The Rise Of "Neo Donatism"

There is a quiet heresy spreading inside what calls itself the “canonical Orthodox” movement, and nobody wants to name it because it would expose the whole system.

It is a Neo Donatism, repackaged for the internet age.

You see it in the orthobros who spend their days scouring the internet playing canonicity police. They do not pastor souls. They do not heal wounds. They do not build the Church. They audit communion lists. They track jurisdictions like sports teams. They decide who is “in” and who is “out” based on alignment with their approved ecclesiastical brands.

And then they call that Orthodoxy.

The idea that grace, legitimacy, or catholicity flows from being “in communion” with their preferred jurisdictions is exactly the logic Donatism was built on. The belief that purity is preserved by institutional alignment. That validity depends on which bishops you recognize. That the Church exists only where their paperwork says it does.

That thinking was explicitly condemned.

This is the part people gloss over when they talk about Donatism, but it is the entire point.

Donatism was not just about “bad priests” or moral failure. That is the surface level explanation. The deeper issue was authority.

The Donatists claimed that if a bishop failed morally, compromised under pressure, or acted in ways they judged unworthy, then everything flowing from that bishop became invalid. Succession was questioned. Sacraments were denied. Communion was severed. Entire communities were declared outside the Church, not because they abandoned the faith, but because the Donatists refused to recognize certain bishops.

And here is the key line that exposes the heresy:

“If you are not with us, you are not valid.”

They positioned themselves as the arbiters of legitimacy. Not Christ. Not the Church as a whole. Them.

They decided whose ordinations counted.
They decided whose sacraments worked.
They decided who was inside grace and who was outside it.

All because they claimed superior purity, superior discernment, and superior authority.

That logic was condemned because it relocates the source of the Church.

Instead of the Church existing because Christ established it, animated it, and preserves it by the Holy Spirit, the Church suddenly exists only where a self appointed group gives approval. Grace becomes conditional on recognition. Apostolic succession becomes something that can be nullified by disagreement. Communion becomes a weapon instead of a sign of unity.

Now fast forward.

The modern version does the same thing, just with different language.

Instead of saying “your bishop is morally impure,” they say “your bishop is unrecognized.”
Instead of “your sacraments are tainted,” they say “your jurisdiction is irregular.”
Instead of “you are outside the Church,” they say “you are not in communion with approved bodies.”

But the sentence underneath it is identical.

“If you are not with us, you are not valid.”

They attempt to invalidate succession not because apostolic faith is missing, not because sacraments are absent, but because they have chosen not to recognize certain bishops. And that refusal becomes retroactive power. As if recognition creates reality.

It does not.

No group of bishops has the authority to erase apostolic succession because they disapprove of another bishop’s actions. No internet consensus can nullify sacraments. No modern jurisdiction can pretend to possess supremacy over the entire Church.

That is exactly why Donatism was condemned.

Because the moment you make legitimacy dependent on alignment, you turn communion into coercion and the Church into a cartel. And that is not Orthodoxy. That is sectarianism wearing vestments.

The irony is that they accuse others of schism while practicing the very logic that fractures the Church. They claim to defend order while assuming powers they were never given. They speak endlessly about canons while violating the reason the canons exist in the first place.

Christ did not establish a Church that lives or dies by who recognizes whom.
He established a Church that lives because He is faithful, even when men are not.

And the moment someone says, “Unless you submit to us, your faith, your sacraments, and your lineage are invalid,” they have crossed the same line Donatism crossed.

History already judged that error.

All that is left is whether people are humble enough to recognize it before repeating it again.

There is no global Orthodox pope.
There is no universal enforcement arm.
There is no single jurisdiction that grants or revokes catholicity.

Communion was never meant to be weaponized into a loyalty test.

And yet here we are, watching people reduce the Church to a spreadsheet of approved names, while accusing everyone else of being “uncanonical” because they refuse to submit to a modern, bureaucratic fantasy of control.

What makes this worse is the arrogance underneath it.

As if the Holy Spirit waits for administrative approval.
As if apostolic faith depends on internet consensus.
As if Christ handed the keys of the Kingdom to keyboard monks with jurisdiction maps.

The Fathers condemned Donatism because it fractures the Church while pretending to protect it. The modern version does the same thing, only now it hides behind the language of canons while violating their spirit entirely.

Orthodoxy is not preserved by obsession with jurisdiction.
It is preserved by fidelity to the faith once delivered, lived sacramentally, confessed faithfully, and passed on without corruption.

The irony is brutal.

In trying to defend “canonicity,” they have resurrected a condemned heresy.
In trying to guard the Church, they have turned it into a club.
In trying to prove purity, they have revealed fear.

This is not zeal.
It is insecurity dressed as orthodoxy.

And it will collapse under its own weight, just like Donatism always does.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. One God.

Amen.