9.

 The textbook makes a distinction between Tradition (being the actual content of Sacred Tradition) and tradition (long established customs). It points out that we must be prepared to critically examine our traditions (customs) and distinguish Tradition and tradition. A) Give a source of Scripture which warns us against making dogma of Tradition (long used customs), and a passage of Scripture which commands us to preserve faithfully the Apostolic Tradition. B) What two groups fell into extremism in this matter, and into what errors did their extremism lead them?

            Many people who recognize the authority of Sacred Scripture regard Sacred Tradition with skepticism, even disdain. Part of the reason for this rejection stems from the fact that the word tradition carries the meaning of custom or habit, something which is not binding.

            Fr. John Whiteford explains that the word translated as tradition in the New Testament is the Greek word paradosis, which means that which is transmitted or delivered. Scripture uses the word in two ways, and to emphasize the important distinction between these two ways, the textbook variously uppercases and lowercases the first letter of the word.

            Fr. John shows that paradosis is first used when referring negatively to the false teachings of the Pharisees, because they disregarded the divine Tradition, the divine teaching, while the observed human traditions that contradicted God's law. Christ told them: “Ye leave the commandments of God, and hold fast to the traditions of men” (Mk 7:8, also 7:3,5). Also, in saying “making the word of God of none effect through your tradition, which you have delivered,” Christ was referring to pernicious and unlawful customs such as corban. When a man did not want to support his elderly parents, he made a false promise before the Pharisees that he would place his estate and possessions into corban, that is, that he would give it away as a sacrifice to God. Through this act, he was considered to have made a sacrifice to God, although in actual fact, he would give part of his estate to the Pharisees and retain the rest for himself, thereby leaving his elderly parents to the winds of fate. There were many such deplorable and unlawful traditions among the Pharisees, for Christ told them: “And many such like things do ye.” It was these man-made traditions that Christ condemned by His words, not Sacred Tradition, which never contradicts divine commandments. (On the contrary, Tradition confirms and strengthens them). St. Paul likewise distinguishes between these two kinds of tradition, human and sacred. Concerning human traditions, he writes to the Colossians: “See to it that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit, according to the elemental spirits of the universe, and not according to Christ” (Col 2:8).

            The same word paradosis, Fr. John continues, is used in a second sense to refer to authoritative Christian teaching, the essential Christian message (cf. 1 Cor 11:2, 2 Thes 2:15). Scripture commands the faithful to preserve Apostolic Tradition. As the Apostle Paul warns: “Guard the deposit” (1 Tim 6:20). Again to Timothy he writes: “And the things that thou hast heard of me among many witnesses, the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also” (2 Tim 2:22). Also referring to Christian Tradition, the same Apostle states: “I praise you, brethren, that you remember me in all things and hold fast to the traditions [paradoseis] just as I delivered [paredoka] them to you” (1 Cor 11:2). He further instructs: “Now we command you, brethren ... that ye keep away from any brother who is living in idleness and not in accord with the tradition that ye have received from us” (1 Tim 3:6). Thus, Sacred Scripture legitimatizes Sacred Tradition and gives authority to it.

            What makes the tradition of the Pharisees false and that of the Church true is the source. Christ made it clear what the source was of the traditions of the Pharisees was when He called them “the traditions of men” (Mk 7:8).

            As for St. Paul, just where did he get these traditions in the first place? “I received from the Lord that which I delivered [paredoka] to you” (1 Cor 11:23).

            From these and other scriptural passages that make a clear distinction between Sacred Tradition and human tradition, Sacred Tradition is placed on an incomparably higher level than human tradition. Sacred Tradition originates from God and is divine revelation, whereas human traditions originate from mankind and are the products of the human mind. Sacred Tradition was given to men by God, either directly (by Christ), or indirectly (through the prophets and Apostles). Sacred Tradition's incomparable superiority is due to its revelatory character.

            While Sacred Scripture puts forth Sacred Tradition as divine and consequently a sure guide to our life, it demotes human tradition. It shows that we should always observe Sacred Tradition, whereas one should break with human tradition (human teaching and customs) whenever the latter is opposed to Sacred Tradition. An example is the evil practice of telling fortunes on the even of Theophany and the New Year. The Church has persistently condemned and battled against this kind of tradition, and it always will.

            The above mentioned Fr. John Whiteford, a former Protestant minister who is not an Orthodox priest, understands the trouble that Protestants have with Tradition, and he goes on to explain it further. He notes that:

What the Orthodox Church refers to when it speaks of the Apostolic Tradition is “the faith once delivered [paradotheise] unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). Its source is Christ, and it was delivered personally by Him to the Apostles through all that He said and did — which, if it all were written down, “the world itself could not contain the books that should be written” (Jn 21:25). The Apostles in turn delivered this Tradition to the entire Church. And the Church, being the repository of this treasure, thus became “the pillar and ground of the Truth” (1 Tim 3:15).

The testimony of the New Testament is clear on this point: the early Christians had both oral and written traditions which they received from Christ through the Apostles. For written tradition they at first had only portions — one local Church had an epistle, another perhaps a Gospel. Gradually these writings were gathered together into collections, and ultimately, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the Church, they became the New Testament. And how did these early Christians know which books were authentic and which were not — for... there were numerous spurious epistles and gospels claimed by heretics to have been written by the Apostles? It was the Apostolic Tradition that aided the Church in making this determination.

            Protestants react violently to the idea of Holy Tradition simply because the only form of it they have generally encountered is the distorted concept of tradition found in Roman Catholicism. Contrary to the Roman view of tradition — which is personified by the pope, and develops new dogmas without Apostolic foundation, such as papal infallibility — the Orthodox do not believe Tradition changes or “develops.”

            Certainly when the Church is faced with a heresy, it may be forced to define more precisely the difference between truth and error; but the Truth is never altered. It may be said that Tradition expands or matures, but only in the sense that as the Church moves through history, it does not forget its experiences along the way. It remembers the saints that arise in it, and it preserves the writings of those who have accurately stated its faith. But the faith itself was “once delivered unto the saints” [Jude 1:3. Sola Scriptura: an Orthodox Analysis of the Cornerstone of Reformation Theology, pp. 17-19; emphasis added].

With regard to the second part of the question, both the Old Believers and the so-called Living Church fell into extremism in their views on Sacred Tradition and human tradition. The Old Believers (Old Ritualists is more accurate) were a group in Russia who went into schism from the Russian Church over liturgical reforms introduced in the mid-seventeenth century. This group fell into extreme conservatism which would allow no changes in tradition, that is, in non-essential customs inherited from the past. The Living Church, on the other hand, was a schismatic organization approved and supported by the Communist regime, fell into a modernism or theological liberalism which struck at the very roots of Sacred Tradition. The believers of crucified Russia rejected the Living Church decisively.