11.

 Summarize the source and meaning of Holy Tradition.

            Holy Tradition originates from God. Dr. Constantine Cavarnos explains that it is a divine revelation, that is, a supernatural disclosure by God to people of otherwise unknowable truths. The same writer adds that this revelation is shown in Old Testament phrases such as “Thus saith the Lord,” “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying.” In the New Testament, this character of divine revelation appears not only in the Gospels, where Christ speaks, but also in the Revelation of St. John, which begins with the words: “The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him,” and in the Acts of the Apostles and the epistles, especially those of St. Paul. Paul often stresses that his teaching is not his own, nor of the wise of the world, but is teaching from God. To the Corinthians he writes: “Yet we speak wisdom... not that of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish; but we speak the wisdom of God that is a mystery and hidden... which God has revealed to us through His Spirit” (1 Cor 2:6-10).

            Dr. Cavarnos notes that it is precisely this revelatory character that distinguishes Christianity from the various and countless systems that the human intellect has devised — religious, philosophical, ethical and social systems. Elder Cleopa of Romania states the same and stresses that the teachings of the Church of Christ are safeguarded by the Holy Spirit and cannot err, and that the Founder of the Church, Christ, governs it in an unseen way until the end of the ages. Elsewhere the elder notes that Holy Tradition is God-given and that it is the life of the Church in the Holy Spirit. He adds that:

Holy Tradition is neither a tradition of men, nor a philosophy, nor some kind of trickery, but is the word of God that He delivered to us personally.... Some counsel weaker Christians to slander and abandon the Apostolic and Evangelical traditions, without understanding that Holy Scripture itself is a fruit of the Holy Spirit that grew out of the roots and tree of Holy Tradition [The Truth of Our Faith, pp. 56-57].

Elder Cleopa likewise explains that:

The Church of Christ determined the truths of the faith according to the long course of Tradition, through the teachings and canons of the holy Ecumenical Councils, decrees and the Symbol of Faith [the Creed], and with confessions [of faith] by holy and wonderworking hierarchs such as were made at the many local synods which have been held continuously since the days of old. At these synods the authenticity and genuineness of the holy Orthodox faith was firmly established, primarily therein where it was attacked by the existing heresies of the time. From the totality of such synods appears the irrevocable and inalterable content of Holy Tradition. This is understood when you examine closely the essence of the following conditions:

·        Do not sanction conceptions that contain inconsistencies amongst themselves or contradictions with the Apostolic Tradition and Holy Scripture. (A teaching is to be considered worthy of “Tradition” when it stems from the Savior or the Holy Apostles and is directly under the influence of the Holy Spirit).

·        Tradition is that which has been safeguarded from the Apostolic Church and has an uninterrupted continuity until today.

·        Tradition is that which is confessed and practiced by the entire universal Orthodox Church.

·        Tradition is that which is in harmony with the greatest portion of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers.

When a tradition does not fulfill these stipulations, it cannot be considered true and holy, and consequently cannot be considered admissible or fit to be observed [Ibid., p. 58].

The same elder concludes that:

We must uphold with great reverence and godliness Holy Tradition since all that is needful to effect our salvation is not found within Holy Scripture. Holy Scripture instructs us to do many things; however, it does not make manifest to us the light. For example, it instructs us to be baptized, but it doesn't explain to us the method. Likewise, it guides us to confess our sins, receive Communion, be crowned (married) — but nowhere does it specify the rite of carrying out these Mysterion (Sacraments). Furthermore, it instructs us to pray, but doesn't tell us how, where and when.... Where in Scripture are we told the words of the epiclesis (invocation) of the Holy Spirit for the sanctification of the all-holy Mysteries? Which teaching from Holy Scripture instructs us to bless the water of Baptism and the holy Unction of holy Chrismation? Which passage in Scripture teaches us about the threefold denunciation and the renunciations of Satan before holy Baptism? The prayer of glorification toward the Holy Trinity — “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit” — from which passage did it come to us?

Posing these questions to the slanderer of Tradition, St. Basil the Great says: “If we consent to abandon the unwritten traditions on the pretext that they don't have great worth, we err in great and elevated matters, rejecting the Gospel.”

The ordering, therefore, by which the Church upholds the unwritten is: whatever is of Apostolic descent and is practiced by the Fathers receives the validity of Tradition and has the power of law in the Church of Christ. Accordingly, therefore, it must be safeguarded since its importance and benefit springs from the relationship that exists between it and Holy Scripture. It is true that both have remained within a reciprocal unity and intimate relationship — a relationship based on the fact that both comprise the holy revelation of God for us are the fount and source of Revelation. Hence, it is not possible for there to exist an inner contradiction between the two or for us to exclude one from the other. Holy Scripture possesses its unique witness of the scriptural canon and its dogmatic character (its divine inspiration) only in and with Holy Tradition, while Holy Tradition is able to prove the authenticity of its truth only together with Holy Scripture [Ibid., pp. 64-65].

As previously noted, according to the broader sense of the term Tradition, Holy Scripture is a part of Tradition. These two parts of Tradition — the written and unwritten word — are considered by the Ecumenical Councils and the Holy Fathers to be of equal authority.

As St. Basil the Great instructs:

Of the dogmas and proclamations preserved in the Church, some we possess from written teaching, while others we have received in secret from the Tradition of the Apostles; these have the same validity for true religion [On the Holy Spirit, 27, PG 32:188A; emphasis added].

St. John Chrysostom likewise writes:

[The Apostles] have not handed down everything in writing, but have also delivered many things in unwritten form. The former and latter are equally trustworthy, and so we also consider the [unwritten] Tradition of the Church to be trustworthy. It is Tradition — seek no further [On 2 Thessalonians, Homily 4, PG 62:488; emphasis added].

Also bearing special witness to the existence of a rich Apostolic Tradition are the words of St. John the Theologian:

And there are also many other things which Jesus did, that which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. — Jn 21:25

Patristic writings indicate what the content is of the unwritten Apostolic Tradition. St. Basil the Great mentions: (1) that we make the sign of the Cross; (2) that we look to the east when we pray; (3) that we do not kneel in our prayers on Sunday throughout Pentecost; (4) that each person is baptized with three immersions and emersions; (5) the renunciation of Satan and his angels in Baptism; (6) the confession of faith in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, word for word in this way; and (7) the words which the priest utters at the change of the bread and wine of the Divine Eucharist [On the Holy Spirit, chap. 27, PG 32:188-89, 192-93].

            St. Dionysius ten Aeropagite (+96), a disciple of the Apostle Paul (Acts 17:34) and the first bishop of Athens, similarly indicates that secret prayers, which sanctify and accomplish the Holy Mysteries (Sacraments), are a part of the unwritten Tradition. He writes:

It is not permitted to interpret in writing the consecrating invocations or their mystical meaning, or to bring out from secrecy to the public the powers worked by God in them; but as our Sacred Tradition holds, when you have learned them thoroughly by secret instructions... you will be uplifted by the illumination which is originative of perfection toward the highest knowledge of them [Concerning the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy, 1, PG 3:565C].

In his defense of holy icons, St. John of Damascus writes that it is Apostolic Tradition that we make icons of Christ and the saints, and that we venerate them by honoring them. He gives other examples of the unwritten Tradition of the Holy Apostles as well: the veneration of the Cross and the practice of turning to the east when praying, and he states that “the Apostles have handed down many things to us unwritten.” [Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, IV.16, PG 94:1172C-1173B; cf. 1304-05.] The Holy Fathers likewise give other examples of the unwritten Tradition: the fast on Wednesday and Friday, the composition of the services (especially the Divine Liturgy), the manner of celebrating the Holy Mysteries, and the practice of having memorial services to commemorate the faithful reposed.

            Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky writes that the ancient Church carefully guarded the inward life of the Church from those outside it. The Holy Mysteries were secret, being kept from non-Christians. When these Mysteries were performed — Baptism and the Eucharist — those outside the Church were not present; the order of the services was not written down, but was only transmitted orally; and in what was preserved in secret was contained the essential side of the faith.

            During the era of freedom and triumph of the Church in the fourth century, however, almost all of the Tradition received a written form and is now preserved in the literature of the Church, which comprises a supplement to the Holy Scriptures. The same Fr. Michael notes that the following are included in this sacred ancient Tradition: (1) the most ancient record of the Church, the Canons of the Holy Apostles; (2) the Symbols of Faith of the ancient local Churches; (3) the ancient Liturgies, the rite of Baptism and other ancient prayers; (4) the ancient Acts of the Christian Martyrs. The Acts of the Martyrs did not enter into use by the faithful until they had been examined and approved by the local bishops, and they were read at public gatherings of Christians under the supervision of the leaders of the Churches. In them is seen the confession of the All-Holy Consubstantial Trinity, the Divinity of the Lord Jesus Christ, examples of the invocation of the saints, of belief in the conscious life of those who had reposed in Christ, and much else; (5) the ancient records of the history of the Church, especially the book of Eusebius Pamphilus, Bishop of Caesarea, where there are gathered many ancient traditions of rite and dogma — in particular, there is given the canon of the sacred books of the Old and New Testaments; (6) the works of the ancient Fathers and teachers of the Church; and finally, (7) the very spirit of the Church's life, the preservation of faithfulness to all her foundations which come from the Holy Apostles.

            Fr. Michael writes that the witness of Sacred Tradition is indispensable for our certainty that all of the books of Sacred Scripture have been handed down to us from Apostolic times and are of Apostolic origin. Sacred Tradition is also necessary for the correct understanding of separate passages of Sacred Scripture, and for refuting heretical reinterpretations of it, and, in general, so as to avoid superficial, one-sided, and sometimes even prejudiced and false interpretations of it. Again, Fr. Michael notes, Sacred Tradition is necessary because some truths of faith are expressed in a completely definite form in Scripture, while others are not entirely clear and precise and therefore demand confirmation by Sacred Tradition. Lastly, Sacred Scripture (part of Sacred Tradition) is valuable because from it, we see how the whole order of Church organization, the canons, the divine services and rites, are rooted in and founded upon the way of life of the ancient Church. Therefore, Fr. Michael concludes, the preservation of Tradition expresses the succession of the very essence of the Church.

            Protestants deny the unwritten Sacred Tradition and accept only written Tradition, Holy Scripture. Commenting on this matter, Dr. Constantine Cavarnos gives this insight:

The rejection of unwritten Tradition on [the part of Protestants] is a superficial and disastrous act. It is superficial because it disregards the fact that Holy Scripture, which the Protestants generally accept as divinely inspired, is a product of oral Tradition, since the writings which constitute Holy Scripture were handed down in the Church only around the end of the Apostolic period. In order to be consistent, they ought to discard Holy Scripture also as a divine revelation. Some Protestants have done this and have ceased to be Christians except in name. The denial of unwritten Tradition on the part of Protestantism was something ruinous, because it was the rejection of a treasury which is most necessary for salvation [Orthodox Tradition and Modernism, p. 13].

Protopriest Victor Potapov also addresses Protestantism's rejection of Apostolic Tradition. He explains that:

All of Protestantism's erroneous repudiations have as a basis the no less erroneous repudiation of Sacred Tradition by the Protestants. They strive to lean only on Sacred Scripture, not realizing to what extent both constitute one undivided whole. The Protestants arbitrarily limit the action of the Holy Spirit in the Church to Apostolic times, and that is why they consider all Church enactments that have appeared definitively after the Apostles as purely human. At the same time, they forget that even the very composition of the books comprising Sacred Scripture was determined considerably after the death of the Apostles. The Protestants also forget, or prefer not to remember, that the oral preaching of Christianity (that is, the oral Tradition) preceded the inscription of the New Testament.

Or, recognizing Sacred Tradition until the time of the definitive composition of the books of the New Testament in the second century, the Protestants have difficulty agreeing that the Holy Spirit, abiding in the Church as in the Body of Christ, did not cease to safeguard and vivify the true meaning of Sacred Scripture in the following centuries as well.

According to the Orthodox teaching, Sacred Scripture is the fundamental monument of Sacred Tradition and contains the fullness of the divine revelation. But the Holy Spirit, Who inspired the Apostles and Evangelists in their oral and written evangelism, guides the Holy Church even now, promoting the understanding and assimilation of Christ's Church [Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy].

Even though Protestants do not acknowledge it to be so, when they accept the doctrine of the Holy Trinity and the doctrine of the two natures of Christ, they are unwittingly accepting the teaching of the Orthodox Church's Sacred Scriptures, and they are accepting the teaching of Orthodoxy's Holy Fathers, its oral Tradition, its Creed, and the dogmatic definitions propounded at its Seven Ecumenical Councils. These things are so because the New Testament came out of Orthodox Christianity's Holy Tradition and is inseparable from it. Thus, when Protestants refer to the books of the New Testament as “the Word of God,” once again they are accepting the common practices of the Orthodox Church and the decisions of Orthodoxy's Ecumenical Councils as to which books were included in the New Testament and which were rejected. Many Protestants are painfully unaware of how it is that Christians have come to believe in certain things. They do not realize that the history of doctrine is the history of the Orthodox Church, and they do not realize that without Orthodoxy's Ecumenical Councils, various other doctrines assumed to be “biblical” would not have been effectively defended against heresy as they are not clearly stated in the Bible.

            In the Roman Catholic view of Tradition, new dogmas without Apostolic foundation are developed, such as the heresy of papal infallibility. Rome's scholastic theology teaches that through the ages there is a greater deepening of the dogmas of the faith and that they are still developing further. This teaching is not the Orthodox teaching. The Orthodox understanding of Tradition — and noteworthy, it is the understanding that prevailed earlier in the Latin Church prior to its separation from the ancient Apostolic Church in 1054 — is that Tradition is unchanging and does not “develop” (inasmuch as God does not change), and that Tradition is known by its catholicity (or universality), that is, that it is something accepted everywhere in the Church. On the day of Pentecost, the Apostles reached deification, experienced revelation, and so reached the whole Truth. Revelation is not altered with the passage of time. As Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky explains:

The Church's consciousness from the Apostles down to the end of the Church's life, being guided by the same Holy Spirit, in its essence is one and the same. Christian teaching and the scope of divine revelation are unchanging. The Church's teaching of faith does not develop, and the Church's awareness of itself, with the course of the centuries, does not become higher, deeper, and broader than it was among the Apostles. There is nothing to add to the teaching of faith handed down by the Apostles. Although the Church is always guided by the Holy Spirit, still we do not see in the history of the Church, and we do not expect, new dogmatic revelations [Orthodox Dogmatic Theology, pp. 357-58].

The Apostle to the nations commands: “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle” (2 Thes 2:15). Only the Orthodox Church has remained a faithful keeper of Tradition and has preserved the sacred deposit (1 Tim 6:20 and 2 Tim 1:14) as the Apostles have handed it down. Tradition in Orthodoxy has a living continuity with the Church of ancient times and has been handed down to us as a treasure from generation to generation, from the time of the Apostles. Each generation receives and guards this inheritance for future generations, neither adding anything to it, nor taking anything away. The Holy Fathers have emphasized this loyalty to Tradition, as have Orthodox theologians. As Basil Ioannidis, former professor at the Universities of Athens and Thessalonica, states:

The Orthodox Church possesses full and unaltered the teaching and the tradition of the one, ancient and undivided Church.... She has not altered anything of what she has received [Quoted in Constantine Cavarnos, Orthodox Tradition and Modernism, p. 14].

Importantly, distinguished theologians of Western Christianity admit to the traditional character of the Orthodox Church. E. Seeberg, a Protestant professor at the University of Berlin, writes:

The Orthodox Church is the one Church, the Catholic Church, the Apostolic Church. She has remained faithful to the Apostolic teaching and the Apostolic canons, and through uninterrupted succession has preserved undiminished the connection to the Apostles [Ibid].

The Roman Catholic theologian Julius Tyciak adds:

For the Eastern Church, Tradition is everything. She wants to be the Church of Tradition, the Church of the ancient times [Ibid].

Dr. Constantine Cavarnos explains that it is to the Ecumenical Councils and Holy Fathers that we owe the preservation and guarding of Sacred Tradition, which the Lord gave, and the Apostles proclaimed, and upon which the Orthodox Church is founded. The Ecumenical Councils made wide use of Apostolic Tradition, stressing its values and taking measures to preserve and proclaim it in their definitions. Dr. Cavarnos further explains that the Holy Fathers also energetically contended for the preservation and predominance of the Apostolic Tradition without additions or subtractions. A sizeable number of the Fathers contended through the Ecumenical Councils. Characteristic of the line that the Fathers maintained in this regard are the words of St. Athanasius the Great: “I have taught according to the Apostolic faith handed down to us by the Fathers, devising nothing outside it” [Ibid].

            Dr. Cavarnos points out that an astonishing concord exists in the teaching of the Greek Fathers. This harmony stems from the fact that they completely assimilated Sacred Tradition and followed the vital principle of transmitting it without modernization, without external inventions. The eminent eighteenth-century theologian Eugenios Voulgaris emphasized this accord among the Fathers in his observation that:

The Fathers and teachers of our Church agree on all the dogmas, are unanimous on all, and differ on none, but form a harmonious melody in the Church as from many voices, precisely because the Truth is one, and discord never enters into it. Where there is the illumination and operation of the Holy Spirit, there is concord [Ibid., pp. 14-15].

            Dr. Cavarnos goes on to note that while Orthodoxy has always seen its unchanging persistence in Sacred Tradition as its boast, Western Christians (with some exceptions) have looked upon this persistence as a sign of decline, a sign of deficiency in its inner life. Protestants, for example, have likened Orthodoxy to a “petrified mummy.” However, such an accusation shows to what degree Western Christians confuse the revealed faith with different worldly systems, with the different human contrivances and creations. Since in the sciences and crafts there is a continual development and perfection, the heterodox feel the same thing should happen in the Christian religion, that here too there should be a continuous change, revision and replacement of the old with the new — in a word, modernization. Seeing Christianity from a rationalistic standpoint, they do not understand its revelatory character, but demote it to the level of those systems that the human mind has formed on the basis of human reason and the observation of the five senses.

Speaking against this error in 1756, Eugenics Voulgaris wrote:

The faith does not alter with the times, it does not deteriorate from circumstances, it does not grow old, but remains always the same, both old and new. Why do these new theologians [the Roman Catholics] dare to change what cannot be changed? We know that the dogmas of faith are more dubious the newer they are, and more genuine and certain the older they are, just as the farther away waters are from their sources the more dirty and turbid they are, and the closer they are to their sources the purer they are [Ibid., p. 16].

In 1820, Adamantios Koraes observed:

[Our] religion, which is above reason, does not resemble the rational sciences or arts. [These] sciences and arts, the work of the human mind, are perfected with the progress of time, insofar as its rational power is perfected by philosophy. [Christianity], the work of God, is, on the contrary, corrupted, insofar as it is separated in time from its first proclamation, if its leaders do not take care to guard it intact, as a deposit entrusted to them by its Author [Ibid].

Placing similar emphasis on the divine provenance of the Orthodox faith and excluding innovations, Neophytos Doukas wrote in 1845 that:

The things of the Church taught and enacted by the Holy Apostles, and by the Holy Fathers gathered together in the [seven] Synods, since they were illumined by the All-Holy Spirit, are unalterable; no one can add or subtract anything from them, or transform them.... Just as the Divine Legislator dictated them many years ago, so they should remain unchanged unto all ages [Ibid].

Dr. Cavarnos explains that the immobility of death did not accompany Orthodoxy's strict adherence to Tradition as Western Christians maintained it would. On the contrary, it brought the vibrancy of life in Christ. In an 1884 letter to the French Jansenist Pierre Leclerc, Voulgaris spoke about the martyrs and other saints, equal to the ancients, and how Orthodoxy possesses the bounty of miracles unceasingly. He continued: “Our Church is continuously glorified and made wondrous by God, no less after the Schism than before it, and up to our times” [Ibid., p. 17].

            Also proclaiming Orthodoxy's great vibrancy of life was a serious student of Orthodoxy, John Brownlie, who was a distinguished Anglican hymnologist. He made the following observations:

They tell us that the Greek Church is a dead Church without missionary zeal. But how can a Church be characterized as not missionary, which stretched our her hands to the Far East, giving the blessings of the Gospel to the Tartars and the Indians; in a southerly direction, putting up the Cross in Arabia, Persia and Egypt; and in a northerly direction, spreading the light to the ends of Siberia? How can a Church be called dead, which engaged in hand-to-hand combat with idolatry, not only in the first centuries, but also in the last six centuries, under the abominable superstition of the Turks, preserving her faith in Christ throughout this interval? No Church offered so many martyrs to the Christian faith.... If under the persistent, ceaseless persecution — not for generations, but for centuries — a Church can maintain her faith and preserve her witness, then the term dead cannot be applied to her [Ibid].

Thus, Professor Cavarnos continues, the strict perseverance in Tradition does not at all result in the deadening of the Church. On the contrary, it is absolutely necessary for the preservation and fruitfulness of the life of the Church. The professor further observes that it is the disregard and abandonment of Tradition that causes a slackening of life and the gradual decomposition of a Church. The history of the Western Church gives the most persuasive witness to this fact, for there, one novelty and modernization after another was introduced, chiefly from the time of the Great Schism of 1054 and after. The breaking away of the Western Church from the Apostolic Church was the result of the Western Church's innovations. The subsequent revolution of the Protestants, which split the Western Church into warring parties, took place because of the downfall of the Western Church, a downfall that occurred as a direct consequence of its distortion of Sacred Tradition.

            Notwithstanding that downfall, the introduction of innovations and novelties continued in the West. At the end of the nineteenth century, for instance, from amidst the decaying ruins of Western Christianity, a movement appeared in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church. This was the movement of Modernism, or Modernization, which had as its goal the “renovation” of Christian teaching by adapting it to contemporary worldly thought. The representatives of this movement inflicted incredible damage on Christian doctrine, thinking that through this means they would revivify their Church. However, the result of this discarding truths of the faith and making “adaptations” was that large numbers of people became unbelievers and stopped going to church.

            Protestantism, for its part in having denied Tradition, divided into myriad splinter groups. All the differing confessional groups within Protestantism are the result of differing innovations and adaptations to each “contemporary spirit.”

            Fr. John Whiteford explains that in the writings of the Holy Fathers, innovation and novelty are synonymous with heresy, for the faith which was “once delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3) does not change. Thus, if something is at variance with what the Church has believed always (since Apostolic times), it cannot be the authentic teaching of the Church. As the Apostle Paul admonished:

Jesus Christ: the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines (Heb 13:8-9).

Fr. John continues, noting that if any belief has not been received by the Church in its history, then this is heresy, which is like some foreign contagion introduced into the body of the Church. The Church in turn reacts, as any body with a healthy immune system would react, to ward off these novel diseases.

            To summarize, Sacred Tradition is the Tradition which comes from the ancient Church of Apostolic times. It is the faith that Christ imparted to the Apostles, the central Christian message, which from the Apostles' time has been handed down unchanged from generation to generation of Orthodox Christians. Sacred Tradition is the witness of the Holy Spirit, and it is the life of the Church as it is inspired by the Holy Spirit, for as Christ promised, the Holy Spirit is to guide the Church in Truth. Apostolic Tradition is found in what the Church has believed everywhere, always (since Apostolic times and throughout history), and by all. Therein is the Truth.