The Da Vinci Code~An Orthodox perspective ~

Old Lies revisited...
helen.......

Christianity must now be attacked and ‘proved’ wrong. How?

There is only one effective way of doing this: by removing God from Christianity. During the first 300 years of its existence,
Christians were persecuted,
often with extreme brutality,
but these persecutions were only battles; the war had not yet begun,
in the worldly sense.
The first major offensive against Christianity was the Arian heresy......see below.............................................
quote//The First Ecumenical Council was convened in 325 A.D., in the city of Nicea, under the Emperor Constantine I.
This Council was called because of the false doctrine of the Alexandrian priest Arius, who rejected the Divine nature and pre-eternal birth of the second person of the Holy Trinity, namely the Divine Son of God the Father, and taught that the Son of God is only the highest creation.

318 bishops participated in this Council, among whom were St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, St. James, bishop of Nisibis, St. Spiridon of Tremithus, and St. Athanasius, who was at that time a deacon.

The Council condemned and repudiated the heresy of Arius and affirmed the immutable truth, the dogma that the Son of God is true God, born of God the Father before all ages, and is eternal, as is God the Father; He was begotten, and not made, and is of one essence with God the Father.......
www.orthodoxphotos.com...

So back to the false lies of the Da Vinci Code........
quote///
The Da Vinci Code is history revisited.
In the guise of a novel,
it is a serious attempt at reintroducing Arianism
, ‘proving’ that Christ was not, and therefore is not, God.
Using the format of a novel is indeed a brilliant tactic.
It allows history to be rewritten, and facts to be mutilated and reinvented with impunity.

more to read.......
www.rocor.org.au...


[edit on 5/2/2005 by helen670]

Actually Arius did not reject the divine nature of Christ, he just claimed that the divinity was endowed on Jesus by God.
Also, it was not only Arius who held this viewpoint. In those early days of Christianity, there was no set dogma for the Christians to follow. There were theories all the way from "Christ was eternally divine, begotten at the beginning", to "he was first born in the flesh, and God endowed him with divinity". Arius was just a vocal forefront for one of these theories.

babloyi......

Arianism (âr'ēənĭz'əm) , Christian heresy founded by Arius in the 4th cent. It was one of the most widespread and divisive heresies in the history of Christianity. As a priest in Alexandria, Arius taught (c.318) that God created, before all things, a Son who was the first creature, but who was neither equal to nor coeternal with the Father. According to Arius, Jesus was a supernatural creature not quite human and not quite divine. In these ideas Arius followed the school of Lucian of Antioch.

Rise of Arianism

Because of his heretical teachings, Arius was condemned and deprived of his office. He fled to Palestine and spread his doctrine among the masses through popular sermons and songs, and among the powerful through the efforts of influential leaders, such as Eusebius of Nicomedia and, to a lesser extent, Eusebius of Caesarea.
The civil as well as the religious peace of the East was threatened, and Roman Emperor Constantine I convoked (325) the first ecumenical council (see Nicaea, First Council of).
The council condemned Arianism, but the Greek term homoousios [consubstantial, of the same substance] used by the council to define the Son's relationship to the Father was not universally popular: it had been used before by the heretic Sabellius. Some, like Marcellus of Ancyra, in attacking Arianism, lapsed into Sabellianism (see under Sabellius).
www.answers.com...

Also......
www.orthodoxinfo.com...