Frank Shaeffer : The Defense of Orthodoxy (Against Protestantism) : Part 3

the official title of this talk look at the program the title the official title tonight is distinguishing between American and Protestantism and the historic church now what I would like to do is forgive me those of you who are here this morning but I'm going to have to assume certain things in these talks and one is that I can't cover all that ground again however one thing I said this morning that I don't mind repeating even to those of you who are here is this before I begin tonight's talk once again let me emphasize something the historic church teaches that salvation is a mystery that to each is given something different that only god can judge the heart and that we walk according to the light we are given and so from an orthodox point of view whether someone is in the church or out of the church whether someone has become a Christian or is still in darkness whether someone has enough information to be saved or not as has nothing to do with our ability to judge that person soul and try to see them as God would and we cannot do that the Orthodox Church tells us how to become Christians and how to grow in Christ but it never gives us any intellectual or theological tools to look into someone's heart and say because you haven't repeated this formula because you have not been in our community you are saved our lost or Damned or going to hell and we see as I talked about this morning exceptions in the scripture to both say Orthodox and Protestant teaching on the issue of salvation a woman of course as I mentioned this morning is the thief on the cross who does not praise sinner's prayer so he's not forming again from a Protestant point of view he certainly wasn't baptized and he did not receive the sacrament and one can think of the Roman century and so let me repeat again at the beginning of tonight's talk routine can of Protestantism or pointing out the differences between Protestant and box thinking on the issue of salvation church history whatever it might be is very very different than pointing the finger at someone and saying you are lost because you are not in the Orthodox Church or you are lost because you have not walked towards Christ as far as say this monastic has or this same tax so that having been said however tonight's talk is going to be on the differences the essential differences between orthodoxy and Protestantism and there are very many differences but I'm going to focus on the essential differences and to kick off the talk tonight which will be followed by a time of question-and-answer if you will indulge me it will help me in setting this talk if I can read a couple of short excerpts on this subject out of one and then another of my own books I love quoting myself but it actually it actually will make this talk shorter because it means that I can summarize an idea and then I can talk about it to you the first thing I'd like to read is a short section out of the book letters to the father Aristotle the book by the way takes to the form letters to increase the fictional priest there is no father but in the book you get the idea these an old friend maybe we were in school together now he's a priest and occasionally be right back and forth and you're hearing my end of the correspondence someone said why didn't you write lazy and presume to write letters from a fictional priest to myself I'd be tempted to have him say things to me that were too and I bought copies for all my friends for Christmas this sort of thing tempts writers so I figured I would just write my end of the correspondence and let people throw their own conclusion but anyway this happens to be letter three in the book deals with tonight's talk very well dear father Aristotle I spoke to a woman the other day who is a recent convert to orthodoxy from the Episcopal nation by the grace of God for whole parishes converted to orthodoxy they have kept their priest without been ordained as an Orthodox priest this woman made an interesting comment to me she said well it's wonderful now that our parishes become orthodox we really don't have to change anything we get to keep everything the way it was only now we don't have to be part of a church that allows the ordination of women and homosexuals I asked the woman what it meant to her to be Orthodox since according to her she and her parish did not have to quote change anything she did not have the answer my question it seems to me that some converts seem to think that they have joined quote just another denomination or perhaps they believe the orthodoxy is just a more conservative version of their old Protestant or Roman faith this is quite an astonishing idea though I understand it all too well I have had a note I'll still have many misconceptions about the Orthodox Church one of the things that I have slowly begun to learn is that the Orthodox Church is not just another version of Western Christianity orthodoxy is not merely Roman Catholicism or Protestantism plus rather orthodoxy is a profoundly different religion for one thing because of the Orthodox understanding of the unity of body and soul we were that ox view the Incarnation in quite a different way than Western Christians do whether they are Roman Catholic or Protestant our orthodox understanding of the unity of the spiritual and physical world rests on our belief that Christ was and is fully God and fully man nothing was given by either of Christ two nature's to accommodate the other we believe in the unity of reality above all we believe in the unity of the Trinity we hold that God is beyond yet within his creation well we do not confuse the Creator with his creation we believe that his presence permeates all of creation therefore we understand that the physical world even in its fallen state is sacred and is being redeemed and the consequence we put a far greater emphasis on the goodness of the created world in Western Christians do this emphasis manifests itself in many ways but is most obvious in our Orthodox orthodox expression of liturgical and physical sacramental worship we Orthodox Christians believe that the father accepted is st. Maximus the Confessor we're speaking the truth when they talk that the soul and body are one and this is a quote from st. Maximus just as the soul and body combined to produce a human being so practice of virtues and contemplation together constitute a unique spiritual wisdom and quote the Western Augustinian idea is very different than not to st. Maximus and the eastern fathers it is that the body is a mere worthless husk inhabited by the fallen immortal soul which is completely separate from its quote mortal shell this and much more makes a huge difference to the way we view even the small details in the liturgy and the rubrics of worship these details reflect a whole way of seeing reality to the Orthodox that a physical world matters it matters because we sense the presence of the divine in all of creation it is impossible that sacramental truth evolved from a fundamentally mistaken Latin Western theology that has belittled the truth and beauty of the created world in favor of a Manicheans spirituality can remain the same or unchanged within Orthodoxy it doesn't footnote the manatees were a heresy early in the church's history that said that everything and evil and spiritual world was the only thing that was good in other words body bad soul good prayer good you know entertainment bad anything to do with the flesh never held that view if it does so if just go back man Aegean spirituality can remain the same or unchanged it is not worth that is not to say that we do not all grow slowly in the understanding and enlightenment we do but in order to grow one must at least acknowledge the need to learn and to become more so in that letter which then continues into some greater detail on the subject I try to introduce this idea that simply to think that orthodoxy is just another kind of Western Christian denomination is really very wrongheaded and it is not fair to people who are coming into orthodoxy to say all these same different in our approach energy that is simply not true Christianity is the Christianity of the historic church and it is not evolved in the directions of Western Christianity which had some fast and important differences with the Orthodox vision of things in my book dancing alone in a section called New Hope in chapter 16 which is on salvation I'd like to just read you a couple paragraphs which try to pick up that thought it seems to me that the root problem of our culture is that we have looked for salvation in the wrong places the secularists have offered salvation from sin by turning to the works of political action as if coercive government programs could eradicate evil the American Protestant also looks for mass magical instantaneous Silver Bullet solutions to sin he calls this the born-again experience but according to the Holy Tradition just saying that one is quote born again is meaningless it does not entail the necessary repentance ascetic struggle hardship to worship and the use of our free will to choose God's Way again and again which the historical church has taught is the only way we come we can become like God strive to become deified in other words imitate Christ and through the imitation of Christ become godlike ourselves as the psalmist expresses it the desire to be saved is as follows quote I shall only be satisfied when I awake in your likeness that's from Psalm 17 the witness of historical church contradicts both secular idolatrous speaking of idolatry and Protestant delusion simplistic solutions to our moral problems instead it falls out the hope of a spiritual journey toward the end of becoming godlike I were waking one day to quote the psalmist in his likeness in the year 270 ad st. basil the great Road I would say that the exercise of piety is rather like a ladder the ladder which once was seen by the Blessed Jacob at which one end was near the earth and reached through the ground while the other and extended above and reached in heaven itself what is necessary is that those who are being introduced through the virtuous life which is another way of saying the Christian faith should have put their feet on the first steps and from their mount ever to the next unto the last thing that ascended by degrees to such heights as are attainable by human nature and quote st. basil the great teachers salvation is not a matter of instant experience nor is it a one nor is it one of cosmic fate or election rather it is like everything else a process a struggle a climbing of the spiritual ladder how are we say how can we some day awake in the likeness of God some Protestants will give a simplistic and incomplete answer to this question they will say quote Bible by believing the Christ died on the cross for us according to the Holy Tradition that answer is a past only partially correct answer or in keeping with the Holy Tradition to the question how are we saved it is simple but very difficult and this is the answer by struggling to become my Christ Orthodox author and priest Anthony Canaris writes and I quote salvation is not static but dynamic it is not a completed state a state of having arrived but a constant moving toward becoming like Christ who are receiving the fullness of God's life it can never be achieved fully in this life according to Saint Basil the Great to become like Christ we must obey Him and imitate him quote the design of our God and Savior in regard to mankind is a calling back from the fall and a return to a familiar friendship with God from the alienation brought about by disobedience this is the reason for Christ so journeying in the flesh for the model of his gospel actions the suffering the cross the tomb the resurrection that man who is being saved through his imitation of Christ might receive that old adoption as son so you can see there are those two passages that very incomplete and very imperfect way try to point out as there are profound differences and I think that there are many because you are here with us tonight in a talk about the difference between orthodoxy and Protestantism I have to the outset be honest and present the fact that as you look at what the Orthodox teach teaching is on a central point such as salvation we cannot just assume that somehow oh we've already taken care of all that in our lives and now it's just a matter of where we go to church and how we worship there is far more here than that it is a different mindset and so this evening go on here so this evening would like to do yes look not at a total picture of those differences because I'm certainly not qualified to do that nor would we have the time but we look rather together at some of what you might call the kind of peaks and valleys between orthodoxy and Protestantism so that in the discussion very happy word and then in your own reading and thinking as you leave this you will have something to chew on and think about in regard to this and not not just assume certain things I would say that if someone came to me and said Frank what is the most radically essentially different aspect of Orthodox faith and Protestantism that I could sum it up like this there's also a second point what is the biggest difference in the life in Christ in the Protestant community and in the Orthodox Church that's another question and I'll also mention that in a moment but at the first I would just sum up like this there are many differences but if I had today one and it's rather hard to define I would put it this way and that is that in Western Christianity in Protestantism whether it's charismatic whether it's fundamentalist Lutheran whatever manifestation and between orthodoxy the most essential difference is this within the Orthodox Church in the historic church salvation is seen as a journey toward God it is seen as something organic not mathematical or to try to put it another way it's something a lot closer to the spirit of art motherhood good cooking if you want to put it that way then to math and physics may be an odd analogy but it is not something that can be pinned down dogmatically as if there is a formula and if you will repeat this form you know think these thoughts and do this then 30 seconds later you're in it's not a dogmatic or theological let me put another way to you someone asked priest once a Protestant asked the priest tell me what it is that you Orthodox believe and the answer they were expecting was something like a Protestant will give well here are the nine points and here's our three and here's whatever it is to the formula and the priest said I can't answer that question this is an Orthodox because you asked me the wrong question rather asked me how is it that you Orthodox worship because if you will come to understand what our worship is you will then know what we believe why because it is the being of Christianity the living within Christ that is the road of salvation it is not a question of doing this one thing or thinking that one thing it is a way of life and that way I write is truly mirrored it worth adopts worship that it incorporates the whole person it is there when you are born it is there when you die I always loved the Orthodox funeral services for priests because the last thing one of the last things that happens is that the priests face is covered it is covered with the mantle that he wears around his back when you see him serving the communion that has the cross on it so the first thing he sees when he's resurrected in the tradition of the church is the cross of Christ once again and traditionally within orthodoxy often in at least the countries from which were thought seek aid it was a tradition to be buried in the same shawl that one who had been baptized in cruse mated in as an infant and the fact of the matter is that one of the prime differences between the Orthodox faith and the Western Christian tradition that we see is it's to develop today there are many is that orthodoxy regards salvation as a journey now someone may say then well then give them the Protestant predilection for Bible verses that promise eternal salvation or assurance because it says this year or that they're their kind of proof - actually what do you do what are you trusting and so on salvation depends on the quality of the faith that the Orthodox Christian has in and you're going to think I say God or Christ no in the quality of God's mercy because the most fundamental Orthodox prayer and the oldest word ox prayer that goes right back goes right back into the New Testament of the blind man calling out to Christ is Lord Jesus Christ son of God or is the blind man said son of David but it's been changed in Orthodox tradition the Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy upon me a sinner and that is called the jesus prayer and it's the most common prayer orthodoxy and the holiest of the most highest monks and priests and nuns and they people pray that prayer without ceasing all day long is this because they not have any assurance of their salvation no not at all it is because the assurance of salvation comes from trusting in the quality of God's mercy and not puffing one itself up in a spiritual arrogance to think that you are ever at a time in your life when you no longer need that mercy of God and so the essential difference between Protestantism and orthodoxy if I had to sum it up the essential difference between Western Christianity coming out of Roman Catholicism with all this August inian dogmatix and orthodoxy is that orthodoxy and there's various ways to put this but these salvation is a journey let me put those in another context in another work orthodoxy indeed believes and act like it believes not just theoretically that salvation is a holy mystery that it is not something invented by German theologians if you like that is a lot more organic than that then it cannot be measured quantified pressed down has two or three Bible verses attached to it out of context and now you have the answer that the answer lies only in one thing and that is truly Frank Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy upon the center that you can't get beyond that that there is no okay fine now I prayed that now what do I do you pray it again because there is no after work in this right you pray or Jesus Christ son of God have mercy upon me a sinner no matter where you are on that spiritual journey because only on the basis of God's mercy do you have hope of salvation and put it this way your assurance of salvation is only in the fact that we have a good and loving God and has nothing to do with your ability to parent some theological statement or to live a certain way or to say that you believe certain things because that belief is never complete if you asked me in my heart of hearts to be truly honest and we were in a one-on-one conversation and he said Frank do you really believe all this stuff all of the time I'll tell you something I'd say no I don't to the whole ride whether it's up or down whether I am in a state of belief unbelief apostasy and inner heresy or walking the true path sin or falling down there's only one constant and that is the high point and the low point you can still pray Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy on the center that is the only true consistent link of the spiritual life because fundamentally the rest is all trap your doctrine will never be pure enough to give you any assurance of salvation from the Orthodox point of view your life may attain some perfection as the Saints do but Saint Mary of Egypt was a for many years before she was a saint and repented and that's still the same person and even though she's a saint and even though the church regards her as a saint the church doesn't cover up her sin and so she never did anything wrong and sort of whitewash her past the way the Soviet dictators childhoods were whitewashed and you think they were born leading the nation if you don't the history is saying say we're great often before they were great Saints and so the constant reality of the spiritual life in orthodoxy is the realization that this is a journey and that in this journey there are no guarantees there was only one and it has nothing to do with the ology and has only to do with the character of God being merciful and loving because it is only by that mercy only by that grace that anyone has hope of salvation theology dogma what you say you believe goes up and down because there are plenty of days you don't really believe it in your heart there are plenty of days where one is discouraged and one's theology one's moral life one sins overwhelmed you like a dark cloud coming down at least they do in my life and those are the times when you understand salvation is a race to be run it's a journey to be completed now this idea of salvation being a journey has tremendous consequences in Orthodox life that make it very different from - in the Protestant church and one of those consequences is that the Orthodox Church acknowledges we need help well-known Orthodox priest by the name of father thomas hopko was one asked once asked by a Protestant in the meeting such as this where there was a crowd of Protestant Orthodox present they said well that sacramental stuff you do just a crutch isn't it just a crutch can't isn't it enough that you just know Jesus as your Savior why do you need the holy sacrament or crutches and he looked for a minute I happened to see this on tape he stopped a minute and he thinks he says well the answer is very simple I need all these sacramental crutches because I am Li moral that is the truth salvation is a journey and in this sense we are all moral cripples literally we are dragging ourselves by the grace of God and His mercy from death into life we are we are assisting in our salvation in what the Orthodox call this process is synergy where you have the energy of God and the energy of man the freewill he's given combined where we need a mathematical chart halfway that's the Protestant type of explanation this is a holy mystery you can't put a configuration around for where we need and we made that first step endowed honors and completes to the process over a lifetime I'm really looking back on my Protestant past have no idea where I are anyone else was thinking you know it's amazing to me our little knowledge about something changes the way you see it you know an example if you I happen to have painted in my past before I got into filmmaking I daresay history if I catch sight of robia or a little a little very easy or something like that from the Italian study is going to mean something different to me when you a little bit of Orthodox Church and above all when you have within Orthodoxy awhile suddenly you see things in the scripture that before it's really sort of grabbed me by the throat and shake that crazy Protestant dogma out of thing right from the Bible but I'm not being facetious they printed documents to teach you anything outside of a context of understanding that our Supreme Court would not have legalized abortion because our Constitution does not guarantee the right of privacy in the sense that we can kill our unborn children it's a paper mean nothing it is the context in which there we see which is why it is so important to have that authority and holy tradition within the church because as well-meaning as we each individually are none of us are able to replace the wisdom of the ages of the church with our own interpretations of Christ about well-meaning sincere people who say they are saved and born again and progressing who away and who do not complete the journey whether it's the powerbal of the sower the foolish virgins whether it's paul saying that we must finish the race what we see all through the New Testament and all through the Old Testament is that it is the quality of the repentant heart the desire to follow God the desire to continue and finish the journey that in the end is salvific and that you can ever say well this is an incident formula and here's the few logical explanation and so what the Orthodox Church does in its wisdom in its mercy over the over the eons is to give us the means by which to accomplish that salvation I'll give you an example if you think of the sacrament of the Eucharist within the Orthodox tradition in order to take the Eucharist you have to be going to confession to your priest and rules in orthodoxy are just that they are rules once a week or once a month different spiritual fathers will treat different of their children differently knowing where they are on the path and so forth but generally speaking we are always speaking but if the rule is that the sacrament of confession is a preload to the sacrament of the Eucharist why because we are told through the tradition and through the scripture and it is always in the practice of the church to help the believer to prepare to come in the proper spirit to the table of the Lord in fact we were born very emphatically by Paul that if we do not come in the proper way we are eating and drinking immigration has been of a certain sincere quality and properly done and so the church has always guarded the sacrament of the Eucharist and forbidden Orthodox from coming to it and heretics and Sue's maddox and others for the simple reason that it takes seriously its obligation to deliver as it were the souls of the people intact to God and not allow them through foolishness sin to to make terrible errors anymore than in the Old Testament era the priests would allow someone to waltz into the Holy of Holies as if somehow well this is open to everyone when when they had been specifically told not to well similarly when you see something like the sacrament of the communion table in orthodoxy being defended by the Orthodox Church what at the Orthodox Church is simply doing is what Christians have done from the beginning and that is to take the sacrament seriously because they are one whole piece of cloth that are not little individual things and it's basically the whole package or nothing why because one of the big differences between orthodoxy and Protestantism in the road of salvation is that if you believe salvation is a journey then it ascent eights accountability let me give you an analogy I have a father of three children and they've kind of grown up and I learned a few things and one of the things you learn is that children don't mature all at once it is a journey physical journey a spiritual journey a moral journey a journey of responsibility in order for that journey to happen that child cannot just simply be thrown out and abandoned into the forest at birth or when they're old enough to eat feed themselves they have to be in a relationship in which they are accountable to someone who loves them but nevertheless holds them to account for their behavior or what they say what they do who they are what they think where they go to school and so forth salvation like growing from childhood into adulthood is a journey and that journey is sacramental because you have to have tools you walk that path but the moment you take sacramentality seriously that the true dividing presence is really in the Eucharist the baptism is more than a symbol the sacrament of marriage is more than just a social event as as a pre lude to the main business which is the reception whether you take if you take these things seriously then one of the effects of salvation being a journey is that people who pursue salvation as a journey I must keep marching forward need tools and help they need to do it in a community of belief which is the church but they also need to be accountable and some of you come to one of what I would call the surface differences because the ideation being a journey is the heart of the matter a lot of the ramifications is a surface difference and that is within Orthodox we have hierarchy we have structure and we have non-negotiable tradition that if there is not a make it up as you go along well in our Orthodox Church our priests you know doesn't really have such a tough view of the Eucharist and you know people come in Orthodox and nice and you know are more strict and so forth well hierarchy in the organized part of the church means you have to the priests but it's to the police to the bishop to the bishop to the other bishops and finally all the people of God to the tradition of the church itself where the least grandmother can stand up or after the service tell the priest you can't do that and he says to her why not what's your authority well her authority is very simple she says because it's never been done this way it's not what my mother taught me and it's not mother taught her the only tradition is a living thing it is something passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter it is not a book somewhere where there's rule number 333 /b subsection C it is simply the way things have been done from the beginning and it means that everyone in the Orthodox Church is accountable to something bigger than themselves and so it is hierarchical it is not democratic and the last thing it is is sectarian in a sense that it is not a free-for-all with everybody reading the scripture for themselves interpreting it any way they want coming up with different conclusions and simply saying well I'm changing what I do from now on these salvation is a journey and if it's a journey we're not there yet and therefore the quality of how we travel that journey really has some bearing on our salvation it's not I'm already a Christian I'm quote saved and this is just a matter of where I go to church no no let me give you a very direct analogy marriage is not a one-time event I let me tell you something I am more or less married today then the first day I was married nor would be after 30 years if God grant gives us that time what because marriage every day is a decision to travel that day as a married man a decision to be a father and decision to be faithful to your wife another day it is an organic living journey there's no such thing as I'm married you are as married as you choose to be that hour because you can fall off the path of the marriage and no longer be marry and commit adultery and then have the choice of coming back and we pending and patching things up and getting back on the path for abandoning it forever and leaving your children now that you have suddenly visitation rights to any couple of weekends and you're no longer really a mother or a father you're just a visitor and maybe you can abandon it even further than that and so there is no such thing as well I was married in my heart and I love my wife once you're as married as you choose to be that day now the Orthodox journey of salvation although that's not an exact comparison that is summation is it is not that God is going to snatch it away from you capriciously and sort of flick you off for the path because you're not in some book someplace or weren't predestined to be saved and because john calvin pulled him to throw you off but you are as saved as you choose to be tonight and because you are imperfect the quality of your salvation not only depends on your choice but it depends on Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy on me a sinner and you know what marriage does - I'm not being facetious you know my wife's name is Jeannie and it's the same thing Jeannie forgive me because I do choose to stay married to you husband and make so many mistakes and do many so many things that the quality of our relationship in human terms this is not a good analogy but if the quality of our relationship speaking personally for our family is built on the quality of my wife's mercy to me her god-like kindness to her husband it's built on the quality of mutual forgiveness and on choosing to be godlike to one another and you know that perfectly well with you marry here if your marriage is built on pains of perfection you're in deep trouble it's built on mutual forgiveness now in God's relationship and the relationship sever the forgiveness it's all in one way the toleration is always I keep human relationship is a journey and so I would say for those who are Protestants looking at orthodoxy or Orthodox trying to leave them in their own faith you have to understand something happens to be that way and other people have other things and that's fine too you know this kind of situational ethics well you know you choose do that and I will put it to you very bluntly there is only one way to come to Christ and it's through a journey and there's only one sure way to pursue that journey it is in the Orthodox Church why do I say though because everyone outside of the church is on the way to hell not at all salvation is in history I'd never dare to judge the individual heart there are plenty of people outside of the church who are saintly and they people in it or not that's nothing to do with this question I'm saying the only sure way is to pursue it within the Orthodox Church why church is not a feeling church is an actual ontological historical reality that I talked about it and therefore if the church is the church then the only sure way to follow Christ I did not say the only way I say the only sure way is within the Orthodox Church why because these rubrics these icons because these liturgies these prayers because the accountability and the hierarchy is not just oh well that's headed in the Orthodox ethnic Eastern Way is v wet why because God and his compassion for us where we sinners would have to pray Lord Jesus Christ son of God have mercy on me a sinner did not leave us orphans he sent us the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit has lived in and dwelt in and worked through the body of Christ on earth which is the one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church and that's not an idea it's an entity let me put it another way and that is that to try to pursue your salvation as an individual outside of orthodoxy is near to impossible for a very good reason and that is especially in a sectarian culture like our own without accountability to a tradition without accountability to the sacraments which include the sacrament of confession without accountability to a tradition that teaches us that contacted in the interpretation of Scripture who among us is good enough intelligent enough insistent enough to win our salvation alone if it is a dirty very few very few if any I'm not saying it doesn't exist but I certainly could not we have to understand that the way is is for a reason it is because the church fully understands the depth to which we are all sinners and need help in our journey you see for a Protestant point of view the eternal worship and these sacramental traditions don't matter what I already say what do I need all this for I crazy odd anyway I want to I'm 15 now I get my driver's license next I don't need to do that I'm an adult and you're saying yourself Wow you're gonna learn well go ahead and try it you know be an adult for six months and see how see how it works out that rebellious attitude that you have well you know what I was saying this morning about Frank Sinatra writing our national anthem I did it my way well remember that that is the kind of world we live in and so if you are going to have a church a community to believe designed to run counter to the fashion both in the Christian world and in the second of the world in America both of which are fully humanistic to their core I did it my way the sectarian tradition you could not come up with something more opposite than not in the Orthodox Church television is a journey therefore we need a hierarchy to protect the road that road has certain milestones in these yes they are literally so Vivek because salvation is a journey of therefore you cannot be saved without walking in the path and you can't walk it alone and you need guidance and one reason you can't walk it alone is the whole church or going all the way back into the prophets of the Old Testament tell us that God despises one thing and that is the proud heart and the epitome of pride is I did it my way it's me and my Jesus and I'll read the Bible and I draw my own conclusions what do I need to learn from the church or the tradition where the way other believers have come I'll make my own church and so in a way the sectarian or positive approach to salvation is the surest way to lose one's salvation not because of theology of wrong doctrine because you're in the quote wrong church but practically in the same way that giving the car keys to an irresponsible 16 year old who thinks he or she is an adult is the shortest way to get them killed to punish them they're really not responsible and similarly when you look at the chaos of the Protestant world around us every other way these natural 23,000 denominations all shoes the great sin at the heart of that is not a theological Senate is a moral Senate it is called pride we will find our own way Pontius Pilate what is truth who are you to tell me how to do this how to do that and so when you look at scripture when you look at the tradition of the church one of the reasons that the Orthodox Church is the way it is and says no this is how we have communion no this is a bishop and you're not the bishop no he's the priest you go to confession with him you're on your own priest one of the reasons why it is that way is because by doing these things we learn to humble ourselves and we learn by the doing of Orthodoxy the really does not stop with us we are not the center of the universe humility I walked that path in the same way that every person who's ever come to Christ has walked and unless we are willing to humble ourselves in this life and recognize the authority of the priests and the authority of the bishop and the authority of the teaching of the church and the historicity of the church we're going to have a very hard time humbling ourselves in the heavenly kingdom and instead we're going to pick a theological face with the Apostles and perhaps Christ himself and get tossed out and I only mean that somewhat facetiously because you know the father's t just an interesting principle that some of you Protestants will find quite amazing and that is that there only is heaven because there only is God's love and that we create our own hell because the love of God is going to be fire and held to some and warmth and comfort to others because those who deny Christ those that have denied God those that have the pride and self-will are going to be exactly those who call out Lord Lord because they have not learned that heavenly way and the heavenly way is not democratic it is not American it is not individualistic it is a community of belief that is built on the humility of the individual to come in the way that all others have come before them and if you have to invent your own way if the church is not good enough for you well then maybe heaven will not be either because the fiery love of God will melt the heart of some and others that will dry up like clay but the mother of God remains constant and so the journey is everything the journey is the nut and the faces and the root the whole thing let me give you a specific example of what I'm talking about in terms of this journey how in an area that applies that a lot of Protestants were incidents ask questions about remember I said one of the derivatives of understanding that salvation is a journey is to understand is to understand that that journey is sacramental and therefore the church becomes a necessity of our salvation not because it's a magic talisman that ok if I'm in church I believe these three things I'm saved but rather practically in the same way that a hospital becomes the root of your healing not because hospitals heal people in a magical way because they care for you they give you medicine they nurture operations they bring you along and your hospital experience or the nurses all believe in Jesus where there's magic in the water but because that's what hospitals do and they do it pretty well well similarly the church has always been seen as a necessity of salvation not because the church is magical and filled with good people and the church matters let me give you an example of how it matters someone asked me was Mary the mother of God veneration of Mary do you a Protestant upbringing where is it in the Bible and saw I don't have to well a few years ago I would have done something like read this pamphlet on the veneration of Mary and here's a good chapter in this person's book and here is what the and here is a passage in Scripture what do you do with the Annunciation she's called the most blessed of all women and all of that is true but there's actually a much better answer the trouble is a lot of people won't receive the answer because their frame of mind is not such to be able to hear what you're really saying but I will tell you what it is because it is a perfect example just working backwards a little to illustrate what I mean when I say if salvation is a journey and how you travel that journey matters and if it matters then the church matters because what we do is Christians within worship and the sacramental tradition is actually salvific because that's the path we walked out alright that's the parameter to the Mary friends as you look I would believe in the Bible in Christ if if you didn't have all that stuff in it that's so hard to believe like Jesus walking on the water how can you believe something happen if you're thinking straight who is Christ because if he is the son of God not a problem so ask me the right question you know my dad who was great in discussion always used to say to me Franklin you're in a discussion or a debate make sure you always answer the question behind the question don't just be caught answering the question try to cut to the real question behind it well there is no question about Mary that can be answered in a satisfactory Protestant men are in the sense of here's three verses that prove this although of course in the Annunciation the life of Christ a lot of is there but the real answer is this the Protestant who has a question about the veneration of the Saints the real question they're asking has nothing to do with the same to Mary it has to do with what is the church why because their real question if you think about it is this it should be framed in a different way and that is that if the church is who she says she is and has been from the beginning and the Holy Spirit has truly led that church then the real question is not why do you venerate Mary but what has the church always done in regard to Mary you see the real question is what is the church what authority what is its importance to my salvation the definition of the Holy Tradition is those things believed by all Christians everywhere from the beginning and the real question about Mary or the icons is simply this has the church from the beginning venerated Mary and given her a special place in the surgical worship or not or is this something that was added 12 years ago in Cincinnati the real question behind most of the practices of the church can be answered individually by Christ walking on the water but it would really be more like trying to answer that by sort of pseudo physics certain wind conditions in Galilee you know if you're wearing a certain type of sandal you know it's been known that this isn't so difficult and it can be done and this is like trying to take a few verses out of context and say the real answer to so many differences between Protestants and Orthodox is much deeper and that is what is the nature of salvation now this may seem odd to you think about it for a minute if the nature of salvation is an instant fix all the born-again experience and after that nothing else really matters then there is no answer for any question as to why orthodoxy does what it does but this salvation is a journey then who and what the church is matters because if you've ever been on a hike ie grew up hiding in the Swiss Alps the path you are on is everything it doesn't make any difference how you feel in your heart or in your theology of hiking if you're on the wrong path and it's someone the ends of their cliff you are dead I remember one day and we were always caught in the dark dark very quickly in the autumn hours and things you say don't worry boy I know the password on I think this one a lot sometimes you take I don't know where we are we're going to sit here until tomorrow morning because we might get killed but if he knew the path he don't worry boy I know the path he did not trust his spiritual sense of hiking he trusted the path he was on because he recognized the markers now if North Knox Church is the path or to put it another way if she is not a liar we're going to put it another way Ignatius and a and Irenaeus and you seppius and you gara are not liars and in some cosmic infernal plot to delude Americans 2,000 years later if Oliver Stone ever makes a movie about it it'll be a paranoid fantasies aside if you take the witness of the church seriously and worth the journey then you have to understand something when the old lady turns to you an Orthodox Church and you say why do you do that and you're waiting for the theological Protestant answer because it says so right in James 12 you know informations it's a Heuer thing and if you look at the Old Testament prophecy and so forth and she instead turns to you and says he made simplicity because my mama showed me how to do this this is what my grandmother taught me in a strange way you understand why because what the church is and its authority depends on its consistency of passing down the essentials of salvation from one generation to another and so when the old one oxmonkey looks at the Western Christian waiting for the big intellectual answer and he says to him this is how we always done it you have to understand that not only is that a good answer fundamentally it is the only answer why do we believe in the divinity of Christ because the church has always believed it there really is not a better answer than that there is no other answer you have to understand that if you say oh oh because it's in the Bible sir the only reason we believe the new and the Old Testament is the scripture is because the church has always said it was there were thousands of competing religious writings from the Old Testament and the New Testament era and they are not in the Canon because there were people who decided people called bishops that they did not conform to what the church had always believed that they bore witness to a different Christ and in Christ the church had always borne witness to no church no Church authority no Bible and so when you look at a question like Mary the real answer is we venerate Mary because the church has always been rated her and we trust the church now that's not a good Western rationalistic intellectualism nor is it someone who comes in what has the church always believed that is the only intelligent Orthodox question it is not what happy kyojin said what did Martin Luther think what is my my commentary on the Bible say what do I think this verse says what does this pastor say what did this guy write in the book all of that is useful only if it is always believed in men rather than the Bible again I would just simply say you cannot have your cake and eat it too because you cannot have a scripture unless you trust the Holy Spirit to lead those bishops 300 years after the resurrection of Christ to tell you that scripture has in it we would be reading the Gospel of st. Thomas otherwise we would all be we would have all followed origin we would all follow the Medicis Christianity would have dissolved without the guidance of the church there is no witness of the gospel in us you trust what has always been there from the beginning okay this applied for me and how I was brought up in this area I remember when I was created into your Orthodox Church I know how to do Orthodox stuff how to be Orthodox in a practical sense people came and they did things they do stuff they made signs and then they seemed to do other things and they lit things and they blew them out and they moved them around hey kiss things they sprinkled stuff they spilled it you know you wondered what was going on incidentally very good story friend of mine who became an Orthodox priest not long ago who was used to be an evangelical minister was serving his energies the rubrics are pretty complicated you know I'm sure it's very difficult to get into this I myself but there's a great story he was standing up there with an old bishop and the bishop thought he was talking about he was talking about the remains left in the chalice after everyone's been served Communion and he was Russian Bishop say okay the trouble was the this American convert priest wasn't talking about so unfortunately it's olive oil you know otherwise so he thought hey the bishop you know I'm supposed to dream with the authority of Christ and he's just he told me to do this he says I drink so anyway that isn't a so I came into the Orthodox Church in Newburyport Massachusetts an irony cetera but there were two things I knew nothing about and one of those nothing about and one was worth about spirituality that I've discovered nothing about every time I'm not and who were much further down the path some of the months and the priests and the nuns and I've met many people and so forth I realized then and not only is it a journey it is an incredibly long journey there's this area I came into the Orthodox Church Thelma came up to me big hat she's not terribly tall sort of a walking mushroom I'm sure - so she seems short to me you can only imagine anyway I hear this voice coming out from under this hat saying are you you want to be are you wanting to become worth it out someone was very direct I said yeah she said do you know what to do I said no I haven't got a clue she says well do you want me to show you and I said yeah that would be great because I had heard some theoretical stuff but I didn't know what to do she says well listen she says I don't want to embarrass you be you being a big man and everything tell you that some lady tell you what to do and for everybody I'll tell you what whisper of course everyone's attention my little granddaughter Mary with me today and the next couple of Sunday she's old enough now she could understand it just so happens I'm going to be teaching her what to do so I'll just talk to her and say it a little louder what to do so we we come into the church and she that's a little daughter up to where the candles are you know so I take a candle you know here's a prayer you can pray and I whisper to her how do you know that mother's prayer that's what you do after we did that we his mother taught her to kiss the icon and has always taught their grandchildren and their children to kiss the icon and then you go without and you sit next to her and what you do as a man in his man who's the father of children and you know supposed to be in the middle of your life whatever and you know something what you do is you do what her little three-year-old does and you watch that three-year-old and you watch the grandmother teaching her and you do that now that doesn't mean that has the authority of Scripture and the bishops and the ecumenical councils but it is part of the path it is part of the tradition and the amazing thing is is that it is that very spirit of the priesthood of all believers where it is the grandmother teaching the grandchild that has given us orthodoxy in the modern world it is not all the theology and all the dogma of Judaism all the theology and all the Roman Catholics all the rules from papal pronouncements to the Torah to all the dogmatix of reformed Protestant Calvinism what has it brought them absolute chaos they're more divided there are more divisions between Jews and there are between Protestants there are now more divisions between Catholics and there are Protestants there are 23,000 and Protestants there are 23,000 kind of Roman Catholics the dogmatic rationalist by-the-book approach to faith has proved fruitless in many many ways unless again how many times I got to repeat this does this mean that every Roman Catholic every Jew every person who's not heard of Christ every Protestant is condemned and ignoring the health god forbid we should even think such a thing salvation is in the hand of God and God is infinitely merciful but it means that the irony is dogmatic rationalist approach for instance in Western Christianity the Augustinian approach has produced the exact opposite and yet the more we might say kind of amorphous mysterious Orthodox East which has never had this strong dogmatic tradition it is in that tradition that you find cohesion and unity when it comes to the energy and doctrine and so it is a terrific kind of irony because where you will find the liturgy practice from one Orthodox place to another in almost identical ways whatever the barriers of time or liturgical deference is so tiny compared to the differences you will find in a half-a-dozen Protestant churches on one block or a half-a-dozen Jewish synagogues or a half-a-dozen Roman Catholic churches and so obviously this idea that salvation is a journey and it is a holy mystery well seeming to be chaotic how do you define that if you can't prove it with the bursts and yet at the end of the day 2,000 years into the Christian era where do you find soundness of doctrine the surgical practice that harks back to the beginning where do you find an apostolic inheritance where the buck stops somewhere ironically it's in this quote chaotic church this is non dogmatic approach we call orthodoxy and I think one of the best illustrations of that I've seen in recent years comes from a story out of the Soviet Union when when it began to crumble and the fact there any Christians because they were stamped out and yet this idea of the tradition being passed from one generation to another must have been the case working overtime with the granddaughters because strangely enough when they started performing energies again hundreds of thousands of young people knew the words and the priest came out of the basements where they had been hiding or had been driven by the a KGB or NKVD and the whole thing started up again and it was the same tradition after 70 years of persecution it wasn't some new kind of Russian amalgams / Soviet tradition it was the Orthodox tradition and so people go there and they're quite amazed by this and there are tremendous stories that we don't have time to go into tonight they've come out Russia in terms of how ordinary men and women like the fellows of this world pass that tradition so I would just go back if you want to know what the central difference between orthodoxy and Protestantism is it seems to me in my opinion it can be summed up simply in this way within the Western tradition you had faith in Dogma and you have faith in theology in the Orthodox tradition you have faith in the mercy of God period paragraph and everything else is history and if salvation is a journey how we want that journey matters and the most overrated virtue in America matters least and what's the most overrated virtues sincerity because how you feel something in your heart oh I'm so sincere well you can be very sincerely wrong one thing you know when you read any Nazi literature is that Goebbels and Himmler were very sincere they thought it was a great humanitarian sincerity is a very overrated virtue when it is much more important than your own feelings is to be doing the right thing and be on the right path because we learn good habits by doing and if we're on that right path and we submit in some kind of humility to the teaching of the past rather than saying I'll do it my way there is some hope that we can finish that journey and that our prayer nor Jesus Christ son of God have mercy upon me a sinner will literally be answered in our salvation because of course when you pray you are praying that a quote sinner's prayer but you have to understand it's the prayer that needs to be answered through a whole life it's not a prayer that is going to be answered at once and more than your marriage vows take care of the whole business when you say them when you are married it is a choice to stay married it is a choice to follow that path and because we are weak and we are sinful it is by God's grace that anyone finishes that journey and all the other differences we see whether it's Marian theology whether it's the rubrics of worship sacramental tradition through the prayers the rest yes those are differences yes very very discussion yes people write books on them yes it's interesting to talk about but believe me it's from my point of view it all comes down to one question and that is is salvation a journey is it a path to be tried because it is and all this other stuff matters if it doesn't matter if salvation is not a journey and everyone in the Orthodox Church is really wasting their time and so has everyone in Protestant churches because because the fact of the matter is Protestantism innately even though it contradicts its own philosophy and it's not consistent thank God it isn't at this point it's still it's still gathers to try to act as if salvation is a journey even when all the leaving theological e that it's not to pray and so forth and we are all created to be worshipers whether we think we need to be or not exactly the people worship as well so is a journey how are we entering into the life of the church to walk that path if we reconnaissance and we are looking at the Orthodox Church in view of being curious what is this should I come in the last thing you want to think about is will they be nice to me will I feel comfortable am I happy did they treat my brother-in-law well do they have a tradition of being nice Outsiders in the 14th century and asking yourself is is salvation a journey and if it is where is that path and if looking at the historical church either looking at it through its history or the pocket of its energy you come to the conclusion that that path is sure within orthodoxy then you really can do nothing else but become Orthodox because obviously while the Orthodox Church does not teach that everyone who's not on that path is lost because salvation is a mystery it does teach that it is the only sure path I would like to end there actually the gentleman was saying he's read church history and he hasn't read anything that says that the veneration of Mary is the term worship well if anybody worships Mary they're a heretic that's a little bit but the veneration of the Theotokos you were saying you know it doesn't seem to you to be that ancient and so forth and so on that issue let's just say you were right let's just say that the veneration of Mary as presently practiced with a later development outside of the Apostolic age from the Orthodox point of view that has nothing to do with anything because the Orthodox Church is a living Church guided by the Holy Spirit and the oldest heresies aren't less radical because they were around at the time of Christ and the latest innovation in the Orthodox Church in its liturgy which occurred let's say was Saint John Chrysostom a thousand years ago or so it is not any less sacred because it's not the Liturgy of st. basil or the Liturgy of James you have to see what I'm saying has nothing to do with something being memorable and therefore being true and I'll give you an example of this if venerability were a test of apostolic inheritance then we would be agnostic because the Gnostic Gospels are as old as the Gospels we hold to be true the feminists who are resurrecting the use of the Gnostics today argue that they were around from the beginning and you know what they're absolutely right the the church within its own bosom from the beginning had all kinds of offshoots but the question is the question is which of those strains continued and which ran into the signs of time and disappear so it has absolutely nothing to do saying everything has to be traced back to the age of the Apostles what you have to find is if it has been part and parcel of the practice of the Church of Jesus Christ from the beginning in whatever form with he's been there or whether this is a later invention in the sense that it has no historic application and was simply invented for whatever reason and if so if so has the church going off the rails at some point and no longer been in the truck and then you have to say well who was replaced by where has Christ proved himself a liar when he said that the gates of hell would not prevail against the church now the fact of the matter is when you look at the Orthodox Church therefore it so happens that most of its practices also happened to be very venerable and I'll give you an example iconography goes back to the beginning if you've ever been in the catacombs which is the early church even by Protestant definitions you will find all kinds of biblical illustration from the Old Testament and the New Testament era for martyrs through figures in the Old Testament like the like meshach Shadrach and Abednego or whoever it might be and air it all is on the laws that no one can say iconography but if you then say has the iconostasis in every Church been arranged in exactly this way from the Apostles onward of course not because Peter did not go to a Christian Church in case you wondered he went to the synagogue for the worship so venerable historicity has nothing to do with the question is is the church the church it isn't has this thing been in the church exactly in his present form from the beginning as if somehow we are antique dealers and the only furniture will sell is something that has to have been made in the colonial era that's not the approach of the Orthodox Church but the question is not is the energy of st. John Chrysostom the energy the Apostles use the question is one that in the wisdom of the church evolved under the guidance of the Holy Spirit out of the Liturgy of James and the liturgy of basil or is it a newfangled theology that contradicts the liturgy of basil and James so now in the senses history of the church to give you an example written in the fourth century he tells us and we have no reason to think this is not true yeah no ax to grind remember this is long before the iconoclastic controversy so it's not like you couldn't be suspicious and say well he was just trying to make a point to shut the critic set up how can we trust it throw away he just happens to mention the church in Jerusalem during his ear arches in the fourth century is still venerating the throne of the Apostle James and it's an aside it's not a big deal it wasn't any controversy over this he mentions that one of the churches in Asia and I forget which one is still venerating a picture he called the likeness of Christ that they had since the beginning he says and there's another church that is venerating a statue which in that time was not a relief that's right you want to come over and sprinkle me with an amazing one that took me totally by surprise you see casually mentions that in a certain combination I forget which town they have a statue of the woman with the issue of blood being healed by Christ they had an icon of that talked about not being worried about not being prudish well you know what is the United Kanak Rafi in this particular church well it's the woman with the issue of blood and the incident of her being being healed and she is being venerated and remembered for her faith okay that's a century that creates any controversy all right so they are right there right in one way it is new in its present form an 18th century prayer or or a 19th century prayer or 20th century pair written by say st. silouan was written in the 20th century not in the 1st century st. venerating Mary but the idea that the Saints and the apostles and the martyrs were not venerated from the beginning in the way we venerate the mother of God is nonsense one of the history one of the first things you learned in looking at the tradition of the church is that we have a tradition going all the way back very early into the Dawn's of the church an oral tradition and written that at the time of Mary's death the Apostles would spread out through the world to preach the gospel were all miraculously brought back to where she died that's not in the Bible it's not even in the quote written tradition of the church into someone's history of that but it happens that it has been believed we are told from the beginning now how do you prove that you don't you come back to this question what is the church and do we trust her and so when you look at say the practice of Marian tradition within the church in both capital T the big traditions of the church and then a small T which you might call the the people's tradition this is just how we do things Marian Marian veneration exists in both but it certainly is not in his present modern form any more than any more than the Liturgy of st. John Chrysostom his word for words and energy of James and I can one imagine that in two thousand years the energy being performed that if there's still the world and so the church is going to be is going to get involved but if the church is still the church it will evolve under the guidance of the Holy Spirit and it's not going to be contradicting anything we do now an Orthodox Church then we would be perfectly at home Mary that it's exactly the same thing if you go to the Louvre in France in a Roman exhibition from the end of the Roman Empire they have the cornerstone of a Christian Church from Carthage and inscribed on the cornerstone I was really struck by this back in my Protestant days where I had always thought oh these were all neighbor additions that's all one piece one piece because obviously if you've ever ate those that have died in Christ that they've got you to pray for them of course you're going to ask Mary to pray for you so you see the cornerstone on the you know we're gonna get Joseph to pray for us but Mary the mother of the Savior doesn't so if you if you see that cornerstone in the move I was really taken back oh here it says here is the visit of the martyrs that died on this place where we have built our church and then it gives the names of about 18 people and then afterwards it says a very unpleasant thing remember us and pray for our salvation this is a church in Carthage in a Roman era the era of the martyrs so you know the idea of a church that is not venerating anyone has none of these traditions is simply not borne out when you read you some pious when you when you see something like that archaeological artifact another place that I would tell you something you ought to read very soon where in that regard in terms of the consistency of tradition in these areas is you guy retiree that's very early and you gara was a Spanish pilgrim who came from Spain to the Holy Land and happened to wind up in Jerusalem during pasa during Holy Week and she starts her account of Holy Week like this he says I found that in Jerusalem they were doing what we do in Spain now you have to understand Spain the distance from Spain to Jerusalem in that time with a sight from us to the dark side of the Moon so in her it was amazing that it was the same she says they are doing what we do in Spain at this season in the same manner in the same manner as we have in Spain from the beginning and there's no wait what asks does you guy are happy to cry why would she lie in other words not only did she know what the tradition was in Holy Week from the beginning the feast days the past days the whole thing the Ameri is telling us that it's the same in Spain which is like the other side of the Moon from Jerusalem in terms distances those days from a pilgrimage for over a year and she says this is what we've been doing from the beginning well if you take that attitude that there is a consistency in church practice from the beginning you do not have to find any more evidence than one thread in one place even if it's internal because there was an absolute consistency of practice within the church the only question you have to ask is the bishops at that time regard this is radical so in other words if you said this is against imagery heeding the Bishop of Tyre himself and a lot of his book being his relation as the bishop if he was saying well they got this image of the woman with this image of Christ their venerating the throne of James they have from the beginning because you said so when he mentions a tiny detail we would call the physical is the church still here and if the church is still here and the Orthodox Church is in then whether something is a thousand years old or a day old has nothing to do happens in the area of the Federation of the Saints and the pictorial representation of the Saints and the believers and the angels and so forth we have proof of this from the beginning however when it comes to the actual question of the veneration of Mary nobody has ever argued that this practice as it is today in the church rather what we would argue from church is the Apostolic Church over the book of Acts so it is not a question of us looking back that somehow a truer Church the Church of the Apostles is no more of the church than this church next door to an attending salon I'm not kidding you because if this is not the Orthodox Church as much as Sun as as the Cathedral of Hagia Sophia in Constantinople before the Turks over ended and we're all the most miserable because this is the living entity and it has nothing to do with me or antiquity or tradition and Christ been improved so I'd say that the approach of trying to equate historicity with veracity is a mistaken one the approach rather has to be what is the church and is the Holy Spirit so guiding but as I say in the area of the veneration of saints which is the same question as a veneration of Mary because obviously if anyone's going to be venerated areas and you have this tradition of the Apostles all gathering at her at her death and you have the tradition within the Church of her being of her having died of her body being taken to heaven and not left to corrupt it on the earth but I have no reason to disbelieve this part of the witness of the church any more than any other and the only reason that the question even comes up is because Protestants is so far departed from the tradition the church there's some of the most fundamental practices in the church that seem strange to that the shoe is on the other foot you know the Protestant comes marching in in 1996 asking accusatory questions I don't mean you I'm talking about the general approve the only things that look strange to the Protestants are the things that Protestants have departed so far from the tradition that they are now so far away and so close to creating a wholly new religion that is literally non-christian not just a different view of things literally non-christian the great irony is that the church that has changed the least he's accused of being strange or different I mean talk about catch-22 it's an insanity and so it really is the rebound his child who's departed soul wave far away from his father that when he finally comes home again when his family is always done and it has never changed the child then turns around and accuses the parent of doing weird things we've always done this what do you mean this is strange you were brought up in this so what I would simply say is that a lot of these questions of the difference we were talking many people do somehow orthodoxy has something to prove and if Protestantism has been doing the same thing for 2,000 years and that that that the standard the norm of historic Christianity is in Houston or something that's a really curious idea you know of course you can't win because that on the other hand the Protestant never change you always do everything they're saying it's so repetitive how can this possibly how can you never change if the Orthodox Church is accused of never changing and it can't be accused of inventing new things and if it's inventing new things the question has to be asked well maybe it has the right to do something new and there's one last footnote to this question because you brought a question up that kind of all the questions can be answered at once under this and how did you have to understand when you look at when in the Orthodox Church the historic church the Western and Eastern Church being one church understand that a lot of these questions in here certain people by looking at how the church involved what do I mean by that well let's take some of the doctrines that both Protestants Roman Catholics and Orthodox accept the two nature's of Christ the Trinity and many other things now the Western attitude is well where's that written down show me the Bible verse were shown or prove to me that historic church formulated it this way from the very beginning well the Western mind therefore looks at the great ecumenical councils where for instance in Nicaea the Creed was formulated and they see it the wrong way around they they act as if somehow it's true because they said so in Nicaea that it's formulated see there it is in the creek actually it's the other way around it's the same way that the new in the Old Testament were formulated and that is the books that were chosen to be canonically included in the scripture were chosen because they conform to what was already known and had been witnessed too from the beginning before they were written because we don't believe in the Bible we believe in God the Bible is a book and it's a book in human words so that necessarily is a book that doesn't know story because we're finite and nothing in human terms can tell story of the infinite God well similarly history of the church you know a situation where the church is inventing new doctrines what it's doing is answering heretics who are challenging things that before had been accepted and so you don't have a lot written in the church about things that weren't challenged in jewelry are challenged example how much American literature exists announcing abortion before Roe be waived does that mean that America always accepted abortion though it's the other way around it was so taken for granted that abortion was murder that nobody had to make movies about it and stand on a street corner picketing an abortion clinic and writing the book and a tree because it was just considered part and parcel of the Western civilization that babies were valuable like the old Sherlock Holmes story you know where Sherlock Holmes solves the crime because the dog did not bark in the night Marion theology falls into that category a lot of your questions could be answered by the fact that it is one of the fundamental parts of the church it was told that it was so obvious that likes so much in the liturgical tradition where the Protestants is where something written down about this that proves it icon from Ravenna and you piece together your answer try to remember what the Marian theology the traditions about Marian both the big t and the small T have been part and parcel of the church are not challenged and so we don't have a great council called to defend the defender a ssin of Mary because you don't have chosen the iconoclastic controversy but until then and you you have a body of practice from the beginning a lot of the early church you have Paul telling you you're going to be dead if you take in the wrong spirit other than that of course not terribly much one because the breaking of bread was the common theme of Christian worship from the beginning but it's always challenged within the church and so there's and there is is a record of spiritual biography if you want to put it that way for the writing of the saints saying here is how christ was revealed to me and these were the prayers I prayed and here you know this is my innermost groaning is a yearn for the presence of God in my life there's not very much quote theology if you're coming at it from the Western rationalistic point of view that is the new aspect in the Christian world so it is like going to some culture a preliterate culture the way so many Western people made a mistake but it wasn't written they needed to talk to the old lady by the campfire she would have told them the history of the people well similarly with an orthodoxy how about doing what her mother taught her to do in front of the Mary is a very good historical proof because until you find a bishop speaking out against this practice somewhere you have to assume it's always been there because you better believe that the first person who venerated Marian an Orthodox Church if it hadn't been part of the church you would be of a nature in which a council was called to denounce Marian veneration this isn't something that could have crept into the church people you know Maximus the Confessor had his tongue ripped out over over the details of the two nature's of Christ in the Byzantine Empire and he fell afoul you know when you have people having their tongues ripped out because the disagreement over the two nations of Christ they better believe that if the veneration Mary if Mary and veneration was new you would have a record happen it's the other way around it's the dog that doesn't bark and so the fact of the matter is you know it has been the practice from the beginning because we belong to a church where people were people like Ananias and Sapphira get carried out feet first when they do the wrong thing we belong to a tradition where Paul says you're eating and drinking damnation to yourself it would be better for the unbeliever it's tough stuff and so when you see that when you come into something like the veneration of Mary or the veneration of icons the real question is is the church venerating very well I wouldn't say the church venerate Mary last Wednesday yes yes is there a fiery written record of every controversy in the church yeah because the only time the bishops ever wrote something down is that they were denouncing it well then when did they bring in this newfangled teaching on the veneration of Mary because we have no record of it being denounced are being debated and every new thing in addition to the church that had not been there from the beginning and was not seen as proper people were denounced as heretics in promenade so the fact of the matter is it's very simple if you find a contemporary practice in orthodoxy that is being done whether you know it's exact beginnings or form or not if you can find in reading history that it is not been challenged it is impossible to believe that it is something without so you better believe this is not a new invention but it is a practice in an oral tradition which which which we're in paper and pen never meet unless there is a reason to defend the faith against heresy and so the very very lack of controversy over this issue until the Protestant era is proof very great proof that it has been part and parcel of the liturgical tradition of the church so I would say since the answer to that question covers about 50 related topics if you extrapolate in terms of the type of questions Protestants ask somebody has one refreshen since it ought to have the question-and-answer session the only answer one question even need one for long answers had to do that I'll take one more very brief one and I'll keep my answer brief yes okay first of all I assume you were not at my earlier sessions right some detail on that question so I'm going to be I'm not going to give you that good answer because my answers are too long anyway and to repeat what I've already given is really crazy so just say watch the tape or buy a book briefly though I would just say this the Orthodox vision of the Roman Catholic Church is it the Western Church is every business Oracle is the Orthodox Church the only trouble is they have embraced a grave heresy and error and therefore they have cut themselves off from the historic church and that grave heresy in error is giving honor and precedents and infallibility to a human being called the Pope and what you have to understand is the papacy truly is a new invention and there you do have a controversy over speaking of my answer to you sir things that don't creep in without a controversy the reason there's an eastern and western church is because nobody thought that the Pope had been venerated and honored as he now is from the beginning of church history the other bishops of the church not to mention the rank and file strenuously objected to the authority that the Pope began to take to himself between the sexes in the ninth century the time you get to the tenth century the Eastern Church is essentially anathematizing him and calling him a heretic now not always over the direct issue of papal infallibility because even in that era the Pope that the Pope's did not have the temerity to prepare themselves infallible they were going to be holding themselves above the other bishops you know the bishops kept saying the Holy Spirit eats the whole church it is a collegial institution now any one person is a head of the church this is not given to a human being that only to Christ even the Pope as we understand it in the modern sense that isn't even more modern edition it was finally ratified only in the 19th century so the eastern view of they start Church when it comes to the Western Church was they start a church along with Eastern Church until the West began to do this odd thing which was to give presidents a place that no man should be given to one human being called the Pope and that Pope began to have a political office combined with the religious office in a way that was unacceptable to the bishops of the Eastern Church and the only reason the Western bishops went along with it with a sheer coercion and if you read a little bit of the history of the Roman Catholic Church coercion is the work we're talking about the papal armies we're talking about the papal States we're talking about deals cut with Pepin and Charlemagne and the Western Emperor's and literal bloody wars you know one of the great things that shocked the Orthodox in 1204 when Constantinople was sacked by the Western Christians was that priests and even monks came as soldiers bearing swords and fighting his soldiers and the tradition of the church that was still maintained in the East was it a monk or a priest would never shed the blood of a human being in fact 370 gonna have to ride the horse one point in case the worst would throw a shoe or or hit somebody on the road because it was actually unconceivable that a priest would have a politicized office and some of the East boys have this division and often a tremendous tension between the emperor of Byzantine Empire and the church because because they were the Emperor realized there was a tremendous rivalry there whereas in the papal States it became one in the same person and so the real division is not first a theological division over the authority of the Pope being able to change something like the Creed the Pope introduced the okay and the Creed which was a changing in the wording crazy not only because it's wrong but because no bishop has the authority to start messing with the tradition of the church as if he has some special authority outside of the collegial institutional bishops and so the division between the East and the West is a tragic one and it has to do with raw papal power and it has to do with the Western Church coming under the sway an institution which is not recognized by the Eastern Church as the gentleman that is power reserve Jesus Christ there's language there was plenty of wrong on both sides when it comes to human stuff there were plenty of Orthodox bishops and patriarchs and emperors everybody's prideful and stupid is any Western Bishop ever was sure there's all half there's a different speed in the Greek culture there's a political rivalry at this NTM in the expanding West there's all that but when you scrape all that away in it down to the fundamental difference it's the issue of the papacy and everything comes back to that in the authority that the Western bishops have given the Pope so it wasn't like there was a split over doctrine there was a split over the authority of a human being and so that's which has nothing to do with but an institution when we look at Maryknoll nuns on the edge ultra playing a guitar and a miniskirt liberate El Salvador or whatever it is instead of having the liturgy we say there is an absence of the Holy Spirit because this is a mess and so when the Roman Catholic is sincere what you might call old-fashioned Roman Catholic and once an eternal integrity and so forth and so on in the Roman Catholic Church ask me what would you do if I'm in your position I'm not saying you're not saved on the road toward Christ there's nothing good in the Western Church that has never had Christian none of that but I am saying that if you want to experience the fullness that I think Christ available to us here in this life you will become Orthodox because that fullness is diminishing in your community day by day it shatters into chaos and that chaos is symptomatic of a lack of the guidance of the Holy Spirit and it is the result of what happens when you put a man in charge of something that only Christ should be now that's not a secular point of view and but the and again I would reiterate this doesn't mean that Roman Catholics are lost there's nothing tremendous in Roman heritage but in terms of a modern institution in its future direction it's this experiment in papal infallibility

Channel: Mikhail Kolitwenzew

Views: 14,431

Rating: 4.8823528 out of 5

Keywords: Church, Protestant, Reformation, Pentecostal, Luther, Calvin, Catholic, Ecumenism, Orthodox

Id: DDOBPij4SGU

Length: 113min 56sec (6836 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 17 2011