The Orthodox Church’s teaching on predestination can be summarized as follows: those whom God predestines to salvation are those whom He foresaw would make proper use of their will and freely choose to accept God’s gift of grace, and those whom He predestines to damnation are those whom He foresaw would reject His grace. This florilegium seeks to show not only that this is the Orthodox teaching, but also that this has been the normative belief of the Church, both East and West, since the days of the apostles.

The Shepherd of Hermas (2nd century):

Why then, sir, I said, did not all these repent? He answered, To them whose heart He saw would become pure, and obedient to Him, He gave power to repent with the whole heart. But to them whose deceit and wickedness He perceived, and saw that they intended to repent hypocritically, He did not grant repentance, lest they should again profane His name. (Hermas, Third Book, Similitude 8, ch. 6)

St. Justin Martyr (2nd century):

God, wishing men and angels to follow His will, resolved to create them free to do righteousness; possessing reason, that they may know by whom they are created, and through whom they, not existing formerly, do now exist; and with a law that they should be judged by Him, if they do anything contrary to right reason: and of ourselves we, men and angels, shall be convicted of having acted sinfully, unless we repent beforehand. But if the word of God foretells that some angels and men shall be certainly punished, it did so because it foreknew that they would be unchangeably [wicked], but not because God had created them so. So that if they repent, all who wish for it can obtain mercy from God. (Dialogue with Typho, ch. 141)

St. Irenaeus of Lyons (3rd century):

If, however, you will not believe in Him, and will flee from His hands, the cause of imperfection shall be in you who did not obey, but not in Him who called [you]. For He commissioned [messengers] to call people to the marriage, but they who did not obey Him deprived themselves of the royal supper. The skill of God, therefore, is not defective, for He has power of the stones to raise up children to Abraham; but the man who does not obtain it is the cause to himself of his own imperfection. Nor, [in like manner], does the light fail because of those who have blinded themselves; but while it remains the same as ever, those who are [thus] blinded are involved in darkness through their own fault. The light does never enslave any one by necessity; nor, again, does God exercise compulsion upon any one unwilling to accept the exercise of His skill. Those persons, therefore, who have apostatized from the light given by the Father, and transgressed the law of liberty, have done so through their own fault, since they have been created free agents, and possessed of power over themselves. But God, foreknowing all things, prepared fit habitations for both, kindly conferring that light which they desire on those who seek after the light of incorruption, and resort to it; but for the despisers and mockers who avoid and turn themselves away from this light, and who do, as it were, blind themselves, He has prepared darkness suitable to persons who oppose the light, and He has inflicted an appropriate punishment upon those who try to avoid being subject to Him. (Against Heresies, IV, 39:3-4)

St. Augustine of Hippo (4th century):

In the case of him whom He permits to be deceived and hardened, his evil deeds have deserved the judgment; while in the case of him to whom He shows mercy, you should loyally and unhesitatingly recognise the grace of the God who renders not evil for evil; but contrariwise blessing. Nor should you take away from Pharaoh free will, because in several passages God says, I have hardened Pharaoh; or, I have hardened or I will harden Pharaoh’s heart; for it does not by any means follow that Pharaoh did not, on this account, harden his own heart. For this, too, is said of him, after the removal of the fly-plague from the Egyptians, in these words of the Scripture: And Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also; neither would he let the people go. Thus it was that both God hardened him by His just judgment, and Pharaoh by his own free will. (On Grace and Free Will, ch. 45)

St. Ambrose of Milan (4th century):

Then, speaking of the Father, He added: For whom it has been prepared, to show that the Father also is not wont to give heed merely to requests, but to merits; for God is not a respecter of persons. Wherefore also the Apostle says: “Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate.” He did not predestinate them before He knew them, but He did predestinate the reward of those whose merits He foreknew. (Exposition of the Faith, V, 6:82)

St. Hilary of Poitiers (4th century):

“Blessed is he whom you have chosen and have taken up, that he may dwell in your tabernacles.” Indeed, all flesh will come, which is to say, we will be gathered together from every race of men: but whoever will be chosen, he is blessed. For many, according to the Gospel, are called, but few are chosen. The elect are distinguished in their wedding garment, splendid in the pure and perfect body of the new birth. Election, therefore, is not a thing of haphazard judgment. It is a distinction made by selection based on merit. Blessed, then, is he whom God elects: blessed for the reason that he is worthy of election. And it given us to know in what respect the blessed shall be elect, this being clear from what follows: “He shall dwell in your tabernacles.” (Homilies on the Psalms)

Blessed Theodoret of Cyrus (5th century):

“For whom He had foreknown, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the first-born among many brethren”; for He did not irrespectively predestine, but predestined in his foreknowledge of them… Moreover whom “He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Those whose (suitable) disposition he had foreknown, those in the beginning He predestinated; and predestinating, also called; and calling, justified by baptism; and justifying, glorified by designating them sons, and endowing them with the grace of the Holy Spirit. But let no one say that such foreknowledge is the cause of these things; for foreknowledge made them not such as they are, but God as God, foresaw from of old all that would be. (Commentary on Romans, book III, 8:28)

St. Maximus the Confessor (7th century):

The venerable Maximus explained, “We do not directly control whether blessings will be showered upon us or chastisements will befall us, but our good and evil deeds most certainly depend on our will. It is not ours to choose whether we are in health or sickness, but we make determinations likely to lead to one or the other. Similarly, we cannot simply decide that we shall attain the kingdom of heaven or be plunged into the fire of Gehenna, but we can will to keep the commandments or transgress them.” (The Life of Our Holy Monastic Father Maximus the Confessor and Martyr)

St. John of Damascus  (8th century):

Now there are two forms of desertion: for there is desertion in the matters of guidance and training, and there is complete and hopeless desertion. The former has in view the restoration and safety and glory of the sufferer, or the rousing of feelings of emulation and imitation in others, or the glory of God: but the latter is when man, after God has done all that was possible to save him, remains of his own set purpose blind and uncured, or rather incurable, and then he is handed over to utter destruction, as was Judas. May God be gracious to us, and deliver us from such desertion… We ought to understand that while God knows all things beforehand, yet He does not predetermine all things. For He knows beforehand those things that are in our power, but He does not predetermine them. For it is not His will that there should be wickedness nor does He choose to compel virtue. So that predetermination is the work of the divine command based on fore-knowledge. But on the other hand God predetermines those things which are not within our power in accordance with His prescience. For already God in His prescience has prejudged all things in accordance with His goodness and justice. (Concerning Free Will and Predestination, ch. 30)

Council of Quiercy (9th century):

Omnipotent God created man noble without sin with a free will, and he whom He wished to remain in the sanctity of justice, He placed in Paradise. Man using his free will badly sinned and fell, and became the “mass of perdition” of the entire human race. The just and good God, however, chose from this same mass of perdition according to His foreknowledge those whom through grace He predestined to life [ Rom. 8:29 ff.; Eph. 1:11], and He predestined for these eternal life; the others, whom by the judgment of justice he left in the mass of perdition, however, He knew would perish, but He did not predestine that they would perish, because He is just; however, He predestined eternal punishment for them. And on account of this we speak of only one predestination of God, which pertains either to the gift of grace or to the retribution of justice. (Conciliengeschichte, pg. 187)

St. Gregory Palamas (14th century):

So all were summoned [to salvation], and those who did not come to the faith, shall justly be punished. Why, therefore, did the Lord say that many were called, but not all? Because at this point He was speaking about those who had come to Christ, which is why He put this statement later, after the parable. If, when someone was invited, he were to obey the summons, and, having been baptized, were to be called by Christ’s name, but were not to behave in a way worthy of his calling, nor fulfil the promises made at his baptism to live according to Christ, then, although he was called, he was not chosen… for those who accuse God of calling people who were not going to act in obedience to Him, no doubt they would also have held Him responsible for the destruction of such people, had He not called them. He called them so that no one could say that He was the cause of their being punished. Why was it, then, that He created men who were to be damned? He did not make them to be punished, but to be saved, as is clear from the fact that He called them. If He had wanted to damn anyone at all, He would not have called everyone to salvation. If God led me and called me to salvation through His goodness, but I turned out evil, ought my wickedness, before it even existed, to have overcome His eternal goodness and have thwarted it? That would be totally unreasonable. People who assert otherwise and make accusations against the Creator are actually saying that it was wrong to make human beings rational. For reason would be pointless without free choice and the power of self-governance. How can someone have the freedom to choose and the power to act freely, unless he were able to be evil, should he so wish? If he could not be wicked, nor could he, presumably, be good. (Predestination? On Why God Made Those Who Would Perish)

Council of Jassy (17th century):

God certainly foreknew all things before they were in Being; but he only predestinated Good (St. Damascene, Book ii. chap. XXX.), for it were contrary to the divine Goodness to predestine Evil. For Evil is no other than Sin… In fine, God, in his Wisdom and Justice, predetermines only those things which are entirely out of our Power, with regard to their being or not being; and in those good things which are in our Power to be done, he foreknows, but so that his Will hindereth not ours, which no way controls the Nature of Free-will. (Question 26)

Council of Jerusalem (17th century):

We believe the most good God to have from eternity predestinated unto glory those whom He has chosen, and to have consigned unto condemnation those whom He has rejected; but not so that He would justify the one, and consign and condemn the other without cause. For that would be contrary to the nature of God, who is the common Father of all, and no respecter of persons, and would have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth {1 Timothy 2:4}. But since He foreknew the one would make a right use of their free-will, and the other a wrong, He predestinated the one, or condemned the other. And we understand the use of free-will thus, that the Divine and illuminating grace, and which we call preventing [or, prevenient] grace, being, as a light to those in darkness, by the Divine goodness imparted to all, to those that are willing to obey this — for it is of use only to the willing, not to the unwilling — and co-operate with it, in what it requires as necessary to salvation, there is consequently granted particular grace. This grace co-operates with us, and enables us, and makes us to persevere in the love of God, that is to say, in performing those good things that God would have us to do, and which His preventing grace admonishes us that we should do, justifies us, and makes us predestinated. But those who will not obey, and co-operate with grace; and, therefore, will not observe those things that God would have us perform, and that abuse in the service of Satan the free-will, which they have received of God to perform voluntarily what is good, are consigned to eternal condemnation. (Decree III)

St. Philaret of Moscow (19th century):

In the exposition of the faith by the Eastern Patriarchs it is said: As he foresaw that some would use well their free will, but others ill, he accordingly predestined the former to glory, while the latter he condemned. (The Longer Catechism, 1:125)

Fr. Daniel Sysoev (21st century)

The fact is that God saves only those predestined for salvation; however, this predestination does not depend on God but on people. For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestine… Moreover whom He did predestine, then He also called: and whom He called, them He also justified (Rom 8:29-30).

God saves only those predestined, but this predestination is secured by man’s choice. How is this choice made? This is the very first point at which one’s conversion to Christ begins. Here is how it works: when a person desires to seek for the truth, he is the cause of that desire. A sense of what is true was imbedded in him from the beginning, from his very conception, and he chose to follow this call because Christ is the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world (Jn. 1:9). Every person has a desire for truth, but may or may not want to realize this desire. This choice belongs to the person himself, and it takes place in his very depths, which cannot be measured or defined by anything whatsoever. This is the point where everything begins. And so, if a person makes the choice, if the truth is more important to him than his own self, at that moment God will instantly respond. Moreover, you should note that God is aware of this choice before the person is born, even before the creation of the world, because God is outside time. He purposefully arranges things so that when this person appears he will have every opportunity to be saved. (Questions to Priest Daniel Sysoev, p. 170-171)