A Schematic Evaluation of the Impact of Heresies and

Persecution in the Catholic Church: an Igbo Pragmatic

Perspective

Maurice Izunwa & Stanley Mgbemena*

Abstract
The history of Christianity and for that fact that of Catholic
Church is long fraught with incidents of persecution and of
emerging heretical doctrines. In many ways, the church has
tried to contend with such afflictions to the security of life of
her members and the integrity of her teaching authority and
has found in each of them quite some rich resources for her
continued existence and growth. While the blood of the
martyrs is the seed of Christianity, the errors of heresy have at
particular moments of the church’s life, called the attention of
the church to the need to much formally define her doctrines
and often times elevating some of such doctrines to the status
of irreformable dogmas presented to the faithful and requiring
obedience of faith. After a brief comparative description of the
nature and effects of persecutions and heresies, this work looks
at the differential degrees of anxiety afforded to the Church by
the dual events of persecution and heresy. It finds that heresies
being invidious in outwork are dangerous to the faith of the
Church which is its direct victim. It further finds that in a
typical Igbo Christian community under the strong influence of
a pragmatic worldview, heresies are a welcome experiment as
they provide yet other pragmatic possibilities for resolving
life’s riddles and solving gnawing problems of human life
through the religious pathway; persecution on the other hand,
because it often visits with attack on life and physical integrity
of Christians, is for the Igbo convert, detestable as it is
ominous, life being the Igbo man’s greatest good. This essay
employs the method of phenomenology, analysis and
hermeneutics in its investigation and recommends for a new
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era of evangelization of the Igbo Christians so as to align their

spiritual sensibilities with the ancestry of Christian faith long
demonstrated from the apostolic times till now in the lives of
the martyrs.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ujah.v13i2.6

Introduction

There is not and there never was on this earth, a

work of ‘human’ policy, so well deserving of
examination as the Catholic Church. The history
of this Church joins together the two great ages of
human civilization. No other institution is left
standing which carries the mind back to the times
when the smoke of sacrifice rose from the
pantheon and when Camelopads were bounded in
the flavian amphitheatre.”

It is interesting to learn that no sooner had Christ instituted this

mighty ‘edifice’ than the infant Church grew in influence and
numbers. The religious freedom in the Roman Empire and the
imperial association of Christianity with Judaism and thus
‘religio licita’ were partly responsible for such phenomenal
expansion. The late discovery of the uniqueness of Christianity
and its non-Judaic orientation plunged the Church into a
threatening situation by the hostilities of the ruling powers of
Rome. In fact, from the first century of its inception, the
powers of the earth and hell arrayed themselves against Christ
in the persons of his followers. It was Nero in 64AD who
inaugurated this dismal culture of suppressions. Precisely in
this, great numbers sealed their testimony with their blood. To
be sure, Christ did forewarn the Church of this imminent
distressing campaign saying “they will hand you over to be
tortured” (cf. Mt. 24:9, 21,22; Jn. 15:26).

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It remains to be pointed out that with the edict of Milan in

313AD, Emperor Constantine in full solemnity, declared at the
end of the decisive battle of the Melvian Bridge, “where the
cross proved as effective a talisman against the armies of his
rivals as against demons”, that Christianity has become the
religion of the Empire. Now that the Church had been spared
of the persecutions and threats to the gospel from without,
“Christians had the leisure to ponder over the truths of their
religion.” In this new-found speculative freedom, many fell
headlong into theological errors or heresies. As it were, the
battle line having been drawn from within the Church, she had
to contend with doctrinal wrangling and discords within her
ranks. Such doctrinal issues appertain to truths about the faith
of the Christian religion. Suffice it to know that this latter
threat became more drastically inimical to the life of the
Church than the persecutions. In this, the biblical warning that
“a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand” was proved as
the heresies were close to shattering the fragile unity of the
Christendom.
In this essay, after a brief analysis of concepts, an attempt will
be made to discover the comparative differential impact of
both persecution and heresy on the life of the catholic church
in general and an Igbo Christian church in particular.

Conceptual Framework
The word Church is taken from the Greek kuriakos,
“belonging to the Lord”; in the LXX GK, ekklesia, designates
“a public assembly” or “synagogue,” even “congregation.” The
Fathers of the Second Vatican Council define it as “the people
of God.” Generally, it designates the Christian Church, both
local and universal.” It is this sense of the word ‘church’ that is
applicable to this essay.
Persecution means the effort by the civil authority to
suppress or constrain the Church’s liberty by physical or
psychological means. It is about “the organised methods of the
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Roman emperors to extinguish, terminate, and marginalize

Christianity which they saw as a threat to their empire.”
Persecution can be local or universal, direct or indirect. From
Nero to Decius, all persecutions were local but when in 202AD
Septimus Servus forbade all conversions to Christianity,
persecution became universal. Persecution is direct when it has
to do with exposure to imprisonment and death, and indirect
with regard to “vulnerability before the law and public opinion
and unfair administration of justice,” etc.
Ordinarily heresy connotes “doctrinal deviation from
the fundamental truths taught by Scripture and the Orthodox
Christian Church and active propagation of the same.”
According to Canon 751, heresy is the wilful post-baptismal
denial or doubt by a Catholic, of any truth which must be
believed as a matter of Divine Revelation and taught by the
Catholic Faith. In an ordinary sense of this work, heresy refers
to false doctrine or the formal denial of doctrine defined as part
of the catholic faith. Formal heresy involves “deliberate
resistance to the authority of God, who communicates his
Revelation … to the Catholic Church. The punishment for it is
automatic ex-communication” (cf. Can. 1364). Heresy is not a
technical term in the modern canonico-theological sense. In
Hellenism, heresy (heresies) ‘to choose’ meant “a teaching and
a school”. In Hellenic Rabbinic Judaism, it designates a
religious party within Judaism. In this connection, the word
has a neutral application and it is in this sense that St. Paul
used it in Acts 26:5. But when St. Paul uses the term in a
Christian context to mean ‘Splinter groupings,’ the meaning
became pejorative. The Fathers of the Church emphasized the
religio-moral side of heresy with its causes and consequences.
They stressed also its co-operate divisive stance. In this period
of the Fathers, it was shown that “not all errors are heresy” (St.
Aug. Haer. Ph. 42:19). But then, a wilfully obdurate posture
which turns its face against the whole Church and which
swarms to form its own convectile is the mark of true heresy.
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Persecution and its Impacts on the Church

The Church was born in persecution starting with the death of
Jesus Christ on the cross who said “if they have persecuted me,
they will also persecute you”. Hence to be a Christian means a
summon to martyrdom. No surprise then that from the earliest
times, “Christians have been objects of persecution in one
form or another” (cf. Acts 5:1-3). Accordingly they have been
persecuted by those who felt threatened by them; who sought
to enforce religious conformity; who penalized dissent from
accepted or established religious norm or belief and behaviour.
The early persecutions in Rome came through the emperors,
heralded by the draconic edict “Christiani non sunt”.
Principally, Christians were persecuted because of their refusal
to sacrifice to the emperor and worship the Roman gods. They
“risked their goods, freedom, and even their lives to confess
the name of Christ.” What is more, “laws were passed against
the Christian faith and penalties imposed without mercy.”
According to John Bowle, the great persecutions “were
carefully planned to destroy Christianity by confiscating its
buildings and sacred literature, cutting off its endowments and
separating the clergy from the laity.”
It really did come to the point that, “St. Augustine was
compelled to develop a Christian theory of coercion quite as
cruel in its application as the persecution of Diocletian.” To be
sure, those persecutions did affect the Church very adversely.
Perhaps a look at the Ten Great persecutions will reveal how
enormous the hangovers were viz:

Looking at the Great Persecutions

Emperors Period Principal Impact

(Negative)

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Nero 54-60 AD Burnt down Rome,

threw Christians to
the beasts and burnt
others, saw to the
death of Peter and
Paul.

Domitan 81-96 AD Wiped out the

cream Christian
membership i.e. the
Christian nobility.

Trajan 98-117 AD Attached a capital

punishment to the
profession of
Christianity and
forced Christians to
denounce their
faith or die.

Marcus Aurelius 161-180 AD Confiscated the

property of the
faithful and
tortured them.

S. Severus 193-211 AD Forbade fresh

conversion to
Christianity.

M. Thrax 135-238 AD Directed his

persecution to the
clergy and the
Religious.

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Decius 249-251 AD Killed those who

refused to sacrifice
to the state gods.

Valerian 253-260 AD He forbade all

Christian assembly
and concentrated
on wiping out the
clergy.

Aurelian 270-275 AD Promoted anti-

Christian
legislation.

Diocletian 284-305 AD Unleashed the

bloodiest of all
Roman
persecutions.

The Positive Side of the Persecution

Although the persecutions left behind, unexpected and
enduring aftermath, it did help the Church as well because “the
storms of oppositions made the flame of the gospel burn all the
brighter.” Finally, it is true that though “the persecutions the
Church suffered in the empire during that time were extremely
painful, they were extremely fruitful.”

An Appraisal of the Impacts of Heresy in the Catholic

Church
The medieval scholastics laid much emphasis on the moral
aspect of heresy, that is, on the sin of heresy with its wilful,
proud, isolation from the communion of the faithful, its
contemptuous rejection of Church discipline and its tragic
religious consequences for the life of the believer.
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Since the 17th and 18th century, heresy predominantly

became “a doctrinal censure, designating objectively heterodox
doctrines as that which contravenes a truth of divine and
Catholic faith. In these contemporary times, the factor of
personal guilt is being gradually reintegrated into the concept
of heresy.

Historical Importance and Development of Heresy in the

Catholic Church
Between the 4th and 5th centuries, the early Christian
community was troubled by such heresies as: Arianism,
Donatism, Nestorianism, Monophysitism, in the East, and in
the West by Pelagianism. And by the 6th and 7th centuries, the
Byzantine Empire was split over the question of monophytism
as compounded by monothelitism. Earlier in the Middle Ages
between 8th – 9th centuries, “new study of the inherited
theology of late antiquity resulted in the first truly medieval
heresies: the filioque controversy, predestination, Eucharistic
controversies as well as Adoptionism, Pantheism and
Iconoclasm to be economical with enumeration. In the high
Middle Ages between 11th-12th centuries, the following
heresies flourished: Eucharistic heresies, Catharism and
various sacramental and anti-sacerdotal heresies, Manichaeism
and other heretical spiritualities. In the latter Middle Ages, the
heretical high points were: the denial of transubstantiation by
Wyclif and the denial of papal primacy by John Hus. At this
period, the Church adopted inquisition as an anti-heretical tool.

A Schematic Categorization of Heresies vis-à-vis Their

Proponents and Errors
The period that began with Constantine and lasted for more
than one hundred years witnessed the unfolding of ten or more
heresies, at least, with the most varied bearings on the points of
dogma. Traditionally, these heresies have been placed under:

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(I) Trinitarian heresies: Arianism, Sabellianism, Adoptionism,

et al.
(2) Christological heresies: Appoloniasm, Arianism,
Nestroinaism, Diocetism, Monophysitism, et al.
(3) Sacramental heresies: Donatism, et al.
(4) Grace controversies: Pelagianism, et al.

At this point, a graphical portrait of few heresies, their

proponents and teachings may serve a use.

Heresies Proponents Principal Condeming

Teachings Council/Pope

Arianism Arius (311) Jesus Christ is Nicea (325)

not God. He is
inferior to the
Father.

Appolinarianim Appolinarius Denies the Constantinople

genuineness of (381)
Christ’s
humanity.

Nestorianism Nestorius Only one nature Ephesus (431)

(430) in Christ.

Sabellianism Sabellius One God Pope St.

(200) revealed Himself Callistus I
successively in
three modes.

Adoptionism Paul of Christ is not Pope Adrian I

Samsota God. He was (785) and Pope
(260-272) adopted by the Alexander III
Holy Spirit at (1177)
baptism.

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Monophytism (448) One nature in Chalcedon (451)

Christ.

Donatism Donatus Denial of Ex Pope Miltiades

Opera operato. (310-314) and
council of Arles
(314)

Pelagianism Pelagius Denial of Carthage &

(400) etc. original sin and Mileve (416) and
man’s need of Pope Innocent I
grace. (417)

Negative Impacts of Heresies on the Catholic Church

1. Heresies, precisely, as “heresies” meaning false doctrines
which incite factions, shakes the foundation of the church.
They break the unity which holds the people of God. The
Alexandrian heresy for instance “split both bishops and the
ordinary folk into camps which so fiercely attacked each
other.” In fact, the end result of every heresy is that the bond of
charity that unites the hearts and minds of the community of
believers is broken. Arianism, for example, left many bishops,
monks, priests and faithful heretics, that is, breakouts from the
orthodox faith.
2. The integrity of faith which is the life wire of the Church is
always the victim of the heresies. Every heresy led to a
particular form of faith crisis, because heretics command a
stubborn faith attitude.
3. The more inimical aspect of any heresy is that it is an
internal crisis — crisis launched from within the Church’s
ranks herself. Such a campaign is destined to be painful being
perpetrated as it were by people who had shared the same
faith. Thus “if this has been done by an enemy, but it is you
my friend” (cf. Ps. 55:12).

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4. Another dangerous aspect of heretical doctrines is their

resilience. For even after the councils have battled and
subdued them “some of their ideas continued to reappear in
later religious reformation of the 16th centuries.” For instance,
Primitivism, Quietism and Protestantism of the modern period
are the many hangovers of formerly subdued heresies.
5. It is of the nature of heresies that they lead to the
multiplication of the Churches. The great controversies of the
early Church produced the separatist Churches of the Arians,
Nestorians, Armenians, Copts and Jacobites. Same was the
story of schism with Byzantium which resulted in the
separation of the Greek and Latin Churches. It is for the same
reason that “the Filioque of the Greek caused the rupture
between Constantinople and Rome”.
6. Precisely as internal crisis, heresies cannot be evaded by
locomotion or flight. No, it can only be subdued at a great cost:
prayer, counsel, councils and even much finance.
7. Ecclesial and imperial politics in addition to other problems
provoked by heresies dragged theology into wrangling,
rancour, vindictiveness and sometimes, led to persecution in
the Church.
8. The emergence of heresies had always led the Church into
multiplicity of rules in order to keep men in the path of true
faith. A condition like this is not healthy for the freedom and
spiritual growth of Christians.
9. Besides their faith implications, most heretical teachings led
to social confusion and disaster. For instance, some people
abandoned their jobs awaiting the Parousia at the teaching of
Montanus.
10. Most heresies suffer from extremism and in this they
caused a lot of religious and moral problem for the Church and
State. Montanus taught, for example, that people should marry
only once. When people’s wives die , men supply with
adultery what their faith denied them. As if not enough,
Montanus preached that every Christian must have a
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recognizable spiritual gift. Now people go out hankering for

gifts deceiving themselves and others especially in the
Pentecostal Churches. What is more? Others sought for these
gifts in the preternatural sources and the deep things of Satan
in the abyss.
11. Just to arrest heretical teachings, the church was lured into
unholy inquisitions in history. This has till date brought the
Church bad tag and disrepute.
12. Some heresies made a mess of Christianity by denying the
“incarnation”. In this, they made Christianity more accessible
to the pagans who were at loss to understand the idea of God
made man.
13. In fact, every heresy has something defective to add to the
progress of the Church and State.

On Whether Heresies Have any Positive Impact on the Life

of the Church
Notwithstanding these devastating implications of heresies,
they in some obvious ways do add value to the life of faith and
the church in that:

1. Heresies woke the Church to active inquiry from speculative

and systematic slumber, and helped Christians to fulfil the
Petrine mandate: “always have your answers ready for people
who ask you the reason for the hope you have”.
2. In fact, had heretics not introduced the language of
philosophy to define the content of their belief, the Church
would not have employed the same language to define
Catholic belief. Thus, in the Christological and Trinitarian
controversies of the 4th and 5th centuries, the Church arrived
at a fairly precise definition of nature, substance and person.
This helped her to secure her Christological and Trinitarian
dogmas.
3. When councils sit to address heresies, the acknowledgement
and consolidation of disciplinary powers of the Church is made
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possible; some documents are also defined. For instance, the

fight for Concilliarism led to the definition of the papacy and
the relative authority of the councils, bishops and synods.
4. Heresies like Montanism pushed the Church to a more
formidable control of prophecy and unusual spiritual powers
and claims.
5. Almost all the councils came as a response-machine to a
particular heresy. In this way heresies helped the Church to
formulate and teach some articles of faith more impressively.
For instance, Montanism helped the Church to study the
relationship between God the creator and God the redeemer. In
all, the council taught that God the creator and God the
Redeemer are one and same God. However, it must be clearly
observed that the devil of heresy is greater than its Angel.

Heresy and Persecution: Which Is More Dangerous to the

Pristine Faith of the Catholic Church?
At the very threshold of the first Ecumenical Council in 325,
Constantine declared: “I consider dissensions in the Church
more dreadful and more painful than any other war”. The
above statement serves more than prove the case that heresy is
more dangerous to the church than persecution. For one thing
is clear, persecution is about external aggression but heresy
comes from within the Church’s rank to attack the church in
the very core of her faith. Here, the axiom that “a kingdom
divided against itself cannot stand” validly applies.
Heresy appears more inimical than persecution because
it argues for unseriousness, lack of conviction and
inconsistency in the Church’s claims. And from this viewpoint,
it confirms the claims of the persecutors, encourages them to
the disfavour of the Church. Is it any surprise then to hear that
heresies invite persecution and this is persecution in
“excelsis”? When persecution was common place in the
Church, Christians were united in an uncommon degree and
thus the faith was phenomenally built up. Little wonder,
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Dennis Brutus wrote, “A common hate enriched our love and

us”. During the persecution, the believers with one faith, one
God and one baptism, held each other in prayer, and thus
became victorious. Hence, Tertullian wrote, “the blood of the
martyrs is the seed of Christianity”. But with the outbreak of
heresies the Church knew division and when the centre could
no longer hold together the edifice was threatened with a
collapse.
The Church grew and spread in the conditions of the
persecution. This is because while the Christians were evading
their enemies they carried the gospel far and wide. Heresy
breeds not just stagnation but goes further to make the faith
less attractive and unacceptable, and thus spread becomes
difficult. The resources available to the Church, are during
outbreak of heresies, directed to rifts and defences than
mission. During the persecutions as in all times of suffering,
devotion and piety were encouraged, but heretical times favour
rationalization to the detriment of Christian favour found in the
religious experience of members and in devotion.
It can be argued that the persecutors helped to prove
the divine origin of the Church. The peculiar way in which
Christ and our fathers in faith like Stephen accepted suffering
shows that they are witnessing to a divine milieu. Thus “father,
forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”.
Heresies on the other hand do question the divine origin of the
Church. This is because it is not very likely that a divine
institution as that will be unsure of its claims giving rise
therefore to discordant and rival doctrinal claims.
What is more, from the very words of the master, it is
clear that persecution is even needed to confirm the faith of the
elects; thus “whoever wants to be a follower of me, let him
deny himself, take up his cross and follow me”. But
concerning heresy, He would say, “he who does not build with
me scatters”. Heresies in a very drastic way led the Church
into the odious practice of inquisition. In this, the Church
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became a persecutor herself. This you can be sure, does not

give a good picture of the Church with all its claims of a
spiritual mission. In persecution, however, the Church suffered
for the kingdom of heaven and in this way made her mission
obvious. There is no gainsaying that while persecution can be
evaded by flight, heresy cannot because its victim is the faith
of the Church, and of its members. Also because heresy comes
from among the members of the Church with the knowledge of
the Church and her conditions, it cannot but be more
disastrous.
Another dangerous truth is that while persecution
comes and goes, heresies perdure in one or more
configurations to harass the Church. In fact, “some of the
heretical their ideas combine to reappear in later religious
reformation especially of the 16th century”. In all, it is no
surprise that the Church had to suffer many persecutions in her
earlier days because: “It is the customary fate of new truths to
be persecuted only to emerge for final inauguration”. The
Christians always had a positive attitude to persecutions
precisely because suffering has a salvific value in the Christian
frame of reference. Little wonder Tertullian wrote of the
Christian attitude to persecution saying, “afflict us, torment us,
and crucify us – in proportion as we are mowed down, we
increase, the blood of the Christians is a seed”. A resort to the
annals of Roman martyr ology and Church history had since
proved this.
And so, irrespective of any importance which heresy
could promise to the Church; for the fact that it is divisive,
diminutive of piety and devotion, comprises the motherboard
of schism and apostasy, and contradicts the prayer of Christ “ut
unum sint”, it is arguably more dangerous to the Church than
persecution.
In this connection, Christians all over the world are
encouraged to break off with internal strife among
denominations to learn the more deeply, the saving doctrines
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of Christ, to emphasize more the things that unite them, to

compose formidable frontiers of common network of
evangelization, and above all to persevere in persecution
whether from the government or persons or groups or other
religions. Let courage rise with danger and strength to strength
oppose. This day, the noise of battle, the next the victor’s song.

Paradigm Shift: The Pre-Eminence of Heresy Among the

Igbo Converts to Catholicism
The Igbo Catholic Christians are yet to completely extricate
themselves from the ancestry of their traditional religions. As
it were, the fact of their conversion is not total because their
habit of faith interpretation is largely influenced by their
traditional roots. It is for this reason that most of the Igbo
converts to Catholicism are syncretic that is, attempting to
produce a compromise between Christianity and pragmatism.
In this equation, a strange category of understanding is
observed, one in which heresy and not persecution is
considered supremely advantageous to the faith community.
This obviously contrasts with the pristine paradigm
contemplated in the faith of the Apostolic Christians and that
which the Church has taught through ages.
The Igbo sustain a very peculiar world-view, one in
which life is of supreme value. Hence, it is no exaggeration to
say that for the Igbo, the salvation of life in the body is the
supreme law. There are more than sufficient evidence to
demonstrate this penchant for life in the flesh, this nostalgia for
material existence and all values incidental to it. Directly
connected with the above temper to persist in existence is the
fact that the Igbo abhors martyrdom and suffering, both of
which are prejudicial to life on earth. These for him are evil
and their cause must be found out so as to apply appropriate
ritual remedy. Given this Igbo attachment to earthly life, death
is an antithesis to an Igbo view of perfect life. Any pastor
wanting to “seduce” the lgbo population at any Christian
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gathering needs only to advertise such biblical attractions as

“you shall not die, you shall live” or “no weapon fashioned
against you shall prosper” (Is 54:17). Without saying that the
rest of humanity except the Igbo desire suffering and death,
one would need to emphasize the fact that among the lgbo, all
forms of sufferings except those arising from fruitful labour
are punitive and valueless. Indeed, the idea of salvific capacity
of “fruitless” sufferings is alien and unacceptable. Anything
that imposes pain without an immediate reward in terms of
improving life’s condition is evil. Thinking on this idea J.
Oguejiofor observed that:

… this world represents for the lgbo a certain

summun bonum. An eternity where there is
unbounded joy is not Igbo. The glory of good
life is entrance into the company of the
ancestors and reincarnation into the world in
which one has formerly striven so hard to be
morally and materially successfully. It is no
wonder that the lgbo here on earth strive to
make as much success as their power and
intelligence permit. In their religious
convictions, there is no reward hereafter for a
life that is unsuccessful (both morally and
materially) here below. Like the Jews of the Old
Testament, they believe that material success is
a supernatural blessing and that poverty is
nothing but a curse.

Against this immediate backdrop, persecution is

quintessentially a warrant of suffering, of death and of hideous
physical and corporeal onslaughts against the believers. In
persecutions, Christians are killed, some shot, some slain,
others fed to wild beasts. What is more? Many are drowned, a
lot more consumed in burning lakes of sulphur, a large number
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wasted by hunger or abandoned to crushing maladies, etc. No

other explanation of these negations is available to the lgbo
than the proposition that by abomination (nso ala), that is
voluntary or involuntary breach of traditional norms, the gods
are unleashing mystical sanctions not only on the individuals
but on the society at large. The substance of the entire
argument is that the Igbo who has the idea of this world as a
closed system within which man oscillate to and fro, find it
difficult to reconcile the kerygma of suffering in persecution
with a theology of a future eschatology of bliss.
In the Igbo worldview, which is of very great influence
on Igbo converts to Catholicism, whatever one gains here on
earth is what he has and what he loses here on earth is what he
has lost, there is no anticipated remedy or compensation
promised to the righteous who have suffered here on earth.
What this points to, is that, like all sufferings without
immediate physical vital reward, persecution could not be
associated with anything good or blessing for growth. Hence,
the “lgbo Christian” in his unconverted cast will not likely find
meaning in the celebrated slogan that “the blood of the martyrs
is the seed of Christianity”. Persecution becomes in this light a
sign of ailing or failing faith. A Church under persecution
becomes one under punishment by God for sins and offences
unexpiated.
Next, the lgbo theory of action is quite a pragmatic one.
Pragmatism is about the belief that the meaning of a doctrine is
the same as the practical effects of adopting it. A belief is true
if “it works satisfactory in the widest sense of the word”. It
insists on workability, demonstrability, cash value and
satisfactory consequences. Neither do the Igbo contemplate
insoluble problems nor do mysteries exist for them. In the Igbo
world all things are possible and there is always a way to
satisfy or fulfil each desire. Likewise, there is always a
formula for getting round or circumventing an impasse. The
formula is: predicting the effects by a diviner, determining the
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cause and applying prescribed remedies. In all these equations,

survival is the principal pragmatic category; all other values
are in service of that. As an ontological device to disabling
impossibilities and so to take dominion over their world in the
full sense of the word, the Igbo do neither conceive nor
experience absolutes. There are no fixed points because reality
as conceived by the Igbo has a distending elasticity with a
plastic flexibility. In this way, permanent moral, social or
metaphysical liabilities cannot be incurred. For instance, the
Igbo will say and believe that the titled man (Nze na Ozo)
must not tell lies (Nze anaghi asi asi). If he does, the
consequence includes loosing communion with the ancestors.
However, if a titled man who is a renowned liar dies, a ritual
cleansing called “Isa ire’ will be quickly applied to set-off and
impeach the possible consequences of the lies he has told.
Hence, there is no permanent moral liability and no constant in
the lgbo world. Where gods fail in their duties and no longer
live up to expectation, they are destroyed or carried away and
other gods capable and ready to provide the desired effects are
invoked and established. If an ancestor reincarnates to a family
and it happens to be such an ancestor that one does not like,
through requisite metaphysical manipulation called “Igbagha
agu” the reincarnate ancestor will be exchanged for another
who is desired. All abominations have grave consequences on
persons and society but these consequences can be short-
changed, manipulated and/or redirected or even annulled by
the designs of an expert medicine man or priest. There is a
remedy for an ogbanje child and disturbing dead persons can
be chained. Business failures can be put to an end by appeal to
some ancient calculus without improving on the stock-in-trade
and business capital, monitoring the incidents of demand and
supply or working out routine income and expenditure
account. What is more? The seasons are neither under any
immunity nor are they invariable and this is because, the
course of nature, seasons and times can be changed at the
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instance of any contingency. Rains can be made to fall mid-

way the dry season and so even the bifurcation of the seasons
provides no absolute. In fact, any device that can bring desired
results is a welcome instrument for existential construction.
Heresies, you can be sure, come to compromise
doctrines in order to justify certain preferred convenient
practices and challenge other hard teachings. They appear to
present an escape from the hostilities of the world and provide
other options for salvation to humanity. As a matter of fact,
heresies occasion some form of flight from life’s intensities
and attempts to use religion to undergird and insulate further,
the heretic’s personal options. Notice that people are
susceptible to heretical teachings because:

… in one form or another, they nurture and

reflect the way we would have it be rather than
the way God has provided, which is infinitely
better for us. As they lead us into the blind
alleys of self indulgences and escape from life,
heresies pander to the most unworthy
tendencies of the human heart.

In this way, heresies assume the nature of some selfish device

for subjective satisfaction. It tallies with what Fulton Sheen
said to the effect that “Minds no longer object to the Church,
because of the way they think, but because of the way they
live, they no longer have difficulty with the creed, but with her
commandments; they remain outside her saving waters not
because they cannot accept the doctrine of Three Persons in
One God, but because they cannot accept the moral of two
persons in one faith; not because infallibility is too complex
but because the veto on Birth control is too hard; not because
the Eucharist is too sublime, but because Penance is too
exacting. Briefly, the heresy of our day is not the heresy of
thought; it is the heresy of action”.
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Given the pragmatism of the Igbo race and their plural

cultural synthesis demanding differential standards of
satisfaction, each on its own right and merit, the Igbo man does
not appear to see rival doctrinal positions – heresy, as a threat
to religion but as a rich matrix for survival. It is about diversity
in unity. If anything what is heretical for the Igbo is any
doctrinal claim to absolutism, by implication all conservative
doctrines are heretical. The orthodox is the multiple, the
workable, the contingent and the consequential. Religion as
religion should be able to ease off people’s lives and bail their
burden and not otherwise. It is there to generate variable
devices sufficient enough to make men soar to their unfettered
aspirations. When doctrines restrain, the Igbo is likely to see
that as mere technicalities organized to persecute. Against this
background, heresies which come to propound “false”
doctrines of conveniences become salvific instruments. What
matters is not the consistency but the workability. The question
is, does it work? If yes, it is doctrinally salvific and orthodox.
For instance, in the emerging lgbo Christianity today, we find
in the Churches a wide range of superstitions and so heretical
teachings about ancestors, life-after death, healing, poverty,
fertility and infertility of men and women, etc. The Pentecostal
Churches are at the vanguard of such heretical crusades. In the
Catholic Church, the Charismatics, Precious Blood groups and
some Marian movements are in the lead of these weird
teachings. Unfortunately, some few priests in search of
relevance have been drafted into the campaign. A whole range
of these teachings come by way of nipping the “inconvenient”
official doctrines in the bud and thus to supervene some
convenient doctrinal shorthand for personal and group designs.
In all, for a typical Igbo convert to Christianity, persecutions
are evil, because they destroy life while heresies are blessings
because they try out other options for salvation in the bodily
realm.

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Worse still, we find among the Igbo, inertia to change

from this fluid vision of reality. The Church must therefore
intensify catechesis so as to encounter a whole race and
engross them into the spirit of the Book and the vision of the
new religion of Christianity.

Conclusion
The Church does not pray for persecutions nor heresies to
breakout. But were any or both to come, the Church of the
New Testament is always sufficiently armed to incorporate
either or both of them to her best advantages. Suffering and so
persecutions cannot be swept off the arrays of human life and
nature. For “even in the centuries that enjoy high levels of
advancement, suffering still exists in different forms.
Generally speaking, although a lot of progress has been
recorded in various fields of human endeavour, yet experiences
of suffering remain”. What is more? Notwithstanding the
divisive character of heresies, and how much the Church fights
to prevent them, whenever they indicate, the Church while
condemning them as to impeach their sundering effects and
consequent moral dangers, at once deploys them to advance
the economy of the Church’s growth.
In the Igboland, the Church has an uphill task, which is
urgent and which consists in strong evangelization of the
native peoples. While selecting for enculturation the elements
of the Igbo worldview that can serve faith, the rest must never
be compromised. With peculiar Christian theodicy the Igbo
understanding of suffering for instance must be catechised and
at the same time, true faith must be sufficiently advanced to
address the excesses of pragmatism accompanying the Igbo
worldview. The true and the pragmatic are not the same. While
the true belongs to the order of saving grace, the workable
belongs to the order of self-indulgence and utility calculus.
Thus, generally, heresies are much more dangerous to the
experience of the Church than persecutions. But among the
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typical Igbo converts to Christianity the experience is

otherwise, that is, persecutions are more dangerous.

Recommendations
If the Church in the modern world, especially in the Igbo-
African sub-region will draw still more from the rich resources
of the two enemies of the Christian faith –persecution and
heresy, it is hereby recommended as follows:

1. That the Church should prepare modern Christians for

the eventuality of persecution by strongly contradicting
the Pentecostal and African religious teachings that all
suffering is evil. This should be done through the
pulpits, books and tele-evangelisation, where men
should be taught that Christ having sanctified suffering,
nothing good comes easy, and eternal life being the
highest good, is highest in the scale of preference of a
Christian man.
2. That the Church should launch a new era of
evangelisation in the Igboland, so as to re-direct the
traditional religious hangovers of the Christian beliefs
of the new converts.
3. That once more, among the Igbo and the west, where a
culture of materialism is fast emasculating the faith
vision of the people, the nobility and sanctity of
martyrdom should be taught and praised through all
evangelical means, so as to gradually raise convinced
Christians who will be ready to defend their faith, and
fight heresy with the sacrifice of their life and blood.
4. That doctrinal instructions relating to all faith
convictions of the Church should be enhanced, so as to
instil in the members the sense of iniquity of heresy
and to further prepare them, to recognise and confront
same wherever and in whichever form it surges forth.

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5. That the Church will not always wait until a particular

doctrinal or moral error has gained prominence and/or
ascendency before it is condemned officially; but that
the Church should now and again scout for dissenting
doctrinal position in their gestation stages and condemn
them with the strongest insistence on the faith of the
Church.

*Maurice O. Izunwa PhD & Stanley C. Mgbemena are

lecturers of law and religion respectively in the Nnamdi
Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra State, Nigeria.

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