St. John V, the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria.
“… As to our Saint John, he incessantly warned his flock to avoid all communion in spiritual matters with any who were separated by heresy from the communion of the Church, and not so much as to enter into their churches or meeting houses, much less to join with them in prayer, even though any one should be so unhappily circumstanced as to be confined during his whole life to a place where he could never see an Orthodox priest, or receive any of the Holy Mysteries; for, said he, as the laws of God and man forbid any one, who has a wife living, to cohabit with another woman, how distant or for how long a time soever his lawful wife may be separated from him, so he who has been espoused to Christ in the Orthodox Church, cannot without the crime of spiritual adultery, upon any pretext whatsoever, engage himself in the communion of heretics …”
St. John V, the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria, 550-620 A.D.
Tags: CHURCH FATHERS, COMMUNION WITH HERETICS, Heretics, orthodox, SAINT JOHN THE MERCIFUL
