “questions,” or to lend our ears to new-fangled statements, or to consort with a heretic “after the first and second admonition,” not, (be it observed,) after discussion.
Discussion he has inhibited in this way, by designating admonition as the
purpose of dealing with a heretic, and the first one too, because he is not a
Christian; in order that he might not, after the manner of a Christian, seem
to require correction again and again, and “before two or three witnesses,”
seeing that he ought to be corrected, for the very reason that he is not to be
disputed with; and in the next place, because a controversy over the
Scriptures can, clearly, produce no other effect than help to upset either
the stomach or the brain.

In Book 2, Chapter 19 he says, rather splendidly that:

heretics either wrest plain and simple words to any sense they
choose by their conjectures, or else they violently resolve by a literal
interpretation words which imply a conditional sense and are incapable of
a simple solution,

But then, as St. Paul reminds us in 1 Corinthians 11:19

19 For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.

It was, after all, against heresy that Orthodoxy was made manifest.

In Christ,

John