Trinity in Constitutions?

Yesterday, the following was reported in the news:

“There are numerous other cases where national identity and religion are officially connected in some way, and where there are official bonds between a nation-state and an ethnocultural Diaspora,” he writes.

The Greek constitution, for example, makes some surprising provisions. Though it promises, to quote from article 13, that “every known religion is free and the forms of worship thereof shall be practiced without any hindrance by the State and under protection of the law,” its preamble nevertheless begins with: “In the name of the Holy and Consubstantial and Indivisible Trinity.” In the constitution itself, article 3 asserts that “the prevailing religion in Greece is that of the Eastern Orthodox Church of Christ” and takes pains to note that this church, “acknowledging as its head Our Lord Jesus Christ is indissolubly united in doctrine with the Great Church of Constantinople and every other Church of Christ of the same doctrine.”…

The preamble to the Irish constitution begins: “In the Name of the Most Holy Trinity, from Whom is all authority and to Whom, as our final end, all actions both of men and States must be referred.” Norway’s constitution decrees that “the Evangelical-Lutheran religion shall remain the official religion of the State,” that “more than half the number of the Members of the Council of State shall profess the official religion of the State,” and even that “the inhabitants professing it are bound to bring up their children in the same.”…http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1213794271014&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

And while I was told in Greece that the real power behind that government is the head of the Eastern Orthodox Church there, I had not realized that Greece and Ireland put the trinity in their constitutions.

While they most likely felt that they meant well when they did that, the truth is the the trinity was not the belief of the early Christian church.

The trinity first became taught by two heretics (one of which got it from paganism) and over time mainly in the 3rd and 4th centuries, it became the predominant view of the Greco-Roman confederation of churches (although it was not the majority view in Asia Minor until about the end of the 4th century).

Want proof?

Here are two quotes from Catholic scholars. The first is from the Catholic Encyclopedia which states,

Semiarians and Semiarianism A name frequently given to the conservative majority in the East in the fourth century…showing that the very name of father implies a son of like substance…rejected the Divinity of the Holy Ghost…

The “East” meant those in Asia Minor. Thus, it is clear that many held the binitarian view at that time (including no doubt, many who were not true Christians). Notice that the majority were binitarian (another term for “Semi-Arian”), which means that they were not trinitarian.

Have you been taught this before?

The second is from a one-time Catholic bishop named Marcellus of Ancyra around the middle of the fourth century,

Now with the heresy of the Ariomaniacs, which has corrupted the Church of God…These then teach three hypostases, just as Valentinus the heresiarch first invented in the book entitled by him ‘On the Three Natures’. For he was the first to invent three hypostases and three persons of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and he is discovered to have filched this from Hermes and Plato (Source: Logan A. Marcellus of Ancyra (Pseudo-Anthimus), ‘On the Holy Church’: Text, Translation and Commentary. Verses 8-9. Journal of Theological Studies, NS, Volume 51, Pt. 1, April 2000, p.95 ).

Valentinus was a second century heretic denounced publicly by the faithful Polycarp of Smyrna.

Want more proof that the early church was NOT trinitarian?

Then please consider reading and studying the following documented articles:

Binitarian View: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning Is binitarianism the correct position? What about unitarianism or trinitarianism?
Is The Father God? What is the view of the Bible? What was the view of the early church?
Jesus is God, But Was Made Man Was Jesus fully human and fully God or what?
Virgin Birth: Does the Bible Teach It? What does the Bible teach? What is claimed in The Da Vinci Code?
Did Early Christians Think the Holy Spirit Was A Separate Person in a Trinity? Or did they have a different view?
Did the True Church Ever Teach a Trinity? Most act like this is so, but is it?
Was Unitarianism the Teaching of the Bible or Early Church? Many, including Jehovah’s Witnesses, claim it was, but was it?
Binitarianism: One God, Two Beings Before the Beginning This is a shorter article than the Binitarian View article, but has a little more information on binitarianism.
Some Similarities and Differences Between the Orthodox Church and the Living Church of God Both groups claim to be the original church, but both groups have differing ways to claim it. Both groups have some amazing similarities and some major differences. Do you know what they are?